classic concentration bonus round question

[toetyper]

were the setups randomly generated or handpicked

[DoorNumberFour]

were the setups randomly generated or handpicked

I doubt they were handpicked. Kinda like the Super Mario Bros. 3 memory bonus game--if you know where two of them are, you could know where they all are and pretty easily take NBC for a car. I doubt they would have made their bonus that beatable, especially post-Larsen.

[Dbacksfan12]

were the setups randomly generated or handpicked

I doubt they were handpicked. Kinda like the Super Mario Bros. 3 memory bonus game--if you know where two of them are, you could know where they all are and pretty easily take NBC for a car.

How is the computer picking one and six and a human doing the exact same thing any different?

[Matt Ottinger]

I doubt they were handpicked. Kinda like the Super Mario Bros. 3 memory bonus game--if you know where two of them are, you could know where they all are and pretty easily take NBC for a car. I doubt they would have made their bonus that beatable, especially post-Larsen.

I'm afraid I don't see your point.  They could have been handpicked without there being regular, predictable patterns.  Mr. Blumenthal says that's the way he always did his truly "classic" version.  Heck, they could have been handpicked and still essentially be random if the person doing the picking is just throwing them up there.

I have no idea, but it seems perfectly plausible to me that they could have been done either way.

[rjaguar3]

I doubt they were handpicked. Kinda like the Super Mario Bros. 3 memory bonus game--if you know where two of them are, you could know where they all are and pretty easily take NBC for a car. I doubt they would have made their bonus that beatable, especially post-Larsen.

I'm afraid I don't see your point.  They could have been handpicked without there being regular, predictable patterns.  Mr. Blumenthal says that's the way he always did his truly "classic" version.  Heck, they could have been handpicked and still essentially be random if the person doing the picking is just throwing them up there.

I have no idea, but it seems perfectly plausible to me that they could have been done either way.

As someone who programmed a lot in QBasic in the early 2000s, I can say that, based on my understanding of programming history, it would have definitely been possible to assign cars to spaces pseudorandomly using 1980s technology (and high-level languages like BASIC).  What I mean by pseudorandomly is that the algorithm uses random numbers based on a random number generator, which given a seed value (which can be set to the exact clock time of the computer), deterministically produces a series of numbers that appear to have no pattern.  If you reset the random number generator with the same seed, you would get exactly the same sequence of random numbers. and the algorithm will give you the exact same placement of all the car names behind the squares.  However, using a RANDOMIZE TIMER command to generate all the random numbers used gives you 8,640,000 possible seeds (and therefore possible patterns).  Certainly, it's not truly random, but I would be hard pressed to find a significant deviation from true randomness using only a limited sample of board patterns.

[TLEberle]

I doubt they were handpicked. Kinda like the Super Mario Bros. 3 memory bonus game--if you know where two of them are, you could know where they all are and pretty easily take NBC for a car. I doubt they would have made their bonus that beatable, especially post-Larsen.

As to the point about Toad's Matching Game, doesn't it take up a bunch less memory on the cart if you program just enough boards to keep things interesting, as opposed to having to seed the eighteen panels beforehand?

[clemon79]

However, using a RANDOMIZE TIMER command to generate all the random numbers used gives you 8,640,000 possible seeds (and therefore possible patterns).

We nee to put you in touch with the folks who did Deal or No Deal for the DS.

[narzo]

I don't know how it was set up but I vividly recall one female contestant who went up there and picked off matches one by one.  When she started off picking something like 1 and 11, or some equally odd pairing, I thought "what a moron, she's going to blow this" but it matched.  Then her next 2 matched, then her 3rd pair.  There may have been one or two goofs but she basically went up and just plucked off the matches.  Coincidence?

[clemon79]

Coincidence?

Probably. It's certainly unlikely but not impossible.

The people I enjoyed the most, kinda like the people on Wipeout (the decent Peter Tomarken show, not that abortion on ABC) who just applied a system to the endgame and won it that way with little regard for the actual question, were the people who systematically went through the board, took whatever lucky matches they got along the way, and then after one pass went back and plucked off the remaining ones, bam-bam-bam. Didn't happen often, mind you, but the keeping-cool-under-pressure always impressed me when it did. Dunno if I could stay that composed.

[vtown7]

Here's one of those Wipeout eps... the system works!

wipeout hax

Enjoy,
Ryan

[JasonA1]

It bears mentioning the guy had the absolute perfect layout of correct answers to make the trick look that much better.

-Jason

[clemon79]

It bears mentioning the guy had the absolute perfect layout of correct answers to make the trick look that much better.

Yes. It's still very doable, but it definitely gets a little trickier as soon as there are three or more correct answers in one of the lines.

[Matt Ottinger]

Of course, if you're REALLY good at the Wipeout game, there ought to be at least a couple answers that you're certain are correct anyway.  At that point, props to you if you can rethink your strategy in time to accommodate those automatic choices.

[clemon79]

Of course, if you're REALLY good at the Wipeout game, there ought to be at least a couple answers that you're certain are correct anyway.  At that point, props to you if you can rethink your strategy in time to accommodate those automatic choices.

Yes, absolutely. My comment above was operating under a pure "hack the game" stance, with no concern or knowledge whatsoever about the question, just a guessing game of "which six boxes are the right ones."

[wdm1219inpenna]

Here's another tangent on that question...

If a computer program was used to randomize things, then it would seem logical to assume too that said program would randomly select 1 "orphan" car (the one that appeared only once).

On the other hand, if they were loaded by a human, did they randomly place a different "orphan" on the board each time?  In theory, if you had 8 cars, and you wanted to save on the budget, if done by humans, they could more often than not set it up so the most expensive car did not match on the board.

Very interesting question...I wonder who would know the definitive answers to these?