Ready Player One Trivia
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100 free Ready Player One trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
46 free Ready Player One trivia questions with answers. Ready Player One is two hunts in one: Ernest Cline's 2011 novel and Steven Spielberg's 2018 film tell the same story of Wade Watts chasing James Halliday's Easter egg through the OASIS, but they take very different routes. This quiz covers both. Book questions cover the stacks in Oklahoma City, the Tomb of Horrors and Joust, the Cap'n Crunch whistle, the perfect Pac-Man game, Rush's 2112, Zork and Adventure. Film questions cover the backwards race, the Overlook Hotel from The Shining, the Iron Giant standing in for Ultraman, Planet Doom, and the High Five. There are also questions on the people who made it: how Cline hid a real Easter egg in the book with a DeLorean as the prize, who narrated the audiobook, the directors Warner Bros. asked before Spielberg, John Williams handing the score to Alan Silvestri, the Birmingham streets that played Columbus, Ohio, the box office and the poorly received sequel Ready Player Two. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the novel, the film and their author, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Ready Player One, where is the secret hideout Wade uses to log in to the OASIS?
An abandoned van
An abandoned van is his private place to log in, and being there instead of at home is what later keeps him alive when IOI comes after him.
Q 02Which disaster grips the novel Ready Player One's world?
Energy crisis
An energy crisis hangs over the 2040s along with overpopulation and mass unemployment, which is why nearly everyone logs in daily to get away from real life.
Q 03Who plays Art3mis in the 2018 film Ready Player One?
Olivia Cooke
Olivia Cooke beat Elle Fanning and Lola Kirke to the part, and she was signed about five months before the film had found its hero.
Q 04What is Wade Watts's avatar called?
Parzival
Parzival is his respelling of Percival, the Arthurian knight famed for seeking the Holy Grail; the usual spelling had already gone to players with the same idea.
Q 05Ernest Cline says which fictional character first inspired James Halliday, the eccentric game designer in Ready Player One?
Willy Wonka
Willy Wonka gave him the idea of a rich eccentric holding a fantastic contest; for the man's personality he crossed Howard Hughes with Ultima creator Richard Garriott.
Q 06What is Halliday's avatar called?
Anorak the All-Knowing
Anorak the All-Knowing borrows British slang for someone obsessively absorbed in a niche hobby, a fair label for a designer who built his whole contest out of 1980s trivia.
Q 07In Ready Player One, why is IOI's army of paid players nicknamed the Sixers?
Their employee numbers start with 6
Their employee numbers start with 6 and double as their avatar names, so IOI's hired players go by digits where everyone else picks a handle.
Q 08After the Copper Key and the Jade Key, what is the third key in Ready Player One called?
The Crystal Key
The Crystal Key comes with a warning that its gate cannot be unlocked alone: three players must turn their copies together, which forces rivals to cooperate.
Q 09What are people who hunt for Halliday's Easter egg called?
Gunters
Gunters is a contraction of egg hunters; the most devoted treat it as a full-time job, studying every 1980s film, game and song the contest's creator loved.
Q 10What does IOI, the villainous corporation, stand for?
Innovative Online Industries
Innovative Online Industries is the world's biggest internet provider, and it wants the prize so it can charge a monthly fee for the OASIS and fill it with advertising.
Q 11Who is the head of IOI's egg-hunting operation?
Nolan Sorrento
Nolan Sorrento takes his first name from Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, which the author called a subtle tribute and not a verdict on the man.
Q 12In the novel Ready Player One, where does Wade live at the start?
The stacks in Oklahoma City
The stacks in Oklahoma City are mobile homes piled into towers; the film moves them to Columbus, Ohio, the city where the novel puts IOI's headquarters.
Q 13In the novel Ready Player One, which arcade game does Wade beat the lich Acererak at to win the Copper Key?
Joust
Joust is played best of three against the undead king at the end of a Dungeons & Dragons tomb; the film dropped the whole sequence in favour of a car race.
Q 21How is Aech pronounced in Ready Player One?
