So I was thinking of ways I could add features and fun activities to the site without requiring a ton of content having to be added to the site so having a feature which is based on content the site already has seems like a great opportunity. Like many gamers, I love video game trivia (as you can see in my YouTube channel here and here) and I've been wanting to add some sort of video game trivia to the site for a while now. Below is the idea I came up with.


I'm thinking about adding a Video Game Trivia feature to the site which would be based on screenshots submitted to the Retro Game Room and Video Game Room. So the script would randomly pick a screenshot from the RGR or VGR and then ask you what game it's from. My script would change the URL of the image so that you couldn't cheat and figure out what game it's from based on the image URL. It'd be pretty hard for someone to cheat too since you can't really ask Google what game an image is from and to also help prevent someone from asking their friends or asking others online for help on a question, I'll probably create a 30 second (or 1 minute) timer for each screenshot.


Each "question" would basically just show the randomly selected screenshot and then a list of 4 games that you can choose from with 3 of them being randomly selected games from the RGR and/or VGR and 1 of them of course being the correct game. To save myself time, I'd re-use portions of the script I created for the Bible Trivia feature I made for mybiblegames.com which you can see here.


You'd be able to choose from categories to narrow down the randomly selected games/screenshots. Categories would include:
-System (examples: Super Nintendo, Dreamcast, PlayStation, etc)
-Genre (examples: RPG, Platformer, Sports, etc)
-Era (examples: Modern, Retro, 3rd Generation, etc)
-Screenshot Category (examples: Level, Introduction, Character profile, etc)


There would be some restrictions on what screenshots get randomly generated. Any screenshot categorized as a title screen obviously wouldn't be randomly selected since the answer would be in the screenshot. Screenshots with a rating of 2 or less would also not be selected since those types of screenshots are classified as either duplicates or low quality screenshots.


I'd also create some sort of score system that keeps track of the number of questions a user gets correctly and the score system would be grouped into the different categories I mentioned above. I'd also create leaderboards which would be based on the scores and categories. So in other words, if you wanted to see who had the best knowledge of Nintendo NES games for example, you could view the Nintendo NES leaderboard to find out.


What do you guys think of this idea? Would you use it if I created it? I think this is a great opportunity to add another feature to the site and to also put the screenshots to even more use, especially since we have over 291,000 screenshots on the site.

I think this would be a neat and fun little feature, would you also earn Viz and cp from it like you do from bible trivia?

Though I do feel there may be problems like with it just blatantly picking a screenhot of something like a title screen and I'm not sure how you'd go about handling screenshots that are from hacked and/or japanese games that may be extremely hard to guess because of that. Basically I feel like getting the difficulty right and not making it too hard or too easy may be difficult.

But I still support the concept, I feel like it could be a fun little distraction, and I really would like to see more trivia games besides just having the bible trivia feature.

Sounds like a great idea. I hope this happens so I can rekt all of you

Are there going to be prizes? :3

I think this sounds like an interesting idea. Having a little game in the site to tell where the game is featured in. I think to make the game much better for others to understand, each screenshot needs a screenshot rating of 4 or higher because those screenshot can easely tell on what the game is (games with like 1 or 2, it can be a little bit more tough to figure out.

Other than that, I am on board on having this little game featured on the site, interesting idea David.

Only problem is to remember what games wouldn't work well like hacks (especially graphical hacks), complations (like Mario/Duck Hunt), and other cases of games (like Nintendo World Championship). A difficulty option might be nice too (maimstream, common, obscure).

I like this idea very much. I'm sure I would find it a lot of fun since I'm a huge fan of video game history and trivia. I know I would for sure use it.

As long as the script left out hacks and graphic mods I'm all for the idea.

A small Viz prize for guessing correctly would be nice. :3

Perhaps you could work a daily limit to the script as well?
That way someone doesn't just farm the screenshot game to make tons of Viz.

I think it's a wonderful idea too. Definitely have different categories at least for era or system. I would be terrible at whatever generation games are out now, but could do 80s, 90s, and some 2000s. And I can tell the difference between Demon Attack and Spider Fighter. But yeah, definitely no hacks. And I'm sure I'd at least try it out. Would there also be a maximum number of questions you could answer per day? That's the only thing I can think of.

Sounds like a nice and fun entertainment. I would probably give it a try, although until I see how the categories are arranged, I can't say if I would give it a second try. Nothing personal, just that I'm not someone that knows a lot of games, thus there's a great chance I may suck at this.

As people is saying lately, I'm in for no hacks of any kind. Also, I think any screenshot with a rating of 4 and higher should be used, and if by any chance we don't have as many as you wanted to include, a rating of 3 isn't that bad either. Or we could also add screenshots taken for highscores, although not all of them display the actual game, but the rankings instead, making it nearly impossible to know the game.

