30 Perfect Visual Round Ideas for Your Next Trivia Night

Even though written trivia games can be a lot of fun, a few too many in a row may leave you feeling burnt out. And, unless you have a really entertaining host, trivia questions asked verbally can get a little boring. If you’re craving a trivia night but want to switch up your approach, incorporating a few visual rounds is a great way to go!

Below we’ve listed 30 visual trivia round ideas with two or three example questions per category. These are great if you’re looking to amp up the audio and video at a pub quiz, or just throwing an awesome trivia party at home! Try them out for yourself, then compile your favorites for your next trivia night.

Actors by Photo

This is a great round to start out with, especially if you’re in a moviegoing crowd that’s knowledgeable about pop culture. Everybody knows the A-Listers, right? Start with more famous celebrity actors—if that’s not enough of a challenge, then progress to actors from lesser-known TV shows or indie films.

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Superheroes

Marvel and DC Comics have cemented superheroes as figureheads of popular culture, so your trivia buddies will probably be pretty familiar with these superhuman characters. You could show a cartoon depiction of the character or a photo of an actor’s portrayal of them. For a tougher question, try only showing the character’s costume so players must deduce the superhero from their garb alone.

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Monuments and Landmarks

Whether you’re a world traveler or you travel vicariously through Google Earth, this can be a fun category. Find out how worldly your friends are by seeing if they can identify these landmarks and monuments. You can feature famous wonders of the world or more obscure and unique structures instead.

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Flags of Many Countries

Can you tell the Polish and Indonesian flags apart? What about Colombia and Ecuador? Or the Netherlands and France? Feel free to get tricky with these and see how much your trivia pals paid attention way back in middle school social studies.

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Mascot Mania

Famous brands, television stations, sports teams and more often feature mascots to help promote them in a silly way. But do you know your Tony the Tiger from the Clemson Tigers? Start out easy with mascots commonly seen in ads (think insurance or snack mascots) and progress to more obscure team or brand mascots.

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Know These Logos?

In the same vein as mascots are logos, those eye-catching little symbols that notate a certain business, organization, or brand. For this category, make sure to use logos that don’t feature the name of their organizations—that would spoil the round! You can opt to cover up the part of the logo that shows the name of its corresponding organization, or just search for edited illustrations of these logos. Regardless, there are endless options for this category, so have fun with it.

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Font Names

Many of your trivia buds probably spend countless hours per week typing away on their laptops or desktop computers for work. See how well they’ve been paying attention to their word processor of choice by quizzing them on font names. Be sure to give a decently sized example of text for each font, like a full sentence or an entire alphabet—the more text, the more of a chance the players will have to get it right. Conversely, if you want to challenge your group, show them a single word (or even just one letter!) of each font.

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Houseplants and Flowers

Depending on whether or not your friends are big on gardening, this could either be an easy category or a very difficult one. Start with commonly known flowers, like tulips, roses, and daffodils, and then make your way to harder images, such as those of snake plants or fiddle leaf figs.

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Match These Leaves To Their Trees

Continuing with the plant theme, in this category, players must identify a type of tree only from an image of one of its leaves. Nature buffs will get a kick out of this one, and those who tend to stay indoors… well, maybe these questions will motivate them to get out of their homes and take a walk. This category might be a good one to whip out come the Fall, when leaves are already on everybody’s collective mind.

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What Are We Calling the Band?

You hear their music on the radio or your streaming service of choice, but do you know what they actually look like? In this category, you can show your trivia buds images of band members or full band photos and see if they can identify the name of the group. This can be an especially tricky category if you opt to cover the face of the lead singer, since that’s the one band member that tends to be easy to name.

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Name That President

Whether or not you’re an American history expert, it can be difficult to tell apart photos of past presidents. After all, when it comes down to it, they’re a large group of mostly old, mostly white, and mostly white-haired dudes. You’ll find out if your pals can tell William Henry Harrison from Benjamin Harrison and James Buchanan from James Madison. Politics can be a heavy subject during an otherwise lighthearted trivia night, but you can add some fun to it by making fun of old presidential fashions and hairstyles.

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Name That Historical Figure

Similar to the previous category, you can show photos of various important historical figures from around the globe and ask your friends to guess their identities. Make sure to cover figures from a wide array of countries and eras.

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Can You Read a Map?

