About that Timur Friendly: A Quiz Analysis without Numbers
What worked, what didn't, and what we probably won't do again.
Sigh. It is good to be back.
One of the great things about making quads (question sets) regularly is that you have an outlet for all the fascinating stuff you come across. These days when I read or hear or watch something interesting online, my first reaction is "hmm, wonder if I can get 3 more of these" cos then I'll have a quad.
The ‘Timur’ friendly question set, released last week, was an attempt to do just that, to get a bunch of quad ideas out of our system. We ended up delaying it so much that we probably could've saved it for Game Week 1 of the league (starting on Wednesday, have you signed up?), but I'm still glad it happened.
In the intro post for Timur, I made it sound as if we made fewer quads because we knew the set was media-heavy, but that's nonsense. In reality, I always wanted to make a shorter set, something that felt light and breezy and quick. A Mimir T20, so to speak. But then we went so overboard with the media that we ended up on an hour-long quiz anyway. Oh well.
We didn't end up getting enough scorecards to actually do an analysis, so don't expect any numbers in this post. I'll try to share my own impressions of which questions worked and which didn't. I also want to share the order in which these quads were written, because some of them led to others, which I thought was cool.
Here we go.
1. Sample Breakdowns
Concept: Play a sample, show how it's morphed and edited, and then ask the quizzer for the final song.
I came across the Tracklib youtube channel a few weeks ago and knew instantly that it would make for a good quad. In many ways, it is a 'cheat' quad, since I'm putting in precisely zero effort into "writing" the questions. It's all about just finding 4 tracks that have recognizable samples and editing the videos accordingly.
It works well because the music in the video clip builds up to the song reveal, and that's where the cut happens, and the quizzer is expected to bring closure by providing an answer. There's a natural tension that an incomplete song creates which no text-based question is ever going to beat.
The videos on Tracklib's channel are all great, but most of the song choices aren't all that well-known outside the world of rap fans, and I didn't want this to be an inaccessible quad. You can combat this by including the songs anyway and asking quizzers to guess only artists, not songs, but that felt like a cop-out.
I think the four final choices were about as good as they could've been.
Toxic is as pop as it gets, and the Lata Mangeshkar sampling thing comes up regularly in other quizzes (albeit rarely demonstrated this clearly).
One More Time is probably the biggest Daft Punk song ever, although I'll admit that a lot of people who've heard it might still have trouble remembering the name.
Where Are Ü Now has the same problem, but it was included anyway because it was probably the coolest sampling video of the lot. I was shocked to learn that the main hook of the song is just a sped-up version of Justin Bieber's voice, and I’m hoping some of you were too.
Mathematics is pretty hard but works okay as an L4. Especially cos even if you don't know it, it's an astonishing song to learn about. Mos Def is a lyrical genius and more people should know. I met 2 Mos Def fans as a result of asking this question!
That last track ended up giving me more than one question. Youtube picked up on my playing it constantly and recommended me this AI-generated music video from Ben Gillin.
And what do Mimir setters say to cool stuff on the internet?
"Can I get 4 of these?"
2. Ben Gillen's AI-generated music videos
Concept: Play a video, then ask the quizzer to guess which artist is being imitated.
There's something hilarious about making a typical art quad using videos based on rap songs. I hear so much discussion about "high brow vs low brow" topics in quiz groups, so it's just funny that a bunch of art fans had to stare at lyrics by MF Doom and try to figure out who the hidden artist is.
When I first started listing the questions for this quad, I was disappointed to find that there were only 3 of them, i.e. Ben Gillen had uploaded videos in the style of Dali, Basquiat, and Escher, but that's it. An incomplete quad. But our procrastination with the friendly finally worked in our favour and the Grant Wood video was uploaded on September 16th, thus completing the set. Phew.
Grant Wood-inspired work set to Amish Paradise felt like a gift from the universe, considering we'd just made a question on Amish Paradise in the last few weeks of Season 3. Cool little call-back. The video is largely scenes of rural America, making the creator of American Gothic a solid guess.
Dali-inspired work set to MF Doom is a great example of why readers should keep their video off during quizzes. You couldn't tell, but I was bouncing every time this song played during the quiz, and I was very pleased to see some others were too.
