Games like Krillion: 15 to play next, alone or with a room

Krillion is a daily game that runs in a browser, made and run by one person who goes by kp. Every day it deals the same seven prompts to everyone. A correct answer scores more the rarer it is, and a rare one sinks you deeper than an obvious one. Around the daily game sit an unlimited mode, themed packs, a leaderboard for friends and a separate multiplayer game, Puffer Party.

Seven prompts a day goes quickly, and the games below scratch the same itch: finding the right answer nobody else would give. The first two are Decka's, a free version to play alone and a live one for a whole room on one big screen. The rest run from daily grids that score how rare your answers are to board games that cross out matching answers, and two that turn the rule upside down.

Krillion's own FAQ mentions a copycat clone, and this list leaves the clones out.

1. Squadrillion, free to play on your own

Squadrillion is Decka's rarest answer game, and its free version plays alone in a browser, with no sign-up. Pick a world, Dive or Dig, and it deals seven prompts, such as "Name a fruit". The opening screen puts the rules in one line: "Seven new prompts every game, 25 seconds each, one answer to each."

Every right answer sits on one of five tiers, from Obvious, which sinks 50 m, to One in a squadrillion, which sinks 1500 m. The game is generous about spelling: capitals, accents, plurals and other names for the same thing all count as one answer, and a longer word survives a typo or two.

Two things set it apart from a daily game. Every game deals a fresh seven, so you can go again straight away with new prompts, and there is no shared puzzle to compare with friends the next morning. Your best depth in each world stays in your browser, and at the end you can add a nickname to see your rank on a worldwide leaderboard.

To play the same seven with friends, press "Make it a live game" on the last screen. It opens a live game with that world and those prompts filled in, once you have a free account.

2. Squadrillion live, for a room with one big screen

Krillion's own multiplayer game, Puffer Party, is played in rooms online, with friends or strangers. You name an answer in a category and pass the puffer on before it pops, until one player is left. Squadrillion's live room is built for a different crowd: a group in one place.

One big screen at the front shows every player as a submarine or a drill. Everyone answers the same prompt on their own phone, with no app and no account, and each vehicle drops the moment its player answers. Two players with the same answer share it at half the depth each, and the screen shows them rise together.

The host picks one of six ready-made games, from a Christmas party to a science class, or chooses seven prompts from the bank. "Round by round" is "One prompt at a time for everyone, then its rarest answers". "Free for all" is "Everyone plays the seven at their own pace". The answer clock runs from 10 to 60 seconds, and 25 by default.

Afterwards, the activity's report keeps every player's final depth and every answer said by nobody else. The game needs at least two players, and the host needs a free Decka account.

So the honest split is this. If your friends are spread across the country, Puffer Party is built for playing apart. If everyone can see one screen, at the office, in a classroom or at a party, the live room is the better fit. It works on a video call too, if you share the big screen. The rules, the scoring and the prompts that play best have a page of their own.

3. Immaculate Grid, and PokeDoku

Immaculate Grid is a daily trivia game from Sports Reference. You fill a three-by-three grid with professional athletes who fit each square's row and column, and you get nine guesses to do it. Like Krillion, it rewards knowing a category deep enough to find an answer that fits. It is a solo game you play once a day.

PokeDoku runs the same kind of daily grid for Pokémon, with nine boxes to fill. It is an unofficial game: its maker, Doku Games, says on the site that it is not affiliated with Nintendo.

4. Anything Grid

Anything Grid is a daily three-by-three puzzle where anything real can fill a square, as long as it fits the square's row and column categories. Each answer is scored by how many page views it got that month, and the more obscure the answer, the lower its score. Low is good, so the deep cut wins on any subject, where the grids above stick to one.

It is free with ads, and going Premium removes them. You play it alone, with leaderboards for the deepest cuts and the crowd pleasers.

5. Pointless

Pointless is the BBC One quiz in which contestants try to score as few points as possible, digging through what they know to find the answers no one else can think of. It is the rare-answer idea as a TV quiz, and the original one for anyone in the UK.

Alexander Armstrong hosts it, and the latest series is on BBC iPlayer in the UK.

6. StopotS

StopotS, by Gartic, is a free online categories game. Each round gives the players a random letter, and everyone races to fill each category with a word that starts with it. Then the players review each other's answers. On its own site, a valid answer scores ten points and a repeated one five, so being the only one pays.

It plays in a browser with no download, and as a phone app that lets you create private rooms or join public ones. The Android version contains ads.

7. Scattergories

Roll the letter die, flip the sand timer, and write one answer for each category on your list, every one starting with the letter you rolled. Hasbro's rule is plain: your answer only counts if no one else has it. So the odd answer is the one that scores.

It is the classic board game version of the rare answer. Hasbro sells it for two players or more, and up to six.

8. Just One

Just One is a cooperative party game. Each round, everyone writes a one-word clue for the guesser, who then guesses the secret word from the clues, and identical clues are cancelled. So the clue that helps is the one nobody else at the table thought of.

It plays three to seven. Board Game Arena runs it free in a browser, with no download, for friends or strangers online.

9. Sporcle

Sporcle is a library of quizzes on nearly every topic, more than two million of them by its own count, from "Click the US States in 60 Seconds" on down. It rewards knowing a category from end to end rather than finding the rare corner of it. That covers the other half of the rare-answer habit, which is knowing a lot.

Its Showdown mode plays a quiz in real time against other players online, on nearly every quiz on the site. Sporcle is free to join, with ads, and a paid Orange membership removes them.

10. Tapple

Tapple is a party game for two to eight, from The Op Games. Draw a category card, then take turns naming something in it that begins with a letter nobody has used, and press that letter on the wheel. Each turn has ten seconds on the timer, and a pressed letter is out for the rest of the round.

So the easy answers go first, and the round ends on someone hunting for a word that begins with a letter still open. It is for ages eight and up.

11. Family Feud

Family Feud is the mirror image of a rare-answer game. Players guess the most common answers a surveyed crowd gave, and the top answers provide the most points. Play it after a round of rare answers and feel your thinking switch sides.

Steve Harvey hosts the US show, and the show's own site sends you to a free browser version at Arkadium. The Family Feud Live app is free, with one-on-one matches against other players. Family Feud Pocket, with a Duel mode and a Daily Feud, is exclusive to Apple Arcade.

12. Herd Mentality

Herd Mentality, from Big Potato, flips the rule for a party. Someone reads out a question, everyone writes down a secret answer, and if your answer is in the majority, you win cows. The lone odd answer lands its writer the pink cow, and a herd is worthless while you hold it.

It plays four to twenty, aged ten and up, in about twenty minutes. There is a TV game version for a big screen, too.

13. Boggle

Shake the letter cubes, then everyone searches for words as the three-minute timer counts down. Hasbro's rule sheet then crosses any word that appears on more than one player's list off every list. The words that score are the ones only you saw.

Hasbro's instructions are for two to four players, aged eight and up.

14. Wavelength

Wavelength is about reading how other people think. One player gives a clue, and the team works together to decide where the clue falls on a spectrum, moving a dial in real time. Where a rare-answer game rewards knowing what nobody else would say, this one rewards knowing exactly what your friends would.

The app is free to play, with no ads, for two to ten or more players, in the same room or across the world. It also has in-app purchases.

15. Connections

Connections, from The New York Times, is a daily puzzle about categories rather than answers: group words that share a common thread, with a new puzzle each day. There is no rarity score, but it is the same short daily habit.