If I could have just one TV channel and not include anything else in my personalized cable package, it would easily be the Game Show Network. So long as they let me cut out Idiotest and replace that nightly time slot with either dead air or a live feed of some dude’s sick-ass-fish-heck aquarium. On a related note, fish heck should totally be called Pheck. Anyways, both options are 100% better than Ben Gleib’s shambling mess of brainteasers wherein the goal is for contestants to prove to the audience they are not dumb while everyone points and laughs at how dumb they are, especially the host. Ugh. I’m also not a fan of Divided, but I don’t want to get into it here.
Smooth transition time: I am, however, a big fan of Gimme Five, a surprisingly addictive trivia game that puts your knowledge of anything and everything to the test. No, really, the subjects at hand–pun totally intended–vary immensely. I’ve gone from answering questions about coins in the United States to famous Wimbledon winners to identifying prime numbers to figuring out what counts for furniture in the question-asker’s mind.Well, if I’m being honest, Melanie helps me out on all of the math-related items while I handle the ultra hard tasks of naming X-men characters and female protagonists in videogames.
Basically, the game’s goal is simple: answer as many trivia questions as possible–before time runs out or you get too many wrong. See how far you can get. I usually hit a snag between questions 15 and 20, though we did reach question 30 the other night thanks to the mighty skip power-up. Each question has five correct answers, and you must select from nine potential click-able squares. Because this is a videogame and not simply someone giving you a multiple choice test to take, you can use some power-ups to help in this endeavor, such as one that shows you all five right answers, one that highlights a single correct answer, and one that skips the question entirely. Depending on what item you equip before you start playing, you’ll have different amounts of each power-up, as well as other perks, such as bonus time added when answering correctly; I personally like having more skips than anything else because I will never know a single NASCAR championship driver–so stop asking me.
In doing a little research for this post, I discovered there was another game called Gimme Five that came out over a decade ago, from Namco, on mobile. Think about what mobile meant in 2005. I have no idea. Sounds like it was a card-based mini-game thing. This more recent Gimme Five feels mini in its user interface and design, but is addicting enough to keep me coming back for one more run of random questions. I just crossed the level 30 mark and have seen a fair share of repeated questions, but that’s okay, because now I can answer them quickly thanks to memorization and without having to burn a power-up. The developer Shuboarder could also add a few more famous starting quotes, and if they need inspiration, just watch any episode of Criminal Minds.
As you play, you earn KP, which naturally stands for kudos points and not everyone’s favorite animated comedic-spy thriller Kim Possible. This is a type of currency that you save up and spend either on unlockable items to affect your power-ups or you can use them to continue after you hit a dead end. However, each time you continue it costs more KP, and you don’t magically start fresh with a full stock of power-ups and time. If you answered incorrectly and only had a few seconds left on the clock, clicking continue will start you with a new question and the same amount of time to go, so you need to use your continues wisely. The first one costs 10 KP, the second 40 KP, and I’ve never been brave enough to use it a third time though I suspect I’ll have to if I’m ever to see the 50th question.
Strangely, I don’t remember Gimme Five being a product that cost money, back when I installed it in early February 2017. It was a free thing then that certainly looked free and felt free and also offered up 1,000 Gamerscore points, along with in-game statistic tracking. But it seems like it’ll strip your wallet of $4.99 now if you want in on all the crazy questions, and I’m not sure it’s worth that amount of digital cash seeing as there’s a billion trivia games out there, many of which are free or no more than a dollar. I am having fun, as is Melanie, but it also helps that I got into this thing early when it was a freebie.
Grinding Down 