blockbusters question

[toetyper]

in the gold run/rush did the  questions get harder moving from left to right or was the level of difficulty consistent across the board'/

[Marc412]

The difficulty of the material was more or less random throughout the board.  Bill would sometimes say that some clues were tougher than others, and some were easier than others.

[TLEberle]

[quote name=\'Marc412\' post=\'235615\' date=\'Feb 9 2010, 01:52 PM\']The difficulty of the material was more or less random throughout the board.  Bill would sometimes say that some clues were tougher than others, and some were easier than others.[/quote]I remember it being said more often than not that the clues were of variable difficulty and that there was enough time that you should be able to connect end-to-end.

/if you weren't rubbish on your American pop culture of the time, anyway.

[Craig Karlberg]

What makes the board look random is how many letters are on each hexigon.  A single letter like C can mean just about anything starting with that letter that's a one-word answer whereas 2 or more letters constitutes a response of that many words(DP, for instance).  In fact, the more letters on there, the "easier" it seems.  It's always a good idea to listen to the whole question first BEFORE you commit to an answer, otherwise, you'll get blocked off & have to go around it.

[TLEberle]

[quote name=\'Craig Karlberg\' post=\'235639\' date=\'Feb 10 2010, 01:43 AM\']It's always a good idea to listen to the whole question first BEFORE you commit to an answer, otherwise, you'll get blocked off & have to go around it.[/quote]Sage advice. Do you have any more tautologies for the group?

ObligatoryActualContent: One of the things that interested me about the original is how the point seemed more about how long a champ could stay perfect at the Gold Run, since each one in particular seemed fairly easy assuming the player has a cool head about it.

[Neumms]

[quote name=\'TLEberle\' post=\'235678\' date=\'Feb 11 2010, 12:17 AM\']ObligatoryActualContent: One of the things that interested me about the original is how the point seemed more about how long a champ could stay perfect at the Gold Run, since each one in particular seemed fairly easy assuming the player has a cool head about it.[/quote]

It really did seem too easy--it might have been interesting if Bill offered to go double or nothing on another board with the time left on the clock.

[davidbod]

The UK student version had a curious fillip here. They would often travel across the very top or very bottom row of hexes, which seems strange because they would give you potentially longer or more restricted detours if you went wrong. This led me to a theory that they put slightly harder questions in the middle and easier ones on the outside, which meant that the students would have an 'interesting' route around the board without being blocked off easily.

[TLEberle]

[quote name=\'Neumms\' post=\'235691\' date=\'Feb 11 2010, 07:52 AM\']It really did seem too easy--it might have been interesting if Bill offered to go double or nothing on another board with the time left on the clock.[/quote]I actually had come up with this for Clock Game years ago, but for Blockbusters, I had these two thoughts:

1) You start with a prize of $1,000; but for every five seconds you're willing to sell back before the game starts, $1,000 more goes into the prize. Connect left-to-right and you cash in.

2) After looking at the board but before starting, the player is allowed to go Double-or-Nothing. Connect left-to-right for double the prize, but a wrong answer ends the round with $0.