It wasn't too long ago that I was bereft with news about two shows: Who Wants to be a Millionaire and Survivor. I've never watched either but I did overhear in the next room about the former. Sometimes, like in Jeopardy, I can get a whole string of questions. Maybe I'm just lucky or perhaps the questions were right up my alley. I clear house especially when it comes to questions pertaining to classical antiquity since that is theoretically my academic forte. Doubtless, these trivia type games are fun and intriguing. Some of the conventions pioneered by the media productions, like polling the audience for answers or removing X number of choices from the question, are undoubtedly going to be carried over to later creations.

I make a reference to ABC's network trivia game because Strike It Rich works on a similar basis. You answer a series of questions of varying levels of difficulty. Each correct answer moves you up the ladder to attain ever-higher amounts of cash. If you answer one question incorrectly, you are thrown out of the game, no matter how high you have reached. To help you out, Strike It Rich allows you several avenues to circumvent the question. First, you can pass the question and opt to answer another one. Second, you can use a hint function to remove two of the four possible answers. Finally, you can poll the audience to see which answer is most likely. Of course, the last one is not very accurate but at least you have some indicators to go upon.

Strike it Rich throws a bevy of questions at you. You can install two volumes that come with the game and more volumes are planned for release by the developer although, at the time of writing, there weren't any available yet. Unlike Quiz Master, a Pocket PC trivia title I covered earlier, you can't do much to extend the abilities of Strike It Rich. There are no question editors or ability to import user-created volumes. In fact, it lacks a basic menu and if you quit the game, you can't return to your previous session without restarting the game; thereby abandoning your previous progress.

Strike It Rich, however, makes up for this with timely audio cues, including clocks counting down and a game-show visual motif. With these, Strike It Rich weighs in at a little more than one and half megabytes. That installation size includes both volumes. You can opt not to install one volume to save some space. Moreover, the title is compatible with a wide variety of Palm products from the monochrome Palm IIIe to the latest m505.

Despite its solid execution, Strike It Rich is obviously geared towards an American audience. A lot of the current issues and politics pertain to North American mentalities. I can't imagine the television questions would be pertinent to an international audience since some revolve around happenings in network television shows. There is one exception. Some of the easier questions I encountered were such as: Which one of these countries borders the north side of the United States? Perhaps being a Canadian myself, I read into the question a little too much. The questions do not tend to repeat often. With the two volumes that come with the game and its harsh punishment (game over for any questions answered incorrectly), you won't be cycling through the questions for some time. I found Strike It Rich to be a fun trivia game. Its content, even though it is somewhat biased towards a specific audience, fitted me quite well. My only complaint would be the lack of features to extend on this solid foundation. With things like an editor, some extended trivia features or even interactive internet-related features to vary the gameplay, Strike It Rich won't just strike the riches; it would strike gold.

Ratings:
[09/10] Addictiveness
[15/20] Gameplay
[12/15] Graphics
[10/10] Interface/controls
[08/10] Program Size
[02/05] Sound
[03/05] Discreetness
[13/15] Learning Curve
[ N/A ] Multiplayer