Bar Trivia

A multiplayer, host-driven trivia game in the spirit of a real-world pub trivia night. One person (the host / emcee) runs the room from a console; everyone else plays on their phones; the room watches a shared big-screen "HUD" that shows the question, the live tally, the reveal, and the leaderboard. The host controls the pacing — every screen change happens when the host clicks Move To Next Screen.

It's built as a Gig.Game title sitting on the $GG platform: SignalR hub for realtime messaging, a C# engine for game logic, a canvas-based HUD for the big screen, a Bootstrap host console, and a mobile-friendly player controller.

What is Bar Trivia?

Bar Trivia is a format, not a fixed quiz. The host picks one of their authored or shared trivia sets (a pool of questions across one or more categories), decides how the round structure looks (number of rounds, points per round, decay on/off), and runs the game live. Players join from their phones, answer per question, and submit each round when they're done. The host walks the room through reveals, the room reacts to who got bluffed by whom, and the leaderboard advances.

Three distinct question formats can be mixed in a single game:

  • Standard multiple choice — classic 4-to-6 answer choices, one correct.
  • Bluff — players submit a fake answer for the question; the engine mixes those bluffs into the answer slate; everyone picks what they think is the truth. If somebody falls for your bluff, you get bluff points.
  • Text Input — no answer choices at all; players type a free-form answer. The host scores manually on a per-question review panel before reveal.

Players can play solo or, if the host turns on team play, on a team that shares one score. Team actions (answers, bluffs, round submissions) mirror across every team member, and the team shows up as a single row on every leaderboard and live tally.

Key Features

Host-driven flow

  • No countdown timers, no auto-advance. Every transition runs off the host's Move To Next Screen click.
  • One Restart button wipes scores/answers/history while keeping the roster + trivia set, dropping everyone back to the lobby.
  • Stop ends the game entirely and clears the HUD to a quiet offline screen.

Trivia set picker

  • Card-grid view of the host's owned sets plus shared / general sets, filterable by language and a free-text search.
  • Clicking Select opens the Game Play Settings modal directly — no separate "Start Game" button anywhere.

Game Play Settings (per launch)

Grouped into three sections:

  • Question Flow — category selection (random / sequential), questions per round, Default Question Type override applied to every Move Next pick (Standard / Bluff / Input / honor trivia set), and a per-round table where each row sets that round's point multiplier and decay flag (default 3 rounds at 10 / 20 / 50 points, decay on).
  • Player Interaction — Support Team Play yes/no, answer mode (accept multiple edits vs. take first answer only), profanity filter for bluff text.
  • Display & Audio — show live answer percentages on the HUD, music volume.

Pick Next Question

  • Mid-game, the host can preview the upcoming slot's candidate questions in a modal — one per category in random mode, the next-in-sequence in sequential mode.
  • For each candidate the host can pick Standard, Bluff, or Text Input — each commits + advances. Reject swaps that candidate for the next in its category. Previously-used questions are flagged Already Used but remain selectable.
  • The Bluff path is blocked when fewer than two competing units are connected (one to bluff, one to be fooled).

Bluff rounds

  • Phase 1: each player writes a fake answer on their phone; the engine collects them.
  • Phase 2 (when the host advances): the bluffs are mixed into the question's answer slate (with light deduping against the truth and a profanity filter) and everyone picks what they think is real.
  • Reveal credits bluff points to anyone who fooled somebody else (zeroed out if they picked their own bluff).

Text-input rounds

  • The HUD and controller hide the answer grid entirely; players just type.
  • On WaitForSubmissions the host gets a Score Submit review panel listing every question with each competitor's typed answer and an editable points box.
  • For multiple-choice questions the engine pre-fills the box with the auto-calculated points (with decay); for text questions it pre-fills 0 and the host enters whatever they want.
  • Clicking Move Next from WaitForSubmissions commits every points edit (via HostAdjustPoints) before advancing to reveal, so the round leaderboard reflects the host's awards.

Team play

  • The lobby's join screen offers Play Solo / Create a Team / Join a Team.
  • One team member's answer, bluff, or round submission counts for the whole team — the engine mirrors writes across every member's tracking.
  • Teams show up as one row on every HUD count, the live answer panel, the submission progress meter, the round and final leaderboards, and the host's Teams & Scores tab.
  • Players can join or leave a team mid-lobby; leaving clears their own tracking (you don't take the team's score with you).

Score control

  • A dedicated Teams and Scores tab on the host console (alongside Current State and Question History) lists every solo player and team with their running total and an editable score input.
  • Edits are absolute — type the final number you want; the engine back-solves a hostScoreDelta so the total lands on that value.
  • Team edits mirror to every member.

Reveal & summaries

  • One reveal screen per question, walked by Move Next. Highlights the truth, marks each player's pick, surfaces bluff attributions ("Pat fooled Sam — +20 pts").
  • Round leaderboard between rounds; final leaderboard at the end with a winner banner and full standings.
  • Special Mentions on the host console between rounds — host-only awards ("Lightning Fast", "Big Brain Energy", "Creative Truth", late joiners, etc.) the emcee can read out loud. Deliberately not shown on the HUD.

