Pop Quiz

Kaaaa-wiiiizzz!^{The answer}The answer is one. If you got it right, have a Star Piece!

"A quiz?" Peach questioned bluntly. "Really? A quiz?"
"A quiz!" exclaimed Amy.
Silence.
"…it's not the same without Zelda."

— Super Paper Mario X, Chapter 14

The tendency of some video games to suddenly spring a general knowledge quiz on you regarding relatively obscure facts about the events, characters and monsters in the game universe. They are always multiple choice and usually timed. Sometimes these questions are simply impossible to answer because the game has never given you the relevant information, forcing you to take a wild guess. The most insidious versions of these quizzes randomize the questions so you can't just reach the end through trial-and-error. Unfortunately, these quizzes are usually essential to get a 100% Completion. Can take the form of a Game Show or Fairy Battle, and also be a Deadly Game. Pop quizzes can also be a form of anti-piracy, usually with the answer in the manual or included in Feelies.

Contrast Memory Match Mini-Game for another type of mini-game that tests your brain.

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Examples:

Action-Adventure

• There are three of these in Custom Robo Arena, and some of the questions are about in-universe history that the game did NOT tell you before that point... unless you knew where to look (the computers in the Midheart lobby). The rest of the questions were about the robo parts, though.
• Dynasty Warriors: Gundam Reborn has a series of stages where Queen Diana asks Gundam Trivia quesions and the player must give the answer by attacking the correct character.
• Mega Man:
  • Mega Man Legends 2 plays this straight for the Z Sabre. Strange in that most of the questions revolve around real world knowledge (only four or five out of a database of around 200 are related to the in-game world), and notorious for a couple of questions being bereft of a proper answer through quirks of translation. Better have The Other Wiki open when you go to tackle it.
  • Both the Mega Man Battle Network and Mega Man Star Force series usually have several of these in each game with considerably greater focus on in-game knowledge, most often as optional sidequests for an item reward. No set of questions is randomized, and each question has 3 choices which appear in the same order every time, no time limit, and you're told immediately when you enter a wrong answer, which merely forces you to restart from the first question. Thus, the quizzes can be completed through Trial-and-Error Gameplay if you don't know the answers. The one major exception in the Battle Network series was in the Japan-only Rockman.EXE 4.5: Real Operation, which has a required quiz that costs 100 Zenny to retry if you fail, but it's also probably the easiest quiz in the series if you've been paying any attention at all (and can read Japanese, or at least katakana). For example, one question is "What is it called when you defeat two enemies simultaneously? Double Date, Douple Delete, or Double Delete?" The first Star Force also had required timed multiple-choice questions in Libra Balance's stage, but a wrong answer merely cost you a few HP, and would not deplete your HP below 1.
  • Mega Man Zero and Mega Man ZX usually have one or two per game (also on in-game knowledge) that are as hard to find as the answers to the questions. The third installment of the Zero series even has one where the answer to the quiz hidden in an easily overlooked optional dialogue with a character in the second game.
• In The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge, Jack can repeatedly take one of these from the Corpse Kid in the town square, who will ask questions about the film. The first time it's mandatory to game progress, so most of the questions are ridiculously easy ("What is Jack's last name?"). Re-taking it, though, mixes in a lot of harder ones; get a perfect score and you get a free Golden Pumpkin.
• Spider-Man: Web of Shadows features a segment where Wolverine quizzes Spidey on comic book trivia to make sure he's the real deal. "Whose killer did we track in Berlin?" "What are your parents' names?" Some mistakes even have in-universe justifications - it's possible to select "Ben and May", only for Spidey to realize he should have said "Richard and Mary".