Basquiat set to Alphabet Aerobics is a nice TIL for quite a lot of people, but several people guessed Banksy, which is hard luck considering Banksy does have famous Basquiat-inspired work that they were probably thinking of. Btw have you watched this video of Daniel Radcliffe performing Alphabet Aerobics in its entirety?
Escher was probably the most guessable of the lot, although I agree he's not the first person you think of when asked for painters.
3. Unorthodox Federer Shots
Concept: Make people watch Federer shots, questions are irrelevant.
I HAVE WANTED TO MAKE A FEDERER QUAD FOR SO LONG OMG
The man retired and I re-attained peak fandom by just watching endless Federer compilation videos on a loop. Needed an outlet, and this friendly was it.
FLQL did a Federer tribute quad the week immediately after the retirement was announced, which was a good job in terms of timing, but I thought the questions were…okay. That's probably unfair, considering I don't even remember the questions, but I do remember that all the answers were just names. If a sports quad keeps asking for player names over and over again, it's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's certainly a lazy way to do it. A better, more accessible quad would ask for other stuff, and I think shot names are a good choice (yes of course this is a biased opinion).
I'm very happy with how this quad turned out, not least because as I was compiling videos to go with each shot, I realized I had the unique opportunity of making Djokovic the loser in every question of the quad. If you're a Djokovic fan this may seem petty to you, and it is, but hey you'll always have 2019, let me have this.
Slice is a very lame question, but makes for an okay L1 I guess.
Tweener is the one you can probably see coming from a mile away, considering how famous that 2009 US Open semifinal shot is.
Skyhook is a little shady, considering that many commentators have alternate names for it, but the Jimmy Connors and Kareem hints add legitimacy.
SABR is also quite predictable, and probably a slightly boring video to watch, but unavoidable considering the quad.
Most videos were easy to find, except for that Skyhook. I eventually found one from the 2014 IPTL match in New Delhi, a match that I GOT TO SEE LIVE.
4. For 1 point, Perform a Hand Gesture
Concept: A non-verbal quad
This quad changed a lot before it was finally included in the set. The original idea was "types of handshakes", then turned into "gang signals", then turned into simply "hand gestures" when I realized we could make people do silly stuff on camera.
Here's the result.
Che Vuoi is a very nice question to start the quad with since it's quite guessable and makes everyone smile as they do it. Love that there's an emoji to help the reader too.
Merkel-Raute is still workable and "significant" enough for inclusion.
The Signal for Help was intended to be a TIL, i.e. even if people didn't know the answer, they'd probably appreciate learning about it in a quiz as a sort of PSA. I was told while reading that the signal has actually had a good amount of coverage in TikTok and Instagram reels, which is nice to hear.
The akanbe is obscure AF, but here's Subrat doing it perfectly.
5. T-O Maps
Concept: Simple deep quad on a map nobody’s heard of.
Another quad that changed a fair bit. It started off just being about different types of ancient maps, but reading about T-O maps alone gave me 3 question-worthy facts, and I realized I could save the rest for later (you've been warned).
The name T-O map itself is wonderfully guessable and makes for a great L1.
The water bodies separating continents (Mediterranean, Red, Black) make for an incredibly shady question, but hey it's a friendly, and so many people got it right anyway.
Jerusalem being at the centre of a T-O map feels like it should be easier, but people often went for Constantinople and Rome and Vatican City, meaning this ended up a decent L3.
Antipodes is tough, but still workable, a rare achievement for an L4 question.
This quad was a filler that turned into something quite nice IMO. Fun fact: The single best source I found for this info was this archived page: Modern Medieval Map Myths, which makes you wonder how many other gems are hidden away.
These blogposts often let me pretend as if the entire set was produced by one person, but that is literally never the case (unless your name is Sourjo Sengupta or Dhruv Mookerji). In reality, every set is a combination of a lot of different people working very quickly, usually at the last second. I’ve asked the author of the remaining quads, Vikas Plakkot and Nidheesh Samant, to write their reviews of these topics. Say hi!
