How to play Jeopardy World

What you need

Up to 40 players can play at once, 24 in a kids’ game. You, the host, need an account; the players don’t.

Building your own game

1. Sign up or identify yourself with a Google account.
2. Open My Games from the menu and press New game. The new game appears in the list right away.
3. Give the game a name. The auto-generated name makes the game hard to find later.
4. Let AI write the clues. On the game page, press AIFill with AI. Describe what the game is about and who is playing. You get a prompt to give to ChatGPT, Claude or another AI. Paste the AI’s answer back, check the board and import it. You can also fill a single topic from the topic edit window.
5. Or write six topics with five clues and answers each yourself. You can edit AI-written clues the same way. Images, sound and video you always add yourself – AI writes only the text.
6. Choose the game’s language. Estonian games appear on nutivillak.ee, games in every other language on jeopardy.world. The Private game switch hides the game from others. Others may play a public game, but only you can edit it.

Running the game

1. Open My Games from the menu and choose a game. Other people’s public games are in the same list – you can play those too. Press Start game.
2. A waiting screen opens with the game code and a QR code in large type. If it offers full screen, accept – the board gets bigger and the browser bars stay out of the way.
3. On their phones, players open jeopardy.world, enter the code and their name, then press Join game. Instead of typing the code they can scan the QR code with their phone. Players appear on the waiting screen by themselves, no refresh needed.
4. On the waiting screen, choose who runs the game: Host or Auto play. The steps here are for a hosted game; the automatic game is explained in its own section.
5. Once enough players have joined, press Start game. Latecomers can join mid-game too — the code stays on screen.
6. Pick a cell on the board and click it. The clue grows out of the cell across the screen and the answer button opens on the players' devices.
7. Players press. Answerers appear on the right in the order they pressed — fastest at the top. The answer is given out loud.
8. Score the top player: ✓ adds the clue’s value, ✕ subtracts. Only then can the next player be scored.
9. Made a mistake? Click the player's name to score them again.
10. To show the correct answer on screen, press Answer or the space bar. If nobody knows the answer — not even you — press the eye button in the clue window. The first player can then see the answer on their device.
11. Close the clue and pick the next cell. A played cell stays on the board, darkened.
12. Some cells hide a Daily Double, and the last cell is Final Jeopardy. How they work is explained below.
13. Whoever collects the most points wins. The prize is up to you.

Auto play

An automatic game needs no host, so you can play along too. A player picks the topic, another player acts as judge, and the board keeps score.

1. On the waiting screen choose Auto play and press Start game. During the game you can change this with the top bar switch Auto play.
2. Keep the board open on the big screen. The board keeps the clock. If you close it, the game stops.
3. The first picker is drawn by lot. They choose a topic and value on their phone and press Pick a cell. After that, whoever last answered correctly picks. If nobody got it right, the same player picks again.
4. The clue appears on screen and players buzz as usual. The fastest says the answer out loud.
5. One player is the judge – someone with nothing to win from this answer. The judge doesn’t know the correct answer in advance. Once the answer has been spoken, they press Response given and then see the correct answer, as does the answerer. The judge then marks Right or Wrong.
6. A player who answered wrong is out of that clue and judges the next answerer. Points are only recorded after the judge’s verdict.

Daily Doubles and Final Jeopardy

These come into the game on their own – you don’t need to set anything up when building it. The kids’ game doesn’t have them.

Daily Double

1. The board has two hidden Daily Double cells. They are drawn again for every game session.
2. When the cell opens, only the topic is shown. Choose who answers and set the wager: at least 10, at most the player’s score or the cell value, whichever is higher.
3. Press Ready! Show question. Only the chosen player answers: a correct answer wins the wager, a wrong one loses it.
4. In an automatic game the player who picked the cell answers and places the wager on their phone.

Final Jeopardy

1. The last cell you open is Final Jeopardy. Every player can answer.
2. Each player chooses a wager on their phone – up to their score or the clue’s value, whichever is higher. The board shows how many players have wagered.
3. When everyone has chosen, press Ready! Show question. Players type their answer on their phone and press Confirm.
4. The board shows a table of answers and wagers. Mark each answer right or wrong – right adds the wager, wrong subtracts it.
5. In an automatic game an exactly correct answer counts as right straight away and an empty answer as wrong. The other players vote on the rest, and a tie goes in the answerer’s favour.

Kids’ game

The kids’ game is for children who can’t read yet. Nobody races to buzz: everyone answers at once by choosing from 2–4 options on their phone. The options are coloured shapes, so no reading is needed.

1. Open My Games from the menu and press New kids’ game. The game starts with a 4×4 board; change the size under Board size.
2. Write 2–4 options for each question and mark the correct one. An option can have a picture, text or both. You can add a picture to a topic so a child recognises it without reading.
3. The game starts just like a regular one: waiting screen, code and Start game. When joining, a child picks an animal and a colour. No name is needed, and several children can play from one phone.
4. Players take turns choosing the topic – the board shows whose turn it is. There is a minute to answer.
5. Every correct answer earns a star, whatever the cell value. Points are never taken away. Press Show answer and then Back to the board.

A picture in a clue

1. Save the picture to your device. .jpg, .png, .gif and .webp files up to 20 MB work. A large picture is resized automatically.
2. When editing the clue, press add image, pick the file and save the clue.

Audio in a clue

1. Find a suitable sound file. .mp3, .m4a, .wav, .ogg and .flac files up to 3 MB work. If you want the sound from a YouTube video, search for “youtube to mp3” — you’ll find web tools that turn a video into a sound file.
2. If the file is too long, search for "online audio trimmer" and cut out the part you need. A short clip plays better than a whole track.
3. When editing the clue, press add audio, pick the file and save the clue.

A video in a clue

1. Open the video you want on YouTube and copy its link.
2. Paste the link into the clue's link field and save the clue.