[quote name=\'tvwxman\' date=\'Feb 15 2006, 04:29 PM\']As mentioned earlier, Deal or No Deal is getting double treatment in electronic form, but the home game rights have been secured by Pressman Games. Explained to me by Jim Pressman himself, the home game format is VERY different from the show, to allow for multiple players, allowing guessing whats in your own briefcase, and trying to accumulate more money quicker than your opponents. Honestly, I thought it was a bit confusing, and methinks D/nD will work better as an electronic game that involves a computer chip determining banker payouts.
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Actually, this sounds like an adaptation of the rather nifty Aussie home game done by Crown and Andrews (yep, I have this one too).
It actually plays rather well, using the idea of guessing the contents of the case for the other players, but giving the case-holders more involvement by giving them an extra decision: the paid guess. Each player is given a bankroll, most of which is pre-allocated to pay the person chosen to be their "contestant" (that is, the person choosing cases to open), but part of it is intended to be used to pay for "paid guesses," whose costs increases based on what round it is, but if the paid guess is correct, the case opener wins the case's contents. In the early rounds, it's a crapshoot, but the cost is low; in later rounds, the cost is higher, but the likelihood of a given case being correct goes up. If the larger values are still in play, it could potentially give a case holder a big hunk of money. Of course, the case holders can just take free guesses every time for a set, smaller amount of money.
Those taking paid guesses put their money into a pot known as the "kitty," reminisicent of the semi-ubiquitous
Monopoly house rule putting tax money under Free Parking. Revealing certain dollar values cause the kitty to be awarded: the lowest value (.50 in the Aussie game) sends the kitty to whosever playing the host, while the highest of the values on the left hand side of the value board ($750 in the Aussie game) gives is to whosever holding the case containing it.
The person hosting and the person playing as the contestant are decided by two sets of numbered cards, one for host order and the other for contestant order, and the hosts and contestants are paired off based on who has what number: host 1 plays with contestant 1, host 2 with contestant 2, etc. The host doubles as the banker: the rules advise taking a mean average of the remaining dollar values as a starting point for the bank offer, but also state that there is no set formula they are required to use - the host/bank may offer however much of their own money as they wish to buy the contestant's case, even to point of being allowed to directly haggle with the contestant. If the contestant does indeed deal, the host can actually take a final paid guess if they feel the contestant gave up a larger value - a final insult to injury.
After everybody's played host and contestant once, who ever has the most loot wins.
Component wise, it's not too much unlike Mike Klauss's cheapie version found in another thread: high-quality cardboard sleeves resembling the cases of the show, plastic coated playing cards for the dollar values and the host/contestant cards, a big console-style plastic scoreboard with 26 little plastic doors to help keep track of the unrevealed values, and some seriously slick and glossy play money.
My friends and I played the game on Super Bowl Sunday, and it was actually quite fun.
