The biggest downside to trivia games is that they tend to get kind of samey after a fashion; answer trivia, be scored, repeat. “Avatar Trivia Party” resolves this by creating a board game around the trivia action, and one with a lot of personality. There are trees, special tiles, that sort of thing.
The game comes to us from Mike Ventron who previously brought us “Bonded Realities”, “Andromium”, and the currently un-reviewed “Hyper Button”. Rather than the game being *about* the trivia, the trivia interestingly plays a mere *facet* of the game. Winning the board game is your actual goal, the trivia just a method to help you win. If you answer a question incorrectly you get only one die to roll in advancing your avatar; answer the trivia question correctly, and you get two dice to roll in moving your avatar forward.
It’s a unique (to the best of my knowledge) wrinkle and it works very well. The game supports solo play, plus up to four player multiplayer (both offline, which works well as a family party game, and online) and is well worth its 80 Microsoft Points.
Here’s what the developer (“MikeVentron” of Red Crest Studios) has to say about the game:
“Test your trivia knowledge with a fully-featured online board game! Can you roll the dice and conquer the board before anyone else? With hundreds of questions and online matches over Xbox LIVE, you’d better smarten up!”
Writings of Mass Deduction 