Adventure

• Every chapter in Another Code ends with a multiple-choice test of the events in that chapter. An unusual example in that - with the exception of the final question - Ashley is quizzing herself, to make sure she remembers everything (memories being a major focus of the game's plot). All except the final question are removed in the Recollection remake of the game.
• Astral Chain: In some of the chapters, a supporting character (usually your sibling Akira) will ask you questions about your findings on the current case. The pool of answers is derived from the information you gather by helping characters who surround the crime/event scene.
• At least one of the CSI computer games used this after the conclusion of each case. How well you answered affected your performance evaluation.
• In Disney's Hades Challenge Hades will test your knowledge with Greek mythology quizzes as the game progresses, such as "Who is the mother of Persephone?" Getting an answer wrong has him mock you viciously but no other penalties occur.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask has Keaton, who gives you a Piece of Heart if you answer his quizzes about the game's world correctly. You need to wear Keaton's Mask to make it appear, though.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass has one, requiring you to take note of minor details about Goron Island so you can access to the path leading to the resident dungeon (Goron Temple). You also have to pay a tax to receive full admission, as that's what all Goron citizens do.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds: Answering correctly the theft-related questions in the entrance gate of Thieves' Hideout is required to enter.
• Leisure Suit Larry 1: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards used this as a measure to prevent children from playing the game by asking a General-Knowledge at the time question, such has "Mohammed Ali is a" and then 4 answers with the correct one being "A boxer". Once answered, the game would consider that an adult was playing. The right key combination (Alt-X in the AGI version) instantly skipped the quiz, though. Al Lowe, the creator of the game, posted the answers to the quiz questions on his website, saying "The problem with these questions now is: they're only good at identifying someone over age 41 now!! And yes, the O. J. Simpson question below was in the original game back in 1987, long before O. J. ever was indicted!"
• The adventure hybrid video game of Magic: The Gathering has such quizzes in several locations, which will ask about the various kinds of cards that appear in the game. One is a random encounter on the overland map, where answering correctly will net you a bunch of good cards for your deck. Another place where this happens is in dungeons - if you answer incorrectly, a monster will be spawned in your path and you have to defeat it if you want to move through that corridor. If answer correctly, the monster does not appear. This is very important because, unlike the overland map, in dungeons you win nothing from fights and your life meter does not regenerate after them, so you want to minimize the number of fights.
• Both PokéPark Wii and its sequel have this as one of the ways to befriend Pokémon. Questions range from the fairly simple ("What shape is Pikachu's tail?" when Pikachu's tail is in the shot) to decently complex (Solosis in particular has a few lengthy word problems in Wonders Beyond).
• The Quest for Glory games did this occasionally as in-game puzzles. In the first and fifth game you had to answer three questions to get in to see the wizard Erasmus, which were different each time, some of them being trivia about the game world. In the first game the dev team has a little fun with this: if you answer correctly what the password to get into the Thieves' Guild is, you're turned away as "the wizard does not deal with thieves". In the fourth game, one of the creatures in the forest who will aid you is a strange fairy-like being called a Leshy, who will ask you a series of questions about people and places, prompting you to go exploring and find the answers.
• In the Christian-themed Zelda clone Spiritual Warfare, touching the randomly spawning angel who wafts about allows to partake in a Bible trivia game to win some swag.
• One minigame in Universal Studios Theme Park Adventure is a trivia quiz hosted by Winnie Woodpecker. She asks a series of multiple-choice questions about various Universal Studios films, and in order to win, you must correctly answer ten questions without getting three wrong.
• World's End Club: Upon starting the complete edition of the game on Nintendo Switch, Pielope will ask the player if they've already played the partial version of the game on IOS and would like to continue where that version left off, followed by her asking several trivia questions about the game before proceeding.

Edutainment

• Captain Novolin uses short quizzes to break up its levels, asking the player questions about diabetes and how to manage it. However, all the answers are told at the start of the level, so the quizzes usually just depend on the player remembering the answer they read three minutes ago, and some questions are only tangentially related to diabetes at best ("Check you feet [sic] for sores!") or just plain inane. ("Why is it good to eat at even times through the day?")

Fighting

• Jump Ultimate Stars has a pop quiz minigame, though you only have to play it once, and the only penalty for failure is not getting bonus points to use for unlocks.
• Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 3 has two pop quizzes which must be answered if you want to unlock Konohamaru, the First Hokage, and the Second Hokage. The quizzes contain questions revolving around the Naruto series, some of which you will not know if you have not read the manga or watched the anime.
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: The domains of Dharkon in World of Light feature the Mysterious Dimension, in which the player must answer trivia questions like "Which spirit is part of Bowser’s army?" or "Which group hails from Inkopolis?" in order to progress. Rather than simply answering correctly, you must fight and defeat the correct spirit in order to proceed.

Gamebooks

• Give Yourself Goosebumps has references to previously published Goosebumps books. Some of these are questions that take place on decision pages. A correct answer continues your quest. An incorrect answer results in a Game Over within two or three pages.

