I built a retro trivia app that focuses on a different decade every week. The app launched 11 months ago. Tomorrow the 1980s begin. I consider a good quiz to be one that is fun, takes you back, and doesn’t have people complaining that the answers are wrong or fuzzy.
Here is what I came up with for Monday, October 19, 2026. Each bolded question has one correct answer, which I share at the end of this article.
What color were the Smurfs?
Alabaster
Blue
Green and Yellow
Pink
What was the closest city to the Chernobyl disaster that had over one million people in it?
Kiev
Moscow
Odessa
Pripyat
When did Bryan Adams get his first real six-string?
Age 16½
Long, long ago
Summer of ’69
When JFK was taken
Who wrote the best-selling “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” a collection of short essays filled with everyday wisdom?
Barbara Walters
Kurt Vonnegut
Robert Fulghum
Stephen King
Which Enterprise crew member became Data’s lover in the episode “The Naked Now”?
Beverly Crusher
Deanna Troi
Seven of Nine
Tasha Yar
That’s it. Does it feel ’80s to you? That is what I care about most.
Is the quiz too hard? Or too easy?
Is the variety good?
I try to balance my quizzes so they cover many topics. This one goes “pop culture” (smurfs), “news” (Chernobyl), “music” (Bryan Adams), “literature” (best-selling book), and “TV” (Star Trek).
No time is wasted over-explaining stuff. Smurfs are more than just blue, and Bryan Adams literally did not get his first real six-string as an infant… but you get the idea. This is “pub style” trivia, not Jeopardy! or a court of law.
Sometimes my questions cut right to the chase, and sometimes they have some texture. Like the Robert Fulghum question could have been just:
Who wrote “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”?
But I thought it sounded better with some details. So I beefed it up a little.
I like to have a wordy question or two to act as a speed bump. The app is timed, so the faster you answer, the higher your score. Making competitors read a bit makes it more challenging and slows ’em down.
This is necessary because there are some real speed demons that play every single day. I need some speed bumps.
For the Star Trek question I don’t mention the TV show’s name, or even the words “Star Trek.” You either know the answer, or can figure it out, or you can’t. Dems da breaks.
Even though the quiz is an ’80s one, I never mention a specific year in any of the questions. When I began writing quizzes, almost a year ago, I was including years or even specific calendar dates frequently. But as my quiz-writing evolved I decided this detail was often superfluous.
After all, before the quiz kicks off players are told what decade is being featured.
Sometimes an event or cultural phenomenon might technically fall outside of the decade in question, but it still fits. Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) ran from 1987 to 1994. So it was split between decades. But it feels more ’80s to me. Maybe because it launched in the ’80s it feels anchored there? I go with my gut.
Feeling is a big part of this.
For quiz-writers and quiz-players alike.
Making a person who lived it feel the decade, and taking them back, is my goal. I want the app to be nostalgic. Though making someone who was born later think, “Yeah, that is what it must have been like back then,” works, too.
But heaven help any young whipper-snappers playing my app. It specifically targets Gen-X, and I make no apologies for that. Many questions will be freebies for players of my own vintage and head-scratchers to the younger folk.
For example: the Bryan Adams question. Most of us that lived it will be singing “Summer of ‘69” in our heads when we read that question. Easy-peasy. But someone born later won’t have a clue about it, or what a Five and Dime is, or what was so special about 1969, anyway?
Tomorrow I will see how this quiz plays out. The app let’s users give “Likes” on the Answer screen. Also, many of my friends play the game daily, too, so when I write a banger, I will get a couple of texts saying “nice quiz.” My wife tells me what she thinks, too. I am usually sitting beside her when she does her “Daily 5.“ Afterward we play Wordle together, then a couple other apps. It’s our routine.
Here is to the 1980s! 🍻
If you lived them you know what an interesting time they were. If you want to revisit them, or just like trivia, the app is in my Reddit profile. (No know no links are allowed in this community.)
As me any questions about the app or quiz-writing. I love chatting about it. ✌️
Answers: (1) Blue; (2) Kiev; (3) Summer of ’69; (4) Robert Fulghum; (5) Tasha Yar
