TPiR video game release date

[mparrish11]

Can't wait to play it on the Wii....hopefully you guys make good use of the Wiimote!! 

[cu2010]

This looks great.  I'm looking forward to it.

[Trevtpir]

Could someone tell me if The Price Is Right The Game is coming to Playstation3?  I'm a PS3 owner.  If it isn't, I guess I'll get the PC version.

[PIR85]

Could someone tell me if The Price Is Right The Game is coming to Playstation3?  I'm a PS3 owner.  If it isn't, I guess I'll get the PC version.

The website lists: PC, Mac, XBOX 360, Wii, and DS.

[Trevtpir]

I saw the website.  Ludia's site said ALL platforms though.  JC from Ludia, are you there?

[JC_Ludia]

And for the most part the sets do look great. But I do have issues with some font uses as seen in the promo videos. Prepare for some intense nitpickery...

* Most glaring to me is at the very beginning, in the "Come On Down" lightbox section. Ronnia (is that what it is?) may work very well for the game's interface, but for the "STACKS OF CASH!" exclamations, it doesn't belong. They've consistently used Windsor there for over 30 years, both on art cards and digitally, from early "HOUR POWER" shows into Drew's era. When the game gets something as iconic as this wrong, and it's the very first thing seen in the game, it doesn't set the tone well.

* I also notice Ronnia in the Plinko score display. Eggcrate, if you please!

* A brush casual font might work for the cheques in Punch-A-Bunch, but I've only ever seen the game played with slips, and those tend to use something along the lines of Gothic 13, or one of the compressed weights of Akzidenz Grotesk or Helvetica. In an absolute "women-and-children-first" emergency, I suppose you could break down and use Impact.

* Money Game with Ronnia, too? They've used a condensed Eurostile for ages.

* Race Game... tricky because I'm not sure that there's a font for the neon 0/1/2/4 digits. But they definitely don't look like whatever that is there. Trebuchet? Or--gasp--more Ronnia?

Of course, here you're going to run into a disproportionate amount of loyal fans and true who feel proprietary about "our" show. And few are as font-obsessed as I am. But people do notice things that they don't think they're noticing, and suspension of disbelief is fragile. Clearly a lot of great work has happened on the game. Numbers and the display thereof are critical elements of The Price Is Right... why stop short with them?

There's quite a few things in there

First, I understand you guys are very loyal fans and demand perfection. I know it's annoying to see some of your favorite content not being fully displayed at your standards level - it's perfectly normal (I do the same thing with other stuff).

The problem with fonts is that having a lot of different fonts in-game is costly, both in terms of licensing costs for the fonts (you probably know more than other people that fonts aren't free, and commercial use of many fonts costs a LOT of money) and in application size in memory. Having multiple fonts in memory at the same time, all being dynamic, is quite costly on the game engine (keep in mind it's designed to run on a LOT of computers - we're not talking of a game with system requirements like Crysis) so it was rather complicated to implement all the fonts in-game. We did our best, however. I talked to our artists and they feel they couldn't do more with the resources we have. Sorry.

As long as we're picking nits, I noticed in the trailers that there are a couple of games that don't appear to be staged correctly...Flip Flop was placed on the stage, and Freeze Frame was placed on the Turntable.  I imagine the game is too close to completion to change those, but I'm still curious about why it was decided to design them that way.

As far as I know, our artists worked to make it so the games are placed in the way they would look best in-game, regardless of the way the show looks. It is indeed a bit late for this  type of change, but I passed the word along to our artists.

I don't have nits to pick, but I would just like to say thank you for coming over here and I hope this game is a great success!  Just as long as it's better than the MS-DOS version from almost 20 years ago, it'll be good.

Well thanks for the kind words. I sure do hope it's better than the MS-DOS version! Although I find those graphics quite sexy... Then again I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy when it comes to gaming - I prefer my game graphics to be kept in the second dimension. I love pixels! Maybe I should ask one of our artists to design me a TPiR logo in pixel art...

Could someone tell me if The Price Is Right The Game is coming to Playstation3?  I'm a PS3 owner.  If it isn't, I guess I'll get the PC version.

We list ALL platforms, because it's our ultimate goal. There are some things I can't talk about right now, but as soon as I can I'll post here.

