Quote from: Jeremy Nelson on May 05, 2025, 06:33:39 PM

Start Pathfinder off by pricing all three prizes. Give the contestant some kind of insurance marker/pendant of life for each one they get right, then take them away as they misstep on the disco floor.

Except if a contestant gets all three prizes correct and then steps to the second and third digits in the price of the car without making a mistake, they've guaranteed themselves a win. So either the game ends awkwardly with the contestant celebrating without having finished walking the correct path (and the host having to explain why) or everybody has to wait while the contestant finishes walking the path -- possibly having to backtrack in the process -- before the foregone conclusion.

Then how about about a cash bonus for a perfect playing? This would offset being rewarded with prizes for making mistakes.

Okay so there is a game that goes by that name. This is what I get for not Googling.

My longstanding suggestions were to update Grocery Game and Range Game for inflation's sake. They got to Grocery Game within the past decade, so now it'd be Range Game's turn. It's gone so long without changes, a $1000 rangefinder on a $4000 scale would be most inflation-appropriate. For someone who grew up with '90s shows, that's sort of eye-opening as to what the original intent of the game was.

The problem I would forsee with this is the precision of the scale. I assume the current scale is $1 for every 1/8 inch because that was the most manageable at the time to make, view on camera, and quickly adjudicate. Maybe with the advances in printing and cameras you might be able to get the scale down to, say 1/32 inch you still have to deal with the impact of the range being manually operated. You could also just change the scale so it's 2 or 5 per tick, but I feel like that feels also feels imprecise and displeasing.

I think my request would be to tweak Pocket Change to turn the zeros into nickels. It may only change the expected value of all 4 envelopes by 2 cents (from 1.19 to 1.21), but it may turn a loss or two into a win and makes bad luck feel slightly less bad (or a different kind of bad from drawing a 0).

The current typical distribution of Punch-a-Bunch is:

[1] $25,000 [2] $10,000
[4] $5,000 [8] $2,500 [10] $1,000
[10] $500 [10] $250 [5] $100

My suggestion to at least improve the drama a skosh: Make the values that aren't $25,000 or $10,000 part a range of different values from $100 to $7,500 instead of six values spread out across 47 holes, 35 of which aren't tempting.

I would have kept the goal of Grocery Game at $21 and allowed a win at $19.

Secret X—add a third item to price and a new bboard where the X can be anywhere in the middle row or middle column.

Aside from small fixes like tweaking the money amounts of the Let ‘em Roll cubes:

Rat Race has three nice prizes to price within $100. Each correct choice lights up one of four lanes—if a rat you back win ps you win the car and every prize priced properly. If not, win just those prizes.

Maybe a shock collar for Ten Chances and Time is Money for contestants who fail to get the lead out.

I didn't think making the range $20-$22 was all that necessary. I haven't seen the show much lately so I don't know how many have fallen short of the original $21 mark to necessitate the change.

Regarding Secret X, do you mean that the secret X could also be in squares 4 and 6 if we're numbering the squares a la the original TTD bonus game? So that's 4 X's... well, if I placed all 4 X's in each corner, then that would be a guaranteed win... as opposed to now where if both X's were won, then there's just a 1/3 chance of losing. For me, the SLIGHTEST chance of losing makes the game more exciting. If the producers want a nearly guaranteed win, then the secret X would be in the center, as winning 2 Xs would be guaranteed providing the contestant placed both earned Xs in the corners. Seeing the game played many times, it seems the contestants' nature to leave the bottom square as the secret X is there less frequently than it is on the top or center, so to force a loss, the secret X would be at the bottom.

Incidentally, I've only seen ONE playing where a contestant placed both earned X's on squares 4 and 6 and still WON with the X in the middle. A rare and VERY lucky win.