Upfront stuff: The following describes a format by me. Please steal as long as you don't profit. Please add constructive criticism to make it better.Every year one of my responsibilities at one of the gaming cons I work with is to create, writing material for, handle tech, and co-host the convention game show. After two years of a modified Duel format (that removed instant elimination), this year's project was an original format called Red Herring.
Although Duel was somewhat popular (I had decent questions and the "audience" enjoyed the play-along factor), it took way too long to complete a one-night tournament. So we opted for a system that allowed all teams to compete at once. What I ended up with was a twelve-team game that accomplished that purpose and forced me to stretch my question writing skills a bit.
The input system for Red Herring is a twelve PS3 Bluetooth Buzz buzzers using the SimpleHIDWrite hack that's fairly well known at this point. (For the unfamiliar, you are able to convert a set of four buzzers and a Bluetooth dongle into what the PC recognizes as a 20-button joystick). Add to this JoyToKey (which converts joystick presses into keystrokes) and you can pass keyboard input into Flash for easy processing.
The basic Red Herring question format was one of list completion. The two-person teams are given a list of three items, followed by a set of four choices.
In round one, identify the item that completes the list. For example, the first question (and one that everyone got right, which was a good starting point to get their feet wet) was this:
Charging, Blocking, Traveling, ...False Start
Slashing
GoaltendingHigh-Sticking
The sports-oriented people in the game will recognize the basketball theme of the question and choose "Goaltending" as the answer.
Each of the choices is color-coordinated to one of the buttons on the buzzer. (
See a sample screen shot.) The teams have 75 seconds to deliberate and lock in their answers. They can change answers as many times as they want, but are locked out of the system when time expires.
- Correct answers are worth 10 points.
- Incorrect answers are worth points equal to the number of people who gave that choice (So you get at least one point just for showing up).
The reason for the odd consolation prize is related by the title of the format: the Red Herring.
Later questions sometimes (but not always) have much better distracters written into the choices. For example:
Chemistry, Physics, Literature, ...Mathematics
Technology
Engineering
MedicineWhile many people fall into the trap of choose Mathematics in thinking about academic courses, the right answer is Medicine, as these are Nobel Prizes. Teams that spot this trap can use their fifth, big giant red button, to indicate that what their answer is not what they believe to be right, but what they believe to be "least wrong" – that is, they are wagering on which of the three incorrect choices will be given most frequently.
Red Herring scoring works as follows.
- The most frequently given incorrect answer: 20 points
- Other incorrect answers: 0 points
- The right answer: -20 points
Ties are unfriendly; if two wrong answers are equally most frequent, then that question has no Red Herring.
This last for 10 questions, and then I shamelessly rip off Peter Sarrett by switching to a quick interstitial round that uses different rules, much as he does when he runs convention game shows. For this question, I supply you with a list of items, and players must add to it by writing a response down on a piece of paper. For example:
Add to the following list:Donut
Black
Ass
Pot
- 10 points for adding to the list
- 10 bonus points for giving a unique, unduplicated answer.
Round Two's format is called "Odd Man Out". Instead of picking the item that fits the list, pick the item that does not fit the list. And because it's a game show, we are cliché and double the points. So for example:
White, Green, Scarlet, ...Mustard
Plum
Peacock
TangerineI'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to recognize the theme of the list.
Round Three is a triple points round called "Extension". All of the choices fit into the list; however, the three starting clues are in sequence, and your answer must be the one that fits next sequentially. For example:
Sun, Moon, Mars, ...Thor
Saturn
Frige
WodenHigh score at the end wins. And with all those points floating around, the first year saw a two-point spread between first and second place. So I was pretty happy about that.