Last Week in Friendlies #7
A summary of quizzes published as friendlies in the last couple of days.
In the last 7 days, we’ve seen 14 new question sets be released on the B612 forums, written by 10 authors (or 11, depending on whether ChatGPT is a person). It’s actually a little more than that, but we’ll cover the omissions (i.e. Conundrums) in a separate post.
Here’s today’s menu:
Architecture Hemimir by Zubaer
Swipe Left by Suresh Vishnu and ChatGPT
Mallu Movie Hemimir by Vikas Plakkot and Sandeep Hari
Mystery Fiction Mimir by Shom Biswas
21st Century Bollywood by Sourjo Sengupta
Hip Hop Hemi #1 by Nayan Dhar and Zubaer
Lit Set #25, Music #3, TV Shows #2 by Vivek Tejuja
Sholay Hemimir by Rahul Jayanti
SON #1-#3 by Vikas Plakkot
Shreemir #20 by Shree Patwardhan
All these sets are available on the League Home Page under Public Question Sets. You can also make your own copy of the Friendly Checklist and start marking each set as done when you’ve played it.
Season 6 of the B612 Quiz League doesn't have a fixed start date yet. It's likely to be sometime in June 2023, and you can use this form to express an interest in signing up. Don't make any payments just yet, we'll figure that out later.
1. Architecture Hemimir by Zubaer
Zubaer continues to produce sets around themes that typically go unexplored in most quizzes, and his latest work is a 4*4*2 set on Architecture.
I’ve played the set myself and I can confirm that while it does seem to ask for a lot of person names as answers, you’re still likely to end the quiz surprised at how much you seem to know about architecture, without necessarily labelling it that. Maybe it would be less intimidating if the set was called “famous buildings quiz”, but Zubaer is not one for handholding.
The set reminded me of a 15-question set I had written on Architecture way back in 2015. The questions are long-form, intended to be read together on a Whatsapp group, with answers being submitted together for all. Some of them have probably aged badly, but you’re still welcome to try them out and tell me what you think!
2. Swipe Right: Tinder Bios by Suresh Vishnu and ChatGPT
Conceptually, probably one of the coolest ideas for a quiz we’ve seen in a long time. In practice, a bit of a meh quiz IMO. But it’s a breezy 4*4*2 Hemimir, which means you should try it out anyway just to see how the Artificial Intelligence that is out to take your job fares at writing quiz questions.
For this set, Vishnu got ChatGPT to write mock Tinder bios for 32 individuals, both real and fictional. Blank out some proper nouns and we’ve got the fastest Mimir format quiz ever written!
Having played this set, I can tell you that while a handful of the questions don’t really work (either too few or too many hints), the majority do. The result is a fairly easy quiz with a great premise, which makes it perfect for newbies. If you’re trying to convert a non-quizzing friend, this might be an excellent first quiz. Barring maybe one or two questions that are certainly going to go unanswered.
3. Mallu Movie Hemimir by Vikas Plakkot and Sandeep Hari
I told you last week that Utkarsh’s UP set had inspired work on several other state sets. Here’s our first one.
Vikas:
Out of our love for Malayalam movies (and as Malayalis of course), Sandeep Hari and I have put together a "Mallu Movie Inspired" set that has questions on all things global and local, requiring close to NO knowledge of a single movie. Knowing does help though.
That blurb is accurate, I scored 6 points in this 4*4*2 set, and half of all my directs, and I couldn’t name a single Mallu movie for you if you asked. Wait, is Jallikattu a Malayalam movie? Okay, then one.
Sometimes you can just tell when a question set has been made with a lot of love, and this one’s right up there. Be sure to play all the answer videos for maximum enjoyment.
4. Mystery Fiction Mimir by Shom Biswas
There are two ways a themed set can go.
Either make a question set that exists within the theme, but does not require familiarity with it. Sets like this are awesome cos they act as gateways and make a topic accessible to new fans. The Drive to Survive of quizzes.
The other way is to make a set that presumes a healthy amount of familiarity with the theme and builds on it. Sets like this are awesome too, since they test for things that fans of the theme will rarely get tested on in other quizzes, and so will be loved by the fans themselves. The r/F1Technical of quizzes.
Most sets probably exist in the spectrum between these two, but authors do end up picking between the two philosophies, either consciously or unconsciously. Whom are you making the quiz for? A fan or a newbie?
