How to improve Joker's Wild 90

[TLEberle]

If anything, probably needed to find a less robotic version of Pat Finn (not that he was bad to start with).

I didn\'t find him to be robotic, but it was annoying at how shouty he got when somebody won big--no middle ground between excitement and droning?

[PYLdude]

I would\'ve done it this way:


-wheels spun after every question


-questions instead of definitions


-higher starting dollar amounts on wheels in round 1


-two remaining players play classic Joker in round 2, with different values for questions (singles $200, doubles $300, triples $400). Also, if after a certain amount of turns nobody\'s won, question values increase until there is a winner.


-for the bonus game I\'d keep the round as it was but streamline the prizes (cash amounts and car), allow for freezing jokers, and put the Devil on the wheels just to keep a player on their toes.

[TimK2003]

One of the plausible reasons why they started to go with straddling games -- there was an episode which ran waaay short. And despite the stretching and long credit roll they still had more time to kill.  So they pulled people from the audience to spin the wheels for money or some sort of prize to fill the remaining time. 

 

Epic Fail.

[BrandonFG]

 If anything, probably needed to find a less robotic version of Pat Finn (not that he was bad to start with).

I didn\'t find him to be robotic, but it was annoying at how shouty he got when somebody won big--no middle ground between excitement and droning?

You.....are.....CORRECT!!! Even when I was 9 or 10 watching it on USA, I found his buildup to be pretty cheesy.

 

As for the show, I thought it was pretty decent, but it should\'ve been called something other than \"The Joker\'s Wild\", seeing as how the version fresh in viewers\' minds had just ended four years prior. Honestly, there seemed to be a few elements from Bullseye, with the Joker acting as a wild card that allowed you to answer as many questions as possible instead of simply doubling the question value (a concept I really, really liked). Granted, it was with a time limit here, but still reminiscent of Bullseye. Even though TJW was the more prominent name to compliment Tic Tac Dough, I probably would\'ve made the show closer to Bullseye and removed the slot machine element, seeing as how the first version deviated quite a bit. First two to $500 was fine, but the game dragged trying to get to $2000. I actually liked the bonus format, even with the definitions. 

 

There was a game there, it just went by the wrong title.

[Johnissoevil]

 

 

I would have the concur. It was a good twist on the format, and I prefer the money wheels to the actual categories. Clearly the stronger of the two B/E revivals that reappeared that year.


If anything, probably needed to find a less robotic version of Pat Finn (not that he was bad to start with).

 

 

I have to correct one thing I said in my previous post.  The one thing I would change would have to be during the category format, when Jokers show up on the wheels, allow the player to go off the board instead of limiting their choices to what came up on the wheels.

[Neumms]

 

Honestly, there seemed to be a few elements from Bullseye, with the Joker acting as a wild card that allowed you to answer as many questions as possible instead of simply doubling the question value (a concept I really, really liked). Granted, it was with a time limit here, but still reminiscent of Bullseye. Even though TJW was the more prominent name to compliment Tic Tac Dough, I probably would\'ve made the show closer to Bullseye and removed the slot machine element, seeing as how the first version deviated quite a bit. First two to $500 was fine, but the game dragged trying to get to $2000. I actually liked the bonus format, even with the definitions. 

 

 

This pace and question writing could have saved Bullseye. That structure works better--the decision to bank or not gave it a little intrigue lacking here. 

 

This game doesn\'t work as \"Joker\'s Wild\" because the spins are so deemphasized. Spin a triple on Jack\'s version, you\'re two-fifths of the way home. A triple here and you\'re one-twentieth.

 

Cripes, the host is worse than I remember. 

[TLEberle]

This game doesn\'t work as \"Joker\'s Wild\" because the spins are so deemphasized. Spin a triple on Jack\'s version, you\'re two-fifths of the way home. A triple here and you\'re one-twentieth.

That\'s just not true; if you get a category you know you can pile up a huge bankroll.
 

Cripes, the host is worse than I remember.

I find the opposite the case; he\'s not as bad as the \"memory\" makes him out to be.

[Neumms]

 

This game doesn\'t work as \"Joker\'s Wild\" because the spins are so deemphasized. Spin a triple on Jack\'s version, you\'re two-fifths of the way home. A triple here and you\'re one-twentieth.

That\'s just not true; if you get a category you know you can pile up a huge bankroll.