Party

• Geekwad Series:
  • Wacky Funsters: A Geekwad's Guide To Gaming features pop quizzes in which you have to answer questions that kings ask you. Every king has different questions.
  • The Geekwad: Games Of The Galaxy also has pop quizzes asked by other crew members. The reward for answering them is the order of the things you have to click on in order to defuse the bomb. Unlike Wacky Funsters, it's optional if you know the order beforehand.
• In one of Taneo's stages in Incredible Crisis, he awakens from taking a blow to the head to find himself in an ambulance, where two paramedics pester him with math, logic, and trivia questions. If he gets too many wrong, they'll assume he's delirious and electrocute him with a defibrillator to "snap him out of it".
• Mario Party 3:
  • In the minigame M.P.I.Q.,^note Mario Party Intelligence Quotient the character participate in a quiz challenge. Toad will slowly pose a question while its three options appear on screen; a player can hit their dice block to answer the question by choosing one of the options (first option is chosen by pressing A, second option is chosen by pressing B, and third option is chosen by pressing Z). If the answer is correct, the player earns one point; if it's incorrect, the player will be penalized by not being able to answer the next question. The character who answers three questions correctly before anybody else wins. If no character manages to get three points after the tenth question, the minigame ends and whoever got more points than the rest wins. If more than one player got the highest score, it all ends in a draw.
  • In the minigame Curtain Call, some mooks appear on a theatrical stage to perform a brief dance. When the curtain falls, Toad appears to asks the players a question about the mooks (i.e. who was the second in the row), and whoever answers incorrectly will be eliminated; the next group of mooks the show up. As the minigame progresses, the number of mooks involved increases. All of the players who answer all three questions correctly win this minigame.
• Mario Party 6 has the special mode Speak Up, hosted jointly by Brighton and Twila. It makes use of the embedded Mic, and can only be played by human players, so at least two have to be present to properly enjoy this mode. Each contestant chooses a question category: Picture, Counting, Memory, Comparison, and Variety; they then answer a question to score points, but must do so quickly as the number of points the question is worth will decrease over time. If the answer is wrong, then another player can snatch the chance to give the right one. The number of stars in the columns' top indicates the question's difficulty, ranging from one to five. Once a question passes, its specific category and difficulty are marked in the grid of the quiz table, so whoever chooses that category again will have to tackle the next tier; the harder the question is, the more points it's worth. Sometimes Bowser appears to hijack the contest, punishing players who answer incorrectly the questions. At the end of the event, whoever scored the highest will win a trophy.
• Mario Party Advance: Mechakoopa's sidequest has him ask math-related questions to the player. All of them have to be answered correctly in order to receive a Gaddget.
• Mario Party: Star Rush: One minigame fittingly shares its name with this trope. The minigame is divided into three rounds, and in each, four hatches will open and show the players four enemy characters doing different actions before they are hidden again. Once the enemies are hidden, the players will be asked a question based on what they just saw, and must choose whichever one of the four hatches contains the enemy that the question asked for.
• Super Mario Party:
  • In the 1-vs.-3 minigame Drop Quiz, three players watch a video showing a series of characters running across the screen and carrying different kinds of fruit, and must remember as much of the video as possible. The remaining solo player then gets to choose one of three questions based on what was just shown. Each member of the team must then move their character onto one of the panels, each having a different answer on them. Once time runs out, each panel except for the correct one will open, causing any characters standing on them to fall down a hole and be eliminated. If any member of the team can correctly answer all three questions, the team wins the minigame.
  • Rattle and Hmmm is a minigame that makes use of the Joy-Con's HD Rumble feature. The players will be shown three different characters, who will each perform an action that causes the Joy-Con to rumble in a different way. Once all three have been shown, the controllers will rumble in the same way as one of the characters shown. Each player then picks which of the three characters they think made the same rumble. Players who pick the correct answer earlier will earn more points than their rivals.
  • Absent Minded shows the players a group of eight images of different characters, though the images are hidden in certain ways, such as being pixelated, scrambled, or only shown one at a time. The players have a selection of three character options, and must select which of the three is not included above.
  • Birdo appears periodically in the Party Plaza and asks trivia questions about the game whenever player 1 speaks to her. Answering her questions correctly can award the player with things like stickers and Party Points.
• One of the gimmicks in the Monopoly-based Richman 8. When stepping on its spot (represented by a question mark,) the host will ask you a random question about the game (or other games from its producers.) Answer correctly rewards the player something (like extra cash) while wrong answer punishes the player (like losing cash.)
• One of the Mini Events in Sonic Shuffle quizzes you on things ranging from questions you really should be able to answer ("How many Preciousstones do you have?") to ridiculous things like how many times you've landed on a certain type of space. Get it right, and you win 30 rings. Get it wrong, and you lose a turn.
• One of the minigames in The Three Stooges is a pop quiz. While there are some questions relating to the shorts, a lot of questions are biographical in nature and can easily stump first-time players who are only casual fans of the Stooges.

