Karijerista: a quiz where your boss interrupts while you dream of your own company

I built a quiz app that had around 1,500 active players on the web for months. They played quiz duels and hangman and competed on the leaderboard. Nice, but I wanted something that would pull you back tomorrow and the day after. And then I got an idea that still makes me laugh: Karijerista (“The Careerist”). Here we go. 😂

As of today, Librum Quiz is an app for iPhone and Android. The first day went better than I hoped: more than 1,000 installs in a single day. Thank you to everyone who downloaded it, played and sent feedback.

Karijerista: from trial period to your own skyscraper

The idea is simple: the quiz as a job. Every question is a work task, every correct answer is a step towards your own company. And standing in the way is the boss.

1. Create your character

First you pick a character, male or female. Then comes the most important choice: your profession. Marketing, programming, science, mathematics, sport, publishing and many more. This is not decoration. The questions you get at work come from your profession, so pick what you actually know.

Next you pick talents (there are plenty, you take three) and the lifelines you carry for when you get stuck: fifty-fifty, extra time and similar. Talents give you small advantages that add up over time, and once you collect enough correct answers you can swap them.

2. Trial period at the Corporation

The game begins. You get hired at a big Corporation and start a trial period: ten rounds of ten questions, against the clock. To pass you have to get more than half right. Sounds easy? Wait for the boss.

Your whole career in one place and a round of ten questions from your profession.

3. A boss who interrupts and nags

This is the part I am proudest of. At the Corporation you have a boss, the kind we all know. Miss an answer and there he is with a snide comment. Get it right and he is still not happy. In the middle of the quiz he barges in with an urgent team meeting, asks for a report just when you have focused, and colleagues whisper gossip between questions. All to throw you off your rhythm.

Anyone who has worked in a corporation will recognise themselves. Anyone who has not gets a free course.

While you work for the boss, office music is playing. A bit tense, a bit boring, just right.

4. Your own company, from a garage

Once you pass the trial period you earn the right to open your own startup. It starts small, in a garage, but with every correct answer the company grows: the garage becomes an office, the office a building, the building a skyscraper. You can hire assistants to help you, or do it all yourself.

And the music changes: as soon as you enter your own company, relaxed jazz starts, a different track every day. After the boss, it feels like a holiday.

All companies stand in one city. Every building on the map is a real player’s company. Tap a building to see who runs it, what its record is and how much it pays.

The company city: every building is a real player’s company.

5. Now you are the boss

This is where the real adventure begins. You keep playing, but now you work for yourself. And other, real players can come to work for you.

You decide what kind of boss you will be: kind, moderate or grumpy. And how much you will pay. A kind boss attracts workers, a grumpy one distracts them into mistakes. Your call.

6. The employee who takes your company

Now it gets serious. An employee has the right to take over your company.

An example from my own company: I hold the record there with 1,200 correct answers. A new worker joins, hard-working and smart, and within three, five or ten days overtakes me in correct answers. At that moment the company is theirs. A new company gets a few days of protection so it does not fall on the first morning, but after that the record has to be defended every day.

And me? If I have enough points, I open a new company. If not, it is back to the Corporation, to the Serbian boss, on a trial period. 😅

Conqueror: conquer the world with knowledge

The other big game in the app is Conqueror (Osvajač), a strategy game where every battle is decided by a question. A real world map with 171 countries and 17 regions, with sea routes across the oceans. At the start of your turn you answer a question, get armies and attack your neighbours.

• Six armies: Legion, Guard, Builders, Scouts, Cavalry and Sages, each with its own power in battle.
• War cards: a Spy who sees the answer, Reinforcements, Freeze the border, Second try, Sabotage.
• Alliances and betrayals: quick messages, an alliance until the end of the round, an ultimatum to a weaker neighbour.
• Terrain and wonders: mountains defend, the desert punishes, and there are the Pyramids, the Great Wall and the Acropolis.
• Up to 12 players: against the computer, friends or mixed, and teams of two.

Conqueror: the world map, armies and battles decided by questions.

And six more games

Besides Karijerista and Conqueror, the app includes the games players loved on the web:

• PRO quiz: ten lives, combo streaks and a weekly leaderboard.
• Book quiz: writers, works and characters, 168 classics with their own questions.
• Duel: one on one live, or challenge a friend from their profile.
• Painters: who painted this? 1,167 works, from Leonardo to Picasso.
• Quick quiz: true or false, 60 seconds, streaks multiply points.
• Hangman: guess the word letter by letter, with the Serbian alphabet.

Painters, the player community and playing with friends, from 2 to 8 players.

The numbers

• More than 166,000 questions about Serbia and the world.
• More than 50 categories: history, geography, sport, science, film, music, literature, art and professions.
• 8 games under one account, with a shared leaderboard.
• Free, with no ads during play.
• More than 1,000 installs on day one.

Why I am betting everything on Karijerista

There are plenty of quiz games. But I do not know a single one where the questions take you through a whole career, from trial period to skyscraper, and where real people can take away what you built. That is why Karijerista is my main card for now. I am betting everything on it. 🙂

Either way, it beats scrolling. Play alone or with friends, and let me know who took your company.

Download Librum Quiz for free from the App Store or Google Play, and see all games and the leaderboard on the Librum Quiz website.