Mid-game tools

  • Show Ad Promo — modal over the host's media library; pick a video or image and the engine plays it on the HUD as an overlay, auto-exits when the asset finishes, and quietly resumes everyone to where they were.
  • Skip controls — Move to Round Reveal / Move to Round Score / Move to Final Score, gated to whatever's meaningful from the current state.
  • Live settings — music volume and profanity filter can be changed mid-game without relaunching.
  • Question History tab — every question asked this game with each player's pick and result, updated live after each reveal.

Robustness

  • Reconnecting controllers re-join automatically by player key; the engine pushes the player straight back into whatever state the game is in.
  • A HUD device that connects mid-promo gets a quiet "Promo is playing" placeholder instead of restarting the video.
  • Question loading is preloaded one ahead — the host gets a toast if they click Move Next before the next question is ready.

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Open the host console

You'll see the welcome intro modal explaining the host-driven flow. Click Got It. The main panel shows the trivia set picker; the right rail shows your access code and a QR code players can scan.

2. Pick a trivia set

Use the Filter Sets / Language / Search controls to narrow the card grid, or browse owned vs. shared sets. Click Select on the card you want — the Game Play Settings modal opens with that set's image and title in the header.

3. Configure gameplay

In the Game Play Settings modal:

  • Under Question Flow: choose random or sequential question selection, set Questions / Round, optionally set Default Question Type (e.g. force every Move Next pick to Text Input), and edit the Rounds table — add / remove rounds, set per-round points and decay.
  • Under Player Interaction: turn Support Team Play on if you want players to pick solo / team on join, choose Answer Mode (multi-edit vs. first-answer-locked), and pick Profanity Filter.
  • Under Display & Audio: choose whether to show live answer percentages, and set initial music volume.

Click Start Game. The console opens the HUD in a second window. If you don't want that one, close it and reopen from the sidebar's Open Heads-Up-Display button.

4. Players join

Players scan the QR code or visit hub.gig.game/play and enter the access code. They're shown the trivia set's title and a Join the Game! button. With team play on, they pick Play Solo, Create a Team, or Join a Team before landing on the lobby waiting screen. The HUD's player counter ticks up.

5. Start the round

Click Move To Next Screen. The HUD shows the round title and per-question point value. Click Move Next again to load the first question.

6. Run a question

  • For a Standard question, the HUD shows the question + answer slate; players tap their pick on their phones; the live tally fills in.
  • For a Bluff question, players first type a fake answer on their phones; once enough are in, Move Next flips everyone to the answer-pick phase with the bluffs mixed into the slate.
  • For a Text Input question, the HUD hides the answer grid and shows "TYPE YOUR ANSWER ON YOUR PHONE!"; players type freely.

If you want to override a question's format on the fly, click Pick Next Question before advancing. Pick Standard, Bluff, or Text Input on the candidate you want; Reject swaps it for the next candidate in the same category.

7. Repeat for each question in the round

Move Next walks Q1 → Q2 → ... → Qn. The skip buttons in the right rail can cut the round short:

  • Move to Round Reveal — jumps to reveal phase for whatever questions actually reached the answer phase.
  • Move to Round Score — skips past reveal entirely.

8. WaitForSubmissions / Score Submit

After the last question, players see a Submit Round button. The host sees a per-question review panel:

  • Each row lists every solo player / team with their answer and a points-awarded number input.
  • Standard / Bluff questions pre-fill the correct-pick points; Text Input questions start at 0 and need host input.
  • Edit any number you want to change. When you click Move To Next Screen, all edits are committed to the engine before the reveal flow starts.

9. Reveal walk-through

Move Next walks one reveal at a time:

  • Multiple-choice reveals show the full slate with the truth highlighted, bluff slots labelled with the author's name, and a "Got it right" footer.
  • Text-input reveals show just the correct answer text in a single green panel.

10. Round scores → next round (or final)

Round leaderboard goes up on the HUD; Special Mentions appear on the host console. Move Next either begins the next round or jumps to Final Scores if you've finished the last round. Final Scores shows the winner banner + full standings; one more Move Next lands on GameComplete.

11. Mid-game extras (any time)

  • Show Ad Promo plays a video or image overlay; it auto-exits when the asset finishes, or you can Move Next to skip it early.
  • Teams and Scores tab lets you edit any solo player or team's running score on the fly (team edits mirror to every member).
  • Question History tab shows every question already asked with each player's pick, updating live as reveals happen.
  • Music Volume and Profanity Filter in the right rail can be tweaked without restarting.

12. Wrap up

  • Restart Game wipes scores/answers/history but keeps the roster + trivia set; everyone bounces back to the lobby.
  • Stop Game ends the session, drops the trivia set, and paints a generic offline screen on the HUD.