Best and worst home game question materials…

[SamJ93]

So it seems that—though I’ve never seen it myself—the ‘70s “High Rollers” home game is notorious for having one of, if not the worst question book among GS games…anyone else know of others that were just as bad, or even worse?

On the flipside, which quiz-based home game would you say has the best-written question material?  By which I mean most of it is well-written, factually correct, and easy to adapt to situations other than the specific home game in question (playing other game shows, trivia night, etc.)

I’ve found most of them have their good and bad points:
-“The Joker’s Wild” question books are pretty good, or at least were…organized by category and enough for around 30-40 games, IINM.  On the downside, with only three questions per category it’s easy to run out of material…and I said “were” because many of the questions are about now-dated and obscure 70’s pop culture.  
-The 80’s “Sale” question booklet had a lot of material—around 20-25 questions per game, about 50 games in all—but the only really good part of them was the Fame Game questions, IMHO.  They were well-written and very similar to the ones used on the show itself.  The other straight-ahead questions were full of typos, often ridiculously easy (sample question: “In what Olympic sport do you ‘put the shot?’”) and again, dated.

[Jeremy Nelson]

The prices on the 1998 Endless Games version of The Price is Right might as well have been lifted from the '86 version.

All of the Pyramid games pre-1986 had the Winners Circle played like the main game. I don't know if that was bad writing as much as it was laziness.

[Dbacksfan12]

All of the Pyramid games pre-1986 had the Winners Circle played like the main game. I don't know if that was bad writing as much as it was laziness.

Whether its true or not, I don't know, but I recall reading an antidote (maybe on Matt's page) that someone with Bob Stewart Productions felt there was a limited pool of topics for the Winner's Circle and requested MB not use the WC straight up.  

I may not be recalling everything correctly, but I believe it was similar to that.

As for as best materials--I have to go with the early WoF games.  Although puzzles were included, you could easily create your own with the included letter sets.

[JakeT]

Whether its true or not, I don't know, but I recall reading an antidote (maybe on Matt's page) that someone with Bob Stewart Productions felt there was a limited pool of topics for the Winner's Circle and requested MB not use the WC straight up.  

Oh, c'mon...an "antidote"?  Really?  I'm sorry but I can't help but giggle over that one!

JakeT

[Matt Ottinger]

All of the Pyramid games pre-1986 had the Winners Circle played like the main game. I don't know if that was bad writing as much as it was laziness.

Neither.  It was a deliberate choice.  A bad one, to be sure, but a decision nonetheless.  The idea was that there were only so many Winner's Circle categories one could expect to encounter, and to include them all in the home version(s) would effectively serve as the ultimate study guide, making the TV show too easy.

It's an obscure one, but I've always said that the purest home game adaptation was The Who, What or Where Game.  Not only does it play exactly like the TV show (which conveniently did not require buzzers), but the material was taken word-for-word from episodes of the series.  (Some questions from the one surviving episode turn up in the home game.)  Of course, considering that the game was heavy with then-current material, it's not nearly as much fun to play today.

[clemon79]

The prices on the 1998 Endless Games version of The Price is Right might as well have been lifted from the '86 version.

I thought I read someplace that they in fact were a straight dupe.

[Matt Ottinger]

The prices on the 1998 Endless Games version of The Price is Right might as well have been lifted from the '86 version.

I thought I read someplace that they in fact were a straight dupe.

You might very well have.
 
I think I stopped short of calling it a "straight dupe", because I didn't bother to match card-to-card to prove it, but it was clear that except for the most superficial of changes, it was the same game.

[TLEberle]

I think I stopped short of calling it a "straight dupe", because I didn't bother to match card-to-card to prove it, but it was clear that except for the most superficial of changes, it was the same game.

I was looking at it: the number tiles were tiles instead of chunky plastic Upwords-ish tiles, and the play money was different, but that's about it.

What was the last game to use the Bradley bucks that were the same across all game show and non-game show games that used that as currency (Such as Easy Money or Bargain Hunter)?

[Steve Gavazzi]

The prices on the 1998 Endless Games version of The Price is Right might as well have been lifted from the '86 version.

I thought I read someplace that they in fact were a straight dupe.

