Start with Freeplay
Every Higher or Lower game in Tidbit asks the same thing: two cards, two numbers, which one is higher? The modes change which numbers you see, how long you can keep going and how close the calls get.
Freeplay is where to start. It mixes every kind of number, from prices and times to sizes and speeds, and it is free with no sign-up needed.
It is also the only Higher or Lower mode with a difficulty setting. Easier deals numbers that are further apart; harder deals closer calls. Start easy while you learn which numbers surprise you, then turn it up.
Higher or Lower sits alongside trivia Freeplay, ranked 1v1 Arena and parties with friends in Tidbit Trivia, so it is easy to switch between them. Open Higher or Lower to play Freeplay now; the rest of this guide covers what comes after it.
One kind of number at a time
- Price Check: money only. Prices, revenue and prize pools.
- Time Flies: time only. How long things take, last and live.
- Yardstick: distance only. How far, how tall, how wide.
- Tally: counts only. How many people, copies or pieces of anything.
- Heavyweight: weight only. What things weigh, from newborns to whole planets.
- Speed Trap: speed only. Animals, machines, winds and even continents.
- Land Grab: area only. Countries, states, islands and lakes.
Each of these goes on like Freeplay, with no finish line, and each keeps a streak of its own. A long run in Price Check never gets mixed up with your Freeplay best.
They are a good way to find your strong suit. Some people are sharp on money and lost on distances; others know how big every country is and have no idea what anything costs. A mode that keeps to one kind shows you which one you are.
Scored runs with trivia’s rules
- Three Lives: get three wrong and the run ends.
- Sudden Death: one wrong answer ends it.
- Blitz, Sprint and Marathon: answer as many as you can in 30 seconds, 1 minute or 5 minutes.
- Perfect Ten: ten rounds, and one mistake ends it.
- Category Run: ten rounds on one subject you choose.
These use the same rules as the trivia modes with the same names, so if you know Sudden Death in trivia, you already know it here. Each one keeps a single record: your best score.
Where the one-kind modes test what you know, these test your nerve. A clock or a single life changes how you play a close call. In Freeplay you can take a guess and move on; in Sudden Death, a guess can end the run.
Three ways to change the cards
- Blindfolded: no numbers shown. Pick the higher one from what you know.
- Astronomical: only enormous numbers, on cards of a billion or more. Which huge figure is even bigger?
- Photo Finish: only the closest calls, where the two numbers are near each other.
Blindfolded is the strangest of the three. With no numbers on the table, you are not checking one figure against a guess. You are estimating both and trusting your sense of scale.
Astronomical works the other way round. Every number is huge, so the trick is keeping track of the zeros: a billion and a trillion look alike at a glance, and one is a thousand times the other.
Photo Finish is for when Freeplay starts to feel easy. Every pair is close, so there are no free points. All three go on like Freeplay, each with a streak of its own.
Habits that help in every mode
- Think in powers of ten first. Is it thousands, millions or billions? Most calls are settled before you get near the exact figure.
- Keep a few anchors in your head. About 8 billion people live on Earth, a marathon is a little over 42 kilometers, and sunlight takes about eight minutes to reach us.
- Read what is being measured, not just the name on the card. A famous thing is not always a big one.
- Notice your mistakes. If one kind of number keeps catching you out, its own mode is the quickest way to fix it.
None of these need a good memory for figures. They need a rough picture of how big things are, and that gets sharper every time a card surprises you.
Two calls to try
- A close call: does Canada have more people than California? Yes, but only just: a little over 41 million against about 39.5 million.
- A scale call: is a light-year more or less than a trillion kilometers? Far more: about 9.5 trillion.
The first is the kind of call Photo Finish is made of. The second is the zero-counting that Astronomical asks for. Neither needs the exact figure, only a sense of which side of the line it falls on.
Which mode to play when
- Learning the game: Freeplay on an easier setting.
- A few minutes to spare: Freeplay, or the one-kind mode you are in the mood for.
- A score to beat: Three Lives, Perfect Ten or one of the timed modes.
- A real test: Sudden Death or Photo Finish.
- Something different: Blindfolded.
There is no wrong order. Try a few and keep the ones that suit you.
Higher or Lower with friends
- Game Show: everyone gets the same two cards at the same moment, and a fast right answer scores more.
- Sprint: everyone has a time bank that drains as they play. A right answer adds time, a wrong one takes it away, and the last player left wins.
- Survival: everyone plays the same cards at their own pace and goes as far as they can before their lives run out. The most right answers wins.
Higher or Lower is a party mode too, played in one of these three ways. Game Show suits a group that likes to shout; Survival suits one that likes to take its time. It needs one player in the party with Premium. Joining is always free, so one player’s Premium is enough.
To set one up, create a party on the Party page, share its invite code or link, and choose Higher or Lower as the game.
By the team making Tidbit. Questions or a correction? Get in touch.
