Roughly a week (or at least that's the timeframe he gave himself to speak to the fans). Here's a post JC_Ludia made on g-r on June 9th:



This is his next post eight days later:



Take that as you will.

For anyone curious, here are some things JC addressed at Golden-Road:

The theme music: As I've mentioned multiple times before, Fremantle did not have a clean copy of this music in their archives, and for obvious legal reasons we couldn't use one of the many clean themes available on the net. We had to make a new one (our friends at Wave Generation). The transition music is a different story - Fremantle had the sources so we could use them.

The boards: At least the layouts are correct! And I know the QA guys were right. (JC originally said the QA guys said the big board was too easy because in many cases one of the three layouts has no whammies in it, leading to them racking insanely huge scores because they'd look out for the high whammy layout then buzzing when it changed. I kept my point and made it so it would be faithful to the show rather than changing this around. I did this for you guys - personally I would have rebalanced it but after seeing the huge demand for the original board layouts I decided to keep them as is.) It was even worse in one of our previous versions, where it would just cycle in a linear fashion, and you could be guaranteed to land on a no whammy board. :) At least now whenever a board switch is about to happen, it randomly picks a different board.

The whammies: I'm glad you guys like the whammies. We initially did 2 tests for their animations: one like it is in-game, which are closer to the original show, and one with in-between frames between the keyframes so they'd be better animated. While the version with in-betweens looked much, MUCH better, we felt the keyframes only version would fit better with the game. We have a few absolutely insane 2D animators on board here and they did an amazing job with them. If you want to check out some more of their work, you can look at our Where's Waldo game, where they painstakingly recreated every page from the first Where's Waldo book and added animation to it. It's phenomenal.

Prizes: We had problems with getting prizes in-game - video from the original show was in rather low quality and we didn't have the rights to use it, so we had to do a work-around.

Funny, Curt King didn't have any video in his game at all, and yet he still somehow managed to insert an assortment of prizes, each programmed to have a different cash value. "Work-around", my ass. They gave up on this element to save time and effort, and hoped no one foolish enough to lay out 40 bucks would notice.

/Oh, and Curt was able to do it 9 freaking years ago

Plenty of time, especially for a dude who claims to be as "in-touch" with the fanbase as he represents.

...and yet they couldn't be bothered to figure out that Big Bucks always moves to the space orthagonally above it, always, always, without fail, even if there's a more valuable prize on the board? How does THAT bug get through? How does that CODE get written? Look:


How hard is that? Why would you even BOTHER with any kind of what-space-is-worth-most logic?

I'll tell you why: because either he didn't bother to find out or nobody bothered to tell the Latvians writing his code how it's supposed to work.

...so he screws up the basic behavior of the game and puts stock $3,000 prizes in the first round.

He strives, but he fails. But I bet the code ports *great*.

Oh SO MUCH this, and this is another fine argument for "get the friggin' boards right": Curt had a WIDE ASSORTMENT of them in his game, all of them accurate to a square, and IIRC you could either get at them with a board editor app or pick which ones you wanted to play with within the game. They were EASILY accessible.

(And if there was a guarantee of whammy-free boards, it means they were switching boards per-board, and not per-square. Somewhere, Michael Larsen is smiling.)

If I understand his explanation correctly, there are eight different 'configurations' (which I am interpreting as '18-frame screenshots), and the game randomly chooses three of them for each play-through. During the game, instead of each individual slide rotating, the whole board rotates between these three screenshots.


I think that having such easy access to a large number of boards that only have what the 'casual' audience would consider minor, nitpicky differences would be out of place in a Wii game such as this, though.

If I was designing this game, I'd probably only put three full, 54-panel boards in it: A show-accurate 1984 board, a 'high-risk' board where the dollar amounts are higher, but has more Whammies, and something else that would probably take more effort to create than I'm willing to put in the two minutes I'm taking to write this post. Maybe add a 'board editor' for the real hard-core fans that would appreciate it, but I wouldn't make that a selling point to the 'casuals'.


Wait...how do you not have the rights to a graphic of a flat-screen tv and the letters "TV" written underneath it?

Yes. Big problem.

I agree. So you pick one from Round One, and one from Round Two. If the "fans" can't agree on the best ones, you make an executive decision.

You've overthinking it. Stop right here, and ship it. :)

This wouldn't be worth the trouble at all.

Most of us seem to agree on the basic point, though: It wasn't hard to get this right. Even taking away the little nitpicky things like not playing the "right" theme music or not maintaining the "board spin" loop sound or whatever, the basic, fundamental aspects of the game were easy to replicate if they cared enough to do it., and they still farked it up. Curt cared enough eight years or whatever ago, on no budget, a way shorter dev cycle, and no incentive to make money from his efforts.

