Facts in Five

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Cover of Facts in Five

Facts in Five: The Game of Knowledge is a trivia game for up to five players published in 1967 by the 3M Company as part of its bookshelf game series. Rights to the game were acquired in 1976 by Avalon Hill, which published it until 1998, when that publisher was disbanded. Hasbro bought the rights to Avalon Hill's games, but stopped publishing Facts in Five; the rights reverted to the game's inventor, Rick Onanian. The game is now distributed by University Games.

Each game set included a number of cards, each containing one or more Class; within each Class may be one or more Category. The game also included tiles, one for each letter of the alphabet, a five-minute sand timer, and scorecards.

A round of the game begins with players taking turns drawing cards and selecting a Category (or a Class on certain cards). Five Categories are selected this way. Next, players draw five letter tiles in turn, and the timer is started. Before the timer runs out, players must write down as many items as possible that fit each category and begin with each letter, for a maximum of twenty-five answers. Five rounds make up a complete game, with scoring based on the number of valid answers given.

Facts in Five is considered the first category game.^[1] Scattergories is a similar game still in print.