The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: Dbacksfan12 on November 28, 2018, 02:34:47 PM
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I'm not certain that intangibles is the right word for what I'm going to describe, but I'm positive that you'll get the gist of what I'm doing. What are some little things that shows do that make it a better watching experience?
For example, I prefer the earlier episodes of STYD. In the bonus game, they revealed the prizes in a different fashion than later episodes. The first prize might have been $435, while the next was $289, the third was $350, and so on. Doing so gave the bonus round slightly more suspense. Later episodes were revealed from lowest price to highest price, leaving little doubt at the end.
Other examples that stick out?
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The players on $ale of the Century not seeing their own scores or the speed round clock. Outside of extreme cases, it meant that the everybody would still keep earnestly trying for questions until the very end. And the players not knowing they were in the final seconds meant there weren't as many crazy hail mary tries from players in last place (i.e. buzzing in on just the words "Which U.S. state" in order to try to catch up). This wasn't something they changed during the run, AFAIK, but it's something I didn't appreciate until I played the game at home with everybody seeing everything.
More to your specific example, Password Plus took quite awhile to figure out how to order their words. Earlier episodes would do things like FELIX-OSCAR-MISMATCHED-PAIR-PLAY, instead of something more interesting like MISMATCHED-PAIR-OSCAR-FELIX-PLAY, which got better passwords out sooner, and kept the subject of the puzzle in doubt until later. Perhaps it was deliberate, but I preferred the latter to the former. Super Password perhaps OVER-corrected this, but I liked seeing more Password play with uncommon words over quick-and-obvious puzzle solves.
-Jason
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TJW using categories on the wheels instead of dollar figures, and jokers in each window, to incorporate some of the classic TJW IMO improved the game.
Going from 3 questions in the final round to a speed round in SOTC, for reasons discussed on here many times before.
Scrabble also kept changing things for the better, starting with both players playing different Sprint bonus puzzles to each playing the same words. Trying a spelling wrinkle and quickly getting rid of it. Two self contained rounds instead of straddling the game. The list goes on...
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"Second Chance" and "Press Your Luck" are essentially the same. The little animated Whammies made PYL the beloved classic.
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"Second Chance" and "Press Your Luck" are essentially the same. The little animated Whammies made PYL the beloved classic.
PYL is, arguably, more colorful (and not just because of the Whammies). Also, using buzz-in questions rather than watching people write their answers on cards made the game more dynamic.
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Card Sharks adding the "push" rule in Money Cards. I never found that rule fair as money would always be lost no matter if the card was higher or lower.
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Also, using buzz-in questions rather than watching people write their answers on cards made the game more dynamic.
As did having a board where the spaces were constantly changing, as opposed to Second Chance's mostly static board.
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And the lights moving *just* slowly enough to give the contestants (well, 99.9% of the contestants) just enough of an impression that they could control their fate.
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Card Sharks adding the "push" rule in Money Cards. I never found that rule fair as money would always be lost no matter if the card was higher or lower.
And allowing you to change the base card on each level, which CS86 expanded upon with changing one card (base card or not) on each level.
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How about Pyramid allowing both contestants to play the entire game. If you’re a newcomer playing against a solid champion, you at least get a second chance if you had a bad celebrity partner in the first half.
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While we're talking "Pyramid", I should submit this major change with the Strahan version: Contestants giving the clues in the Winners Circle. With $50K or $100K at stake with every playing, it only makes sense---at least to me---for the contestant to do the heavy lifting.
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While we're talking "Pyramid", I should submit this major change with the Strahan version: Contestants giving the clues in the Winners Circle. With $50K or $100K at stake with every playing, it only makes sense---at least to me---for the contestant to do the heavy lifting.
That was always an option though, just rarely invoked.
I'd submit the tightening of the WC rules in the 80s as a change for the better.
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The Big Bank in Whammy’s 2nd season made the show borderline watchable.
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I don't know where the line of intangibles begins or ends, but I start with Jeopardy moving from answer when the clue is exposed to waiting for the Go Lights and grade down from that. (This also helped Greed's Terminator showdowns as well.) Honorable mentions go to Wipeout realizing that a woman clomping back and forth from the board to the buzzer in heels was ungreat TV and at some point gave the contestants running shoes, and to Where...is Carmen Sandiego going from the little puzzle clues during the map chase to just "Carmen went to Croatia!" I think that Scrabble took a solid game and through shrewd choices and improvement in writing turned it from a base hit to a stand-up triple, but they're all things I can point to and say "Yeah, that was a good choice by all y'all."
