The Nonary Games

By | March 24, 2017

Something to file under “things that may be of interest”, out on Steam and PS4/Vita today is Zero Escape: The Nonary Games, a remastered collection of 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward previously released on Nintendo DS.

I have played neither of the games previously, but I’m totally on board with the theme – nine people trapped in an unusual situation and having to solve puzzles and team-up/betray each other in order to survive a deadly game. They sound like The Genius meets Saw, basically, but done as an interactive visual novel. A jumped-up Choose Your Own Adventure by the looks of things.

£55 on the PS Store feels a bit steep really but I think it will be my next purchase after I’ve finished Zelda anyway. Did you play them when they first came out? I’m aware there’s a third in the series also on 3DS released quite recently.

Edit: H/t Alex McMillan on Twitter, you can buy it for £43 at Base.com physically. It’s £45 at Amazon.

Edit edit: Some stuff about the Red Bull Mindgamers thing in the comments.

Amateur Contestant Call

By | March 23, 2017

Right then, FOTB and Schlag den Star commentator Dan Peake is recording a new podcast game called Codebreaker recording in the next few weeks. He is after contestants. If you like general knowledge quizzes and codebreaking, drop him a line. And here’s the Code Breaker Twitter.

And several of you have enquired about The Smartest Person at Bother’s Bar. Here’s where I currently am: about half the questions are written, this is intended to be a four night LIVE event the week after Easter, three heats and a final. You will need a webcam (non-negotiable). You will need to be free between 8:45pm and about 10pm on the 17th (that’s Easter Monday), 18th or 20th PLUS the final on the Friday 21st April. There will be a trophy – it’s getting engraved right now.

In my head this is brilliant, hopefully this will be good in actuality. A contestant form will be going up in the next few days so look out for that. It would be nice to have some diversity (i.e. one or two contestants of the nine I need who aren’t white male nerds), but I’m only able to select candidates from the people who do apply. I’m afraid this will probably have to be limited to UK players because of the nature of the questions and timezone differences although it’s not set in stone.

Filler bag

By | March 22, 2017

Let’s take a look inside the Bother’s Bar Filler Bag… yeah why not. Thanks to Brian Moore for sending us a link to this, the Japanese version of LWT’s ‘hit’ 1976 show The Sweepstakes Game, more popularly (and originally) known in the US as Celebrity Sweepstakes. It’s kind of a bit like You Bet meets Winner Takes All – the audience votes on which celebs they think will be able to answer a question, the computer calculates the odds from that then the contestants wager on those odds.