Trivial Pursuit (or the ‘pie game’ as our kids called it) seemed to be a true game changer when it was released in 1981. All of a sudden a board game was being played by adults in social settings and it became cool to be a trivia whiz!
Trivial Pursuit was the rage in the 1980s with 20,000,000 games sold in 1984 alone. Many versions came out with the questions focused in certain themes and times such as Baby Boomer and All Star Sports.
Players try to fill up a circular token holder where the tokens are the shape of pieces of pie. They need to fill the circle with pie pieces of each of the 6 categories of trivia questions. Players roll a die to move around the play board. Each space is the color of a trivia category. If the player correctly answers the question they earn the corresponding colored pie token. The board is in the shape of a wheel with spokes meeting in a hub.
The Good: For a while geeks were being selected first to be on a team!
The Bad: If you weren’t knowledgeable in a theme it would be a frustrating evening.
The Dastardly: Some people would read thru the cards and memorize the answers ahead of time...you know who you are!!!