Rare Answer Game Like the Krillion Game - Krillion Unlimited

How do you play RareGuess?

Press "Start dive" and the first prompt appears, for example "Name a chemical element" or "Name a US national park". You get three seconds to read it, then the clock starts and a bar under the prompt shows the 25 seconds you have. Type one answer and press Go, or hit Enter on your keyboard.

If your answer is on the list, you dive: the window above the prompt sinks to a depth that matches how rare your answer was, and you see the creature that lives there, what you scored and a short comment on how rare it was. The full answer list for each prompt waits until the end of the round, so it does not give away later prompts. If your answer is not on the list, it is simply refused and the clock keeps running, so you can try again as many times as the 25 seconds allow. There is no penalty for a wrong guess other than the time it costs you. If the time runs out, your last refused guess is shown as your answer for that prompt, with 0 points.

A round is seven prompts. After the seventh one you see your total out of 700, the five score bands with yours highlighted, a line for each prompt with the answer you gave (tap it to see every accepted answer and its points), and your logbook: daily streak, rounds played, average and best. Unlimited rounds are numbered, so you can go on to the next dive or replay the same one. All of this is saved in your own browser, without signing up for anything.

Krillion Unlimited and the Krillion game: what is the same, what is different

First, the plain facts: RareGuess is an independent game made by Daily Game Arcade. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by or connected to Krillion or its creator, and Krillion is a trademark of its owner. We do not use Krillion's prompts, answers, rarity data, artwork, fonts, logo or text, and we do not publish answers to its daily puzzle. If you want the original, please play it on its official site.

What the two games share is the idea. In the Krillion game and in RareGuess, every prompt has many correct answers, and an answer is worth more the fewer people would think of it. Both reward reaching past your first idea while a timer runs down.

RareGuess is not affiliated with Krillion, so the points below compare two separate games. The differences are in the rules and in what you pay:

• Round format: the same as the classic game. A RareGuess round is seven prompts, each shown for three seconds before a 25-second clock, and every answer scores up to 100 for a round total of up to 700.
• Daily game: Krillion has its own daily game. RareGuess has a separate Daily 7, a fixed set of seven of our own prompts that changes at midnight US Eastern time.
• Krillion Unlimited: on the official site, the first Unlimited round is free and more rounds need a one-time payment to unlock. RareGuess Unlimited has no round limit, no payment and no sign-up, so it works as an endless, infinite run of rounds for as long as you want to play.
• Question bank and rarity: RareGuess uses its own bank of public-fact lists and measures rarity with public Wikipedia page views. The Krillion game has its own prompts and rarity data, which we have not copied.
• Extras: both have multiplayer and themed packs, each in its own way. RareGuess multiplayer is Depth Charge, a pass-the-charge game for 2 to 10 players with a ranked 1v1 mode, and its themed packs are Geography, Words, Movies & cartoons, Sports and Music.

So if you have used up your free Krillion Unlimited round, or simply want more of this style of game, RareGuess is a free place to keep going. Many players do both: the official Krillion daily first, then unlimited rounds here. Once more, RareGuess and Daily Game Arcade are not affiliated with Krillion or its creator.

How are points worked out?

Every accepted answer has a rarity from 1 to 100 that says how obscure it is compared with the other correct answers to the same prompt. For chemical elements, Gold sits at the very bottom because almost everybody thinks of it, while Bohrium sits at the top because very few people do. For US states, the big names such as California or Texas are at the common end and North Dakota is at the rare end.

Rarity decides how deep you dive, and the layer you reach decides your points. There are five layers, the ones ocean scientists use. In most prompts, answers are ranked from most to least common: the most common few (about 6 in 100, at least two) stay in the sunlight zone for 10 points, the next fifth reach the twilight zone for 30, the next third the midnight zone for 60, and the rest of the long tail the abyss for 85. Prompts with more than 170 answers use set numbers for the first two layers instead, and some word prompts use fixed word-frequency cut-offs. With seven prompts a round, the best possible round is 700.

Two tiers are chosen by hand rather than by the ranking. The hadal trench, worth 100 points, holds up to two answers per prompt that are both uncommon and have a story worth telling; when you find one, you get a fact about it. Prompts with fewer than ten answers have none. The popular detour, worth 15 points, is an answer that sounds obscure but is the one lots of players reach for as soon as they skip the obvious answer. Only some prompts have one.

Many answers also come with a short note: why the answer counts, a detail people often mix up, or a fact about it. You see the note when you give that answer, and under each answer in the full list at the end of a round.

