[quote name=\'TenPoundHammer\' post=\'176004\' date=\'Jan 23 2008, 03:28 PM\']*WinTuition: 5th grade level question; contestants had to match up the wives of Henry VIII to their causes of death. Surprisingly, the contestants nailed all of them.[/quote] Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived, he said, without checking. And each contestant only had to provide one correct answer, not all of them.
Admittedly there're about a million more WoF puzzles I could gripe about, omes to mind).
This is what I don't get. Why does everyone assume that just because Wheel of Fortune has a massive budget with a potential $100,000 bonus award every night that all of the bonus puzzles have to be lay-ups, and if there happens to be a week without a bonus solve that it's a SUPER WIPEOUT ZONK EL SKUNK-O. It's a bonus for a potentially huge prize. It ought to be difficult.
Any puzzle can be solved if you plug in the right letters, apply the rules of language, and use the used letter board properly. For what it's worth, I refute most of your examples of "obscure letters" or "awkward phrasing." I think "awkward phrasing is when the puzzle GAME SHOW HOST PAT SAJAK is put in the category of "Proper Name." "A SKIMPY BIKINI" is most certainly a thing, and not an awkward phrase in the least.
[quote name=\'chris319\' post=\'176009\' date=\'Jan 23 2008, 03:53 PM\']When a producer is coming close to going over his prize budget, you'll find that the questions get harder. He doesn't want you to know the answer.[/quote]That's interesting. I remember saying something about a string of harder than perceived normal FJ clues to my Dad, and he said that cycles of difficulty were tantamount to rigging like in the 1950s. It was all I could do to not burst out laughing.
[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'176010\' date=\'Jan 23 2008, 03:58 PM\']The Donnymid ones at least allow you to be more descriptive. "The guy that sits next to Kelly Ripa drinks his java outta me." or "Let's have a look at your top gum, top gun.".....[/quote]I like the consonance, but I always thought that the proper response to the latter was "Get down off of Oprah's couch, you nut, I have to check your teeth."
But hey, dif'rent strokes, right?
[quote name=\'fostergray82\' post=\'176014\' date=\'Jan 23 2008, 04:07 PM\']I'm guessing the cards might appear "random" to Pat and the contestant, but someone backstage knows the order of the cards. I mean, it's cool as long as they don't reveal anything to the contestant, right?[/quote]But then the contestant gets to cut the cards, so while the order of those 52 cards remains the same (in terms of a continuum), the chance of rigging without being nailed is lower. And for that matter, the cards are shuffled and sealed, so there's not really a chance for disturbance.
On another note, how do you compute a budget for CS? You can't really run 100 playtests and use the median value, because players who are doing it for $10 an hour aren't going to "pretend that you're on TV, with a car payment or a wedding to pay off."
