The best Jeopardy! game, period, is a free archive maintained by dedicated nerds
Extolling the gospel of the J! Archive, a staggering achievement in online geekery
Games Features Jeopardy!
Every Friday, A.V. Club staffers kick off our weekly open thread for the discussion of gaming plans and recent gaming glories, but of course, the real action is down in the comments, where we invite you to answer our eternal question: What Are You Playing This Weekend?
I love trivia. In some ways, it’s more important to me than… Well, actually, we don’t really have a word for the grand sum of human knowledge that actually has some bearing on your day-to-day life. “Importants,” maybe?
The point is, my brain is much happier rattling off random facts about the French Revolution or the history of the Mario games than, say, the details of my various streaming service passwords. Why remember a loved one’s birthday when you can, instead, give a thoughtful explanation of all the ways astronauts have been forced to deal with poop in space? Or a chronological ranking of all the cinematic Jokers? Or any of the millions of others dumb facts that constantly threaten to drown out fiddly little details like where I’ve left my keys?
Take it as read, then, that I consider Jeopardy! the greatest game show ever created. God bless Merv Griffin for, once upon a time, creating a place for all these useless, irresistible, beautiful facts to go, a place where pleasant people with shiny hair will offer me cash money for knowing the names of all my bones, and won’t care if I’ve forgotten the answers to the various security questions attached to my health insurance accounts. It is my highest aspiration in life—sorry romantic partners, family members, employers, etc.—to one day go on the show, and hopefully not completely humiliate myself with my understanding of 13-letter words that start with “U”.
Until then, I’ve got J! Archive, a web site that has eaten up dozens of hours of my life over the last few years, slaking my thirst for trivia mastery, and scratching that “I’d like to play some Jeopardy!” itch better than any number of more official licensed products from the show.
As the name implies, J! Archive is one of the great repositories of human knowledge in existence: An archive of every single episode of Jeopardy! released since the show’s daily syndicated version debuted in 1984 with an episode featuring questions about Thriller, Biblical rivers, and delicious blintzes. That includes not just every question contestants got to during regulation play, but also who got what right or wrong, and even any of Alex Trebek or the show’s other host’s little interjections. It is, in other words, an absolutely staggering effort of meticulous nerdery that is beautifully, perfectly in the spirit of the show itself; it’s not for nothing that the rotating set of testimonials from former champions on its intro page also contains a line from famed nerd-dunker Trebek when he was told about the site in 2011: “Come on, people. Get a life.”
It is also—because this is a gaming column—a hell of a game. The simplest way to “play” J! Archive is solo, of course, simply scanning category by category, episode by episode, answering as many questions as you can until it is very late and you’ve made yourself sick to death of Ivy League college questions. But it’s a perfect way to kill time with other people if you, like me, have a socially awkward brain that would rather solve riddles about words hidden inside world capitals than have a conversation. It’s also the easiest way to toss together an impromptu trivia tournament among your friends, or in case you end up in a rumble between a bunch of former Knowledge Masters or Academic Quiz Bowl kids and want to resolve it without bloodshed—making the whole project an inarguable public good.
And, again: It’s free, it doesn’t have any awkward ring-in mechanisms, and it’s functionally infinite—making it the best online trivia game in the world, including any number of officially licensed Jeopardy! titles. What could be more important than that?
22 Comments
How is it possible I never knew about this until this very moment? And…(opens another tab)…it is not blocked by my workplace’s firewall! Christmas came early this year!Because I’ve been dealing with lower back issues this week that have made sitting painful, there has not been much progress on Elden Ring, the only game on the horizon for the time being*, stretching out far past the vanishing point. However, it did feel validating to be able to go down Ainsel River-way and take out Dragonkin Soldier of Nokstella (what a name!) after three tries.A sorcery-focused build does seem pretty close to what might pass for an “easy mode”** in this game. My brief foray into Caelid last week did challenge this thesis a bit, as nearly every damn boss I ran into there seemed to be a double act, taxing my ash-summons ability to hold aggro or even survive very long into the encounter. And the whole “Poison cranked up to 11!” swamp area seemed like a pop-quiz on my horseback-battle skill, which…did not go great for me (my understanding of the hitboxes is always a little off).*That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of other games winking coquettishly from down the bar. I see you there, Tunic! Ohhh, that’s very inappropriate, Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator! What message are you trying to convey, The Quarry?!?
**It is not an easy mode in the traditional “just crank enemy numbers down while bringing the player-character’s number up” way. This depends on a foreknowledge (or at least an inkling) of the game’s systems. The short version, for those playing at home: Intelligence and Mind will be your prime stats, but you will likely need enough Strength and/or Dexterity to get a passable side weapon for when you must enter the fray…and maybe enough Vigor/Endurance so you can tank a few beefy hits. For the truly brave, there is a really good (for the early game, at any rate) staff and sorcery out in the Hell-swamps far east of the tutorial area.