Platform

• In Adventures In The Magic Kingdom, you had to acquire six keys to the gates of the Magic Kingdom theme park. Getting one of these keys required you to run around the park answering Disney trivia questions, some of which are surprisingly obscure like "What is Donald Duck's middle name?" (Fauntleroy).
• Banjo-Kazooie: It is a series tradition that The Very Definitely Final Dungeon in each game has a quiz section to test your knowledge of the game.
  • The first game has Grunty's Furnace Fun, a board game and Gruntilda's last ditch attempt to stop Banjo and Kazooie from rearching the top of her lair. The question categories are: General (simply answer a question regarding a character or event), Visual (identify the place or character shown), Musical (identify the soundtrack or sound effect heard), Personal (answer a question regarding Gruntilda's personal life), and Challenge (replay a minigame or boss battle, now with an extra perk that makes it much harder). The answers to personal questions about Gruntilda are randomized each playthrough, and can only be learned by talking to Brentilda in the parts of Gruntilda's Lair where she appears. As a final side note, there are two extra tile types in the minigame's board: Joker (any category except Challenge; answer correctly and you'll get two Joker cards that will allow you to bypass a tile; fail, and you won't get another chance) and Death (again any category except Challenge, and better have the right answer to the chosen question in your mind, or at least a Joker card to bypass it. If you fail, you'll be sent into the lava and die).
  • Banjo-Tooie has the Tower of Tragedy Quiz, which has three rounds and starts with three contestants (Banjo along with Kazooie, Mingella and Blobbelda). At the end of each round, the loser (whoever got the lowest score) gets a 16-ton safe dropped on them. If Banjo and Kazooie make it to the third round (by that point Grunty's sisters are eliminated, in every sense of the word), their competitor will be none other than Grunty herself, who has a default score of 15 points, and it's up to the heroic duo to surpass that score by answering correctly the questions before time runs out. By this time, it's evident that Grunty's love of random quizzes knows no bounds, as she continues with the questions during the Final-Exam Boss battle where she promises to "go easier on you" if you answer them correctly. Bit of a lie, as there isn't a huge difference between her faster and slower magic blasts.
  • Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge has two quizzes in-between the three boss battles in Grunty's Castle.
  • The quiz returns in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts during the final set of challenges in Spiral Mountain, where getting L.O.G's questions right will add extra time to the mission that he assigned you.
• Swanky's Bonus Bonanzas in Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest. They are optional bonus rounds that offer One Ups. Ironically, your number of extra lives don't get saved, but the fact that you completed a Swanky Quiz does, so they're strictly a one-off bonus that stays locked on loading a "Quiz Completed" save.
• Earthworm Jim 2 features one near the end of the "Villi People" stage, with ridiculous questions. ("How does Jim spell his name?" The choices: JMI, MIJ or IJM.)
• The Super Mario Bros. fan game Revenge of the Walrus has one or two amusingly ridiculous examples of this, in that the pop quiz questions have absolutely nothing to do with the game. As in, it asks stuff like what baseball team won what season, questions about maths and stuff related to history.
• Sonic Unleashed for the PS3/360 has 2: A wondering woman who asks you about the current hub, and a female reporter who has question about the storyline, and miscellany. While they get no in-game rewards, they are required to get Trophies (PS3)/Achievements (360).
• In some levels of Super Mario Odyssey, Mario has to meet the Sphynx, who asks questions relevant to the level they're on. Answering one reveals a Power Moon (and typically a small cache of coins), answering all of them nets another Power Moon. Completing all the quizzes, and finding the Sphynx's airships in a few other worlds, unlocks the final quiz on the Darker Side, which gets Mario a small fortune in coins.
• Dates all the way back to Wonder Boy in Monster Land — the round 6 boss (Sphinx) asks you one of these. Some hilariously bad translation can result in you needing to answer with the right component of the sentence "I don't like pizza."
• Wonder Boy in Monster World has the Sphinx perform the same function at the top of the pyramid in the desert. Passing the quiz opens another section of the pyramid which has a teleporter to the next land in the game sequence.
• Yooka-Laylee: As you're exploring Hivory Towers, you might get challenged to "Dr. Quack's Quackfire Quiz", where Dr. Quack will challenge you to answer questions about the game. You get a point for each correct answer, or two points if you answer quickly enough, and you have to score ten points in order to move on.

Puzzle

• Flash game The Impossible Quiz features a hellish version of this, featuring questions like "How many holes in a Rolo?" and "What was the answer to the last question?"
• Wonderland Adventures surprises you towards the end with a quiz on things the player wouldn't think was important.

Rail-Shooter

• The Tower and the Emperor in The Typing of the Dead. The former has serious questions which must be answered correctly to damage it, while the latter has silly questions with seemingly no correct answer, though answering with any answer will damage him. However, these questions do have "correct" answers that affect what ending you get. These don't come back in Typing of the Dead Overkill, but the final boss has another gimmick in which you are challenged to type words that are related to a topic which changes every so often. You also do damage by typing randomly, which is usually the more effective option.

