I WISH THEY HAD MADE...

[The Ol' Guy]

Okay - let's go down that road we discussed earlier - if everything were possible, which tv games do you wish a classic box game company would have made home versions of. Keep in mind your primary tools are ink, paper and plastic, and perhaps some small reasonable electronics. Not computer versions, just good-ol' stick-in-the-closet box games. Two that immediately come to mind because I'm too lazy to make them myself are Clark-era CrossWits and Wipeout!.
Let's go a limit of 6. I'll scan over your ideas and make some other choices later. What would you want?

Oh - for some of our newer or younger members, to prevent the "it's been done" syndrome, check out Matt's homegame page link in the other recent box game thread.  

PS- and pardon my putting the header in caps - it's an old habit that comes from being a radio commercial writer....

[clemon79]

I'm setting the over/under on the number of legitimate posts to this thread before some idjit asks for something completely unreasonable at 5, not counting this one or the opening one above.

You may email me your over/under predictions if you like, and I will keep track and announce winners and losers. Those who fail to follow the proper over/under format will be publically humiliated.

[PeterMarshallFan]

Cross-Wits
Big Showdown
The Movie Game
Gambit
Chain Reaction
Hot Potato

[Vgmastr]

It would have been nice if Sierra had continued to release classic game show PC games.  Their $100K Pyramid game was solid, and they were developing Match Game when the series was canned.  If they had continued it, I wonder what else they would have released after MG.

[clemon79]

...and we have a winner at 1.

Those of you who had the "under", congratulations!

That said, here's my list:

1) (Las Vegas) Gambit (although this one really isn't hard to simulate at all, particularly if you have a High Rollers home game, just toss a deck of cards in the box (hey, and then you have the LVG endgame!)

2) Chain Reaction (man, how easy would this be, given the mechanics of the old Family Feud home games? Oh, Cullen version, please.)

3) Whew! (Yeah, nobody cares about a game that ran 13 weeks. But Top Secret never made air, and there's a home game out for THAT.

4) Card Sharks, during its's original run when Milton Bradley would have gotten it RIGHT.

5) All-Star Blitz. I enjoyed the show, I think ABC deserves some representin' here, and it would be a fairly simple translation to a home game

6) Crosswits would be a lot of fun, but you'd have to include enough material to play a bunch of games without repeating.

[Matt Ottinger]

A much more recent game that I thought really should have been put into a box was Win Ben Stein's Money.  I also would love to have seen the Tattletales game make it to shelves back in the seventies.  

As I say on the site, you can play Tattletales using the questions from the Mars/Venus box game.  It's a lot of fun and incredibly faithful to the show, but I'm guessing that for a number of you, getting three couples together would present a problem.

[tvwxman]

Matt, you've got me curious...how would have done Ben Stein for a home game, especially round two? Round 1 is simple q and a, and I could see comparing Ben's answers with the winner for the final round, but that second round has me stumped...

On the other hand, the Tattletales "couples" comment was the post of the day!

Matt (the other one)

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'tvwxman\' date=\'Apr 24 2004, 07:21 PM\'] On the other hand, the Tattletales "couples" comment was the post of the day!
 [/quote]
 I don't think he meant it that way....but I laughed wickedly anyhow

[The Ol' Guy]

Interesting challenge - maybe we could do this for Stein, since there are occasional rule bends in other game show home versions - in the game "Oodles", there's a nifty 10-second electronic countdown device. Perhaps in the "second round", you have to beat Ben Stein to the right answer? The MC asks the question, triggers the timer (with a Ben Stein face on it), and if neither player gets the correct answer within 10-15 seconds, the buzzer goes off and we "assume" Ben answers it correctly and scores. It doesn't hurt anything, since it's the highest-scoring player between the two remaining civilians who take on Ben for the final round - and there, you just use the transcripts from the show.

