Wikitrivia

Wikitrivia is a timeline game that deals you cards drawn from real Wikipedia and Wikidata entries, each one a person, event, or invention with its date hidden. Your job is to slot each card into the right spot on a growing chronological timeline, ordering history by feel and reasoning rather than memorized dates. Place cards correctly to extend your run, but three wrong placements ends the game.

What is Wikitrivia?

Wikitrivia is a browser-based timeline game that turns the chronology of world history into a sorting puzzle. Each card represents something with a date attached to it: the birth of a person, the founding of a kingdom, the invention of a technology, or the occurrence of a notable event. You are never told the date. Instead you have to reason about where that item belongs relative to everything you have already arranged, slotting it into the correct gap on a timeline that grows longer with every correct answer.

The core loop is built around lives rather than a fixed number of guesses. You begin with a single card already placed as a reference point, then receive a steady stream of new cards one at a time. You drag each card to the position on the timeline where you believe it fits, and once you drop it the real date is revealed. A correct placement locks the card in and lengthens your timeline; an incorrect placement costs you one of three lives. When all three lives are gone the run ends, so your score is effectively the length of the timeline you managed to build before running out.

What sets Wikitrivia apart from Wordle-style games is that it is not a guess-the-answer puzzle and it is not strictly limited to one short round per day. It was created by developer Tom J. Watson and became widely shared in early 2022, drawing coverage from outlets that covered browser games at the time. The cards are generated from Wikidata and Wikipedia, the same open knowledge bases behind Wikipedia, which is why the subject matter ranges so freely across science, art, politics, geography, and pop culture rather than sticking to one curated category. Because the data is community-maintained, the project is open source on GitHub and players are encouraged to report cards that look wrong.

The site offers both a Daily mode, which gives everyone a shared sequence to compare against on a given day, and a Free play mode you can restart as often as you like. The difficulty scales naturally: early placements are forgiving because the timeline is sparse and the gaps are wide, but as more cards accumulate the windows you have to hit get narrower and a few decades of error can sink an otherwise good guess. That makes it a comfortable fit for history buffs, trivia fans, and curious generalists who enjoy testing how well they can order the world by year rather than recall exact facts.

How to play Wikitrivia

1. Open Wikitrivia in your browser and choose Daily mode for the shared puzzle or Free play to start an open-ended run.
2. Begin with the single anchor card that is already placed on the timeline, with its date showing.
3. Read the new card you are dealt, noting the subject and the kind of date it carries, such as when a person was born or when something was created.
4. Drag the card left or right along the timeline to the gap where you think it chronologically belongs, before or after the cards already placed.
5. Drop the card to reveal its true date and see whether the placement was correct.
6. Keep placing each new card to extend your timeline, knowing that three incorrect placements use up all your lives and end the run.

Tips and strategy

• Lock onto the dates you are certain of, like a famous birth year or a well-known invention, and use them as fixed landmarks to reason outward from.
• When you only know a rough century, place the card confidently near that boundary rather than overthinking the exact decade, since wide early gaps are forgiving.
• Read the card type carefully: a 'created' or 'founded' date can sit far from when you intuitively associate the subject, so place by the stated event, not the general fame of the topic.
• Use visual context on the card, such as clothing, architecture, or technology in the image, to estimate an era for people and objects you do not recognize.
• Be most careful once the timeline is crowded, because the gaps between adjacent cards shrink and a placement that is only a few decades off can now be wrong.
• Protect your lives early by taking your safest, highest-confidence placements seriously, since you want all three lives intact for the harder narrow-gap cards later in the run.

Good to know

Creator

Tom J. Watson

Cost

Free to play

Lives

Three wrong placements ends the game

Modes

Daily and Free play

Data source

Wikidata and Wikipedia

Platform

Browser, no download or sign-up

Wikitrivia FAQ

Is Wikitrivia free?

Yes. Wikitrivia is completely free to play in your web browser, with no account or download required. It is also open source, with its code published publicly on GitHub.

How many lives do you get in Wikitrivia?

You get three lives. Each card you place incorrectly on the timeline costs one life, and the run ends once all three are gone, so your goal is the longest correct timeline you can build.

Does Wikitrivia have a daily mode?

Yes. The site offers a Daily mode that gives everyone a shared sequence to play on a given day, alongside a Free play mode you can restart as many times as you want.

Where do the Wikitrivia cards come from?

The cards are generated from Wikidata and Wikipedia, the same open knowledge bases behind Wikipedia. Because the data is community-maintained, players are encouraged to report any cards that look incorrect.

Is Wikitrivia like Wordle?

Not really. Both are free daily browser games, but Wikitrivia is a timeline-sorting puzzle where you place dated cards in chronological order, not a guess-the-hidden-answer word game.