Pilot Run: STRIKEOUT!

[Sonic Whammy]

Hey, everyone! I hope everyone's doing OK.

Most of us here at the Forum know the great Tim "Loogaroo" Connolly. Aside from game show knowledge that he's proven both on and off screen, he dabbled for fun on his old website with a few original game show ideas. One of which was a last man standing trivia contest called Strikeout!

Several months ago, my Lost Silver Productions teammate, Scott Goldiner, volunteered himself to be the one to pilot test Tim's game out as part of his Game Show Megamix repertoire. And this past March, we had the opportunity to give it its first official run, with one or our newest members, Bridget Duffy, doing the hosting.

And now, it's officially on the Tube, so I give you guys the opportunity to have at it. Does the game work? Should anything be changed? Whatever positives, negatives and honest critiques you can offer, please do. And yes, I know that the material is about anime, video games and nerd culture, but don't let that factor into your opinion.

So without further ado, please enjoy the debut of... STRIKEOUT!




Fixed the broken video link.  -knagl

[TLEberle]

Round one is too close to Inquizition for comfort, but I like the pass/play element of round two. Being able to punish your opponent in round three with a right answer doesn't do it for me.

[Loogaroo]

Looks like you reduced the number of questions in the bonus round to 10, which is probably for the best since 15 questions on a given subject is probably going overboard.

I liked it! If nothing else, this gave me a chance to see the game being played "in the wild" so to speak, so that I might go back and tweak some things that didn't work as well. (Taking the feedback about rounds 1 & 3 into consideration).

[whewfan]

I clicked on the link and it didn't lead to any video.

[parliboy]

I clicked on the link and it didn't lead to any video.

The part that matters is "R6hr97zz5x4".  You can even google that and find a match to the video.

[TLEberle]

Round two is clever but why wouldn't a savvy player just pass every time? A player who goes it alone should be rewarded, and if the three players are forced into playing there should be consequences for the players who blow it.

In round three getting a strike because your opponent answers right falls flat. Do it like Joker's Wild 90: toss up for control, then every right answer is a strike. On a wrong answer the opponent can peg back with a steal, then back for another toss up. It also should move at a decent clip.

[Sonic Whammy]

Actually, 9 questions in the bonus round. Figured 9 strikes, 9 questions.

If anyone's having trouble seeing it, google "Strikeout Lost Silver" and you'll find it right away.

Tim, we're probably gonna do this again sometime soon, possibly at the end of the month. Then we're on break from cons 'til August. So if you want to tweak the rules, you got a little time. Don't rush. I might think of a thing or two as well, even though I really enjoyed how it played out.

So keep the comments coming, gang! More, more!

(And come to the GSN podcast tonight, link's on the GSN wall.)

[Loogaroo]

Round two is clever but why wouldn't a savvy player just pass every time?

Because if everyone tries to do that, the next question is an automatic must-play for everyone, at which point you either get the question right or get a strike. The optimal strategy isn't to duck every question; if anything you want to play as many questions as you feel confident in playing because that accelerates the round (more situations where both your opponents get a strike as opposed to just one of them).

A player who goes it alone should be rewarded, and if the three players are forced into playing there should be consequences for the players who blow it.

See above. In any question where more than one person is in, if one person answers correctly anyone else who chose to play it gets a strike.

In round three getting a strike because your opponent answers right falls flat. Do it like Joker's Wild 90: toss up for control, then every right answer is a strike. On a wrong answer the opponent can peg back with a steal, then back for another toss up. It also should move at a decent clip.

I think in a more professional setting, the pacing would be a fair bit faster because players wouldn't get a lot of thinking time like they did in the video. At least doing it this way allows both players to control their destinies to some degree; having a toss-up and then keeping control with whoever got it right would open the game up to curb-stomps.

[Sonic Whammy]

I think in a more professional setting, the pacing would be a fair bit faster because players wouldn't get a lot of thinking time like they did in the video. At least doing it this way allows both players to control their destinies to some degree; having a toss-up and then keeping control with whoever got it right would open the game up to curb-stomps.

I second Tim on both fronts here. The idea that every question in Round 3 puts a strike on someone makes it a fast round. And depending on the length of the first two rounds (each has a 10-question maximum), you want something that's going to peg a winner down faster if the first two went the full way.

Travis' idea MIGHT do that, too, but it does seem a little much to sit there and eat all the strikes just because you missed the first question. Look at how Now You See It dropped that "keep playing until you miss a word" rule in the finals after only the first episode. Was a total raw deal.

Overall, the play or pass in the final round gives it a Russian Roulette vibe. And yeah, don't sweat the time limit thing. We do play it a little looser at cons because, again, these guys aren't trained in the arts of the game show contestant like most of us are. This is far from a real game show (the performance in general, not Strikeout, it's something to entertain the con masses in a different way for a hour or so and just have all us play things for fun.

[TLEberle]

Whether it's better or worse than getting a strike by raw luck is a question for the philosophers. Once the game is known and moving I would advocate round three using some of the red box games that Tic Tac Dough became known for, interspersed with long-form questions to break it up. If depends on how many strikes the survivors are left with.