Because I lurk in r/Jeopardy! I was familiar with J! Archive and use it occasionally for trivia.As for what else I’ve been playing this week?I got myself LEGO Star Wars – The Skywalker Saga and it’s an absolute blast to play, and I made my way through the first level of “A New Hope:”Unfortunately, the game completely freezes for me after that level and I can do nothing else, which effectively rendered it unplayable, so I returned/refunded it on Steam.
I played little tiny bit of Final Fantasy XIV, but am currently stuck on the same Solo Duty quest, so still haven’t gotten to the Endwalker content.Over on my Switch, I have finally gotten to the first stadium in Pokémon Shield, and will hopefully at least get my grass gym badge this week. I need to hurry up though, since I’m not allowing myself to purchase Breath of the Wild until I’ve finished this Pokémon game. I haven’t played much because another very silly Japanese franchise occupied my time….I finished Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials & Tribulations and therefore the entire Phoenix Wright Trilogy. I even got 100% of the achievements, which was nice. The references are as insane as ever, jabronis: I was slightly surprised about the continuity of plot with Dahlia Hawthorne and the entire Fey clan. Of course, the main reason that I played the series was for the utter insanity of it, sure enough we have one case where they restage the murder scene entirely, and one where you cross examine a spirit possessing the witness you thought was called up.
Part 2 of my “asking stupid questions about screenshots” series: So is the Phoenix Wright” now a cyberpunk dystopia or is this guy just a very devoted Geordi LaForge fan?
It’s complicated, but you’re not far off with the Geordi guess
I love how the cases fit together in Trials and Tribulations. The twists and turns of the final case are Ace Attorney at its best.
Yeah, though showing Diego Armando in the 4th case rather spoils a reveal in the 5th case.
Yeah, I don’t know anyone who didn’t have that figured out during the 4th case. It makes sense that none of the main characters would be in on the spoiler, but case 5 really feels like it’s written for you to be surprised by the reveal, which is just… laughable.In any case, feel free to celebrate finishing the trilogy with this wholly amazing music video.
Speaking of Jeopardy!, I’ve been looking for an easy way to play custom Jeopardy games over the Internet with friends. I’ve found Factile, but the free version is very restrictive. Any recommendations?
Having finally rolled credits on ANNO: Mutationem and Kirby and the Forgotten Land, I’ll be moving on to Glitchhikers: The Spaces Between this weekend. I’ve heard mixed things, but I loved the original Glitchhikers, so I’m cautiously optimistic. I’ll also try to get in a couple of rounds of Deep Rock Galactic with my co-op buddies, since the new season is out.
Cultist Simulator felt like an in-between game. I’d generally play for 5-15 minutes, then die from something I hadn’t noticed, or didn’t realize was going to be fatal. I started to realize that certain playthroughs had you start as someone who crossed paths with your previous character, and you’d inherit some of their research. I started to wonder if success was based on passing research down from generation to generation until you were ready to use the lore you’d uncover to summon an elder god.No, that’s not it at all.This mess of research, recruits, patrons, locations, skills, rituals, and authorities tracking my activity… this is easily possible in one playthrough after you master the art of not dying. The game has gone from something I can squeeze two lives into a lunch break, to one where a single, full playthrough will necessarily spread across multiple days. I mean… this screenshot is from the clean, early stages of a game, before it gets complicated. It feels very niche. I can think of three people I could recommend it to, and now that I’ve completed the game with real endings twice, I’m realizing most of the playthroughs follow the exact same structure, and the ending you go for only affects the color of the cards you’re focusing on, and maybe a couple other actions that can be done at any point during the game. It’s a scenario where there would be too much content, but the deeper you dig, the more you realize it’s a lot of the same content.I will at least finish out my current playthrough of the third and final ambition branch, starting a cult to satisfy my cravings for physical sensations, and then I’m probably going to move on rather than going for any of the… I think 27 different romance endings. This may be one I just chip away at slowly when I’m between other games. There’s something relaxing about understanding all the ins and outs of a complicated logic maze, knowing which cards to combine to make magic happen, and how to completely nullify an adversary’s progress in bringing me to trial. But if tomorrow this game ceased to exist, I wouldn’t have any lingering questions about it. It has told me everything it has to say.So, gosh, what’s next after this playthrough? I think I’ve had enough of an RPG break. I think I’m hopping back into Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning Returns. I played just far enough into it a month or so ago that I know what kind of gameplay to expect, and I think I’m ready to find out what happened to change the world so drastically in between games.
Huh. CS is one of those games that has been on my radar for some time, but I’ve never committed any time to. I picked up the mobile version some time ago, tried it out on my smartphone, decided it was a pain to play on a small screen, and forgot about it. But what if…I tried playing it on my tablet (or…ya know, a PC)?