6. Stories about Film Locations
Vikas:
I got the idea after my move to London and walking through Peaky Blinder-themed streets and Harry Potter-themed castles. So many locations that are good, but wouldn't be so popular, if not for the films that made them. Also found that Troy funda quite cool, so there's that.
Reminds me that I still want to cycle around in North Italian villages, and fall in love, just thanks to Call Me By Your Name!
7. Blue Literature
Nidheesh:
I ended up making this quad last, something related to Literature without going into much depth, unlike Vivek’s (very enjoyable) sets. I tried bringing in as much variety as I could in this quad and ended up covering a novel series, an autobiography, a short story and a comic book issue.
Lady Sings The Blues: The Jazz artists mentioned in the question were red herrings, and Billie Holiday’s tragic life was enough to get anyone blue.
Blue Bloods: Melissa de la Cruz named her series of novels well. Most people picked up on “vampire sustenance” meaning the title had the word ‘blood’ in it, but many forgot the blue-blood-equals-nobility funda.
The Adventure of The Blue Carbuncle: I love this story. Though it contains typical Sherlock elements of deductions, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle makes a small change to the usual proceedings. Keeping to the holiday spirit of the season, in this story Holmes lets the perpetrator walk away.
Fantastic Four: Back in Blue: I just had to sneak a comic book question into quad for the peace of my soul.
8. Popcorn
Nidheesh:
Sometimes things literally under your nose can inspire a question (or four). I was snacking on popcorn (Act II, none of the high-end stuff) when this quad idea popped into my mind.
Popcorn (at the movies): Watching movies in theatres is just impossible for me without popcorn (which I guess is the same for many of you). The question played a little too easy, but worth it for an L1.
4700 BC: I never thought anyone in their right mind would pay such an obscene amount of money for one tub of popcorn (I clearly hadn’t been to enough PVRs). But this gourmet popcorn did create a nice niche in the Indian market. It’s always fun watching folks trying to perform mental arithmetic during a quiz (the questions said “6722 years ago”, and popular answers included 4500 BC and 4300 BC). Abhishek Hariharan’s groupmates permitted him to use a calculator for this question, and IMO that’s the kind of quiz camaraderie we should all aspire to.
Sarah Todd: I just liked that a MasterChef Australia contestant had an Indian connection that went beyond her restaurants. Yes, I’m a fan!
Lightly Salted/Himalayan Salt Caramel: Most people picked up on the-Alexander’s-army-finding-pink-salt clue. Almost everyone went for the latter guess, and ignored ‘Lightly Salted’.
9. Three Wise Monkeys
Nidheesh:
Fun fact about these good boys: They have a fourth companion. This monkey covers his privates and preaches about “Do No Evil”. There is also apparently a fifth mentioned in some sources who covers his stomach and thinks “Eat no evil”, but the sources aren’t too credible.
Bapu, Ketan and Bandar: This was my personal favourite bit of trivia from this quiz. “Gandhiji ke Bandar” have names! Quizzers had fun guessing them (I enjoyed the hints) but I haven’t found a source telling me why they were named as such. Do share if any of you come across a story on this. Homework.
The Manhattan Project: Iconography received from Japan, used in relation to something that caused such destruction there. Damn.
10. Royalty in Wildlife
Nidheesh:
Personally, I love questions on the Animal Kingdom (enjoyed Sourjo’s set), so I had to put in a quad that celebrates wildlife and its majesty!
Royal Bengal Tiger: Getting a royal title for getting shot! That poor tiger sure took one for the team.
Monarch Butterfly: This question initially had an image, and the Monarch Butterfly is just one of those animals that you can recognize instantly when you see it. But Harman forgot to link the image during the first quiz, and it ended up working out much better as an L3 without it!
Green Imperial Pigeon: Another reason to make that trip to Tripura someday. This was a tough one, made tougher by the fact that the question mentioning “western” nations combined with the image made people guess ‘white’ instead of ‘green’!
That’s all we had. Here’s the schema for doing a 5-round, 2-question Timur-style set, in case you want to try it too.
Thanks for attempting the set, and good luck with the league games starting in 2 days!
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