Nintendo didn’t show Measure Up at its press conference, didn’t give us a sneak preview of the game and didn’t release any screenshots or video, either. So naturally, it turned out to be the most fun Wii U game at E3.

Hardly anyone played Measure Up during the annual videogame expo. Why would they? After waiting in line for however many hours, any E3 attendee was going to gravitate toward the Legend of Zelda or Mario demos in Nintendo’s cordoned-off area for the upcoming game console with the touchscreen controller.

After being escorted upstairs to a hidden area in the company’s sprawling E3 booth (where we found rapper T-Pain), Wired.com played Measure Up, a two-player game for Wii U with a simple yet devious challenge: Can you prove you know how long an inch is?

Measure Up, as shown at E3 in its early form, is a game for two players. On the television, we see a challenge; for example, draw a circle with a diameter of 2 inches. Each player takes the Wii U tablet controller in turn and attempts to freehand just such a drawing, using the stylus. After both players have taken their turns, the television displays everyone’s answer, then dramatically draws a perfect answer bit by bit, eventually showing who came closest.

Then it moves on to other, more difficult challenges, like drawing an angle of a certain size or drawing a long, looping line around the tablet that measures a total of 12 inches long.

I played several other multiplayer Wii U games at E3, but I didn’t feel nearly the sense of competitiveness during those sessions as I did while playing Measure Up. You really, really don’t want to screw this up — who wants to be the person who doesn’t know how long an inch is?

This game will be hilarious.

This game will be hilarious, because it shows the gap between what you think you know and what you don’t, then compares you to a friend (or, following a Measure Up session, quite possibly an enemy).

Unassuming and ignored (by both Nintendo and by the press) as it may be, Measure Up has everything that a good Wii U game needs. It’s simple, easy to jump into, would never work without the next-gen console’s tablet controller and is a great deal of fun.

I’ll go on record right now as saying that whatever package of mini-games this software ends up in will be one of the bigger Wii U launch titles. If Nintendo can come up with more ideas like this one, Wii U will be significantly better received the next time it is shown.

All photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com