"Six" -- the Reincarnation of "Trivial Pursuit"
© Brooke E. Smith
Back in the 1980's, millions of people got a new dose of game fever when "Trivial Pursuit" swooped down from Canada. After everyone had memorized all the questions and answers from the original "Genus" edition, Hasbro brought out booster sets, including "Silver Screen", "Sports", and "Baby Boomers". Other game companies chimed in with their own compatible playing cards such as one based entirely on Chicago.
Unsurprisingly, NTN decided to take advantage of the interest by licensing the TP name from Hasbro and creating a game that required players to show competence across the six TP topic areas. While not incorporating the race to complete a pie from the board game, certain rounds required every question to be correctly answered for bonus points. Introduced in 1996, Trivial Pursuit International was played both as an hour-long premium game and as two half-hour split games on weekday nights surrounding other premium and specialty offerings.
Unfortunately NTN and Hasbro apparently had a falling out, and the game vanished for a couple of years. Then it was reincarnated as "Six". While pies were replaced with rotating cubes and the topic sequence and colors were jumbled, "Six" retains the game structure and other ingredients that made TPI a player favorite.
Unlike many games that concentrate on a single topic area or Countdown/Wipeout which are perceived as having an overly high entertainment content, "Six" covers six well-defined areas: Sciences, World (Geography), Shows (Entertainment), Past (History), Games (Sports), and Arts (including literature, music, and visual arts). The format consists of the following:
Round One
The round consists of two sets of six questions. For the first set, players are offered three possible answers with 500 points per correct response, with one negative clue eliminating a wrong answer. For the second set, 1000 points are at stake with four possible answers and two negative clues. In order to get the full point value, the question must be answered before the clock starts ticking away. If a player answers each question within a set correctly for at least some amount of points, a 1000 point bonus is tacked on.
Round Two
Also known as the matching round, this unusual question structure requires the player to correctly match six items on the left hand side of the screen with their counterparts on the right. Tasks may include teaming authors with titles, scientists with the years of their inventions, countries with their capitals, or trophies with their sports. The game moves in a random pattern around the left column, highlighting particular items to be matched. Each correct response receives 250 points, and if all are done correctly a 500 point bonus is awarded making each set of questions worth 2000.