Calling all amateur cartographers! Use this category as an opportunity to find out which of your friends would serve as the best navigator on the road or around the globe.

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What Apple App is That?

We all spend an inordinate amount of time on our iPhones, but how well do we really know our app widgets? You might be familiar with the Camera or Mail symbols, sure, but what about iMovie, Voice Memos, or Home? Test your trivia group with this—winners take home the glory, but losers may have the satisfaction of lesser phone addiction.

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Art Styles and Mediums

Do you know your oil paints from your pastels? What about Impressionism versus Rococo? For this category, you can show famous works of art and ask their era, or just show a stroke or two of a specific art tool. Want even more of a challenge? You can add a bonus question asking for the artist of a specific work you’ve shown an image of.

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Cheese, Please!

This category is not for the faint of heart or the lactose intolerant! Whether you’re a fan of Parmigiano Reggiano, gouda, or brie, a cheese trivia round will have something for everyone. Note: plenty of cheese varieties look quite similar to one another, so opt for cheese with distinct looks or branding.

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Obsolete Technologies

Kids these days barely can tell apart a VCR and a DVD player, let alone a Gameboy and a Tamagotchi. If you’re up for some nostalgia, quiz your group on common household technologies of yesteryear.

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Movie Scene Stills

This category serves as a play on the classic movie trivia game, Scene It?. You can draw from any number of movies—a certain genre you prefer, award winners, specific films you know your group has watched—and screenshot your favorite scene to have the players guess.

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Types of Insects

Aspiring entomologists are sure to love this one! Pick your favorite bugs to showcase in this creepy and crawly category.

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Nostalgic Kids’ Toys

Hasbro, Mattel, and Lego, oh my! Get ready to turn back time and think back to childhood as your trivia-loving friends put a name to each image of a classic kids’ toy.

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Car Makes and Models

If telling Honda from Hyundai is child’s play to you, then this is a great category for your game. Make it an extra difficult round by asking for the year of the car model.

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Cartoon Characters

For those of us who were allowed to watch cartoons on Saturday morning, this will be a piece of cake. Make sure to diversify your images with classic cartoon characters from the 20^th century as well as popular characters from the current decade.

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Cereal Boxes

There are few branded images as recognizable as a well-known cereal box. Cover over the cereal’s name on the image of the box, or blur the image so players have to decipher the clue only from its color scheme.

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Match The Equipment To The Sport

Save this one for the sporty or outdoorsy folks! You can get creative with this category by mixing up Olympic sports, like luge or curling, with backyard ones, like pickleball and croquet.

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Whose Drink Is That?

Sure, you can’t always judge a drink by its photo, but some cocktails are just too iconic not to recognize. Go with standbys from a classic bar menu so as not to be too tricky.

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Name Some Famous Sweets

Save this one for late in the game so you can grab a sweet treat after playing! You can choose images of unbranded desserts, like Boston cream pie or baked Alaska, or of ones you’d buy boxed in a grocery store, like Hostess Donettes or Oreos.

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Do You Know These Muppets’ Names?

Either you watched Sesame Street and The Muppets as a kid, or your kids do now—or maybe both. Regardless, you’re probably familiar with these lovable fuzzy children’s puppets. But, boy, do they all look similar! This can add to the challenge of the category.

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Sports Teams

Depending on your trivia crowd, this category could be a huge hit or it could crash and burn. If your friends are sports buffs, go for less-famous teams, i.e. the ones that don’t make it to the biggest tournaments. However, if they’re clueless about sports, then it’s best to stick to the most famous winning teams.

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Classic Memes

Meme templates are everywhere on the internet, and while plenty fade into obscurity, many remain popular for years after their original heyday. Show a blank meme template and see if your trivia pals can identify its name.

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Name the Sitcom

Seinfeld, 30 Rock, Friends, Parks and Rec, The Office, Frasier… even if you’re a drama fan, you can’t deny that sitcoms are a ubiquitous and important part of pop culture. Show a photo of a sitcom’s cast, or just a single cast member if you feel like throwing a curveball. Alternatively, you can show a still from a famous sitcom scene.

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Thanks for reading through our visual trivia round ideas! If you’ve got another category in mind, tell us about it in the comments section.

And for more ideas to jazz up your trivia night, check out this list of unusual categories, and tips on how to write trivia questions everyone will love.