How to play Late Night Trivia

How a round works

Every round is one thing to name: a film, a song, a place. Clue one is free. If you don't know it yet, open the next clue. Each clue you open lowers what the round pays.

• Solve on the first clue and the round pays 500.
• Second clue, 300. Third, 200. Take all four and it still pays 100.
• A wrong guess doesn't end the round. It just opens the next clue.
• Close spellings count. Capital letters, punctuation and a leading "the" don't matter, and a small typo on a long answer is forgiven. Numbers have to match exactly.

What a round looks like

Here's a real round from an old broadcast, #001 "First Light," which aired August 18, 2026. It's the Screen channel, and the prompt is "Name the film." The clues get easier as you go, and the pay drops with them.

1. 500

   For one scene the cast knew a creature was coming, but not how much blood would spray, so the shock on their faces is real.

2. 300

   The creature was designed by a Swiss artist, worked up from his own painting Necronom IV.

3. 200

   A commercial space tug answers what seems to be a distress call, and its crew of seven regret it.

4. 100

   Its tagline promised that in space, no one can hear you scream.

This one's from the archive, so you can still play the whole broadcast. We never show tonight's answers or anything from a night that hasn't aired yet.

How a night works

Six channels and a finale

Screen (film and TV), Sound (music), Play (games and fandom), Arena (sport and venues), World (places and brands) and Archive (history and science). Then the Final Transmission, which is worth double: 1,000 points on the first clue.

Three kinds of round

Most rounds are a clue ladder like the one above. Some are a wall of sixteen tiles you sort into four groups of four, and some are a map where you pick the right part of the world. A wrong pick points you in the right direction. They all score the same way: every clue opened or mistake made costs one rung.

Combos and hearts

Solve rounds back to back and you build a combo, up to x1.5. You get three hearts. Losing a round costs one and breaks your combo, but the night never ends early, so you always reach the finale.

No clock

There's no timer and no speed bonus. Score comes from what you know, not how fast you type.

New every night

• A new broadcast arrives at midnight in your own time zone. A countdown on the home screen shows when the next one lands.
• Everyone who plays on the same day gets the same broadcast.
• You can't play ahead. Future nights don't open until their day comes.
• Past broadcasts go on the archive shelf, so you can catch up on nights you missed.
• On a night with no new broadcast, the station plays a Night Mix: rounds reshuffled from nights that have already aired, never from one still to come.
• Finish tonight's broadcast on back-to-back days to build a streak. Archive replays don't change it. Your streak and finished nights live in your own browser, so clearing your site data resets them.

Sharing without spoilers

When you finish, you can send a friend a challenge link. It carries one round (the finale, by default) and how you did, shown as filled and empty squares. It never names the answer. Your friend's copy of the game supplies the clues, so they get to play it fresh.

Controls

It plays on a computer or a phone. On a keyboard, Tab moves between controls, Enter locks an answer in and Esc closes a panel.

Who makes it

Late Night Trivia is made by Really Bad Studio. Every round comes with the source we checked it against. If you like daily puzzles, there are more in The Dailies and the rest of the arcade. We count plays anonymously: here's what we count.