How to play Football Krillion
The short version: name a player who fits that nobody else would think of, before the clock hits zero.
The rules
- Each game has 7 questions, like “Name a quarterback who's played for the Chicago Bears.”
- You get 25 seconds a question. On the first one the clock starts when you start typing; after that, when you press Next shot (or Next play in the NFL).
- Name any player who fits and press Shoot (Snap it in the NFL), or Enter. Pick a name from the list as you type, or type it out. A wrong name costs nothing but time — keep going until one counts or the clock runs out.
- Your first name that counts is your answer. How many points it scores depends on how rare it is.
- You can Pass a question; it scores 0, like running out of time.
Points
Line up every right answer to a question from most named to least. The obvious names that make up the first quarter of everything players say score 10. The further down the line your player is, the more he's worth, up to 100 for the names in the last 12% — the ones hardly anyone says.
| Tier | Where he is in the line | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Obvious / Chalk | top 25% of answers | 10 |
| Known | next 25% of answers | 25 |
| Sharp | next 20% of answers | 50 |
| Rare | next 18% of answers | 75 |
| Deep Cut | last 12% of answers | 100 |
| Miss | passed or time's up | 0 |
On soccer questions the first tier is called Obvious; on NFL questions it's Chalk. A perfect game is 700. If you're the very first player ever to name a rare answer, you also get a First find badge.
Projected, then real
Before a question has many answers, we project the line-up with a model fitted on what players actually say across all questions: famous players, long-time starters and the names readers click on a club's Wikipedia page go to the front, one-season backups and forgotten loan signings to the back. A club's best-known names never score above Known or Sharp, however few people happen to say them. After about 300 answers to a question, its own answers take over. The line-up is fixed for each day at 00:00 UTC from the answers given before that day, so the same name scores the same for everyone all day — your friend gets your points if they give your answer. Today's answers count from tomorrow. We never make up answer counts. The details are on the sources page.
When does Football Krillion reset?
All three daily games — Football, the soccer edition and the NFL edition — switch to new questions at 00:00 UTC. That is 7 p.m. Eastern (8 p.m. during daylight saving time), 4 p.m. Pacific, and midnight in London in winter. The countdown on each game shows the time left.
Which answers count
- Any era counts unless the question says otherwise. Relocated franchises include their old names (the Oakland Raiders count for the Raiders).
- Spelling is forgiving: accents, capital letters, “Jr.” and small typos are fine. “Favre”, “brett favre” and “Bret Favre” all work, and so do nicknames like Mike for Michael or Matt for Matthew.
- A surname on its own works when only one player who counts has it, or when one of them is far better known (“Maldini” is Paolo). Otherwise you'll be asked for a first name. A famous first name works the same way (“Zlatan”), and so does a one-name player (“Thiago”, “Pepe”).
- A team name doesn't count — name a player. If you name a real player who doesn't fit, we tell you why (“he never played for Arsenal”).
- For soccer, a player counts for a club if he played for its first team, and for a country if he won a senior cap.
Modes
- Football — seven soccer questions, starting with a big club or country.
- NFL edition — seven NFL questions.
- Soccer edition — seven more soccer questions, a little deeper.
- Unlimited — one extra game a day, seven random questions from everything we have. Past daily games in the archive have no limit.
Sharing
At full time you get a colour grid — one square per question, in the tier colours above (gold for a Deep Cut, dark for a miss) — and a link that replays your seven moments as a highlight reel, without giving away any answers.