As for today's last words - I can safely say we're very happy that you guys seem to be awaiting the game. I truly do hope you enjoy it (despite the nitpicking! ) and rest assured that we're doing everything we can to make the experience feel authentic and fun.

I'm also a very open-minded person - before and after it comes out, feel free to post your comments on the game. I'll write everything down and make sure it gets reported to my bosses - we're doing games for our players, not ourselves. (If I did design games for myself, I'd probably make some hybrid rhythm platformer or something!)

One last thing - I'm not very familiar with the board, but we're looking for a person or two to come help us do some focus testing on our projects (Hell's Kitchen mostly, but also a bit of TPiR before we release). Obviously we have to do this in-house, so I can't extend the invitation and send the game to people, but if you're in the Montreal area these days (mostly this week, but I'll talk to our person who handles the focus testing) drop me a PM with your email and I'll make sure they contact you.

[pete1974]

Just curious,


If this game sells well, will there be any "Expansion Packs" released with additional pricing games on them?

[theworstboy]

There's quite a few things in there

The problem with fonts is that having a lot of different fonts in-game is costly, both in terms of licensing costs for the fonts (you probably know more than other people that fonts aren't free, and commercial use of many fonts costs a LOT of money) and in application size in memory. Having multiple fonts in memory at the same time, all being dynamic, is quite costly on the game engine (keep in mind it's designed to run on a LOT of computers - we're not talking of a game with system requirements like Crysis) so it was rather complicated to implement all the fonts in-game. We did our best, however. I talked to our artists and they feel they couldn't do more with the resources we have. Sorry.

Hmm... I have to think, though, that some of the issues I've raised must be correctable:

* Plinko: Replacing Ronnia on the score display should be a non-problem. You're already using an eggcrate font in the game, for the Race Game clock. Does it further tax the game engine or incur additional licensing to use it in another place?

* Punch-A-Bunch: Are the dollar amounts on the "cheques" being rendered from text by the game engine, or are they graphics? With the resolution of the preview video I couldn't tell, but if it's a graphic, game resources and licensing oughtn't be a concern.

* Race Game: Again, are the neon numbers being rendered by the game engine from text, or are they graphics?

It's impressive work and a clearly lot of attention has gone into detail. That said, it's puzzling why it's possible to dedicate special fonts for games such as Flip-Flop, but when such iconic games as those discussed above are concerned, nothing more can be done.

[Trevtpir]

I don't mean to be rude here, but my question to JC still hasn't been answered about The Price Is Right The Game being on PS3.  Will it or won't it be on PS3? 

[isucgv]

I don't mean to be rude here, but my question to JC still hasn't been answered about The Price Is Right The Game being on PS3.  Will it or won't it be on PS3? 

You're question was answered, had you read it...

Could someone tell me if The Price Is Right The Game is coming to Playstation3?  I'm a PS3 owner.  If it isn't, I guess I'll get the PC version.

We list ALL platforms, because it's our ultimate goal. There are some things I can't talk about right now, but as soon as I can I'll post here.

A reasonable person can conclude from this that aside from the immediate launch platforms already listed on the website, they are working on developing it on other platforms, but aren't ready to commit to which ones yet.

[Scott5114]

Hmm... I have to think, though, that some of the issues I've raised must be correctable:

* Plinko: Replacing Ronnia on the score display should be a non-problem. You're already using an eggcrate font in the game, for the Race Game clock. Does it further tax the game engine or incur additional licensing to use it in another place?

The showcase podiums also have sportstype displays instead of the proper eggcrate. Not sure if JC has addressed this yet.

Just out of curiosity, are the showcases basically random prizes, or are they more geared towards common themes like real showcases? Thanks in advance!

[JC_Ludia]

Just curious,


If this game sells well, will there be any "Expansion Packs" released with additional pricing games on them?

I haven't been informed of expansion packs, so I can't really talk about this, unfortunately.

Hmm... I have to think, though, that some of the issues I've raised must be correctable:

* Plinko: Replacing Ronnia on the score display should be a non-problem. You're already using an eggcrate font in the game, for the Race Game clock. Does it further tax the game engine or incur additional licensing to use it in another place?

