Having joked that after the last two editions going for about £30, Microids will probably charge £30 for the recent DLC update for Bother’s Bar tolerated Escape Game Fort Boyard I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Toujours Plus Fort! update costs just £1.69, which for some pretty good updates and five (count ’em) new games is actually pretty reasonable. Decent even.

There are some nice Quality of Life updates to go alongside the new games – most recent Boyard-esque font used in the menus, you can actually choose your team name now from the options provided (which the team will shout out, come on THE SPIDERS OF THE APOCALYPSE) some windowed shot in shot of the team offering advice, Pere, sorry, Sir Fouras, Rouge and Blanche are all fully voiced, Passe Partout now does the signalling how many keys you’ve got with his fingers – basically if this was what was released first time round you’d still think it a bit crap (albeit more fully featured crap), but if you like the show you’d appreciate the level of basic fan service. Probably ought to swap out Mister Boo for Big Boo these days though.

As for the new games: From the Earth To The Moon doesn’t use its music, which is a pity, first two attempts I nailed it first try, couldn’t do it third time. Water Jets is hard, Arm Wrestling pretty easy, Turbo Basket OK. Shapes is probably the most successful one, being a pretty good strategy duel.

For clarity, it looks like the boxed game (certainly in France) is going by the Toujours Plus Fort! edition, but here in the UK it’s just going with “New edition”. If they kept releasing sets of games regularly at that price I’d pretty much be forced to buy them.

Can’t wait to see someone gamble £100,000 for a million or whatever, only to be mysteriously told they were a “a bit off tonight.”

I’m sure it won’t happen, it’s just that the release makes it sounds like it might happen.

After a tendering process, 30 shows were whittled down to just two, Bridge of Lies and The Tournament.

Bridge of Lies is most interesting to me here (The Tournament is screaming chess clock quiz at me, but I’ve got nothing to go on than that) as it sounds like a reimagining of STV’s (and TV3’s in Ireland) very own Bother’s Bar sort-of favourite The Lie with Susan Calman, although this sounds like it’s going to have a bit more physicality, from Broadcast: “In Catchphrase producer STV Studios’ The Bridge of Lies, teams of contestants compete for cash by crossing a bridge made up of stepping-stones across the studio floor. Each stepping-stone has a different option, and the players must try to get from A to B by stepping on the truths and avoiding the lies in order to cross safely, or risk falling off the bridge and out of the game.”

This is really poor quality but it’s the best I can find. It’s the Irish version:

There was also a French pilot made with Nagui with an actual inverted pyramid stage which looked like a health and safety nightmare.

Anyway it might not be anything like that, but it does give us something to post so that’s nice.

It’s fair to suggest these days that most new Fort Boyard (certainly key) games basically involve filling up a tube to release the key, the other ten percent are slide the key along a pipe. Metro is very much in the latter camp, but everything about the set-up is so good – set in an underground station Pere Fouras built between La Rochelle and New York, the contestant must enter the abandoned station and in the dark find the switch to make it operational. This a) Turns the lights on, and b) releases the key but unfortunately it also c) turns the water pumps on and d) locks the door behind them. To win they must slide the key around the course so they can use it to unlock the door and escape before time runs out.

There’s still a lot of new stuff from this year to discover, Fort Boyard continues on France 2 on Saturday nights, our discussion page is here but everyone’s rather taken to the Bother’s Bar Discord.

This was a surprise video, we only learnt of the game’s existence the other day and it only came out this afternoon. I do feel however that I’ve played enough to determine whether it’s worth your hard earned £12.99 though.

As ever, I show you a game and then you can decide for yourself. Do stick around to the end for an old-school Bother’s Bar reference.

Or make some words, whatever. The system’s quite clever to be fair, although you work bottom to top rather than the other way around to make the Connect 4 thing work.

It’s not out yet, but more details are on the John Adams site.