Role-Playing Game

• Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura features an occasional pop-quiz NPC who usually hangs around in some town bars and asks a single question regarding the game's universe. Answer correctly and gain 500 coin; answer incorrectly and lose 500 coin. Each quiz offered is even immune to save-scumming, as that NPC will only ever ask you once (it can revert your losing, but not help you win).
• BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm has one in its second dungeon, asking you to remember specific things about the dungeon’s earlier puzzles. There’s also a much harder quiz later, en route to the secret PC Ending.
• In Digital Devil Saga II, encountering Jack Frost in a random battle will prompt him to give you a general knowledge quiz on the Digital Devil Saga universe. These questions range from hard ("Hee purchases 3 Rations, while Ho buys 2 Dis-Poisons and a Revival Bead. How much did they spend?") to impossible unless you bought the companion book ("What was Harley's Atma called?"). Answering all 100 questions correctly opens up a Superboss and a Bragging Rights Reward.
• At the start of Disco Elysium, you encounter a woman in the hotel lobby who, upon learning about your alcohol-induced amnesia, will ask you three basic questions about the setting to try and assess just how bad it is. The first two are easy if you took the time to explore the hotel beforehand, but the third is pure guesswork.
• In Dragon Age: Inquisition, you can find an NPC named Lord Trifles Minutiae around Skyhold. If you can answer three of his questions, he'll give you a unique weapon: the Boon of the Spoon.
• In EarthBound (1994), knocking on a certain door in Onett prompts this response; "OK, pop quiz! 'A Beatles song, XXXterday. Can you fill in the blanks?" It is, of course, a Yes or No question. You don't get anything for answering correctly, though.
• Fallout 2 has a rare random encounter which asks you a question from a pool of random meta gaming questions like "What's the maximum carrying capacity of a character with 8 strength and the pack rat perk?". Answer wrong and you die. The first two questions are very simple. The third one however is quite difficult if you're not a munchkin — carrying capacity for a char with specified strength. But if you answer with a question, ("With or without the pack rat perk?") the asker gets melted and you get his robe.
• Fallout: New Vegas: Progression in one side quest depends upon correctly answering an NPC's questions about the history of the New California Republic.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy IX had the Ragtime Mouse, who'd pop up in random battles and ask you True or False questions. The reward for answering each question started with money, which increased in value with every new question answered. Then you would get a Protect Ring if you had answered all of them correctly.
  • Final Fantasy VIII had the quizzes to increase your SeeD rank. Answering a series of 10 questions would increase your rank by 1, which increased the amount of Gil you earned. Your rank also increased for every 100 "SeeD Experience Points" gained (usually gained by defeating enemies), though you lost 10 of these SeeD Points every time you were paid, which could sometimes make you lose a level if those 10 points put you under the experience needed for that level. As the game contains fairly little to spend money on, and there are some easy refining exploits that can generate infinite Gil available quite early in the game, the quizzes are eminently skippable.
  • In Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, you must answer a series of questions about Sephiroth in order to join his fan club. Of course, one wonders how a fan club member could know about his ultimate attack that he doesn't even use for the first time until years later...
  • Final Fantasy XIII-2 has one, and the questions range from insanely simple (asking about which side of her head Serah wears her ponytail on when she's the main character and obviously on-screen at the time) to pretty mundane to somewhat coded (for instance, asking about the tagline to a TV show that is never mentioned anywhere else, but happens to mention Cactuars in the title, and the correct answer is the one that applies to Cactuars) to obscure background information to questions about other Final Fantasy games entirely to even questions asking absurd things like "Left or right?" or "Red or black?" without context. The questions are randomized and the potential list of questions is huge.
• One of the missions in Guild Wars: Nightfall requires you to answer a series of questions about the game's lore. A fairly benign example for three reasons: first, the whole mission is optional and doesn't have to be done to continue the storyline; second, the questions are about fairly well-known lore concerning the game world's gods, which even players uninterested in the lore will probably have picked up by osmosis by then anyway; and third, the only consequence of giving wrong answers is that a few more enemies spawn, making the rest of the mission a little harder but not impossible.
• In Holy Umbrella, a Mad Scientist puts you through a quiz towards the end of the game. You have to answer all the questions correctly, but there are only three of them.
• Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days: Roxas has a mission in Twilight Town where he has to answer questions about structures in the town from Pence.
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails
  • A recurring side quest in each game is having to attend Sunday School at a church to answer questions about the lore of each setting, provided that you've read about it at some bookstores or libraries beforehand.
  • In Trails in the Sky - The 3rd, Sun Door 5 has "Who Wants to Be a Mirannaire?" hosted by Campanella, who asks trivia questions about the Sky games and various characters. The minigame would make a comeback in Trails into Reverie, this time hosted by Beryl from Trails of Cold Steel.
  • Trails of Cold Steel I and III have school tests occurring at one point, which requires the player studying at the campus library to get a good score.
