The 114th Semi-Annual Williams Trivia Contest

May 10–11, 2024, brought to you by:

GREMLINS

Rules of the Contest

Here are the official rules for the May 2024 Williams Trivia Contest. See the Introduction Page for instructions on registering and getting started, and a more general overview.

General

Winning

How to Join

See the Introduction Page for instructions on how to join the contest and get set up to play.

On-Air Questions

The heart of the contest is a set of questions asked throughout the night over the audio stream.

Boni

In Williams Trivia, the plural of “bonus” is “boni.” It just is. In general, boni are question sets about a specific field or category of trivia. Boni become available to teams at regular points throughout the night. For all boni except the dreaded Ultra Bonus, teams choose whether or not to use the internet and indicate their decisions on their answer sheets. Using the internet incurs a harsh point penalty. Other resources, like books, friends, or professors, remain available to teams completing boni without the internet. Even if you use the internet, web searches should be text only; image and audio searches like Google Image search or Shazam are not allowed. Teams do not submit their completed boni to their chat room hosts; instead, they post their answers to the trivia website. There will be three types of boni in this contest:

Hour Boni

At the beginning of every hour, a link to an Hour Bonus will appear on the website; the contest features eight Hour Boni in total. Teams have until the end of the hour to submit their answers using the answer sheet linked on the web page. Hour Boni are worth up to 15 points if you don't use the internet, and up to five points if you do. Trivia graders will deduct points for late submissions, usually one percentage point per minute late.

Super Boni

At 10:00 and 2:00, we will release a “Super Bonus” on the trivia website, which is bigger and badder than a mere Hour Bonus, but maintains the same general form and structure, with the same rules for late submissions. Teams have four hours to complete each Super Bonus. They are worth up to 30 points if you don't use the internet, and up to 10 points if you do.

Ultra Bonus

The dreaded Ultra Bonus! The goal of the Ultra Bonus is to find the connection between a seemingly disparate set of clues. Starting at 10pm, new Ultra Bonus clues release at hourly intervals throughout the night, resulting in eight clues in total. Teams can submit an infinite number of Ultra Bonus guesses, and can use the internet at will with no point penalty (reverse image search is still forbidden, though). The value of the Ultra depends on how early in the night you decipher it, with points awarded following the table below:

Hour 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Score 29 22 16 11 7 4 2 1

Action Trivia

Finally, starting at 10:30pm, we will release “Action Trivia” throughout the night at hourly intervals. Action Trivia require creativity and goofiness, and tend to be action-oriented: “do X,” “invent Y,” “act out Z,” etc. Most frequently, teams act out and film videos for Action Trivia categories, though text files, drawings, or other forms of media may be acceptable submissions depending on the task. Teams have an hour and a half for each Action Trivia, and they are worth up to six points each. Some of the points will be for accurate execution and good trivia, and some for style and whether you make us laugh.

And of course…

Have fun!