New Things #4: Interactive Jeopardy

Interactive Jeopardy at Alamo Drafthouse is something I’d definitely recommend for all trivia and Jeopardy fans. That isn’t to say that it is not a little bit weird. Essentially, you’re going into a movie theater to play a game by yourself on your phone.

The way it works is that there’s the Jeopardy board on the big screen (you also see the answers and the leaderboard up there) and a host sitting in front of the screen who reads the questions and answers. Everyone logs into the game on their phone. To start off, the host picks a category/dollar amount. Then everyone can answer or abstain (a few people didn’t realize that you lost points by answering incorrectly) and the person who submits their answer first gets to pick the next question/amount. But control of the board doesn’t really matter since even the Daily Doubles are available for everyone. I never won control of the board but I was able to go for a true Daily Double… and nailed it!

There are no teams for this, everyone plays on their own, and the room is very quiet as the host is the only one talking. Our host asked if we wanted music playing during the game and a couple people forcefully answered No! so that was the end of that idea.

Still, it’s a lot of fun. I had a real rollercoaster of a game. After the first half of Round 1, I was in 6th out of 17. By the end of Round 1, I was in 15th place. But the second round saw me mount a big comeback - helped by the Cinematic Oakland category in which I was able to double up to 20,000 after my true Daily Double. I ended the second round back in the top 10 and then went all in on Final Jeopardy and was able to get it right, vaulting me into third play and winning me a free popcorn! I was entirely too jazzed for someone my age about coming in third and winning something I didn’t really want or need but hey, simple pleasures!

I can’t make it next Wednsday but I’m already signed up for the following Wednesday.

One odd thing about Alamo is that they have Interactive Jeopardy on the same night as they have a team trivia night. The trivia night takes place in the bar area and is hosted by Geeks Who Drink. Maybe they want to corner the market on DTLA trivia folk - both people who want to go solo and those who want a team game - but it strikes me as odd to have rival trivia nights at the same place.