MIMIR Format
In this quiz league, you will be playing the MIMIR format which is designed to give every player an equal chance in succeeding in the absence of another equaliser such as “the pounce” (which is a form of play in which quizzers can simultaneously and discreetly answer to the quizsetter/proctor before individual turns). Played by four players, each game is divided into four rounds consisting of three consecutive questions for each player in every round, totalling 48 questions.
Questions, Quads and Topics
The 48 questions are divided into 12 “quads”. A quad is a set of four questions covering the same theme or topic. For example, desserts which gave their name to android operating systems. Each quad consists of questions of four difficulty levels — from the easiest to the most difficult, which are distributed throughout the players’ seats in a way that everybody gets an equal number of questions of each difficulty level, with everybody getting one direct question of each quad.
This quiz league is designed in such a way that it covers a wide array of subjects to satisfy everyone’s taste, every week. For this reason, the 12 quad topics for each week are: Physical geography; History and Literature; Biology; Chemistry; Physics; Engineering and Technology; Math; Movies and TV; Music, Art and Architecture; Mythbusting; Social Science and Psychology; Home and Hobbies. All quads and questions will at least have a tangential connection to nature, science and technology.
Besides the 48 questions, every week will feature 3 tiebreaker questions, 1 ‘Hawkeye’ question and at least two extra questions in case one the questions become unusable because of a mistake made by the player or reader (eg: a reader accepting the wrong answer because the reader misheard a player, and then announced the right answer). So, every week will feature at least 54 questions.
Edit: We have removed the tiebreaker questions and Hawkeye question after the introduction of the Adjusted Differential Scores in game-week 2 of season 1.
Why 48 questions?
Why are we going with 48 questions instead of 60 or 64 questions like other MIMIR leagues? Because it gives us the opportunity to help the players savour each question, instead of rushing through them. The smaller number of questions means that in each week, we will feature two quads which are accompanied by videos/audio/animations, and most of the rest will feature images. The smaller number also means that we can make some questions a little longer than usual (not to bore, but to excite, and make it a more involved experience). And even after all this, you will still be able to finish it within one hour or less.
Seating order, Gameplay and Bonus Attempts
The seating order is selected at random before the game (fixtures available here), but is dynamic during the gameplay as it is adjusted based on the number of bonus attempts (BAs) i.e. passed questions attempted, to ensure impartiality and to enable strategic gameplay. The direct questions do not count as a BA. The player with more BAs will be behind players with less BAs in the seating order. If BAs are the same, fixture seating order is considered by the scoring app.
Points and Timer
The person in front of the passing order receives their direct questions, which upon answering correctly, earns them a point. If they answer incorrectly, they will not receive any negative points, however, the question is passed on to the next in the passing order. Passed questions also earn players 1 point each. For direct questions, every player will have 30 seconds to answer immediately after the proctor finishes reading the question, and for passed questions, every player will have 5 seconds to answer. If one or people are absent, then their questions are read, and other players are given 15 seconds to think, and it passes to whomever is next in the line. The next in line can also pounce with an answer before the 15 seconds is over.
Formatting
If the questions has boldened portions, it can mean i) that its a clue to the answer ii) that it is the question, if it appears before the last sentence (to aid easier reading). If the questions have italicized portions, i) it can mean that they are proper nouns like name of books or movies ii) they are foreshadowing clues in between questions of a quad. For example, in Season 1 Week 3, we had a quad where the first three questions had the animal names vole, dhole, and polecat italicized. And the final question in the quad had Naked Mole Rat as the answer. So, the quad was ‘Fiction with mammals having 'ole' nomenclature’. If players pay attention, the foreshadowing will help to answer the last question. iii) they are scientific names/latin names.
Repeats and Clarifications
While every player will be able to read the questions displayed on the screen as well as listen to the questions being dictated by the proctor, there may be situations in which repeats of the question is necessary. Once the question is read, the timer starts, and the first player has unlimited chances to ask for repeats, spelling, pronunciation or any other clarifications (but not translations or meanings of words within the questions) of/regarding the whole question or parts of it, due to potential issues such as misreading or incomprehensible accents.
These repeats and/or clarifications should be done quickly so as to not waste time, and all of it will be carried out within the allocated 30 seconds. The rest of the players don’t have any chances for repeats and/or clarifications due to chances of stalling for time. The first player can strategize by passing immediately after the question is read if they are sure that they don’t know the answer to prevent other players from gaining more time for thinking. Videos and audio will only be played once unless all the players ask for a repeat, in which case, one and only one more repeat is allowed. In case of glitches due to bad connectivity, they can be played again.
Tiebreakers
At the end of the quiz, if two or more players have tied scores, then the match will proceed to the tiebreaker in which the players who are tied are shown the same three questions, and they simultaneously answer each question by writing the answer in a piece of paper or notepad, and revealing it to the screen after both players are ready with the answers or the time (30s) runs out (whichever comes first). The hands should be visible on the screen when writing.
The answers are only revealed at the end of the three questions, and the scores will be used to break the tie. If players are still tied at the end of the tiebreaker, it moves on to the ‘Hawkeye’ question which is a question with a number as the answer, and based on the closeness to the target, the final player standings are decided (closest to the answer, the better).
Example game
Darwin, Schrödinger, Curie and Lovelace are playing a game with the same sequence as the seating order. The first question is ‘Which English mathematician and inventor is credited with having proposed the first automatic digital computer?’. Darwin who doesn’t know the answer quickly passes to give less time for others to think, and he receives no point; it passes to Schrödinger who answers ‘Copernicus’ and he gets no point either, along with a BA; it then passes to Curie who ‘preserves the attempt’ (does not answer) to avoid a BA since she is pretty sure that she doesn’t know the answer; which finally passes to Lovelace who answers Babbage and gets a point (normally surnames alone are acceptable unless specified).
To see examples of this format in action, you check games from B612, FLQL and Zephyr quiz leagues in YouTube.