Rarity is never compared across prompts. A trip to the abyss on "Name a noble gas" and on "Name a bone in the human body" both mean "near the rare end of this particular list", even though the two lists have very different lengths. Because layers follow rarity inside each prompt, most prompts have the same shape: a few answers everyone says, a long tail of good ones, and usually one or two hand-picked answers at the very bottom.

Inside a layer, the depth still moves with rarity: the most common answers keep you just under the waves at about 10 metres, and the hand-picked trench answers send you to the bottom of an ocean trench at 10,900 metres. Each layer has its own creature in the dive window, from a sea turtle near the surface to a snailfish in the trench. At the end of a round you get a dive profile, a chart of how deep each of your seven answers went, and a title based on your total: under 151 points, 151 to 250, 251 to 350, 351 to 449, and 450 or more.

Where does the rarity number come from?

We needed a measure of "how many people would think of this" that is public, repeatable and the same for everyone. For most fact prompts we use how often each answer's English Wikipedia article was viewed over the previous twelve full months. Fewer views means a rarer answer. Many everyday and word answers, such as things in a kitchen, have no Wikipedia article of their own, so for most of those prompts we use how often the word or phrase appears in published English (Google Books Ngram data via Datamuse). Answers we cannot find in the data are placed at the rare end of their list. In most prompts the answers are then ranked from most to least common, and that ranking decides the ocean layer each one reaches.

Twelve months is long enough to smooth out news spikes. When we tried a shorter window, sports teams that had a good week in the news jumped to the top of the "common" list, and that is not what anyone means by common. The full list of answers, the raw view counts and word frequencies, and the script that turns them into scores are kept together, so the whole bank can be rebuilt and checked.

This measure is honest about curiosity more than about knowledge, and that has side effects. An answer that people look up because it is strange can count as common even though few people would name it in a quiz. A famous example in our cheese prompt is a cheese best known for being unusual. Over time we plan to blend in what real players actually type, which is a better signal of what people think of first.

What is the difference between Unlimited, the Daily 7 and the answer pages?

Unlimited is the main game on this page. Every round draws seven prompts at random from the whole bank, avoiding the ones you just played where possible. There is no cap on rounds and no waiting for a timer to reset.

The Daily 7 is the same game with seven fixed prompts that are identical for everyone on a given day. A new set starts at midnight US Eastern time. It is useful if you want to compare scores with friends, because you all faced the same seven prompts.

Each day also gets an answer page. It lists, for every Daily 7 prompt, the rarest answers, the most common answers and the full list of accepted answers ranked from common to rare. Answer pages for earlier days stay up, so you can go back and see what you missed.

Play the Daily 7, replay a past day from the archive or browse today's answers. Prefer one topic? Try the Geography or Words pack, or see more games like Krillion.

What are some tips for scoring higher?

The game rewards a particular kind of memory: the long tail of a list rather than its headline items. A few habits help a lot.

• Skip your first thought. If an answer arrives instantly, most other people would have it too. Use the first two or three seconds to push past it.
• Think in regions or groups. For countries, move away from the large and well-known and think about small island nations, landlocked states or recently renamed countries. For parks, think about places that are hard to reach.
• Use the edges of a set. The heaviest elements, the smallest provinces, the last kings and queens of a dynasty, the late albums of a band: the start and the end of a list are often less visited than the middle you remember.
• Use spare seconds as insurance. If time is almost up and you have only an obvious answer, enter it. Ten points beats zero, and a time-out scores nothing.
• Keep a mental shortlist for each prompt you see often. After a few rounds you will meet the same prompts again. Remembering two or three abyss-level answers per prompt is the fastest way to raise your best score.
• Read the reveal. At the end of a round, tap any prompt to see every accepted answer, highest-scoring first. Those are the answers to keep in mind for next time.
• Do not worry about capital letters, accents or a leading "The". They are ignored when your answer is checked.
• Typos and nicknames are caught for you. If your answer is one or two letters away from an accepted one, or is a nickname such as Sixers, the game shows the answer it matched; press Go again to confirm it, or edit it. You can switch this check off in Settings to have them scored straight away.

Which topics are in the question bank?

The bank covers geography, science, sport, culture and everyday knowledge, and we compiled every list ourselves. Current topics include US states and state capitals, Canadian provinces and territories, countries of Africa, Asia, Europe and South America, members of the European Union and of NATO, chemical elements and noble gases, planets and dwarf planets, constellations, signs of the zodiac, letters of the Greek alphabet, Greek gods and goddesses, bones of the human body, US presidents, US national parks, NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL teams, Summer Olympic sports, Ivy League universities, plays by Shakespeare, Beatles studio albums, Pixar feature films, official James Bond films, musical instruments, gemstones, cat breeds, cheeses, car brands, programming languages and the official languages of the United Nations.

