Avatar Trivia Party

I really should send a card to Red Crest Studios.  A while back, I reviewed their game Avatar Trivia Online.  I paid for my copy, while Brian received a code for his.  After just a few days, the game was pulled from the marketplace, never to return.  That means the copies on our hard drives are the only copies that are in the hands of the public.   I think that makes them worth around three trillion dollars each.  Hopefully in twenty years that will still be enough money to put our kids through college.

I don’t blame Red Crest for pulling Avatar Trivia Online.  It was kind of a piece of shit.  A trivia game with no scoring, no structure, and no reason to exist at all.  It really disappointed me because I had fallen in love with his previous effort, Andromium, which spent a few months on my leaderboard.  Mike Ventnor assured me that it was pulled for a reason and would be resurrected, better than ever.  Hell, anything would be better than what it was before.

Now it’s back out, and it’s called Avatar Trivia Party.  It’s also an actual game, with an actual method to win, rules, and a reason to exist.  The idea is sort of Chutes & Ladders meets Trivial Pursuit.  Each round, players are randomly assigned the order they’ll go in.  You’re given a trivia question.  If you answer correctly, you’re given two dice to roll.  If you answer incorrectly, you’re given only one dice.  The first player to reach the goal wins.  Along the board, there are special spaces that will send you backwards, forwards, through shortcuts, roll extra dice, or trade spots with a player.  It creates the Mario Party scenario where even the player who is far and away the most skilled can still be fucked half the time by random chance.

You troll Altered Beast one time and suddenly it starts stalking you everywhere.

It’s still a lot of fun though.  I have to admit, there’s something hilarious about watching myself build up a 40 space lead on my boyfriend only to have him hit the “switch spaces” thing when I’m right next to the finish line.  I should be steaming and looking for something acidic to spray in his eyeballs, but instead we’re too busy laughing together.  Isn’t that what board games are supposed to be about?  Randomness to level the play field is the heart of all board games. There’s always going to be someone better at trivia than you, or spelling, or real estate speculation, or at feeding hippopotami.  So it wouldn’t be fun if I, Senorita Egghead, ran roughshod over Brian every game just because I’m smart and he’s a retard.

Okay, actually that would be fun.  For me.  Not so much for him.

Avatar Trivia Party was developed by Red Crest Studios

80 Microsoft Points answered “September” in the making of this review.

A review copy of Avatar Trivia Party was provided by Red Crest Studios to IndieGamerChick.com in this review.  The copy played by the Chick was purchased by her with her own Microsoft Points.  The review copy was given to a friend with the sole purpose of helping the Chick test online multiplayer.  That person had no feedback in this article.  For more information on this policy, please read the Developer Support page here. 

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