Welcome to GeoParty! This is a fun and media rich application for testing your trivia knowledge. Not only can you use pre-built question & answer files, as well as retrieve questions & answers from an online repository, you can also create your own question & answer files to use with family, friends, and students. GeoParty! is a great party game but could also be used by teachers to help motivate students by presenting questions & answers in a fun and exciting format.

If you have created a game file that you would like to share with others, please and we will make it available for download here. The more game files we can accumulate, the better the entire game will be. Non-US English games are also encouraged. (GeoParty! is currently being translated into several non-English languages. If you would like to help with this effort, again, please .)

To begin, you must load GeoParty! with questions and answers. You can use a local text file or you can use questions & answers provided online through Millionaire Quiz by Konrad Wulf. Make your selection to use either a local file or the online source and then click the “Load Questions & Answers” button. Once loaded, the button title will change to “Play the Game!” Click this button again to start the game. If you use a local question & answer file, you must ensure that it conforms to the required format (please see below for creating your own question & answer files).

GeoParty! may seem very familiar if you are an aficionado of quiz games. There are three Rounds: Rounds 1 & 2 feature 30 questions each divided into six categories and the Final Round consists of a single question. In Rounds 1 & 2, the difficulty of the questions increases with the point value for the question (from 200 to 1000 in Round 1; 400 to 2000 in Round 2). The Final Round question doesn’t have a point value and each player (assuming they have a positive score) can wager up to the entire amount of their score on the question. During Rounds 1 & 2 there are bonus questions called GeoPortunity Questions! that allow you to determine how much the question is worth by how much you wager before you see the question.

On these questions, you may wager from 0 to the greater of your current score or the maximum value of a question in the current Round (1000 for Round 1; 2000 for Round 2). Unlike other questions, you must answer the question when you see it and if you don’t know the answer or guess incorrectly, you will lose your points. Be careful, GeoPortunity Questions can be a bonus for you or your opponents! There is one GeoPortunity Question in Round 1 and two in Round 2.

To choose a question, simply click on an available score value on the game board. Once the question appears, you must wait until the question is read aloud by the computer (if Text-To-Speech Voice is enabled) or 2 seconds if it is not. You will know when you are able to ring in because the timer button will appear counting down the seconds left for the question. Once the timer appears, each player can use the keyboard to ring in (choose your keys in the Key field in the main window). The first person to ring in will be identified by the host and the answer buttons will become active. If you guess correctly, the value of the question will be added to your score and the game will move on to the next question. If you answer incorrectly (or fail to answer in the time provided — watch the timer!), the value of the question will be deducted from your total and the other players will have the option to ring in. You are only allowed to ring in once per question. When a new question appears, you will be able to ring in again.

The last person to provide a correct answer is allowed to make the next question selection from the game board. In Round 2, the player with the lowest score will be the one to select first. Selection is important because you could get a GeoPortunity Question and only the person making the selection will be allowed to answer that question. If a question appears that no one can answer, you may click the timer button itself to skip the question and move on immediately without waiting for the timer to expire.

Once Rounds 1 & 2 have been completed, if a player has a positive score, the contestant will be allowed to wager up to their score amount on the Final Round question. You will have a chance to see the category of the question before wagering but not the question itself. Once all the eligible players have entered their wagers (you may want to require other players to turn their backs while wagering so the final outcome is truly a surprise), each eligible player will be allowed to make their guess as to the correct answer by clicking on the appropriate button in the answer drawer. You will not immediately know if you are correct or not like in Rounds 1 & 2 but once every eligible player has submitted their answer, the game will reveal the correct answer, adjust the scores accordingly, and declare a winner. The game will remember the top 10 high scores (viewable from the “High Scores” menu item in the Game menu).

Once a game is complete, you can start a new game by selecting “New Game” from the Game menu. Well, actually, you can start a new game at any point but if you do it before your current game has completed, no scores will be added to the high scores list.

The question & answer files are basic tab separated value (tsv) text files. The best way to create and edit GeoParty! game files is to use the GeoParty! Game Editor application that can be found on the GeoParty! disk image in the folder “Game Files”. Using this application you can easily enter the questions & answers for every question in each round. It also gives you a simple way of denoting the correct answers. Use of this application should be fairly self-explanatory and it is strongly suggested that you use this application to create or modify your game files.

For most people, that’s all you need to know about the question & answer files. If, however, you are either a highly curious person who has to know everything or simply a glutton for punishment, read further for more details on the format used by GeoParty! for game files. Again, this is only necessary if you choose not to use the Game Editor application.

Each question and the corresponding answers are listed on a single line separated by tabs. Each question should also be prefixed with the category and point value for the question in order and included the correct answer as the last value. So, each question in your file should look something like this (use the actual tab and return keys, not “<tab>” or “<return>”):

Make sure that you use the same category name (exactly!) for each question in that category. The question & answer file’s questions will be used in the order they are found so you should have six categories of five questions each for Round 1, another six categories of five questions each for Round 2, and one question for the Final Round (the GeoPortunity questions will be randomly selected from your questions — one in Round 1; two in Round 2).

There should be no extra hard returns and you have to ensure that the correct answer matches one of the possible answers exactly (extra spaces or misspellings will cause the application to not recognize a correct answer). Also make sure that the file is saved as plain text, not RTF or some other document type. For more help with the file format, please see the included question & answer sample files in the “Game Files” folder of the GeoParty! disk image (e.g., “game_01.txt”).

Making an application like this takes time and effort (not to mention licensing fees for music...). If you enjoy it or find it useful, please consider making a contribution. Your monetary contribution will allow further development of the game and make you feel good about yourself. To contribute, select the “About GeoParty!” menu item from the application menu and then click the appropriate button. Once you contribute, you will receive instructions to disable the reminder and the sponsor intermission between Rounds 1 & 2 will be disabled.

If you are interested in having GeoParty! private-labeled with an advertisement for your company, product, or service in the intermission, please for more information.