• Legend of Legaia features this trope occasionally: the first such quiz is in regards to the significance of the Genesis Tree and it's location, and the second involves a female member of the party quizzing you as a game; if you get all her questions right, she gives you ten Healing Shrooms. Later on, you meet the wife of a scientist who's a quiz junkie, and who insists on asking you a 'who you are, where you're going and what you're doing' set of questions in order to confirm your identity.
• The "Flab Zone" level of Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story actually has three Pop Quizzes of increasing difficulty. Through a creature called Nutsoglobin, you ask Bowser questions about various things (at 5 coins a pop!). When you feel you've asked enough, Nutsoglobin treats you to the "Big Bad Bowser Brain Train", where he asks you random questions about Bowser's responses. Get them all right, and he tells you which way to go through the maze, along with a coin bonus. Get any wrong, and you get a Random Encounter. Mercifully, these Brain Trains are completely optional, and you can get through the Flab Zone just by exploring it for yourself.
• Marvel Ultimate Alliance has both a Marvel Universe trivia quiz for experience, and a boss who zaps you with electricity when you get his questions wrong. 'What is the half-life of strontium-90?'
• Mega Man Battle Network: Most games in the series have multiple NPCs that will quiz you on random information about the universe, such as the power of certain Battle Chips or virus names. Correctly answering all of their questions will reward an item, a NaviCust program, or a rare Battle Chip.
• Miitopia has the Quizmaster's General Knowledge quiz. Some questions are related to in-game stuff, others are the occasional "oddities" like asking what the current question's number is or how many tentacles does a real-life squid have.
• The Paper Mario series has this as a Running Gag.
  • Paper Mario 64:
    • Chuck Quizmo shows up randomly and gives the player a Star Piece if they answer a question correctly.
    • Peach was pulled into a survey by Bowser and Kammy Koopa after Mario silences Tubba Blubba and ask her what things Mario hates and fears. The player could then have Peach rig the answers to give Mario items or play honest to summon enemies he can fight for extra Star Points.
    • Peach gets roped into a Koopa game show in one of her segments, with questions that point at Mario's next goal.
  • Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door:
    • There was a Thwomp that popped up near the beginning, asking you a bunch of easy questions to let you through - and then, near the end, he pops up again in a cybernetic version for another round.
    • TEC uses a quiz to impart some exposition to Peach.
  • Super Paper Mario:
    • Merlee, really Mimi in disguise, asks what Mario hates; these things are through the door ahead, and while unpleasant (if your answers are honest; if not, she'll leave items like in the above example), they're hardly unbeatable. She then yells at you for lying.
    • In an earlier level, sentient doors give you pop quizzes as a security clearance measure. One of them pulls out all the stops and gives what amounts to an IQ exam involving memory and problem solving. It's actually fairly similar to the Six Doors challenge mentioned below.
    • There is also an inverted pop quiz which has Mario asking the questions.
  • Paper Mario: Sticker Star has Snifit or Whiffit (Hit it or Snifit in the British English localization), in which Mario has to answer quiz questions and whack "unpaid Snifit interns" while in a room filled with Deadly Gas.
  • Paper Mario: Color Splash also has "Sniffit or Whiffit" except this time Mario drowns in the sea if he is wrong.
  • Paper Mario: The Origami King features "Shy Guys Finish Last" with several categories that Mario must answer to proceed. The last round is an All or Nothing gamble as Mario is given one chance to guess the right answer or be blown out of a cannon.
• Both Parasite Eve games pull this in their latter thirds: the former is general knowledge-based and requires that you'd paid attention to the various science-laden Infodumps throughout the game, the latter is a minor Continuity Nod that mixes bits of the former with questions about the previous game's events.
• Persona:
  • At one point in Persona 3, Yukari does some investigating at school, and asks Junpei and The Hero to do the same. At the end of that week, she asks what you learned... and treats it like a pop quiz rather than sharing and comparing information. Comes off as a bit arrogant, since she seems to assume that you'll naturally reach the exact same conclusions she has, despite all the rumors surrounding the incident.
  • Persona 4 Golden has "Teddie's Midnight Trivia Miracle Quiz", which has the player answering trivia questions about Inaba and each area within the Midnight Channel... .or just waiting for the game to end, as the AI is notoriously incompetent and will gladly answer incorrectly until everyone but the player is in the negatives.
  • Throughout each installment, on certain days the teacher will ask you a question about real world trivia (history, sciences, mathematics, literature...), and answering correctly would give you a slight attribute bonus (Charm in 3, because your classmates admire your smarts, and Knowledge in 4 because, well, it makes sense). If you answered wrong the teacher would give you the right answer, which is good, because there are a few important tests per game and the questions are all ones that you have already been asked. Getting a high score on your test will get you some sweet prizes.
• Once an Episode in the Pokémon games, usually as the gimmick for one of the region's gyms or trials.
  • Cinnabar Gym of Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow, its Gen III remakes, and Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee. The player can get to Blaine by either answering questions correctly or fighting trainers. Most choose to fight the trainers for the EXP.
  • Pokémon Gold and Silver has a brief quiz to get the FM radio add-on for your Pokégear.
