Bezzerwizzer is a trivia

Trivia

The trivia are the three lower Artes Liberales, i.e. grammar, rhetoric and logic. These were the topics of basic education, foundational to the quadrivia of higher education, and hence the material of basic education, of interest only to undergraduates...

 game combining trivia and tactics. The game was invented in 2006 by the Dane Jesper Bülow. The name "Bezzerwizzer" comes from the originally German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 term "Besserwisser", meaning "know-it-all

Know-it-all

A know-it-all or know-all is a person who believes that he/she has an accurate comprehension of a topic and/or situation when in reality, his/her comprehension is inaccurate and limited. This belief may or may not be outwardly expressed. The German word Besserwisser is also used in some languages,...

".

Mattel has released versions for the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the United States

In Denmark there are three different editions of Bezzerwizzer, developed by the Danish company Bezzerwizzer ApS. Until now Bezzerwizzer ApS has sold more than 100,000 Bezzerwizzer games in Denmark. Bezzerwizzer ApS has also launched the game in Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Question types

Bezzerwizzer combines trivia with tactics, and it can be played in teams or individually. The questions are divided into 20 different categories, each built upon different topics (in alphabetical order):
Architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

:Buildings, Architects and Designers.
Art & Stage:Artists, Painters, Sculptors, Theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 and Opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

.
Business World:Companies, Business People, Products

Product (business)

In general, the product is defined as a "thing produced by labor or effort" or the "result of an act or a process", and stems from the verb produce, from the Latin prōdūce ' lead or bring forth'. Since 1575, the word "product" has referred to anything produced...

, Trademarks and Advertisements.
Communities:Legislation

Legislation

Legislation is law which has been promulgated by a legislature or other governing body, or the process of making it...

, Education

Education

Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

, Labour market, Institutions and Associations

Voluntary association

A voluntary association or union is a group of individuals who enter into an agreement as volunteers to form a body to accomplish a purpose.Strictly speaking, in many jurisdictions no formalities are necessary to start an association...

.
Design

Design

Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...

:Fashion

Fashion

Fashion, a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear, or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person...

, Furniture

Furniture

Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...

, Interiors

Interiors

Interiors is a 1978 drama film written and directed by Woody Allen. Featured performers are Kristin Griffith, Mary Beth Hurt, Richard Jordan, Diane Keaton, E. G. Marshall, Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton and Sam Waterston....

, Household design

Interior design

Interior design describes a group of various yet related projects that involve turning an interior space into an effective setting for the range of human activities are to take place there. An interior designer is someone who conducts such projects...

, Logos

Logos

' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...

 and Symbols.
Film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

:Titles, Actors, Directors

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

 and Roles.
Food

Food

Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...

 & Drink

Drink

A drink, or beverage, is a liquid which is specifically prepared for human consumption. In addition to fulfilling a basic human need, beverages form part of the culture of human society.-Water:...

:Gastronomy

Gastronomy

Gastronomy is the art or science of food eating. Also, it can be defined as the study of food and culture, with a particular focus on gourmet cuisine...

, Wine

Wine

Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...

, Beer

Beer

Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...

, International Cuisine

Cuisine

Cuisine is a characteristic style of cooking practices and traditions, often associated with a specific culture. Cuisines are often named after the geographic areas or regions that they originate from...

 and Ingredients.
Geography

Geography

Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...

:Countries, Cities, Oceans and Sea

Sea

A sea generally refers to a large body of salt water, but the term is used in other contexts as well. Most commonly, it means a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, and is commonly used as a synonym for ocean...

s.
History

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

:Historical persons, Places and Events.
Humans:Physiology

Physiology

Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...

, Anatomy

Anatomy

Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...

, Psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

, Medicine

Medicine

Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

 and Lifestyles.
Language

Language

Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

:Foreign languages, Foreign words, Idioms and Sayings

Proverb

A proverb is a simple and concrete saying popularly known and repeated, which expresses a truth, based on common sense or the practical experience of humanity. They are often metaphorical. A proverb that describes a basic rule of conduct may also be known as a maxim...

.
Literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

:Titles, Authors, Philosophers and Literary Characters

Character (arts)

A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...

.
Music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

:Artists, Composers, Titles and Concepts

Music theory

Music theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...

.
Nature

Nature

Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...

:Animal

Animal

Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...

s, Plant

Plant

Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...

s, Nature

Nature

Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...

 and The Environment.
Politics

Politics

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

:Politicians, Parties

Political party

A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

, Organisations and Forms of Government

Government

Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

.
Science

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

:Physics

Physics

Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...

, Chemistry

Chemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

, Mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

 and Astronomy

Astronomy

Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...

.
Sports & Game

Game

A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...

s: Athletes, Sports, Game

Game

A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...

s and Records

World record

A world record is usually the best global performance ever recorded and verified in a specific skill or sport. The book Guinness World Records collates and publishes notable records of all types, from first and best to worst human achievements, to extremes in the natural world and beyond...

.
Technology

Technology

Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...

:Technology, , Computers, Crafts and Tools.
Tradition

Tradition

A tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes , but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings...

 & Beliefs:Religion

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

, Mythology

Mythology

The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...

, Traditions, Customs

Customs

Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting and safeguarding customs duties and for controlling the flow of goods including animals, transports, personal effects and hazardous items in and out of a country...

 and .
TV & Radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

:Programmes, News

News

News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.- Etymology :...

, People and Media Stories.

Setting up

Players are split up into teams, most of the time playing separately. Each team selects a playing piece and takes two Bezzerwizzer tiles (denoted by the letter b) and one Zwap (denoted by the letter z) tile of the same color.

Each team then draws four category tiles (see picture above) at random from the bag, and places them on their tile board in order of preference. Each question has a points value determined by the number of dots above it. For example a team may pick the tiles Music, Film, Food and Politics. If they are confident at getting a question in one subject right they would put it on the fourth square on the board (scoring four points for a correct answer). There is no obvious varying difficulty between questions. Tiles cannot swap positions after being put down.

The team that plays first is chosen randomly by picking one playing piece from the bag - the owner of the playing piece goes first, though going first has no real advantage.

Play

For every point scored a team moves forward one square.

Play goes in a clockwise direction from the team who plays first. The team will be asked their one point question first based on the topic they put on their board. The team answers the question and score the corresponding number of points if they answer correctly, an incorrect answer has no penalty.
During their team's turn a team may use their Zwap tile. This allows this team to swap any two tiles (once those questions haven't been asked in that round). They may swap two tiles between any two teams or swap the two tiles of the same team (including their own) to produce a different order. Teams may play one tile during a round.

After all questions have been asked once - this will be 16 questions if four teams are playing. The round ends. The game continues as normal after four category tiles are picked again.

Endgame

The first team to reach the finish - and therefore get round the board once - can be declared the winner. Provided that another team doesn't also in the same round.

If a defending team is situated on the home stretch (within the last 5 squares of the board), another attacking team may force them to go backwards. This is done by playing a Bezzerwizzer tile, which may choose to move the defending team's piece backwards (the same number of points) instead of moving forwards themselves. Assuming that the attacking team gets the answer correct and the defending team gets the answer wrong.

If two or more teams finish in the same round then sudden death occurs. Each team takes one playing piece out of the bag and gets a single question on that. If that team is wrong they are out. Teams may only remain in sudden death if they get their question right or all teams in sudden death get their question wrong. The last team in, is declared the winner.