Lives

What lives are

Lives are the cushion a multi-life contest gives you against wrong answers. You start the contest with a set number of lives, shown on the contest page before you enter. Each wrong answer costs one. Lose them all and you are eliminated; until then, you keep answering and keep scoring.

A single-life contest is the other format: in effect you have one life, and the first wrong answer ends your run. Lives change how you play. With one to spare, a bold early answer that turns out wrong is a setback rather than the end.

An example

Imagine a hypothetical multi-life contest where you start with a few lives. In the first quarter you miss a question about a field goal attempt and drop one. You answer the next six correctly, reach the second half, and miss again on a fourth-down call. You still have a life left, so you play on to the final whistle. In a single-life contest on the same game, the field goal miss would have ended your night in the first quarter.

What lives do not cover

Lives protect you from wrong answers, not from the cut. At each cut the bottom of the field by points is removed, however many lives those players had left. Lives also do not add points: a wrong answer scores nothing whether it costs a life or not.

In Speed Survivor

The contest page always states the format, single-life or multi-life, and the number of lives where there are any, so you know the rules before you enter. The details are in the Contest Rules, and how it works explains both formats side by side.