  • Also occurs in Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald, where one of the Trick Master's trick rooms (the 5th iteration, which is unlocked by the Feather Badge) is full of robot duplicates of himself that quiz you on such topics as "how much does a Super Potion and a Great Ball cost" and "which of these Pokemon cannot be caught on Route 104."
  • Diamond and Pearl's Hearthome Gym has this in the form of basic math questions. If you get them wrong, the trainers will assume you're doing so on purpose in order to fight them, as you have access to an in-game calculator. Platinum replaces it with a different puzzle.
  • In Pokémon X and Y, the Lumiose City Gym has you answer trivia questions before you can battle Clemont. You still have to battle trainers along the way even if you pick the right answers, but you'll face more (up to twelve in all) if you pick the wrong answers first.
  • Two of the island trials in Pokémon Sun and Moon are quizzes. Sophocles' is an audio quiz, and Kiawe's has you compare two dances. Kiawe's, however, is an enormous joke; instead of getting progressively harder, it starts easy and gets even easier in ways that are nothing short of absurd. Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon changes Sophocles' trail to a puzzle, while keeping Kiawe's the same.
  • Pokémon Sword and Shield has Ballonlea Gym, which is framed as the elderly Gym leader looking for a successor and your battles being an audition for the spot. As opposed to the other Gym examples, you fight all of the trainers no matter what: instead, getting the answers correct will grant your Pokémon a stat boost, while getting them wrong will drop their stats. This also extends to the Gym Leader battle itself. Unlike all the other examples, most of the questions require educated guesses rather than actual knowledge, since most of the questions is personal information the player wouldn't know (such as what one of them ate for breakfast).
• Shadow Hearts series:
  • Shadow Hearts: Covenant has four quizzes, one plot-relevatnt that is just a math test, one that tests your knowlege of small elements of gameplay, one that makes you remember that Flavor Text from Monster Compendium, and, most infamously, one where you are quizzed on the lifestyles of naked male supermodels.
  • Shadow Hearts: From The New World has three quizzes, two of which test player's knowlege of small story and gameplay elements, and the third is just a normal pop quiz about location you've visited during your journey.
• Super Mario RPG had the Six Doors Challenge, in which you must successfully complete the challenges behind four of the six doors (of your choice, thankfully). Two doors lead to a green Hammer Brother named "Doctor Topper" who makes you solve puzzles, one of which is a trivia quiz on the game world.
• Tales of Legendia had the Quiz Shacks during the Character Quests, in which you could earn some decent equipment (though nothing powerful with the exception of the 405K Hammer for Will). The questions they asked you ranged from general knowledge about the Legacy to questions relating to exact details. (AN exmple of a question: "On which knee did Cashel have a spiked knee-pad on?")
• In Terranigma, the Developer's Room in the Japanese version includes a quiz asking the player about the Quintet staff and their previous games. The prize for winning is a piece of Magirock, of course.
• Underhero takes inspiration from the Paper Mario and Mario and Luigi games, and has a character called Puzzleman who shows up at various points and takes you to a quiz show (that doesn't seem to have an audience) where you're asked questions that you should have learned the answers to from exploring the current world you're in and talking to NPCs, and you'll be rewarded with coins. Some of the correct answers will later be contradicted by new information, and the last quiz has some questions where the answers you're led to believe are right are actually wrong; these serve as hints that Puzzleman isn't quite what he seems...
• In Undertale, Mettaton does this to the player by asking them a variety of questions they know nothing about. Alphys assists them by giving them the correct answer in the background. Mettaton catches on late in the quiz and asks them who Alphys has a crush on, causing her to freak out.
• There is apparently this one Reaper in The World Ends with You who likes walling off an arbitrary pathway once per chapter unless you can complete his "Shinigami Quiz"/"Reaper Review". It's usually about places and sights around Shibuya, but he occasionally tosses in random cultural trivia. Joshua springs this on you at one point: after Neku shows less interest in one of his random tangents, he springs a quiz about the information he'd dumped on you two speech bubbles before (who was the district Dogenzaka named after — and being as Shibuya is a real place, this is a true answer). No penalty for answering wrong, though, except Joshua mocks Neku for not listening. On the other hand, Joshua is shamelessly condescending towards Neku if you do answer correctly; he's just that sort of guy.
• NEO: The World Ends with You has one side-quest on answering questions about Shibuya. Reaper Review also makes a comeback.
• There's a quest in World of Warcraft that does this, though the answers can indeed be found in-game—in the book you're bringing to the quest guy, in fact. The introduction of the Timeless Isle gave players another quiz master who dispenses timeless coins to players who can answer questions about the game's lore, although many are very obscure. There is no penalty for incorrect answers however so random guessing will result in success fairly quickly.
• In X-Men Legends, there's an X-Men trivia quiz at the X-Mansion between missions that gives out experience points for correct answers. The sequel also has quizzes at the various bases.
• In zOMG!, many of the early NPC characters each had a conversation topic about a particular game mechanic, which was followed by a pop quiz on the topic for a small reward. Considering the number of players that ask about these basic mechanics on the forums now, these have likely been removed.