I think he was talking specifically about the prize video clips, but, yeah. Easy enough to pay your artists in the Philippines to find some iconic clip art and caption it in a free version of Times New Roman. Easy enough to make up some prize values: hell, I was able to do that over the course of a period of AP Computer Science twenty years ago.

In my defense, I'm at work right now. I have nothing *better* to do than sit here and overthink things. :)

If you understand his explanation correctly, then this game really is a failure pile on a sadness disc. Not taking the time to randomize each square individually, but instead, randomizing the board in a way that practically guarantees breaking the game balance (not that the slapdash approach to the prizes didn't do that already) is, once again, beyond lazy. I'm beginning to think that if JC spent half the time on the actual product that he did kneeling and bobbing on G-R, we might actually have had an enjoyable gaming experience here.

[quote name='clemon79' date='Oct 28 2009, 01:37 PM' post='229364']
Most of us seem to agree on the basic point, though: It wasn't hard to get this right. Even taking away the little nitpicky things like not playing the "right" theme music or not maintaining the "board spin" loop sound or whatever, the basic, fundamental aspects of the game were easy to replicate if they cared enough to do it., and they still farked it up. Curt cared enough eight years or whatever ago, on no budget, a way shorter dev cycle, and no incentive to make money from his efforts.
[quote]

Maybe they should've hired Curt. :)

Shouldn't they feel pretty bad if they, as hired "professional" programmers, can't code a program better than ONE PERSON who casually coded the same program in 2000? I guess they would, if they actually cared.

Sorry to shift away from the PYL talk, but Travis Schario (aka UnclePlinko), is showing off his concept for a "Super Deluxe," box game edition of TPIR, which he broke down into a master game, plus add-on games. Here is the link to start:

http://www.travisschario.com/games.html

You then click the box art design shown, to see what the game boards will look like, if his idea is produced. Remember, this is just a concept! Neither Endless Games, nor any other company is committed to licensing this neat concept.

Patton Oswald is smiling.

I've tried to (badly) code PYL in my spare time. When I finally sat down and coded PYL in 2003, I didn't know what the hell I was really doing. Sadly, that POS that Fremantle told me to remove from my website is tons better than their retail endeavor. Curt's is, by far, the best version of the game, but this wasn't a hard game to make decent and fun.

Nah. Now Pineapple Remix? That's a different story. ;)

Anything I made before Deal or No Deal is, IMO, a steaming pile, so duly noted.

Nor will they, looking at the manufacturing costs of some of the in-box components. But it's fun that he put it all out there. I just wouldn't hold my breath towards seeing it in stores anytime soon. :)

Zager, thanks for bringing my concept to the attention of the boards.

Lemon, Endless is going back in time and reproducing the slidey-answer "Feud" board. What prevents them from spending similar monies to produce a "Plinko" board?

Keep up the discussion though. I do want to hear everyone's thoughts.

Well, besides the fact that the Plinko board is used for a tiny bit of the overall game and the Feud board is the whole game, that was actually just the tip of the iceberg. I also see: a countdown timer, a calculator (trust me: never happen), special dice for Let 'Em Roll, a totally unnecessary dice cup, and all kinds of special one-shot card decks.

The interesting thing about your original design (indeed, the thing that made it financially viable for Endless to do) was that most of the games could be played using a limited set of parts.

But I wish you good luck and Godspeed in your search for a publisher.

I wouldn't swear to this, but I think JC was already a member of GR.net, so that could explain that.

I always thought a plinko piggy bank would be a cute novelty

I don't see how the theme music would be a legal issue. I'm sure they could get it from some die hard GS fans who would be thrilled with just having their name in the special thanks or something during the credits.

Yeah, he came to g-r first to garner feedback/support for their first PiR game, and has used that as his 'base of operations' for reaching out to the fans ever since.

Fixed that for you.

Yeah, he was already a member for the first PiR game, but that's just bad research. I'm not saying that the G-R members are mindless fanbois or anything, but that's just bad research on their part. If I'm going to be involved in anything that can be improved upon by fan feedback, I'm going to go to more than one source to do my homework.

You operate under the assumption that the true cause for his involvement there is primarily development feedback.

Let's get away from "Press Your Luck" for just a second, and announce the release of another game show video game...

"Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader: Game Time" (For the Wii, Xbox 360 and DS)

Graphics look better than the "Make the Grade" version, released last year. I've ordered the game on Amazon, so it should arrive in the mail soon.

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3458590

Deluxe "Deal Or No Deal" is on sale for 50% off at Toys 'R' Us, just $12.49 on the web site and in stores. I saw this at the Council Bluffs, IA location tonight. Funny that Amazon wants $34.99 for it. The store claimed it was only on sale for two days, October 30 and 31. Those who collect versions of the game might find this an agreeable price...I know I did!

