Krillion Game Guide: How to Play, Scoring and Tips to Dive Deeper

What is Krillion?

Krillion — "the daily dive" — is a browser trivia game made by a solo developer who goes by kp. Instead of rewarding the most obvious answer, it rewards the answer other players are least likely to think of, as long as it is correct.

The game is themed as an ocean dive. Each point you score sinks your diver deeper, past the depth where sunlight fades, the midnight zone, the abyssal zone where the Titanic rests, and down toward the hadal trench. A perfect dive ends on the trench floor.

It is free to play in any browser at krillion.io. Optional themed packs can be unlocked, and the game's FAQ says unlocking any pack removes ads across the whole site.

How to play Krillion

• Open krillion.io and press Begin descent.
• You get 7 prompts, the same for everyone that day — for example, a category you need to name something from.
• For each prompt you have 25 seconds to type one answer.
• Valid answers that few people give score high; obvious answers score low.
• You get one dive per day — no second chances — and a new dive arrives the next day.

The answer lists are built from sources such as dictionaries, wiki pages and encyclopedias, so real but lesser-known answers count. The game also checks common aliases and forgives small typos: its FAQ gives the example that "sea donkey" is an alias for the threebanded sheephead, so a guess one letter away can still match.

How scoring works (and what One in a Krillion means)

Each answer is placed in a rarity tier. The more obscure a correct answer is, the more points it is worth — from low-scoring common answers at the top of the ocean up to the rarest tier, One in a Krillion. Community guides list six tiers, starting at 10 points for the most common answers and reaching 100 points for a One in a Krillion pick.

Every point sinks you 10 metres. Seven prompts at a maximum of 100 points each gives 700 points — the trench, 7,000 metres down. That is a perfect dive.

The daily Krillion answer for each prompt is picked by hand. The developer explains that it is chosen for rarity and for fun: past a certain depth it should still be something at least a few players can actually get, not an impossible name nobody knows.

Tips to dive deeper

• Skip your first thought. The game's own hint: "the pick that feels clever? the school thought of it too." Your first and second ideas are usually everyone's.
• Go one level more specific. If the prompt is a broad category, name a sub-type, a regional variety or a lesser-known member instead of the famous one.
• Use what you know that others don't. Your hobbies, your country, your language and your job are where rare answers live.
• Answer fast, then refine. 25 seconds goes quickly — have a safe answer ready in case the clock runs out, but don't submit it if a rarer one comes to mind.
• Spell carefully, but don't panic. Aliases and near-misses are often accepted, yet a valid answer that doesn't match anything scores nothing.
• Practise in Unlimited. Unlimited mode and the Archive of past dives let you build a feel for which answers are common without spending your daily dive.

Other modes: Unlimited, Archive, Themed packs and Puffer Party

• Unlimited — keep playing beyond the daily dive.
• Archive — replay earlier daily dives.
• Themed packs — extra prompt sets on one theme.
• Puffer Party — a multiplayer mode where players pass a puffer fish around a shared room.

Puffer Party rules, according to the official FAQ: a hidden fuse lasts 10 to 30 seconds by default and the timer is shared across the room. If you pass the puffer with 20 seconds left, the next player gets those 20 seconds; if fewer than 8 seconds remain, the timer resets to 8. When the puffer pops, a new random fuse starts.

Games like Krillion

If you like Krillion, you will probably enjoy other short daily games that everyone plays at the same time:

• Chainle — a word association game linked from Krillion's own menu.
• Wordle — guess one five-letter word a day from the New York Times.
• Connections — sort 16 words into four hidden groups, also from the New York Times.
• Pointless-style quizzes — the British TV show Pointless rewards the least-known correct answers, the same idea behind Krillion's scoring.

Want something to play after your daily dive? Try Marble Race — pick a colour and see if your marble wins — or test your engineering with Bridge Snap.

Frequently asked questions