[knagl]

Observations:

Round 1: It seemed like the contestants could see the answers as they were being submitted?  I presume that would be addressed, as it gives an advantage to a player who is unsure of the answer, but sees that the other three people all locked in "B", or whatever.

Round 2: Same comment as Travis, it seems like a player could skate through by always passing unless they were really strong on the category.

Round 3 and bonus round: There needs to be a time limit to answer the questions, although it sounds like that would be addressed in a non-convention setting based on the post above.

Overall, entertaining.  I'd watch it again, although preferably with slightly less geeky question material. 

[Sonic Whammy]

Observations:

Round 1: It seemed like the contestants could see the answers as they were being submitted?  I presume that would be addressed, as it gives an advantage to a player who is unsure of the answer, but sees that the other three people all locked in "B", or whatever.

Round 2: Same comment as Travis, it seems like a player could skate through by always passing unless they were really strong on the category.

Round 3 and bonus round: There needs to be a time limit to answer the questions, although it sounds like that would be addressed in a non-convention setting based on the post above.

Overall, entertaining.  I'd watch it again, although preferably with slightly less geeky question material. 

First, before I say anything, thanks for fixing the link, knagl. I don't usually post links here, or if I have it's been way too long.

Anyway, let's see here. The selection reveals in Round 1, we'll check into that. There's a typo that has to be fixed in the software elsewhere anyway, so perhaps we'll hit upon that along the way, too.

Round 2, it's being discussed among a few people whether there should be a restriction on passing. In actuality, the 2-pass limit in Round 1 wasn't originally there, either. I put that in. Perhaps something similar might be best for this round, but we'll find out exactly what.

And the later rounds, yeah, we play it a little looser, but especially this particular weekend we did because the convention overall was very weird (and again, the convention is the reason for our question material, so that's why I said take that out of the equation). We wanted to host a tryout session and things and the unexpectedly sparse attendance killed any shot at that. So the fact that we got volunteers who felt they were good enough to play, we compensated on time to help them out a little more. In a more optimal setting, we can better institute a time limit, as could a regular show.

All in all, we got another run of the game coming likely in 3 weeks. Then it won't be for another 3 months at least before it's done again. I'd probably say expect Episode 2 to use the existing rules just for the purpose of gathering more data, and then if a change is made anywhere, it'll start with Episode 3. But keep the suggestions coming in the meantime.

[TLEberle]

Since I can't really play along, I can only judge based on the format. Also try as I might, I can't totally shut off the "game designer" part of my brain. For most people if you have three people sitting down with a buzzer to answer quiz questions they're going to think Jeopardy--Strikeout has fewer questions and largely meaningless decisions. If you want people to buy in, there needs to be a game there.

Round one is a warm up round, so that's fine. Round two has the potential to be interesting if something is made of the play/pass angle. Round three should be the big climactic final, but it's just more decisions that look strategic but aren't really.

My last idea here is to take a page from Tic Tac Dough and to have it as Opponent's Choice. One player chooses between two categories--one would have a single difficult question and the other two somewhat easier questions. This gets both players involved every round, plus you have actual strategy and decisions because the contestants can (or should have been) tracking who did well with which categories.

[Otm Shank]

One thing I was working through in my head is that the carryover of unused strikes opens it up for one dominant contestant to have enough of a cushion in the later rounds. A good contestant should have some reward for their gameplay, but not at the expense of the game. The first thing I might do is reset the strikes for Round 3 to make it a true head-to-head.

I might also consider a 3-strike bonus round and apply the unused strikes from Round 3 as rewards. This can reduce the number of right answers for the bonus, used as passes, or perhaps play against a clock with a time bonus for the unused strikes.

It might just be me, but 3 seems to be the right number of "strikes" and something that is just an ingrained expectation. Adding 2 at the second round deviates from that slightly, but it's not excessive. Once we get into 7 and 9, it seems to break down, particularly from a visual standpoint. I understand that the contestants will likely enter these rounds with a bunch of these already filled in, but it becomes more difficult to visually "chunk" that information.

[Sonic Whammy]

As Tim and I read the suggestions here, I can't help but observe one thing about the game overall.

One thing I enjoyed about this game of Strikeout is its simplicity. Too many times, we see games on TV, and even make up games ourselves, that throw in extra rules and twists that are designed to stimulate the game for us, the experts, but often just make the whole thing too complicated to follow for the casual person. And as I read some of the ideas here to change this round or that, I worry that danger might take place. Travis, your 2 easy versus 1 hard Opponent's Choice thing just seems to fall in that zone, at least to me, anyway.

That's not to say that change can't work, but I think we gotta be more subtle. For instance, in that final round, what if on top of the standard Play or Pass, if the person who answers the question fails, the other person can have the option to try the question themselves and dump a second strike on the first guy with a right answer (they risk a strike themselves, of course). Something like that is subtle and still accomplishes the original objective. It can even cause someone who's got a big lead in strikes to suddenly get zapped twice as fast and even up the game in a hurry.

I will say this. I have my own game in development, and I've been inspired to make a subtle addition of my own to one round. But more on that later.