Like the letter H
Like the letter H: it is the initial of the player's real first name, which even Wade, a close friend for years, does not learn until the two finally meet in person.
Q 22In Ready Player One, what are the Japanese hunters Daito and Shoto named after?
The long and short samurai swords
The long and short samurai swords, worn as a pair called a daisho, suit two players who pose as brothers; the novel has IOI kill Daito and stage it as suicide, while the film lets him live.
Q 23In Ready Player One, the OASIS's two founders were modelled on which real-life pair?
Q 14In the novel Ready Player One, which 1983 film must Wade act out line for line to clear the First Gate?
WarGames
WarGames puts him in Matthew Broderick's role as the teenage hacker; the screenwriters dropped the scene because watching someone recite a whole movie would be boring.
Q 15In the novel Ready Player One, what does Wade's perfect game of Pac-Man turn out to have won him?
An extra life
An extra life, disguised as a plain quarter: he only learns what it is when a doomsday weapon kills every avatar in the sector and his alone comes back.
Q 16In the novel Ready Player One, which Infocom text game does Wade solve on planet Frobozz to earn the Jade Key?
Zork
Zork has to be finished in full: he returns all nineteen of its treasures to the trophy case, then blows a toy whistle from a box of Cap'n Crunch cereal.
Q 17In the novel Ready Player One, which band's album 2112 provides the clue on the planet Syrinx?
Rush
Rush was Halliday's favourite band: Wade finds a guitar hidden behind a waterfall, plays part of the album on it to reveal a secret message, then lays it on the temple altar, where it turns into a key.
Q 18Which Atari 2600 game, famous for its hidden Easter egg, holds Halliday's egg in Ready Player One?
Adventure
Adventure hides a secret room where programmer Warren Robinett signed his name, because Atari refused to credit its designers; finding that room is what ends the contest.
Q 19What is Art3mis's real name?
Samantha Cook
Samantha Cook had found the first key's tomb on her own before Wade did but could not beat its guardian; her avatar is named for the Greek goddess of the hunt.
Q 20In Ready Player One, who is Wade's best friend Aech in the real world?
A young Black woman
A young Black woman: her mother taught her that a white male avatar would spare her racism and sexism online, and Lena Waithe plays her in the film.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were the model for the two school friends who own the game company: one confident and charismatic, the other shy, awkward and happiest building things.
Q 24In Ready Player One, how does IOI first try to kill Wade?
They blow up his aunt's trailer
They blow up his aunt's trailer after he turns down a job offer, killing her and several neighbours; he is away at his hideout, and afterwards moves to another city under a false name.
Q 25In the novel Ready Player One, how does Wade get inside IOI's headquarters?
As an indentured servant
As an indentured servant: he rigs his false identity so IOI arrests him over unpaid debt, works its help desk by day and hacks its network by night to bring down the shield.
Q 26Who narrated the Ready Player One audiobook?
Wil Wheaton
Wil Wheaton is mentioned by name in the novel, so the narrator ends up reading a line about himself; his recording went on sale the same day as the book.
Q 27What grand prize did Ernest Cline offer in the real-life Easter egg hunt hidden inside Ready Player One?
A 1981 DeLorean
A 1981 DeLorean went to the first reader to find a clue hidden in the text and beat three video-game challenges; Craig Queen drove it away from the TV show X-Play in 2012.
Q 28Which pair of awards did Ready Player One win, for libertarian sci-fi and for teen appeal?
The Prometheus and an Alex
The Prometheus and an Alex: the first honours pro-liberty fiction, and its judges liked a story of gamers saving their virtual world from domination; it ended in a tie, with a one-ounce gold coin for each winner.
Q 29Who directed the 2018 film adaptation of Ready Player One?
Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg's clout is what made a book stuffed with other people's characters filmable: his producer spent years clearing the rights, and even then some owners said no.
Q 30Which director was approached to film Ready Player One but never made it?
Christopher Nolan
Christopher Nolan was approached about a month after Interstellar opened, though he usually develops his own screenplays, and he went on to make Dunkirk instead.