"I was born in a log cabin." Half the room says Lincoln before you finish the sentence. The other half waits for the next clue, just to be sure. That split, between calling it early and waiting for certainty, is the whole game.
Clue by Clue is a "Who am I?" game. You get up to five clues about a person, a thing or a place, each one easier than the last. The earlier you name it, the more it's worth, and you only get one guess. It's one of four free bonus modes that came with Trend Trivia® 1.6.0, along with Fact or Fiction, Spell It Out and Ballpark, and it's free for everyone.
How a round works
A round is eight subjects. Each one opens with its prompt in the top left: Who am I? for a person, What am I? for a thing, or Where am I? for a place. In the top right is the worth meter, five gold pips and the number of points the subject is worth right now. It starts at 500.
Clue 1 is on the screen, and so are your four possible answers, lettered A through D in a two by two grid. They're there the whole time. You can guess at any point, or tap Show clue 2 to drop in the next clue. Every extra clue costs 100 points. A pip drains and the value ticks down, so by clue 5 the subject is worth 100. After clue 5 the button reads "That was the last clue," and it's time to pick.
You get one guess per subject. Right is worth whatever the meter says. Wrong is worth zero, even on clue 5.
After you guess, any clues you didn't need drop in as faded cards, so you can see what was coming. Then the result card tells you how it went: "Yes, it's Gravity" with "Called it on clue 3 of 5," or, if you missed, what it actually was next to what you picked.
How scoring works
It's simple. Guess right on clue 1 for 500 points, clue 2 for 400, clue 3 for 300, clue 4 for 200, or clue 5 for 100. A wrong guess scores nothing. A perfect round, all eight on the first clue, would be 4,000, and good luck with that.
XP is based on how many of the eight you got right, with a big bonus for getting all eight, and your daily streak multiplier applies on top. A round also counts toward your daily streak.
How the clues are written
Knowing how a subject is put together makes you a better player, so here's how we write them.
- Hardest to easiest. Clue 1 is the most obscure fact about the subject and clue 5 is close to a giveaway.
- Clue 1 shouldn't give it away on its own. Every first clue is checked with one question: could a well-read player name the answer from this clue alone? If the answer is "most of the time," the clue gets rewritten. So when clue 1 does ring a bell, that's you being good, not the game being easy.
- One fact per clue. Each clue tells you one thing, so you're never unpacking a paragraph.
- The answer's name never appears in a clue. Not even a piece of it.
- The wrong answers are the same kind of thing. If the answer is a force, the other three options are forces too. In the screenshot above it's Gravity against Magnetism, Friction and Inertia. The wrong answers are picked to fit the early clues, so they won't fall away on their own.
When to call it
This is where the real strategy lives. Every clue you wait costs 100 points, and a wrong guess costs everything. So the question on every subject is simple: are you sure enough to go now?
A little math helps. Say you're on clue 2, the subject is worth 400, and you're fairly sure you know it, maybe three chances in four. On average, guessing now earns you 300. If you're confident clue 3 would make you certain, waiting also earns 300. It's a wash. Any more sure than that, go now. Any less, take the clue.
The same math says a straight coin flip on clue 1 (you've narrowed it to two) averages 250. If one more clue would settle it, waiting gets you a sure 400. Early on, a coin flip is almost never worth it. Save the gambles for when you've run out of clues.
A few other habits that help:
- Read the options before the clue. Clue 1 on its own is hard. Clue 1 plus four named choices is a very different puzzle. Often it's enough to rule out two.
- Mind the prompt. "Where am I?" means a place. "Who am I?" means a person. It narrows things down more than you'd think.
- Watch for clues that fit only one option. You don't need to know the answer. You need to know that three of the four options couldn't have done it.
- Don't punish yourself on clue 5. A sure 100 beats a hopeful 0. If you've waited this long, you might as well be right.
The results screen
At the end you get your total and a row of eight tiles, one per subject, each showing the clue you called it on or an X for a miss. Then three stats: Correct, Avg clue (the average clue number on the ones you got right, lower is better), and Clue 1 calls. A stamp counts your early calls, meaning anything you named on clue 1 or 2. Below that, every subject is listed with its answer, how you called it and your points.
The Sherlock badge
Name 10 subjects on the very first clue and you earn Sherlock, worth 500 XP. It counts across all your rounds, and it's one of 60 badges in the app. Elementary.
Will you see repeats?
Not for a long time. Every answer in the pool is different, and the game tracks what you've played. Subjects you've never seen come first. After those, the ones you missed come back before the ones you got right. There are 620 subjects right now, about 77 rounds, with more to come.
If you quit partway through, the round isn't scored, but the subjects you already played count as seen.
Where to find it
Update to version 1.6.0 on iPhone or Android and tap the Clue by Clue tile in the grid under Solo Play. The intro screen explains the rules once. After your first round, Play Again takes you straight to the next subject.
Play Clue by Clue
Free for everyone on iOS and Android. Update to Trend Trivia 1.6.0 and find it under Solo Play.
The other three free modes
- Fact or Fiction: read the statement and decide if it's real or made up.
- Spell It Out: guess the answer one letter at a time, with six bulbs to spare.
- Ballpark: slide a ruler to your best guess at a number. Close counts.