Trivial Pursuit was a monster fad in 1984, and naturally, the software
industry was eager to flood the market with clones.

> "After Christmas, only so many of them are going to make it," says
> Michael Reinhold, director of marketing at Mirage Concepts of
> Fresno, California. Mirage's product, simply called Trivia, is the
> only one to run on Macintosh computers; it sells for $49.95.
>  Mirage, primarily known for its Commodore 64 software, is new to
> Macintosh software, and Reinhold candidly admits that Trivia was a
> quick, profitable way to jump into the Mac market, which is starving
> for software this Christmas. "I don't see us translating our trivia
> package to any other home machine."
>  \- InfoWorld, Nov. 26, 1984

The combination of a first-time Mac developer, a Christmas deadline,
and a touchy programming environment (the infamous MacForth) was a
perfect storm for one of the most calamitous rush jobs this side of
Big Rigs. The game boasts 5,000 questions, and twice as many ways to
make it crash. Its human interface convention violations border on
human rights convention violations. (Take the help window ? please!)

And the trivia itself? Consider the screenshot: firstly, there's no
such place as "New Foundland"; they mean Newfoundland. Secondly, it's
the Bay of Fundy, not "Bundy." What's worse, the bay isn't even IN
Newfoundland; it lies between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. And
finally, "largest" does not have two R's!

Reviews were preposterously generous. MacUser gave it 3 out of 5 mice;
The Book of Macintosh Software, despite observing that choosing About
from the Apple menu would wipe out a game in progress, gave it a B-;
and Creative Computing deemed it "a real winner." Only one critic
outright panned the game:

> I had high hopes for Mirage Concepts' Trivia program, but was very
> disappointed by it. I found it extremely hard to learn to play, and
> its on-line instructions are so obscure, poorly organized and poorly
> written that they're almost funny. A very unMac-like program.
>  \- Arthur Naiman, MacBook

And how'd it sell? Why, it flew off the shelves! No doubt helped by a
box design heavily derivative of Trivial Pursuit's branding, Trivia
clung to Billboard's weekly top 20 games chart from November to March.
It was the only Mac exclusive on any of those lists...despite being
mislabeled the whole time as a C64 exclusive.



In addition to the included "General Knowledge" disk, there was at
least one add-on question pack: Entertainment, a two-disk set covering
television, movies, the stage, music, and "hot spots". If you can,
please upload it here.

Tip: Unlike most computer trivia games, the questions are sequential
rather than randomized. You must finish a game, and click Yes or No
when asked if you'd like a diploma printed, before it will mark that
game's questions as answered.

Important: This game is not compatible with the Macintosh Plus (or
anything newer). To emulate it, you will need the Mac 128K or 512K
[variation][1] of Mini vMac (and a matching ROM.)

Version: Unknown

Compatibility
Architecture: 68k

  [1]: http://minivmac.sourceforge.net/doc/var/index.html