Courtesy graphic

There are a whole lot of iPhone and iPad apps out there. Thousands of them. Millions maybe.

But for all the applications that can do everything from track your finances, to opening your garage door, there are very few that are created right here in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

That is about to change, however, thanks to a new local company called MobileFWD, that launched its first social gaming app called Trivi.al today on the iTunes store.

MobileFWD team members Matt Hudson, Joey Nelson, and John James.

Courtesy photo

The new app works similarly to games like Words with Friends and Draw Something, where folks can start a game with a friend, and take turns making their move at their own pace. Instead of playing Scrabble, or drawing pictures, however, this game asks trivia questions.

“We realized that trivia works perfectly with the social game format,” said MobileFWD co-founder, Joey Nelson. “We’ve been testing it for about eight weeks now. We had a really successful beta, and the feedback from people who’ve been playing it has been amazing.”

Nelson and fellow developer Matt Hudson enlisted the help of former College Jeopardy contestant (representing the University of Arkansas) Shane Whitlock, and Arkansas Quiz Bowl champion John James (also of Fayetteville) who already had questions developed for his own trivia website.

“What’s unique about it is it’s not just Matt and I sitting in a room coming up with a bunch of horrible trivia questions,” Nelson said. “John already had the (trivia) site, so we said, ‘Here’s this great content. Here’s the two of us who can build the app. Let’s do it.’”

The game is played in three rounds, and players earn a currency called “common cents” that they can spend on “power ups” to get past a tough question. In addition to the one-on-one gameplay, players can import “lists” from Facebook to create a leader board amongst co-workers, members of their church, school, etc.

There is a free version of the app that contains advertising, and an ad-free version is available for $2.99.

The iOS version for iPhone and iPad is available to download via iTunes, and Nelson said that an Android version is in the works.

“We’re really excited to get this launched,” Nelson told us Wednesday night. “I think people are going to really love the game.”

Trivi.al iPhone App Trailer