Shom’s Mystery Fiction 5*4*3 set is probably in the latter category. You’d read to have read a fair bit to score well in it, but like Vivek Tejuja’s Lit Sets, a lot of the fun of a new quiz is in the answers you don’t know and the books you’ve never heard of, but which sound interesting. I’ve read this quiz for a couple of groups now and each time the proceedings have been paused at some point or the other, just so someone in the group can give an impassioned recommendation for one of the books mentioned. My Goodreads Want-to-Read shelf always benefits (the Read shelf rarely does).
Also, the man really loves his Sherlock stories. Expect Holmes to be a recurring theme all through that quiz.
5. 21st Century Bollywood by Sourjo
In his own words:
I've written a mimir on '21st Century Bollywood', and a lowkey revenge against the many 90s fetishists (here's looking at @Dhruv Mookerji, @Vivek Tejuja and the rest) who infest the circuit.
It's a shortform mimir; all questions are a sentence long, and each answer is the name of a movie. No quads. Format: 8x4x2
I have considered the year '2000' a part of the 21st century, although it technically isn't.This is not a general set and privileges those who have watched the films, but there are plenty of clues scattered throughout so feel free to take a shot if you will.
Rather than bore you with a wordy review of the quiz, let me share my own reaction immediately after playing the set.
Please play this.
6. Hip Hop Hemi #1 by Zubaer and Nayan Dhar
In their own words:
From its obscure beginnings, hip hop has swept the world. The two QMs are both long-time fans and this set reflects our diverse interests in the genre. Since we also want you to play it and enjoy it - we have kept the set as accessible as possible for a general audience. Hope you give it a try!
A collab set from the finest. Nayan Dhar (author of the NBA Hemimir) teams up with Zubaer (author of a lot) to produce a question set straight from my dreams. A hiphop hemi!
What’s even more exciting is that this might not be their last collaboration…
7. Lit Set #25, Music #3, TV Shows #2 by Vivek Tejuja
In addition to releasing the latest instalment of his epic Lit Set series of quizzes, Vivek found time to release a couple of hemimirs too. Specifically, he’s gone back to his one-off creations and started to convert each of them into a series!
If you have a chance, I’d recommend playing some of these sets with Vivek himself reading. The quiz is always an extension of the author, but Vivek in particular makes his sets with the express objective of getting people to the answer. If he notices you struggling, he will pile on the hints till the answer is all but spelt out. This can be an odd experience for more serious quizzers (I had a hard time with it myself when I was playing Hollywood #2 and was on track for a rare 20), but it’s a great reminder that there are many reasons why we quiz, and some of them require us to modify the questions for each group we read for.
8. Sholay by Rahul Jayanti
I love sets that are themed around very specific subjects. A single author, just one tournament, or even one country. Sometimes these sets are accessible for newbies, and sometimes they aren't, but constrained sets will always leave you feeling like you've been given a tour of a new world.
In the spirit of tightly constrained sets, Rahul Jayanti has written his very first 4*4*2 hemimir. It’s 32 questions on and around the 1975 Bollywood superhit Sholay, belying a deep love for the movie and the stories around it.
Like Shom’s set, this one definitely favours Bollywood fans, but at least two people I know attempted the quiz after cursory readings of the movie’s IMDB and Wikipedia pages, so maybe there’s hope!
9. SON #1-#3 by Vikas Plakkot
A long, long time ago, before B612 came into being and the community absolutely flooded the internet with friendlies, Vikas Plakkot was quietly running his own mini-leagues for groups of his friends. He wrote several complete sets then, and very few of us ever got to see them. Recognizing now that the hungry hordes would kill for a chance to play them, he’s rereleasing his old sets, now titled SON #1-6. The ON stands for Old/New, meaning it’s an older set that’s new to most of the people attempting it. I have no idea what S stands for, I just like referring to these sets as Vikas’s SONs.
3 of the sets have been released. They were 8*4*2 back when they were first played, but he’s wisely converted them to 5*4*3 now (as should you all). The sets are also slightly easier than the league sets you might be used to in recent months, cos these things tend to escalate, which means if you’re new to all this Mimir business then these are some great starting sets. Have fun!
10. Shreemir #20 by Shree Patwardhan
The OG Mimir Author Shree Patwardhan is back with Set #20. If you want to get a good sense of the escalation 2 years of Mimir quizzing can cause, compare Vikas’s SONs to Shreemir #20. This is a challenging set but with a ton of new finds and great reading material.
It’s 8*4*2 though, sigh, whattodo.
I just finished playing a few minutes before writing this, and it’s kind of amazing how upbeat you can feel after a very intense full set.
Other posts about Friendlies can be found here.
If you’ve written a quiz set that you’d like to share with the B612 community, get in touch!