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How about the expansion of TPIR to an hour? It gave Bob more time to have fun with the contestants (though that time has eroded over the years) and eliminated the problem of a winning contestant's failing to make the Showcase because he got to play Double Prices for a recliner while another contestant won a car in Any Number. Yes, there's still the luck of the spin in the Showcase Showdown, but at least it gives everyone a roughly equal chance of advancing to the Showcase regardless of his previous winnings.
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How about the expansion of TPIR to an hour? It gave Bob more time to have fun with the contestants (though that time has eroded over the years) and eliminated the problem of a winning contestant's failing to make the Showcase because he got to play Double Prices for a recliner while another contestant won a car in Any Number. Yes, there's still the luck of the spin in the Showcase Showdown, but at least it gives everyone a roughly equal chance of advancing to the Showcase regardless of his previous winnings.
Along the same TPiR lines, it seemed very anticlimactic when they went right from showcase bids to showcase reveal with no commercial break.
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Along the same TPiR lines, it seemed very anticlimactic when they went right from showcase bids to showcase reveal with no commercial break.
That's a good one in the spirit of what Mark was talking about...the show had lots more time back then, but rushing that portion of the show made the actual game they were playing feel like an afterthought.
-Jason
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A really minor one: Wheel's shuffling of the commercial breaks at the start of Season 23 - eliminating the break after the Bonus Round and adding a break after Round 1 - helped improve the pace of the show. I find the Pat/Vanna chats charming at times, and it didn't make much sense to have those after a break when most viewers, especially those who watch the show on an affiliate that airs it in the second half of an hour, wouldn't stick around to see it.
In addition to Password Plus's improvements to the puzzle writing in the early months, the small rule changes - reducing the number of guesses for each Password from 6 to 4 and allowing the team that guessed the previous Password to remain in control - helped tighten up the game and make it more fair. I wasn't a huge fan of a third change - the elimination of opposites in clue-giving - but I know it has fans in this group.
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Card Sharks adding the "push" rule in Money Cards. I never found that rule fair as money would always be lost no matter if the card was higher or lower.
And allowing you to change the base card on each level, which CS86 expanded upon with changing one card (base card or not) on each level.
I am surprised Mark G. didn't add this to CS78 when he added the push rule. It made the game much more climactic for the home viewer and slightly better for the contestant to win.
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Classic Concentration adding the puzzle text below after the reveal, and I think having the contestant explain it was more fun than Alex hauling over there for every puzzle.
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...there weren't as many crazy hail mary tries from players in last place (i.e. buzzing in on just the words "Which U.S. state" in order to try to catch up). This wasn't something they changed during the run, AFAIK, but it's something I didn't appreciate until I played the game at home with everybody seeing everything.
I haven’t played the $OTC home game in many moons, but I remember friends ringing in upon hearing only “true or false” and guessing one or the other. That was more for amusement than strategy, though.
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Thought of another one I wanted to throw out there--I liked how The Newlywed Game would change the order of answers on a multiple choice question, thus preventing a couple from ever saying "Just pick the third one".
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Thought of another one I wanted to throw out there--I liked how The Newlywed Game would change the order of answers on a multiple choice question, thus preventing a couple from ever saying "Just pick the third one".
I never noticed that. I don't know if it's an intangible that makes the show better, but it's a simple way to prevent cheating.
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And not too long ago, I saw a bible for Match Game '90 that indicated the choices for Match-Up were sometimes displayed to the contestant in reverse order from how Ross would read them, so as to prevent the "pick the (first/second) one" hack.
-Jason
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I kind of like it when you hear a good chunk of the theme song - especially in the rare times it was without applause. As we know, some of the themes written for these shows were great - but you'd hardly hear the orchestration over the heavy applause and announcer at the end. It almost seemed like an unimportant throwaway at times.
It sometimes bugged me a bit when they had extra time to fill at the end of the show, and they spent the time small-talking, then when the closing theme played it didn't play for very long. I always thought - forget the talk and let me hear a longer cut of the theme!
I also liked it when you saw the audience. There were numerous shows where this rarely (if ever) occurred.
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While we're talking "Pyramid", I should submit this major change with the Strahan version: Contestants giving the clues in the Winners Circle. With $50K or $100K at stake with every playing, it only makes sense---at least to me---for the contestant to do the heavy lifting.
I was on Season 2. It was HIGHLY recommended that you give the clues, to the point that late round auditions focused heavily on WC gameplay.
