Now that the Nuva are out, and no more new sets are on the horizon until Spring of 2003, LEGO is in the process of getting (and keeping) Bionicle in the minds of holiday shoppers. The recent Toys R Us "Trivia Quiz" event did just that, as well as hint at a new Upper Deck product that may be coming our way.

The Trivia Quiz promotion was a simple but well-produced event. It consisted of an eight-foot vinyl board, inflatable dice, and massive cards from which the TRU employees read the questions and answers. The first 75 people to test-play received a much more manageable-sized version of the promo game.

In the pictures for this story, the event was held outside because of the heavy shopping volume and floorspace needed for the game. While the TRU employees running the event frequently needed help with pronunciation ("Lehvak" was a particular stumbling block), they did an excellent job of getting kids involved and interested. They weren't able to say whether a full-sized version of the game would be available, but the production values of the game itself point to that being a probability, despite a few minor errors in the small packaged game. For example, the names on the backs of the punch-out game pieces were mixed up, and some of the legend on the game board didn't quite make sense. Those are minor nits to the game itself.

The promo version of the game is called "Quest for the Nest" - the premise is one nest of Bohrok escaped destruction, and you must find it by answering trivia questions. Up to six players (you guessed it - one for each Toa Nuva) can compete to be the first to reach the end of the trail. The game board has 23 numbered spaces circling Mata Nui, including four "special" spaces where you lose a turn or go back 3 spaces.

The take-home version (left) contains exactly six question cards, one for each Toa Nuva, and each card has six questions next to all six Nuva symbols. The box is about the size of a video cassette box. The images on the cards are of the Toa Nuva in their "Heroic" stances. Two dice are also included, one die featuring 1-6 in Matoran writing, the other having each Nuva symbol on a side (in no particular order, it seems).

The questions themselves aren't terribly difficult for the average Bionicle aficionado, but may prove challenging to someone who hasn't followed all the various incarnations of the storyline.

It's fairly apparent this will be a full-size game at a later point: the game components are of high quality; there is a demonstrated market for Bionicle trivia; and Upper Deck appears to have produced at least the cards for this promo, which they would probably not do for a mere promotion. On top of which, since each question has a Nuva symbol next to it, once there are more than six cards available the gameplay would most likely refer to the symbol for the correct question. Once the full version of the game comes out, if it follows the quality of the promo, it will certainly be worthy of adding to your Christmas list.

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