* Punch-A-Bunch: Are the dollar amounts on the "cheques" being rendered from text by the game engine, or are they graphics? With the resolution of the preview video I couldn't tell, but if it's a graphic, game resources and licensing oughtn't be a concern.

* Race Game: Again, are the neon numbers being rendered by the game engine from text, or are they graphics?

It's impressive work and a clearly lot of attention has gone into detail. That said, it's puzzling why it's possible to dedicate special fonts for games such as Flip-Flop, but when such iconic games as those discussed above are concerned, nothing more can be done.

The Race Game clock is assets - we don't have the eggcrate font, so we can't really use it in the Plinko score display. For Punch a bunch, it's rendered using the game engine.

An artist also brought up another point with fonts - apparently, when we get fonts, they have to redo them to be compatible with our engine. You can imagine this is an immense amount of work (we're a quite small company with insufficient resources to be able to handle too many fonts).

I don't mean to be rude here, but my question to JC still hasn't been answered about The Price Is Right The Game being on PS3.  Will it or won't it be on PS3?

I previously answered to the best of my knowledge. I've asked the appropriate people (I don't fully handle all the ports, so I might be missing some information) and I've been told to communicate that an announcement for further platforms should be made shortly. Sorry, it's all I can say at the moment. I'd love for it to be on the PS3 - I'm also an owner.

The showcase podiums also have sportstype displays instead of the proper eggcrate. Not sure if JC has addressed this yet.

Just out of curiosity, are the showcases basically random prizes, or are they more geared towards common themes like real showcases? Thanks in advance!

Indeed, we aren't using the eggcrate font in the showcase podiums (for reasons previously mentioned).

The showcases are geared towards common themes. With you guys being such avid fans of the show, I think you should have quite the edge in our showcases.

[COINBOYNYC]

JC, I'd like to ask a couple of questions regarding the DS version of the game.

• Will there be a "save" function where I can save the game at any point, turn off the power, and have the option to resume play from where I left off?  I generally play my DS on the bus and subway to and from work, and I'm not always able to commit to playing a full complete game at one sitting.
• Will there be a high score feature?  If so, I'd like to ask that numerals be included as an option, and that there be six or (preferably) eight characters for you to input your name.  I'm the only one who plays my DS games, so I don't need to know that I hold the high score - what I like to do is enter the date I got the high score.  Eight characters would allow me to input the date as MM-DD-YY (01-09-08), but I can live with six (MMDDYY, or 010908), so if it's at all possible please consider this.

[JC_Ludia]

JC, I'd like to ask a couple of questions regarding the DS version of the game.

• Will there be a "save" function where I can save the game at any point, turn off the power, and have the option to resume play from where I left off?  I generally play my DS on the bus and subway to and from work, and I'm not always able to commit to playing a full complete game at one sitting.
• Will there be a high score feature?  If so, I'd like to ask that numerals be included as an option, and that there be six or (preferably) eight characters for you to input your name.  I'm the only one who plays my DS games, so I don't need to know that I hold the high score - what I like to do is enter the date I got the high score.  Eight characters would allow me to input the date as MM-DD-YY (01-09-08), but I can live with six (MMDDYY, or 010908), so if it's at all possible please consider this.

We couldn't put a general "save anywhere" function in the game due to memory requirements. Sorry. You can always suspend your DS, however.

The high score feature currently works on a per-profile basis, showing only your very best high score in your profile. I'll talk to the DS guys so that they can add a timestamp. I can't promise anything, but we'll see!

Alright, now it's time for me to ask something of you guys! The game features achievements, and completing all the achievements unlocks a little bonus video. Now, what I'd like to ask you friendly fans is what do you think would be a good video to have as bonus content? Nothing too big, but if you can provide me with what show the video is taken from, we'll request it from Fremantle and mention you guys in the game's credits as special thanks.

Also, I can confirm the following 2 changes:
1- The checks in Punch a Bunch are now called slips (thanks!).
2- Freeze Frame is now on the stage rather than being on the turntable. I know some people complained about that, and it was a very easy fix (according to the lead programmer - she's never too happy when I bring up these changes, but hey )

I have another idea in store - I'll talk to my producer and see if he agrees, but if he does I'm sure it'll please some of you guys

[Off_trak]

I can't wait for this game.. I'm glad my Wii controllers have rechargeable packs, cuz I'll be playing it all the time... lol