Unfortunately it’s also the final week of my crunch period, so I don’t know when I’m going to get to process it all. Still, though.
- Loads of new gameshow revivals start in the US this week, we’re probably most interested in seeing how Press Your Luck and Card Sharks turn out, both of those go out Wednesday. Wipeout-meets-crazy-golf Holey Moley starts next week.
- It’s Schlag den Star this Saturday! Just what I want at the end of eight weeks of 13-hour days, Still, we’ll be doing it so keep your eye out for more info later.
Possibly of interest, Takeshi’s Castle/Wipeout Battle Royale-a-like Fall Guys coming to PS4:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAiaXIxS_4c
Looks a bit more polished than Nippon Marathon of roughly the same idea fame, but we’ll see.
Dick & Dom’s new gameshow podcast Cash from Chaos also starts on Wednesday.
The same day as the new unknown game format from the Technical Difficulties (Tom Scott and all). Wednesday is going to be a good day for game shows!
It’s Tom Scott Calls The Rest of the Technical Difficulties’ Bluff. Funny, sweary people who have long shown themselves to be very knowledgeable, quick-witted and good at improvisation play Call My Bluff with the faintest of twists that the words to be described are actually the subjects of Wikipedia articles, and a little knowledge can prove to be a very dangerous thing. It’s neither better nor worse than it sounds, noting that it sounds pretty good to me. Looking forward to the next two weeks.
My Dark Arts-Fu has failed me and I have not been able to get to see Press Your Luck. We do have Tunnelbear and a VPN to which to tunnel but I haven’t yet got further than that.
I’m not going to be able watch either PYL or Card Sharks until the weekend 🙁
Here’s a passable enough streaming version.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7avz2p
Thank you!
Big bucks, no tennis-ball-sized hailstones!
Has anyone mentioned this new “mega crystal” in the new series of CM? Apparently it gives the team a chance to double the amount of time if won! Sounds as close to the Ruby Monkey as we have gotten so far!
Okay, quick basics on PYL: The first half hour is basically classic Press Your Luck, with the first question round/Big Board being done before the first commercial break, as they cut the question round in Round 1 to 3 questions. Big Bucks is $3000, $4000, $5000. Round 2 is 4 questions, Big Bucks is $6000+, $8000+, $10000+. And yes, there is a car on the Round 2 board, the one on the first episode being worth over $30k. Most money after Round 2 goes on to the bonus round, which takes up the second half hour. In each round you’re given a number of spins which you must take. Round 1 is 5 spins, Big Bucks is $10k. Round 2 is 4 spins, with Big Bucks of $15k, Round 3 is 3 spins – $25k BB, Round 4 is also 3 spins with $50k BB, Round 5 seems to be 2 spins with $75k BB, and round 6 is 1 spin with $100k BB (note that later rounds are only conjecture right now, since the contestant didn’t make it all the way, though I won’t spoil the result). After each round is complete, you can cash out or press your luck and play the next round. Also on the board are prizes personalized for the contestant, increasing in value in each round, and added back to the board in the next round if a Whammy is hit. If at any time the contestant hits a bank of $500k, no matter what round it’s in, the game immediately ends and the contestant’s winnings get bumped up to $1 million. Extra spins earned in the bonus game must still be taken, so plus one spin spaces are both good and bad. Good because you can win more money, bad because you could hit a whammy. And 4 Whammies in the bonus game end it immediately, though front game winnings are always safe.
Note I’ll edit the later round spin numbers if someone makes it farther 🙂
Stayed up to watch PYL last night and was for the most part impressed.
Old sound effects, very accurate feel to the original in the main game but I’m really not sure how I feel about the bonus round. The + A Spin spaces are such a blessing and a curse. Really enjoyed the wild cash values though. $3,333 and $4,040 felt just as baffling as $470 in the original series.
Whammys were actually great, very cutesy low-fi rather than the 3D cringe ones, nice to see se old classics have been remade for this.
They are also filming more episodes of Match Game this week as well. Interested in seeing which new Celebrities they will get this goround.
Just seen the trailer for ‘AWAKE – The Million Dollar Game’ on Netflix.
Buzzerblog reported this was coming a while ago.
Looks like it could be fun (unlike Flinch!). It says the show is available from tomorrow!
It’s Minute to Cram a Small Fortune!
I quite liked the PYL bonus game, although one criticism I have is that they really ought to raise the smaller cash prizes slightly as the rounds progress. As I understand it you get 18 spins possibly to hit the $500,000k target (5, 4, 3, 3, 2, 1) requiring an average of just under $27k a spin, which is ridiculous when the average of the money on the board is about $4k and the odds on hitting the top money are about 1 in 27 (2 out of 54 slides if my understanding is correct). Even the occasional extra spin won’t bring down the average that much. And that’s discounting having your score reset to zero!
I get they don’t actually *want* to give away the million, but feeling *too* unobtainable is going to bum people out. I’d probably have halved the target and halved the prize. Or quartered it even.
The other values do go up, including the special squares (5000 or lose 1 whammy turned into 7000 and 9000 as the game went on).
They stopped really mentioning the million bonus after a bit, which is reasonable. The game really turns into “do you want to keep what you have or press your luck for one more round”
I would imagine that if a contestant gets lucky enough early, they’ll bring up the bonus again. But it’s fine inasmuch as “you could win a million, but honestly a $13k and a jeep is nothing to sneeze at”
Cheers, I watched the first one and kept seeing him 2250+ ecen in later rounds and it annoyed me.
The bonus round pretty much works even if it didn’t have the jackpot, so it’s surprising they go quite big on it.