Help Me Run a Game Show

[Peter Sarrett]

I run a live game show event for over 100 people every year at a national game convention, rotating through a few different formats.  This year it's going to be Family Feud, and I need your help.  The real show used its audience to answer survey questions, but that's not practical in this case.  So I need to get 100 OTHER people to answer the questions beforehand-- and who better than you?

If you'd like to help, please visit this site, register, and answer some questions.  There are about 40 in all, fed to you in batches of five.  You can stop at any time and come back later to continue-- just remember your password.

The site is bare-bones and ugly, so I apologize in advance for that.  I've also only tested on Chrome and IE, so hopefully it will work properly in other browsers.  Drop me a note if you encounter problems, or if you want to suggest additional survey questions.

Thanks in advance for the help!

  - Peter

[geno57]

Got some pretty good questions, there!  I've answered 'em all.

[parliboy]

- avoiding site since I attend said convention -

[clemon79]

- avoiding site since I attend said convention -

Right there with you...I think he's running the same game at Sasquatch this year and I'm going to that, so I should probably stay out too.

[Peter Sarrett]

- avoiding site since I attend said convention -

Right there with you...I think he's running the same game at Sasquatch this year and I'm going to that, so I should probably stay out too.

Knowing the questions doesn't help you to know the top answers, so you wouldn't disqualify yourselves.  However, I suspect it will be more FUN for yourselves if you play without knowing the questions beforehand.  Entirely your choice.

[clemon79]

The funny thing is that I helped Peter with testing the site when he was still working on it, and those were probably the same questions he's asking for data collection now, and for the LIFE of me I can't remember a one of them.

[Fedya]

To make it like the real Family Feud, you'll have to come up with questions where "penis" is a plausible answer.

[BrandonFG]

^^^ Well played. :-)

Good questions...I found myself second-guessing some of my responses and hoping you're not secretly putting together a list of dumbest answers of all time. ;-)

[bscripps]

The site is bare-bones and ugly, so I apologize in advance for that.  I've also only tested on Chrome and IE, so hopefully it will work properly in other browsers.  Drop me a note if you encounter problems, or if you want to suggest additional survey questions.

Seems to work fine in Safari 6.

One thing occurred to me (don't expand the spoiler below if you're staying away from the questions)...
One of the entries was "Name a famous street in America."  It was followed immediately by "Name a landmark in Washington D.C."  The words "Washington D.C." in my field of vision certainly skewed my answer to the first question.  After I entered "Pennsylvania Avenue", it occurred to me that, had I not had Washington on the brain, I probably would have said Fifth Avenue or Park Avenue or Elm Street or Main Street or something else along those lines; Pennsylvania Avenue probably wouldn't even have made the top ten.  If the questions are being presented in a random order, I guess that's just luck of the draw, but if they were set up in that order, you might see a different response pattern than if they were separated.

[MSTieScott]

The form also works in Firefox.

That was fun to do, even though I had this nagging concern that by typing my first instinct, I was ruining the game by contributing to those weird 2-point answers that nobody would guess in a million years.

[Peter Sarrett]

Regarding bscripps' concern about question order...  the questions are presented in random order, so two questions on the same screen for you won't necessarily be on the same screen for someone else.  Hopefully that will mitigate any issues of one question poisoning the well for another.

MSTieScott: In practice, those crazy 2-point answers turn out to be a lot of fun, because when they get revealed most of the crowd will groan or grumble, but the one or two teams who got that answer will cheer wildly and feel elated.  That's one reason why Feud, with the way that I run it, works so well.  Over 100 people play simultaneously, and the energy in the room as answers get revealed is just electric.

[TLEberle]

Peter: you more or less run it as a massively multiplayer version of the box game when you only have two people. right? When I tested the format with you years ago, teams were given the question, wrote down as many answers as there were spaces on the big board and scored for every answer that we matched with a bonus for putting answers in the correct position on the survey. Did you stick with that or change it up?

[Peter Sarrett]

Peter: you more or less run it as a massively multiplayer version of the box game when you only have two people. right? When I tested the format with you years ago, teams were given the question, wrote down as many answers as there were spaces on the big board and scored for every answer that we matched with a bonus for putting answers in the correct position on the survey. Did you stick with that or change it up?

That's correct.  I also have the team captains stand, then sit when a revealed answer is not on their team's list.  The last captain(s) standing earns a bonus for their team.  It provides some nice extra drama, and teams feel great when they get the bonus.

[HYHYBT]

I had a minor hiccup with the form; in the middle of typing my first answer, the page flipped to the next one and said my answers (which I hadn't made yet) had been recorded. I went back a page, answered them all, and it took that too. Hopefully that won't affect anything, but if one question winds up with an extra answer that's only part of what it should be, that's why.

[Peter Sarrett]

I had a minor hiccup with the form; in the middle of typing my first answer, the page flipped to the next one and said my answers (which I hadn't made yet) had been recorded. I went back a page, answered them all, and it took that too. Hopefully that won't affect anything, but if one question winds up with an extra answer that's only part of what it should be, that's why.

Should be fine-- it checks on the server side to prevent duplicate answers.  Thanks!