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'tvwxman\' date=\'Apr 24 2004, 10:21 PM\'] Matt, you've got me curious...how would have done Ben Stein for a home game, especially round two? Round 1 is simple q and a, and I could see comparing Ben's answers with the winner for the final round, but that second round has me stumped... [/quote]
 You're right, the second part is the tricky one.  The Ol' Guy's idea is a good one, though it does force us to include higher-priced electronics into an otherwise simple game, plus it doesn't really let "Ben" protect his money since any player who knows the answer will answer in the first second or two anyway.

My system (which I admit is far from perfect, but is simple):  The remaining two players answer questions, but after each correct answer, the player who got it right has a 50/50 chance of not receiving the money for the question.  He draws a card or rolls a die or does some other random thing to see if "Ben" got there first.  I'd do it after the question rather than before, because it lets your players actually play but it still offers the frustration of being "beaten out" by the mighty Mr. Stein.

And Matt (the other one) nailed the Best of Ten end game.  Use actual questions and use Ben's actual results as the mark to beat.

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Apr 24 2004, 10:56 PM\'] [quote name=\'tvwxman\' date=\'Apr 24 2004, 07:21 PM\'] On the other hand, the Tattletales "couples" comment was the post of the day!
 [/quote]
I don't think he meant it that way....but I laughed wickedly anyhow [/quote]
 Snarky is as snarky does.  Sometimes I have to let a cheap shot fly and not worry so much about how it's perceived.

[The Ol' Guy]

Yeah, the die idea works for me in the "Beat Ben" second round - use one of those large plastic blank-sided dies that require consumer-applied stickers and have three pictures of Ben with a wicked grin (beat ya!) and three with a frown (oh, well...). That would keep the retail to around $14.99 vs. around $25-$30 for electronics. Good point - most of the successful home games have stayed in the mid-range of average game prices.

I guess if I were to pick my final six - I'd be with most the crowd. I've made my own versions of a couple of these, but it would have been nice to see in a mass style -

Cross Wits
Whew!
Wipeout
Chain Reaction
The Rebus Game - though I could swear there was at least an attempt to make one - thought I saw it offered as a prize on the show. I could be goofy.
Press Your Luck

Dotto would have been a smash. All-Star Blitz wouldn't be bad, either. MarshallFan's choices were very do-able as well.

[JohnTheGameMan]

As a matter of fact, Ol' Guy, there was a home version of "The Rebus Game" that was made by Ideal Toys.  I believe that the game came out about a few weeks into the show's brief run.  I have been unable to find it on E-bay or anywhere else, thus this is a definite collectors' item.

[The Ol' Guy]

Forgive the caps, but THANK YOU, John - I knew I wasn't nuts (about that, anyway), because I used to watch the show and saw a copy offered as a prize. Jack Linkletter says he didn't remember one, and I've been trying to find out if Carl Jampel is still around to ask! Bless you! We know that Lakeside attempted a copy of Runaround that didn't seem to get mass distribuition - could you or anyone else confirm one more possibility? I'm very certain that in a Sears Christmas wishbook issued somewhere between 1963 and 1966, I saw a copy of a game based on Queen For A Day - possibly Standard Toykraft. That again would be among the ultra-rares. Thanks again, John.

PS - Since some of us celebrate numbers of posts, I'm delighted you all have allowed me to slip in and babble 200 times - and glad this one is a note of appreciation. Thanks to all.

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'JohnTheGameMan\' date=\'Apr 28 2004, 12:49 AM\'] As a matter of fact, Ol' Guy, there was a home version of "The Rebus Game" that was made by Ideal Toys.  I believe that the game came out about a few weeks into the show's brief run.  I have been unable to find it on E-bay or anywhere else, thus this is a definite collectors' item. [/quote]
 Wow, I've been collecting for nearly twenty years and this is the first I've ever heard of there even being the possibility of The Rebus Game or Queen For A Day having home versions. Offhand, I'd have to think that they'd be in the same category as Runaround, games that made it as far as prototypes but which were prematurely promoted on the air and never released.  If either of them were to turn up, though, that would immediately catapult them to the top of the rarest-games-ever list.

BTW, when The Ol' Guy says he thinks Dotto would make a decent home version, he's talking from experience.  Guy, don't you have the British home version, which came out at about the same time the American show was airing?