Shoot 'em Up

• The Void Rains Upon Her Heart has the in-game event "Sentinel's Quiz", which lets you play up to three rounds of four randomized questions each. You get a small reward for each round you finish, and you're out if you make three mistakes in one round. Most of the questions revolve around general gameplay^note Easier question require you to know a monster's type, while harder ones ask about their elemental attacks and weaknesses. or the lore.^note Typically "What does <glyph> mean?" with an answer that can be deduced if you remember what the appropriate Eyeric Glyph monster is like. There are also breather questions that just ask you to multiply two small numbers. In addition to the sheer number of possible questions, there are also questions about your current run^note which monsters you've fought or what items you have, so you can't use trial and error for the mini-game. Thankfully there's no penalty for failing, and the quiz is skippable if you don't feel like doing it.

Simulation

• In Animal Crossing: New Leaf, helping out seagull sailor Gulliver involves helping him remember his original destination before he got washed onto the shores of your town. You have to guess it from a list of four countries based on three factoids Gulliver gives you. Get it right, and he'll send you a souvenir in the mail the next day.
• In I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, Rhett quizzes you on the Vertumnan xenofauna at one point during guard duty. He won't punish you for getting it wrong, but you'll earn Kudos if you get it right.
• Done as one of the minigames in Kitty Powers' Love Life:
  • Whenever a client's partner threatens to break up with them, they ask them if they really know who they are and quiz them on their personal info. Giving the right answers will earn you a green segment on the Wheel of Destiny while giving the wrong ones will earn you a red one instead. Getting as many correct answers as possible is crucial in saving the relationship as landing on a red segment will break them up.
  • When trying to promote your Love Village to a Love Town after reaching Level 20, the Love-O-Tron, which stores all your village's stats, gets its files corrupted by Regina. Kitty Powers, who's applying for the promotion, asks you to help her answer the inspectors' final exam by recalling the village stats and the residents' lives. Like with the partner quiz, every correct answer earns a green segment on the Wheel of Destiny while every wrong one earns a red one, and getting as many correct answers as possible increases the chances of being promoted.
• No Umbrellas Allowed: At the end of Week 6, if you reveal your true identity to your Old Friend, they'll quiz you on your past memories as a preliminary check that you're the missing person they're looking for. Conveniently, HUE tells you that you can replay the end-of-week Nightmare Sequences to find the answers for their questions, but if you previously claimed to the Blackmailer that you're someone else, good luck trying to answer them correctly without a guide.

Sports

• An unusual sports game example, NCAA Football 09 by EA Sports has a Quiz the Quarterback feature that asks the player what play the defense just ran, should you throw an interception. An incorrect answer negatively affects your QBs performance for the game.

Strategy

• Civilization uses several pop quizzes that act as an anti-piracy measure (the answers are All There in the Manual, and the developers assume that a pirated copy of the game doesn't come with a manual.) The game justifies the pop quiz by calling it a challenge of the legitimacy of the player's rule by a potential usurper. The quiz questions themselves are about the game's Tech Tree — one must choose the correct combination of technologies needed to produce the technology pictured in the question. If the question is answered incorrectly, all units outside of cities are lost.
• Ogre Battle 64 performs the pop quiz when you encounter the Vampire Count character. The answers are not as important as the combination of answers you give in regards to the time of the day (For example, you have to answer ADCDBA between 21:00 and 24:00). Answers were mostly nonsensical and a potential Guide Dang It! moment. Succeeding in this rewarded you with an item (Blood Kiss) which transforms one of your characters into a Vampire.

Survival Horror

• Killer7:
  • The third chapter has you answering questions on a series of posters that you just passed by featuring your target for that chapter, Andrei Ulmeyda. Just to see if you're paying attention, one of the questions is "This is question number...?" At the end of the quiz, it's revealed this is done to ensure that Ulmeyda's followers/cultists are brainwashed enough to learn the truth about his cult, which is behind the door the quiz unlocks.
  • In the sixth chapter, Garcian must answer a series of questions asked inside a computer to log in as Emir Parkreiner so he can open the gym to meet the Minister of Education.
• In Silent Hill 2 there is a quiz which is totally winnable, if one read all the documents throughout the game and played Silent Hill in the same way.

Visual Novels

• Hotel Dusk: Room 215 has each chapter ends with a multiple choice test of the events in that chapter.
• Several in Melody, usually with the protagonist and title character playing sexy games with each other, or with the protagonist giving Melody a music quiz.
• Tsukihime: Kagetsu Tohya springs one of these on you if you enter a certain room at a certain time. Given the extreme non-linearity of the game, it's highly unlikely that you will have found the answers to all of the questions the first time you find it. Worse, there are actually 3 different sets of questions, which are chosen at random each time you visit. If you win, you get an important item. If you lose, it's Needle Time.

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