Some lists are short, like the six official UN languages, and some are long, like the 118 chemical elements. Short lists are surprisingly tricky because the gap between the most and least known answer is narrow, so every choice matters. We add new prompts over time, and any prompt that turns out to be unclear or out of date is fixed or removed.

How does the game decide whether an answer is correct?

Each prompt has a fixed list of accepted answers, and many answers also have alternative names. For example, a country may be accepted under its short name and its formal name, and a team may be accepted by its nickname alone, such as Seahawks for the Seattle Seahawks. When you submit, the game ignores capital letters, accents and punctuation, treats "&" and "and" as the same, and drops a leading "The".

If your answer is close to an accepted one, or is one of its alternative names, the game shows the full accepted name and you press Go again to confirm it before it is scored (unless you turned this off in Settings). Common typos in longer answers usually get a suggestion: as a rough guide, one missing, extra or wrong letter from five letters, and two from eight letters, which also covers two letters typed the wrong way round. The check is stricter when you type only part of a name, such as Cream for Cream cheese. Shorter answers must be exact, because a one-letter difference in a short word often turns it into a different word. If you are sure an answer is correct but the game refuses it, it is most likely missing from our list or listed under a different name. You can tell us through the contact address on the About page, and we fix these quickly.

Why is naming rare answers more fun than naming right ones?

Most quizzes have one right answer, so they reward whoever happens to know that single fact. A rare-answer game works differently. Nearly everyone can score something on every prompt, because nearly everyone knows at least one country in Africa or one bone in the body. The skill is in how far down the list you can reach under time pressure.

That makes each prompt a small decision rather than a test. Do you spend ten seconds trying to recall a tiny Pacific nation, or lock in a safe answer now? Do you trust a half-remembered constellation name, knowing a wrong guess only costs time? Those trade-offs are what make a single round feel different from the last one, even when the prompts repeat.

It also teaches you things. After a few rounds most players come away knowing a handful of new national parks, elements or cheeses, simply because the reveal keeps showing them the answers they did not think of.

How can I play RareGuess with friends?

There are three ways. Multiplayer: open a Depth Charge room and share the code, or join an open room; everyone answers the same prompt and passes a ticking charge, and the last diver with a heart wins. There is also a ranked 1v1 mode. Friends board: sign in, add friends with your friend code, and compare Daily 7 scores and answers each day. No sign-in needed for the simplest way: everyone plays the same Daily 7 on their own phone and compares totals afterwards.

How do you keep the question bank accurate?

We compiled every list in the bank ourselves. Many are lists of public facts, such as the member states of the European Union, the periodic table or a band's studio albums, with answers matched to English Wikipedia where an article exists. Answers to everyday prompts are drafted from common knowledge and then checked, and most spelling prompts take their answers from public word lists. When the world changes, for example when a team moves city or a country changes its official name, we update the answers and the alternative names together.

We also review prompts that produce strange results. If one answer is scored as common only because it was briefly in the news, or a prompt turns out to be ambiguous, we fix the list or retire the prompt. Reports from players are the fastest way for us to find these, so please send them.

Does it work on a phone?

Yes. The game is designed for a phone held upright first. The prompt, timer and answer box sit together at the top of the screen so the on-screen keyboard does not hide them, and the Go button is large enough to tap without zooming. Your keyboard's Enter or Go key also submits.

Nothing needs to be installed. Open the page in your browser and play. Because your best score is kept in your browser, it stays on the device where you played; clearing site data or switching to another phone starts the count again.

Do you need an account, and what is stored?

No account is needed to play. Signing in with Google is optional: it keeps your streak, logbook, friends and multiplayer rating on every device. Your best scores, logbook and settings are saved in your own browser so they survive a page reload. When you finish a round, we receive which round it was, your total, the points for each prompt and a random player ID made by your browser, so we can show what share of players you beat on that round. If you are signed in, your rounds are also saved to your account, and for the Daily 7 that includes the answer the game accepted for each prompt, so friends can compare. In single-player rounds, what you type is not sent; in multiplayer, your guesses are sent to our server to be checked. Our privacy page explains exactly what the site keeps.

Frequently asked questions

Scoring, spelling, the Daily 7, packs, multiplayer and accounts are covered in the full RareGuess FAQ.

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