Hanx101 Trivia, a trivia game that is narrated by actor Tom Hanks, will soon be one of the games exclusively available on the Apple Arcade subscription service (via Variety). Despite the name, it’s not a game dedicated to quizzing you about Hanks’ career — a press release from the game’s developer, Blueline Studios, says it’ll feature “tens of thousands of questions” about subjects like history, math, geography, and food. (I’m hoping the later set contains at least one question about a box of chocolate.)
The game will feature a head-to-head competition mode, a team mode, and a “Hanx101 mode” where you apparently try to get a high score while answering 101 questions. There will also apparently be “unique formats such as ‘Word Jam’ and ‘I Spy,’” though the marketing material for the game seems to leave what those will look like as an open question. The game is set to launch Friday, September 2nd.
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I’ll be honest, this seems like a very weird project to me. First of all, there’s the name; Blueline’s official website for the game specifically styles it Hanx101 Trivia with no space between Hanx and 101, while the Apple Arcade listing does have a space. Secondly, it is a game being marketed as “a way for Tom to share his love and passion for trivia with his fans, casual gamers, trivia aficionados, and YOU.” I had no idea he was such a trivia fiend.
Not that being weird is a bad thing. As I said before, I’m absolutely going to try this out. And it’s nice to see Apple experimenting with what types of projects are coming to Arcade. Just in the past few months, the service has gotten Cooking Mama and Frogger games, along with a sequel to Jetpack Joyride, a kart racing game featuring Hank Hill, and a port of the infamous Goat Simulator.
Hanks is no stranger to creating content for Apple’s services; he stars in Finch and Greyhound, two movies that premiered on Apple TV Plus.