On top of that, I seem to remember that they removed the 4-digit cars from the prize decks but didn't replace them with anything.

[Matt Ottinger]

The prices on the 1998 Endless Games version of The Price is Right might as well have been lifted from the '86 version.

I thought I read someplace that they in fact were a straight dupe.

On top of that, I seem to remember that they removed the 4-digit cars from the prize decks but didn't replace them with anything.

Yep.  Based on the structure of their home game, the Showcase could never include a car.

[MyronMMeyer]

It's an obscure one, but I've always said that the purest home game adaptation was The Who, What or Where Game.  Not only does it play exactly like the TV show (which conveniently did not require buzzers), but the material was taken word-for-word from episodes of the series.  (Some questions from the one surviving episode turn up in the home game.)  Of course, considering that the game was heavy with then-current material, it's not nearly as much fun to play today.

The WWW question books have "All questions and answers in this game come directly from the NBC TV quiz show" printed on them. It's nice to have corroborating evidence. I am of the opinion that the Milton Bradley home games were probably all compiled from material from actual games. The now-ex and I were watching a GSN repeat of Password Plus once, and it got us to playing through some Alphabetics rounds from the home game for fun. The show came back from commercial, and the contestant then played through the exact same round we had just played.

I also remember as a kid seeing an episode of Family Feud that used a question I had seen weeks earlier in the home game. So there's two data points. I'll will use them to make a sweeping generalization, will will then become conventional wisdom, and then "fact". The Milton Bradley home games were compiled entirely from questions from the actual shows.

(I'm being semi-serious, but why wouldn't they be? The shows were never going to be repeated. It was cheaper than hiring a writing staff. Why not just cannibalize from old shows? What could be more authentic?)

For what it's worth, the most recent Jeopardy box games feature material from old shows, mostly teen and college games, to make them more "general population friendly". Categories from regular games have often been made easier, sometimes by replacing the fifth clue with something simpler. The earliest Pressman games were all-new material, as far as I've been able to work out. Eisenberg's "Inside Jeopardy" mentions the hiring of writers for those games. "Talking Super Jeopardy" used at least some actual game material; some of the clues from that show also appear in the games in The official "Jeopardy Book".

A clue from one of the Tyco Jeopardy games appeared on the contestant test the first time I took it. By coincidence it was the game my mom had gotten me at a garage sale as a "Good Luck" present before taking the test. I probably wouldn't have gotten the question right otherwise (It was about parrots.) Whether those are from actual games, I do not know.

[Dbacksfan12]

I also remember as a kid seeing an episode of Family Feud that used a question I had seen weeks earlier in the home game.

The 1989 computer edition of Feud lifted the questions directly from early episodes of the Combs run.

[MSTieScott]

For what it's worth, the most recent Jeopardy box games feature material from old shows,

I was playing "Super Jeopardy!" for the Nintendo Entertainment System (the game is dated 1990) and was able to find some of the questions on j-archive.com, verbatim from 1984 episodes. So I reckon they did the same thing there.

[Jeremy Nelson]

The prices on the 1998 Endless Games version of The Price is Right might as well have been lifted from the '86 version.

I thought I read someplace that they in fact were a straight dupe.

On top of that, I seem to remember that they removed the 4-digit cars from the prize decks but didn't replace them with anything.

Yep.  Based on the structure of their home game, the Showcase could never include a car.

Not trying to be nitpicky here, but I distinctly remember a compact car being in the '98 orange deck.

[Adam Nedeff]

I recently got a "Jackpot" home game on eBay and was amazed by the sheer number of riddles the game included and how crappy most of them were. My guess is the riddles were taken straight from the show, but to maximize the number they could print, they edited the riddles down to the point that many of them are ridiculously vague and unguessable.

Best materials: the original 1960s "Match Game" home game. They all came with a slew of material and because of the nature of the game, virtually all of it is still usable. "Eye Guess" has aged almost as gracefully. You have to cherry-pick a LITTLE bit with games involving famous names, but I've gone to board game conventions, and the same thing keeps happening when I bring "Eye Guess." Teenagers have a tendency to get intrigued by the gameplay, then get totally hooked on it.