 

 

 

 

Not true? It\'s math. You\'d need to peel off eight straight with a triple on Pat\'s version to gain as much ground as you would answering one right with a triple with Jack. Sure, seeing that happen would be exciting, but it\'s exciting regardless of the spin.

 

Maybe it would help if the goal amount were set lower. What if the two challengers played each other in a game to $1000, then winner takes on returning champ in a second game to $1000?

 

I do think it would help if there was risk involved, as with the \"Fast Forward\" category or, as noted, Bullseye. Maybe there should be a devil on the wheels.

[TLEberle]

I was actually prepared to discuss this and explain how if you got a string of right answers you could pile up some decent bucks, and that you have no reason to play two games to $1,000 each if you want things to move faster, but you threw in that bit about a devil on the wheels and I realized that you\'re not really here for the discussion at all.

[Neumms]

 

 

Cripes, the host is worse than I remember.

I find the opposite the case; he\'s not as bad as the \"memory\" makes him out to be.

 

 

I didn\'t see him fall and break anything or use the \"n\" word, but man, was he terrible. Terrible at going off script, terrible at chatting up the contestants, terrible (aside from raising his voice) at channeling the suspense. He struck me as a poor man\'s Jim Lange--nice voice, clean-cut, glasses, adds nothing, and somehow worse than Jim Lange. 

[Sonic Whammy]

As someone who liked the bonus game of this format much better than Face The Devil, I say keep that part no matter what.

 

As far as the main game itself, the categories part worked much better math-wise, plus is does harken back more to the classic Joker. After watching a string on Youtube, though, I notice that even then there weren\'t a great amount of Jokers coming up. Perhaps the computer wheels could have been given a little higher Joker percentage. I\'ve actually freeze-framed 80\'s Joker I had on tape and found that a Joker came up 25% of the time in each window (5 out of the 20 slides loaded in, it came up every 4th slide.)

 

For the scoring, I propose two methods:

1) No second round. First to $1000 is the champ. Games straddle? So what.

2) Use $500 as the ending point of Round 1. Double the values for Round 2, play to the usual $2000. As the money format had higher values in Round 2 and played to the same endpoints, this idea fits that self-contained model they aimed for.

 

(Personal footnote: I never caught on until I saw these again in recent years that they used to give away trips to Lake George where I\'ve vacationed with my wife a couple times each summer since we met. Just makes me smile.)

[TLEberle]

As far as the main game itself, the categories part worked much better math-wise, plus is does harken back more to the classic Joker. After watching a string on Youtube, though, I notice that even then there weren\'t a great amount of Jokers coming up. Perhaps the computer wheels could have been given a little higher Joker percentage.ere I\'ve vacationed with my wife a couple times each summer since we met. Just makes me smile.)

I can\'t prove it, but as a youth it seemed that three Jokers would come just as the first round was coming down the stretch, I don\'t remember it coming any other place in round one--this led me to believe that the spins weren\'t random at all but were loaded in before the game, and each one came up in proper order.

[Thunder]

Just like the one time that the endgame jackpot got to the highest level and Finn kept plugging \"the chance that it could happen today\" multiple times. Surprisingly, it just happened to occur that same day.

[tyshaun1]

 

As far as the main game itself, the categories part worked much better math-wise, plus is does harken back more to the classic Joker. After watching a string on Youtube, though, I notice that even then there weren\'t a great amount of Jokers coming up. Perhaps the computer wheels could have been given a little higher Joker percentage.ere I\'ve vacationed with my wife a couple times each summer since we met. Just makes me smile.)

I can\'t prove it, but as a youth it seemed that three Jokers would come just as the first round was coming down the stretch, I don\'t remember it coming any other place in round one--this led me to believe that the spins weren\'t random at all but were loaded in before the game, and each one came up in proper order.

 

I always believed that the spin amounts in TJW \'90 were predetermined when the lever was pulled. If you watch the show now, the same dollar combinations came up on every spin. The Joker in the 3rd window came up on $30 or $45 totals in the first 2 windows, no more, no less.

 

Tyshaun

[Sonic Whammy]

Agreed on all counts about preprogramming. And that\'s a bummer, really. At least whenever some of us have created our own Joker softwares, it\'s been a random spin, even if the probabilities didn\'t match to the show like they should have.

 

So there\'s another thing they could\'ve fixed.