Scrabble is probably the show that was the best at improving the intangibles- changing the letter shuffle in the Sprint round, playing the same sprint words, and moving to a daily tournament style were all good changes that had little bearing on the rules.
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In the era of the big money quizzes, I became a fan of when the correct answers are left to be suddenly revealed by the computer, rather than the host announcing whether it's right or wrong. Greed revealed the answers like this; this has also been seen on several international versions of WWTBAM where both the host and the contestant just sit there staring at the screen in suspense during the drumroll until the correct answer flashes.
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I like when game shows award an extra bonus for excellent play -- more specifically, when a contestant sweeps a match.
One show comes to mind:
Celebrity Whew! When episodes became self-contained and one team swept the best 2 out if 3 match, they got to play a 3rd round against the house for a chance to earn a couple of hundred dollars more, but more importantly, more time running the Gauntlet.
Go also had a extra bonus round vs the house for a swept match, but that was always part of the game and not added mid-stream.
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Not an addition per se, but I'm a fan of games that allow for a two-loss or best-of-three rule (Blockbusters, Classic Concentration). Gives new contestants a chance to shake off any dust, esp. if you're on a game like TTD and run into a dominant contestant like Thom McKee. Also, if you can win a game, you at least have some pocket change to take home.
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While we're talking "Pyramid", I should submit this major change with the Strahan version: Contestants giving the clues in the Winners Circle. With $50K or $100K at stake with every playing, it only makes sense---at least to me---for the contestant to do the heavy lifting.
I was on Season 2. It was HIGHLY recommended that you give the clues, to the point that late round auditions focused heavily on WC gameplay.
I can understand that. Back in the Dick Clark era, they had a rolodex of celebs with experience giving clues at the WC. Not so with the Strahan version. Also, with the contestant giving, it's on him or her if they blow it with an illegal clue.
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IIRC, later on in TTD's run with Wink, $250 was put in a pot for each tied board that was created. The losing contestant would get that money.
On PYL, if two contestants got four Whammies and the remaining contestant had spins, they got to play "against the house."
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Also, with the contestant giving, it's on him or her if they blow it with an illegal clue.
Especially without the benefit of returning champions. In the old days, if you blew it in the WC, you could still win the same $25,000 tomorrow.
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While we're talking "Pyramid", I should submit this major change with the Strahan version: Contestants giving the clues in the Winners Circle. With $50K or $100K at stake with every playing, it only makes sense---at least to me---for the contestant to do the heavy lifting.
That was always an option though, just rarely invoked.
I'd submit the tightening of the WC rules in the 80s as a change for the better.
Part of the reason why this rule was rarely invoked, was because contestant coordinators often suggested to contestants that they opt to receive in the Winners Circle because the celebrities usually practiced in giving the clues as opposed to receiving.
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I think with each incarnation of High Rollers, there was an element that improved on itself, but also added its own unique brand in the process.
1978-80: Went from prizes claimed by individual number eliminates to prizes claimed by columns of three numbers being eliminated, the last number eliminated allowed the player to claim the prize(s). Also, with the addition of contestants being allowed to roll the dice instead of deferring to Ruta Lee rolling gave more of an impression that the contestants were moreso in control of their own fate. Personally, I loved the wide variety of numeric fonts the show incorporated into its games.
1987-88: Added single die mini-games as its own prize, which when won, allowed contestants to win even more prizes. Bringing back the Big Numbers in "tribute" to the original 1974-76 era was a pleasant surprise as well. I was a little disappointed with the low variety in the numeric fonts in this version. But overall, a solid show in its own right.
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I think with each incarnation of High Rollers, there was an element that improved on itself, but also added its own unique brand in the process.
1987-88: Added single die mini-games as its own prize, which when won, allowed contestants to win even more prizes. Bringing back the Big Numbers in "tribute" to the original 1974-76 era was a pleasant surprise as well. I was a little disappointed with the low variety in the numeric fonts in this version. But overall, a solid show in its own right.
Actually, I saw the mini-games as typically a huge timewaster and an opportunity for the producers to hype a larger potential prize but, more often than not, the contestant winning a much smaller one instead...the mini-games were a help to the budget but often not that interesting to watch...
JakeT
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IIRC, later on in TTD's run with Wink, $250 was put in a pot for each tied board that was created. The losing contestant would get that money.
If the current champion lost, he would not get theb$250 per tie game. That was given only to the challenger if he lost.