14 DAY TRIAL // 
There’s a certain moment when a person becomes so engaged in competition that the world around seems to narrow and all available attention resources focus on winning, on finding that extra bit of commitment and intelligence that will allow you to claim the praise offered at the expense of your adversary.
That Trivia Game is a very simple gaming experience created by Happy Dance Games for the PlayStation 4, but despite its relative lack of complexity, it manages to generate plenty of such moments, especially during the final round and when playing against another human opponent, trying to make sure that you get as big a lead as possible in order to then brag about your performance.
There’s no actual story in That Trivia Game because the structure of the game does not allow it, but the title does offer players a chance to slightly customize an avatar with a few basic options in order to create a somewhat relatable on-screen presence.
The choices include a pirate, with a hook hand that often gesticulates wildly towards opponents, a nerd archetype, and a girl, which makes it seem far too basic given the hardware power offered by the PlayStation 4.
Once a character is ready, the player can choose to play against the computer or to get at least another human being to connect a controller in order to get a tougher challenge.
Whatever the choice, the basic structure of the game is the same, with four rounds that use classic trivia mechanisms and a question that allows for a wager to be placed.
The first round is described as the Basic one, and the first character needs to pick a category before questions are asked.
By pushing the face buttons, you can choose one of the four potential answers, and the touchpad is used to show gamers whether they are right or wrong.
That Trivia Game then offers players a chance to wage a portion of their earned points on a single question, which creates an interesting situation where everyone needs to balance risk and reward before moving to the second round.
It once again offers four possible answers to the players, but slowly eliminates variants that are wrong, although the player needs to answer as quickly as possible to get all the points that are in play.
It’s easy to wait for the answers to be eliminated when the correct solution is not entirely clear, but in the long term, answering quickly is a better strategy, especially when playing against another human.
The third round in That Trivia Game is truly against the clock, and players are asked to press buttons as fast as they can in order to score well.
The final section of the title from Happy Dance Games changes the formula radically and creates a situation where it’s possible to lose even if you did very well in the previous three rounds.
The question appears on the screen and gamers need to push X when they see the correct answer. They are penalized with 1500 points if they choose the wrong answer and awarded one thousand for a correct guess.
Because the penalty for a bad reaction is so big, the round can turn the entire game on its head, but the structure also makes it very tense and tends to create the kind of experience that I was referring to at the start of the review.
With a full complement of four gamers, That Trivia Game can become even more interesting, and curses, victory shouts and more could often be heard around the room, to the extent that some of those involved actively failed to pay attention to the questions at times.
The title also has a solid list of categories and questions, and in almost 12 sessions, we only had a few of them repeated; fortunately, some of the more obscure ones where I had already forgotten the answers that had been revealed before.
One critique that can be made is that That Trivia Game is a little too focused on North America, especially when it comes to categories linked to geography and politics, which can be a problem for gamers who are not familiar with things like baseball and TV dinner inventors.
Unfortunately, the enjoyable core gameplay of That Trivia Game is undermined by the rather limited quality of the graphics, which cannot be excused given that the game is offered on the very powerful PlayStation 4.
The presenter and the avatars of the players are jaggy and weird looking, and there’s no attempt to make either the set or the crowds watching the show interesting or part of the contest.
There’s little variation when it comes to the style between rounds and the title would have benefited greatly from a little more color here and there.
It’s also hard to understand why the development team chose to drop online multiplayer and only offers options for local play, given that trivia is the kind of experience where meeting strangers and challenging them to contests of intelligence and knowledge is a great idea.
I enjoy playing with friends, but I am sure that, unless I carefully manage groups and rotations, we will get bored of each other and will abandon a game that could have had a much bigger replayability factor if it had simply used the PlayStation Network.
That Trivia Game shows that not all titles launched on the PlayStation 4 need to be high-profile shooters or quirky indies, and that there’s a niche for classic game experiences that can benefit from the automation that a home console can offer.
The core mechanics of the game are pretty solid, but unfortunately That Trivia Game lacks the presentation and the multiplayer required to be enjoyable in the long term.
We have two other EU keys for That Trivia Game to give out, so please leave a comment about the title below with a valid e-mail adress to get one.
