Games like Krillion.io: rare answer games to play with friends

What Krillion.io is like

Each day Krillion gives everyone the same set of open prompts, like a category to name something from. You type one answer per prompt, and every accepted answer has a rarity: common answers score a little, rare ones score a lot. Your total becomes how deep you dive. It is free, it runs in the browser, and you do not need an account.

Its rarity comes from answer lists the makers build from reference sources, rather than from what other players type. It is mostly a solo game you play once a day and compare afterwards, with a social mode called Puffer Party. The makers say an app and more multiplayer are planned.

So the games below fall into two groups: ones that scratch the same rare answer itch, and ones that let you play it live, together, right now.

Nichenaut: the rare answer idea, with friends

Nichenaut is a free browser game built on the rare answer idea, made for playing together. One person hosts a mission, friends join on their own phones with a four letter room code, and everyone answers the same prompt at the same time. Every right answer scores, and the rarer it is, the further your astronaut flies off Earth. Then the reveal shows who said what, which is where the shouting starts.

Answers land in tiers, from Liftoff (the answer everyone reached for) up to Supernova (the one nobody saw coming). There are over 2,000 prompts, each with a long list of accepted answers, and the tiers are tuned from what players actually type.

• Name a country in Africa
• Name a Beatles song
• Name a bone in the human body
• Name a Disney character
• Name a word that rhymes with station
• Name a board game
• Name a famous painting or artwork (by its title)
• Name a Fortnite weapon or item

Ways to play with other people:

• Hosted rooms: friends in one room or on a call, up to 25 players.
• Big screen mode: the game on a TV, everyone answering on their phones, like a game show.
• Custom missions: every player writes a prompt and the room rates the answers.
• Open Orbit: a public round that is always running, up to 50 players, for when your friends are offline.
• On iPhone: the free app adds ranked 1v1 with arenas and monthly seasons, duels you play in your own time, and pass-the-phone for one phone round a table.

Start a room and send the code

Make the game and your astronaut yours

The host sets up each mission: the topics, how many prompts, how long everyone gets, whether to add their own prompts, and whether the room can vote a disputed answer in. A quick seven prompt round and a long themed night feel like different games.

Every player also has an astronaut that is theirs to style: characters, helmets, visors, trails, landings, dances, banners and name tags. They are bought with coins you earn by playing, and coins can't be bought with money. Everything is cosmetic, so it never changes how well you score.

Reasons to come back

• Today's Mission: the same seven prompts for everyone each day, to compare with friends.
• Solo modes: themed missions of seven prompts from one topic, and an endless mode that runs until your oxygen does.
• XP and ranks: every game moves you up.
• Streaks: play once a day to keep yours going, with freezes for a missed day.
• Crews: groups of up to 24 who fly a weekly expedition together and race other crews.
• Seasons: each season has a pass with a free track of rewards for playing.

How it compares with Krillion:

If you love Krillion's daily dive, keep playing it. Nichenaut is for the moments you want that feeling with other people, and a game with more to it once the day's prompts are done.

Pointless

The BBC quiz show is where the rare answer idea became famous: 100 people are surveyed, and the right answer the fewest of them gave wins. You can play a Pointless round at home with a pen and paper (we wrote up how in our guide to games like Pointless), and it makes a good warm up before a Nichenaut mission.

Scattergories and Stopots

In Scattergories everyone fills in a list of categories with words that start with one letter, and any answer that matches someone else's is crossed out. It is the board game version of thinking past the obvious. Stopots is a free online take on the same idea, with players voting on which answers count.

The letter rule makes it more of a word game than a knowledge game. Our guide to playing Scattergories online has the rules and the best ways to do it on a call.

Daily puzzles to pair with it

Part of Krillion's pull is the daily habit: one set, once a day, then compare in the group chat. A few other free daily games scratch that:

• Today's Mission in Nichenaut: the same seven prompts for everyone, new every day.
• Connections from the New York Times: sort sixteen words into four hidden groups.
• Sporcle list quizzes: not daily as such, but “name all the” quizzes are the best practice there is for rare answer games.