How to play Trivia Mountain

The format

A round is 15 multiple-choice questions, presented one at a time, in a fixed order that runs from easy to hard. Each question has four options labelled A to D, and exactly one is correct.

Select an option, then press Submit Answer. Selecting an option does not lock it in — you can change your mind, or tap your current choice again to deselect it, right up until you submit. Once you submit, the correct answer is revealed and your score updates. Press Next Question to continue.

There is no timer. There is no penalty for taking your time, and nothing is lost if you pause halfway through and come back to the tab later.

How scoring works

The 15 questions are grouped into six stages. Every question in a stage is worth the same amount, and that amount cuts both ways: get it right and it is added to your score, get it wrong and the identical amount is taken off.

A flawless round is 500 points. Your score can also go negative — nothing stops it falling below zero, and the round carries on regardless.

Because the reward and the penalty are identical, a pure 50/50 guess is worth nothing on average. Over many rounds, guessing blind between two options gains you exactly as much as it costs. That single fact drives most of the strategy in this game.

Skips

You get 2 skips per round. A skip passes on the current question at no cost: nothing is added, nothing is taken away. The correct answer is still revealed, so you find out what you missed.

• Skips do not carry over between rounds. Use them or lose them.
• A skip is available on any question from 1 to 14, but not on question 15.
• Spending a skip on a 10-point opener saves you 10 points. Spending it on a 50-point question saves you 50. Hold them for as long as you sensibly can.

Walking away

Walking away ends the round on the spot and banks every point you have earned so far. It is offered in two situations:

• Once both of your skips are gone, on any question before the last.
• Always on question 15 — the point at which 150 points are on the line and no skip is available.

Walking away is not giving up. If you have built a solid total, declining a coin-flip on the summit question is usually the mathematically better decision.

A worked example

Say a round goes like this:

• Questions 1–11 all correct: (5 × 10) + (3 × 15) + (3 × 25) = 170 points.
• Question 12 is a blank. You spend your first skip — still 170.
• Question 13 you know. Correct, +50 → 220 points.
• Question 14 is another blank. Second skip gone — still 220.
• Question 15 arrives with 150 points at stake, no skips left, and you can narrow it to two options.

Walk away and you finish on 220. Answer and you finish on either 370 or 70. With a genuine coin-flip, both choices average out to the same 220 — so unless you think you are better than 50/50, the safe 220 is the better result. That is the decision the whole game is built around.

Reading the board

• The ladder (down the left on desktop, a strip of bubbles on mobile) shows all 15 questions and what each is worth. A tick means correct, a cross means wrong, a dash means skipped.
• The score sits in the middle of the board and animates on every answer — a bounce for a gain, a shake for a loss — with the points won or lost floating up beside it.
• The ± figure above each question is that question’s value, shown before you commit so you always know what is riding on it.

Playing on a phone

Trivia Mountain runs in any modern browser and is designed for touch as well as mouse. On narrow screens the answer options stack into a single column, and the question ladder becomes a horizontal strip that keeps your current question centred. There is nothing to install and no app store involved.

A fresh set every day

New questions are published every day at around 04:00 UTC. Everyone playing on a given day gets the same 15, so scores are directly comparable. You can replay the current set as many times as you like — a good way to find out whether walking away earlier would have beaten your first attempt.

Still curious? The frequently asked questions cover accounts, replays and reporting mistakes, and the about page explains where the questions come from.