The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: Peter Sarrett on June 04, 2017, 04:08:56 AM
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I've asked a few questions here about fonts and sound effects over the past few months, so I thought I'd share what that was all about.
About two years ago I decided to teach myself how to use Unity, and I thought a game show project would be a great introduction. Inspired by Mike Burger's Game Show Round (http://www.mikeburger.com/gsr.html (http://www.mikeburger.com/gsr.html)), I decided to create something similar. That project is Game Showdown.
The game is for two teams of 3 players each and lasts 60 minutes (it can be configured to any length). Players spin the Press Your Luck board to earn bonus points, lose points from a Whammy, or determine the next game to play. After playing the selected game, the winning team gets a shot at the bonus round for extra points, and then it's back to the Press Your Luck board.
Besides the Press Your Luck board, I currently have 8 main games and 8 bonus games implemented:
- Blockbusters and the Blockbusters Gold Run
- Chain Reaction (Cullen) and its original bonus round
- Faster (an adaptation of the UK's Wogan's Perfect Recall) and a bonus round based on same
- Only Connect (sets and sequences) with the Connecting Wall as the bonus round
- Password and Alphabetics from Password Plus as the bonus
- $100,000 Pyramid (Clark) and the Winner's Circle
- Split Second (Kennedy) countdown round as main game and Match Game Super Match as bonus
- Wheel of Fortune speed round, and bonus round
The game runs on Windows, requiring two 1920x1080 displays (the laptop screen has the host controls, while the second display shows the game board). I have it set up so that players can use their smartphones to connect to the game via WiFi and receive private info (for Password and Pyramid) on their devices, or I can show that info on the big screen. I also wrote a lockout buzzer system using their phones, but that isn't working as reliably yet. For a backup, I use a wireless Eggspert buzzer system, which unfortunately isn't integrated directly into the software so it doesn't trigger any of the audio/visual effects automatically like the phone-based system does.
I've written enough content for at least 6 plays of each game (more for some games, but damn, good Only Connect content is hard!), and the game tracks used content on a per-audience basis (so I can run it with group A, another night with group B, and another night with group A again and group A will not repeat their content but could get content used in group B's session).
Game selection is random, so it's possible to get the same game more than once in a session. The host can override, however, and choose whatever game he wants. I chose to focus on gameplay, not on recreating every detail of the telecast or set. Each game has only one screen view-- there are no camera movements, no podiums, no title screens. After making a custom split-flap display for Password, I decided to make my life easier by using the same eggcrate display for all other games (though I matched the font for Split Second).
Screenshots!
(https://image.ibb.co/fMR1qv/Blockbusters.png)
(https://image.ibb.co/gTQ0iF/Chain_Reaction.png)
(https://image.ibb.co/fv39ca/Faster.png)
(https://image.ibb.co/kMfBqv/Only_Connect.png)
(https://image.ibb.co/kjdxVv/Password.png)
(https://image.ibb.co/n3ND3F/Pyramid.png)
(https://image.ibb.co/ixEhxa/Split_Second.png)
(https://image.ibb.co/moWUca/Wheel_Of_Fortune.png)
Just had my first beta test, and I'm looking forward to the first "live" game next month.
- Peter
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That's a great idea.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SNaY1ftzfjs
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They look great, Peter! Looks like you put a lot of time and work into those...You'll have to let us know how it worked out!
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Great work, Peter. I love the attention to detail...hopefully you can show us how it turned out so we can see other types of game projects!
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I like it! Nice job, Peter!
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Wow, awesome work Peter! Great job on Split Second and Chain Reaction!
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Great work, Peter! Love the Password and Perfect Recall backgrounds!
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Looks great, Peter. I wish you luck with it.
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Always happy to hear from Peter Sarrett.
-Jason
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Great job Peter! Quite an undertaking. Good luck with it!
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Very nice! Congratulations (as Regis used to say) on getting this far!
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Well done. Those look great.
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Very cool, Peter!
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Based on feedback from the first playtest, I decided to remove the Press Your Luck front-end, and switch from randomized content to pre-curated episodes. While game show fans enjoy calling out "Big Bucks, no whammies!", it's less fun in a team/party environment and felt like a waste of time to some players. Whammies make for great television but don't feel good at home, no matter how mild the penalty.
Episodic content helps at, say, a convention, allowing me to replay the same episode with a different group and not burn through all the content too quickly. It also ensures that no format is repeated during a single episode. I settled on an episode length of 6 formats (out of the 8 formats I currently support), which should clock in around 45 minutes, but I can make episodes of different lengths.
Hoping to playtest again tomorrow night.
- Peter
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While I don't disagree with the decision, there is always a way to semi-curate randomness. When I do Name That Tune, I have a small pool of songs that are played at random to help with qualifiers and tiebreakers. I recently did a version of the Joker's Wild and included the ability to default a category to a Joker if I was running low on a topic.
Of course, you can also have the PYL front-end but not have it be actually random, too. ;)
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Of course, you can also have the PYL front-end but not have it be actually random, too. ;)
I am curious to know why you think this would be a good idea at all.
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Dr. Malcolm, I never said it was, just that you could.
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Dr. Malcolm, I never said it was, just that you could.
In the same spirit, you seem to be spending a lot of time wondering if you could do something and not so much about if you should. ;)
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I considered making Press Your Luck faux-random, but didn't want to go that route. Instead, I'm considering using it as a finale, assigning spins based on # of main game wins in the previous rounds, and using each team's overall score as their starting bank. But I suspect that without the big stakes of a real game show, Press Your Luck kinda falls flat.
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Depends on the crowd. I've hosted several game show nights, and Press Your Luck is a staple. It's a fun, flashy, low-brain game that carries an immense nostalgia factor. If you're playing with more of a pub quiz crowd, then yeah, you can shelve it. But if it's more casual, you might be surprised how well it goes over. Hearing one of my wife's friends say 'Oh my God, it's like I'm home sick in grade school and watching USA all afternoon" was an awesome payoff last time.
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The experience that we had running the Game Show Machine for a convention a few years back is that you don't want to create a whole bunch of front games and bonus rounds - especially ones that require props - and have it so that any one game could show up at any time. Either a game gets randomly picked that you're not prepared for, or you write a bunch of questions and lug a bunch of extraneous equipment to the event despite the very real chance it never comes into play.
A simple itinerary of games for a given "episode" is just fine. After all, if your players don't know what's coming up, it doesn't really matter whether it's chosen randomly or if it's predetermined.