I also picked up Mega Monopoly for $20.14 for my 'regular' board game collection. Web site says $19.49 on this one.

Matt

Found the PYL handheld game at the local Mal-Wart on clearance for $2. Still overpriced.

especially when you stopped an arrow at a money amount, and it showed a whammy on screen

The Wheel Of Fortune game is on sale too , as is Family Feud

Heh, too funny. This made me laugh. There are some great aspects to the game, but some major pitfalls. The code above references once of those pitfalls.

-Ryan

Ok another small pet peeve. I don't know if this was just a one time fluke or what but when the computer was spinning with passed spins, she landed on $500 + One spin, but the 1 spin never entered her earn column and it was never addressed at the end of her turn, just the end of the round. First time I noticed it, but Ill pay attention if it keeps happening. Also at the end when someone wins, the big board doesn't flash all of the spaces simultaneously like during the tv game when someone won. I know I'm nit picking, but if they want to make it authentic, then fix the little things.

Well Uncle P, as I have said before, hope the SD Edition comes to pass...you would be the game show home game god if it came true.

There can be only one. =)

Damn straight, though I have to admit it's hard for me to keep the site current with the new releases. I do appreciate the help I'm getting from some of you, even if I don't always get a chance to tell you directly.

By the way, for those of you keeping score, Travis and I are tied at one each in giving assistance to Endless Games for the release of one of their products. Mine was somewhat less publicized.

I may have a jump on you by one. Last year, I designed a "Grab 'N' Go" Price is Right that was never published. I say "may" because, even though it was not released, I still got paid for it.

Any help that you can give on my new one, Matt, would be greatly appreciated, and credited.

Wait a minute.....paid?????


Kind of you to offer, but this is your baby. Good luck and godspeed!

Oh boy, I got some good news here! Three new games are being released next year for the Wii. They are: Hollywood Squares, Survivor, and The Amazing Race.

Find out more:
http://www.thrfeed.com/2009/11/survivor-ra...ideo-games.html

If you think that's good news, you didn't see the TWO attempts at Survivor we pumped out when I was at Atari.

And the other two...come from our friends at Ludia. I got a fin that says they botch up the "can't put an X there, you have to earn that yourself" rule.

I'm not into Survivor or The Amazing Race, but The Hollywood Squares? Only if they put that no win by default rule in there will I be really interested in that one. That's for next year. I might get PYL for this holiday season, however, reading some of the serious shortcommings is kind turnning me off on that. I'd probably have to settle for the tabletop versions of either WoF or DoND.

So, you say that John Davidson will host the game? :)

That's easy: all the celebrities have to be "Unnamed Celebrity #_", and the Secret Square and bonus prizes (if there's a bonus round) will be cash. Ain't no way I see Ludia paying for likenesses of anyone when they wouldn't even shell out for generic PYL prizes.

I think a game like The Amazing Race would work best as an RPG mixed with elements from the Carmen Sandiego game series. But seeing that this is on the Wii, it will ultimately be a set of minigames.

It'll be tough to botch Hollywood Squares, but let me not speak too soon. At the very least, it'll probably look real purty.

The no-brainer feature is to not bother with "celebrities", but populate the Squares with the other Mii's on your machine. "Oh, look, I'll take Nate for the block."

(This also allows them to get around those pesky celebrity likeness issues, since there are a billion people out there who have a great time (and in many cases, do a great job of) churning out celebrity-lookalike Miis and posting them up on the Check Mii Out Channel for other people to download. You want celebrities? You can have 'em. At the minimum I have Hulk Hogan (they even got the right shade of orange), Peter and Stewie Griffin, Bob Ross, and Bill Clinton on mine.)

But since Ludia's business model seems to revolve around porting to as many platforms as they possibly can (they'd put out an Atari 2600 cartridge if they could) while writing the absolute minimum amount of code possible ('cuz apparently they pay those folks in Latvia by the line), that won't happen.

There was a decent cell version of Hollywood Squares on Verizon a few years back, I can't remember if they had the "earn it yourself" rule or not. It was a good version of the game, especially for a cell phone(most cell games can be crap imho)

I surely hope they're not writing the zingers as well. (shudder)

In Latvia, zingers write YOU!!

Another article
Note: The Hollywood Squares not just "Hollywood Squares."
Another note : "The first of..." suggesting a series of HS games.

Um, so? (he says, desperately hoping you're not insinuating what I fear you are insinuating.)

Language like that in a blog post taken wholesale from a press release issued by people who have a vested financial interest in the success of the IP! What do you think it MEANS, man!

Since in the first paragraph, the game is described as "Hollywood Squares", I doubt there's much you ought to be reading into the "The".

It would be cool as all hell, but yeah, I agree with Matt.