Online battles explained

Solo modes measure you against your own best. Online battles put you against other people, answering the same questions at the same moment. Here is exactly how they work, so you know what wins.

Group Battle

Up to ten players answer the same ten questions. The questions start easy and get harder. Each question is open for 10 seconds; after it closes, everyone sees the right answer and the current standings for a few seconds before the next one.

Math Tug-of-War

Two teams — Team Mint and Team Sun, from 1v1 up to 5v5 — answer the same questions. Every correct answer adds your points to your team’s pull, and a rope across the screen moves towards the team that is ahead. The team with the bigger total after the last question wins. Teams are kept equal: the server places new players on the smaller team, and a private room can only start when both sides have the same number of players.

How an answer is scored

• Correct answer: 100 points.
• Speed bonus: up to 100 more points for an instant answer, falling steadily to nothing at the end of the 10 seconds. A correct answer after 2 seconds is worth far more than one after 9.
• Streak multiplier: each correct answer in a row raises your multiplier a little (up to five steps). One wrong answer resets it.
• Wrong answer: no points, and the streak resets.

The lesson is the same as in Blitz: speed matters, but a wrong answer costs you both the points and the streak. Answer as soon as you are sure — not before.

Fair play

Your phone never decides a result. The server chooses the questions, opens and closes every question window, checks each answer and records its time. A small allowance is made for the trip from your phone to the server, so a slower connection is not punished for a few hundred milliseconds. Answers that arrive impossibly fast for a human are held back from rewards for review.

XP from battles needs real play: you must answer at least half of the questions, and there is a daily limit, so a match cannot be farmed.

Playing with friends

• Quick Match puts you in a room with other players straight away.
• Private rooms have a six-character room code. Share the code, or tap Share invite link to send a link: friends who have BRINXO open the room directly, and friends who don’t are taken to the app or the web game.
• 1v1 friend battles let you challenge one friend to the same set of questions, each playing at your own pace.

Battles need a BRINXO account, because results and XP are saved to it. Online battles are available on the website and in the Android app.

Getting better at battles

1. Practise the techniques in Mental math tricks — in a battle, the speed bonus rewards exactly that kind of fluency.
2. Use estimation to rule out options instantly: the wrong choices are often the right digits in the wrong size.
3. Protect your streak in the second half, when the questions are worth the most.