Quick Swipe

How to play

Each card shows a country and a question with one answer on each side. Swipe the card towards your answer or use the two buttons. There are ten kinds of question: which hemisphere it is in, whether it has a coastline, whether it is an island nation, whether it has more than 10 million people, whether the capital or silhouette shown is really its own, which of two countries has more people, which side of the road they drive on, republic or monarchy, and whether it uses the euro.

The first 15 cards are well-known countries and the easier kinds of question. After that, driving side, government and the euro join in, and from card 30 any country can come up.

Scoring

One point per right card. Every 5 in a row adds 2 seconds to the clock. A mistake doesn't cost time, but it breaks your streak and the card briefly shows the right answer. At the end you see your right and wrong answers and a few of the missed cards with an explanation. There is a ranking for this mode.

Questions that never come up

To keep every card fair, some are left out. Countries the equator runs through, like Ecuador, Kenya or Indonesia, never appear in the hemisphere question. Australia and Brunei are left out of the island question. The 10 million question skips countries with between 8 and 12 million people, and in the who-has-more-people question the two countries are always at least 20% apart.

Tips

Don't overthink it: speed matters more than perfection, because a mistake costs no time. A few facts are worth having ready: Japan, the UK, India, Australia and South Africa drive on the left; Morocco, Thailand, Sweden and Tonga are monarchies; and in Europe, Switzerland, Norway and the UK don't use the euro.

What you learn

Facts that other modes hardly ever ask about: a country's government, currency, coastline or driving side. The cards go by fast and repeat from game to game, so they stick through sheer repetition.