If this feature was popular and successful enough, I'd probably consider having a mobile app made for it. I'd probably also integrate my future achievement system with it (for example, getting an achievement for getting a certain number of correct answers in a row).


Zlinqx : I suppose I could hand out Viz but I don't think I'd hand out CP since you're not actually contributing to the site by playing it.

As I said in my post, it wouldn't pick any screenshot that was categorized as a title screen. It also wouldn't pick screenshots from hacked games, homebrew games or games in a language other than English (unless a user chose to have it pick Japanese games). I'd also make it so that it didn't include compilation games and a few other types of games that just wouldn't work out.


yoshirulez! : There'd be Viz prices but I'm not sure what the amount would be.


IgorBird122 : There are 284,496 screenshots with a rating of 3 or higher and 39,748 screenshots with a rating of 4 or higher. 22,747 games have at least 1 screenshot with a rating of at least 3 but only 7,323 games have at least 1 screenshot with a rating of 4. I'd prefer having it select screenshots with a rating of 3 and higher since that'd offer far more content but if that becomes a problem, I could always increase the required rating. Refer to what I said to EX Palen for my idea of how to go about that.


bigger0gamer : Refer to what I said to Zlinqx.


Jordanv78 : Yeap it'd be pretty strict on what games it'd randomly choose screenshots for. Refer to what I said to Zlinqx for more information.


Vanelan : Yeah it'd work similar to the CP actions on the site where you can only get credit for a certain number of actions per a day. I'd probably make it so that if you get a certain number correct in a row, you'd also get a Viz bonus of some sort. I wouldn't want someone to earn too much Viz per a day doing this though so I'd be pretty careful on what payout would be.


Ferdinand : Yeah I'd definitely add a lot of filter options so that a user can completely customize the trivia. I'm like you, I probably wouldn't be the best at a lot of modern day gaming but stuff from the 80s and 90s I would definitely do well on.

I'm not sure if there'd be a maximum number of questions you could answer per a day but there definitely would be a maximum number of Viz you could earn doing this per a day.


EX Palen : It'd be a great way to learn about games and get familiar with them though. The minimum rating requirement could depend on the game actually. If a game has a lot of screenshots, then screenshots with a rating of at least 4 would be randomly chosen from that randomly chosen game. If the game doesn't have a lot of screenshots, then the minimum rating would be 3. I think this would be the best solution to being able to include as many games as possible.

I think this would be an amazing feature to add. I think I'd do well with this, especially since you could choose from different categories. I think this feature will definitely become super popular.

gamerforlifeforever2 : Yeah I think it'll be pretty popular and I already have lots of fun ways to promote it.

Davideo7 : So how are you going to promote it? Or is that a secret lol

I actually really like this idea! Video game trivia is fun stuff, and giving us categories like that would essentially allow us to choose our own difficulty. Oh boy, AND a score system? Bring it on! I just hope there aren't any unsorted title screens hiding around.

gamerforlifeforever2 : One of the ways I plan to promote it is to have a live stream on twitch where I play it and have the viewers of my stream try and guess each game. Whichever user gets the most correct the quickest during that stream would get a prize of some sort.

Gamin'Gal : Yeap and it'll also be a great way to introduce users to games they've never seen before. After you answer each question, it'll say what the correct answer is (in case you got it wrong) and also some brief information about the game and screenshot. The screenshot information would be taken from the details the screenshot taker provided to the screenshot (if available) and the brief information could be anything from who developed the game, what year it came out, and any other information that we have stored on the game's page.

David- Really? Where would it take the info from? Just the description? or stuff like the publisher and such?
EDIT: Nevermind, I just saw him answer my questions.

Davideo7 : Love the achievement idea! If that was ever implemented on the site, then it really would not matter to me about how you would set up this game at all, lol. It is a very good idea to add categories ( like System, Genre, etc. ) but maybe also add a time-related difficulty setting. For example, Easy difficulty could give out a minute and a half ( or more ) while the Hardest difficulty could only be 30 seconds ( or less ). Also, the Easy difficulty could have 6 multiple choices ( or more ) while the Hardest would only have 3 ( or less ). Either that, or just let the players actually type in the title of the game without any choices at all. This would be beneficial on the Leaderboards, in my opinion, but maybe I'm just thinking about this a little too much...

In addition, instead of including the full screenshot image maybe it would only include around 80% or just a certain part of the image if possible. However, this could be implemented to the difficulty setting as well. And not all of the screenshots that are rated below 2 are bad. Granted, most of them are, but there are some out there that are just totally random and those are the best ones to use. They may be rated at 2 ( or below ) but as long as they are distinctive there shouldn't be a problem. But, again, not sure if you were looking for ideas