With as many cards as you’re going to have on your table when you figure out what you’re doing (I’ve had games with almost twice as many as in the screenshot), I can’t imagine having the patience for anything beyond the very early game on a cell phone. If you can play it on a bigger screen, you should.
Confirmed: Tablet works pretty good. It took me a while to realize that some of the cards/resources might manifest under the frame, but it’s pretty easy to move stuff around or manipulate the scale/location of the frame. Its narrative style certainly tracks with what I remember from playing Fallen London back in the day.
I think they were created by the same person, right? That is, Fallen London and Cultist Simulator.
I’m still playing Fallen London— the writing is, at worst, pretty good, and the amount of story and background is staggering (as you might expect from a 10-year-old game) but also, at least to me, incredibly inventive and interesting. I’d be surprised if there wasn’t some sort of media version (movie, tv series) in the next five years. (Even if just on the basis of some studio starving for IP moving in on it.)
Yes. I can see a lot of the same narrative/gameplay techniques at play in both. I think it’s a two-person team.As interesting (and lucrative for the creators) an adaptation might be, I can’t help feeling it might just flatten everything interesting and unique about the worlds they create. With caution and intentionality, I guess it could happen; I thought the Dispatches from Elsewhere show did a pretty good job and that was ostensibly based off an artist-collective’s ARG experiment.
Oh, I’m sure a traditional studio would by the rights and sand all the edges off and otherwise blandify whatever story is made for a movie. Since the game and world is so text-based (Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies notwithstanding), and there’s so much lore and story, I imagine it’d be harder than usual to translate it into a visual medium.I almost hate to say it, but an origin story might work…. though I think even in the game they haven’t really explore that time period very much. (Fallen London started out set 30 years after, er, London fell.)
J! Archive is fantastic for road trips and it’s one of those nice things that comes out of letting fans do their own thing. This weekend I’m beginning my trek into a brand new ultrawide world. Took a gamble on a discounted monitor and so far, so good. Part of that test involves Rogue Legacy 2, which includes ultrawide support right out of the gate. I won’t say if it’s good or bad support because I’m only a few hours in, but it looks fantastic. Part of that may be the fact it’s also me making the jump from 1080p to 1440p, but we’ll see. Of course the game that’ll end up getting the most attention from me this weekend is likely Animal Crossing. Fell off it a few months ago after falling off of it more than a few months before that, but I’m making a lot of progress on island tweaks and things seem to be expanding. If I can just not accidentally bury the 1,000 bells I dig out of the ground, I might be able to pay off the next expansion. And speaking of expansions, I’m thinking about making the jump on the Switch Online Expansion Pack. I’d love to check out the Animal Crossing DLC and the new Mario Kart tracks, but I’m half-committed to both. I’d likely be looking at putting in a few extra bucks to look at them over the year, then see if I feel like buying either at the end of the day.
For the love of GOD Jeopardy, stop making your licensed games multiple choice! Family Feud app figured out predictive text years ago and your video game for DOS in like 1987!
I finished the main story of Kirby and the Forgotten Land, and yep, this is a terrific game. The depth of gameplay, the challenge that creeps up on you until it’s genuinely stressful, and yes, the sheer cuteness. There’s still a lot left after the credits, but before I tackle the big post-game world I gotta run through some challenges and get a blueprint I missed because I feel I’m gonna need all the powerups I can get. And there are still more Dees to save. I’m charging towards the true-and-final end of Stormblood in Final Fantasy XIV. Takes a while to get there, but it’s not unentertaining.
Of the expansions I’ve played, Stormblood is the weakest, in that it’s only very good, rather than excellent.
I think my only problem with it is how spread out the new areas are (whereas Ishgard is easy to criss-cross) and that the stuff immediately after the expansion proper has you going back and forth constantly. By this point gil is not really an issue, mind you, so it’s only a minor thing, but there are definitely points where I feel led by the nose.
I’ve fallen into Rouge Legacy 2 pretty hard. It’s fun, the traits are great, and it’s just fun. I’ve gotten past the first boss, Barbarians are great, although I just found the glory of Cooks as well.
I’m not sure how much there will be to do once you get through the game (I assume some, based on the depth of skills and power ups), but it’s a fun ride so far.
I also picked up Not for Broadcast which is very different from anything I’ve ever played. I’m taking it very slow, but I’m digging the ‘full pro government’ journey I’m taking now, and could be interested in doing another fully anti-government. Also, overseeing a television program is hard! I never knew how much there was to do. And this is just a video game, haha.
I’ve poked around the J! Archive before, but I’ve never thought of trying to “play” it; now I’m wondering if it would be possible to write some sort of program that could access it for an actual Jeopardy! video game. Though keeping it low-profile enough to avoid copyright problems would be challenging…The last Jeopardy! video game I played was one I bought at my college bookstore; it was ugly but effective, despite being some cheap shareware program.On a floppy disk.A 5¼” floppy disk.I’m old, is what I’m saying.