TPiR video game release date

[ntpir]

The video does look great, but....are we getting an American Version or a British version? Not that I have anything against them but...did anyone else notice the wording during PAB?

[Price Nut 900]

I think it will most likley be the american version. 

[pacdude]

The video does look great, but....are we getting an American Version or a British version? Not that I have anything against them but...did anyone else notice the wording during PAB?

Ludia is a company from Canada, and they spell it "cheque" up there sometimes, so I hear.

Also, they've digitally added "eh" and "hoser" to everything Rich Fields says.

/only half of this is true.

[PriceFan14]

Ludia is a company from Canada, and they spell it "cheque" up there sometimes, so I hear.

Also, they've digitally added "eh" and "hoser" to everything Rich Fields says.

/only half of this is true.

Some spell it "cheque", I personally spell it "check". Cheque is a French spelling.

[edmojautis]

I'm looking forward to this game. Is the DSW rule intact in this game? I noticed when one of the players is $241 off of the ARP, instead of "Double Showcase Winner" flashing, It says "Amazing Win".

[theworstboy]

A 60 minute free trial, eh? So after that, it costs? Please place me (for now) in the "apprehensive" camp.

One of the big things about this game is the fact that it has in-game advertising. Normally this isn't something I'd be in favor of but it would add a lot of playability for The Price Is Right. I know that, say, Hall's Naturals retail for $2.15, and Campbell's soup for $1.07. I'd be at a big disadvantage if I were asked to price fictitious-brand groceries. And this means that they can theoretically update it so it wouldn't get as dated as the 1990 GameTek version.

But that's also where it catches for me. If Ludia's getting paid already, I start getting really reluctant to pay them again out of my pocket.

Just my two cents. But some people think my opinion's worth twice as much as that.

[JC_Ludia]

Hi guys,

My name is JC and I'm the lead game designer for Ludia's TPiR game. (yes, I'm aware some people will not believe me. The board's admin can look at the email address I used to register this account - it's at ludia.com).

I can say I'm psyched that you guys seem to be enjoying the trailer we put out. We put a lot of work into the game, and although I might be biaised (obviously!) I think we've managed to come up with a fantastic game.

I'm here to answer questions you guys might have about the game. I've cleared this with my producer and our VP of marketing, so I'm in the clear to answer most of your questions. Of course some stuff I can't talk too much yet - you'll have to wait until it's released (soon, I promise!) but I'll do my best to answer all the questions!

After looking at a few questions you guys seemed to have in the thread, I can already answer some stuff.

1- Yes, Plinko is in the game. I don't think anybody in their right mind can do a TPiR adaptation and not include Plinko.
2- The game's set in the pre-Drew "era" - it uses the old set and such.
3- We're having more than 12 pricing games. 16 of them, to be precise, plus (obviously!) One Bid (I don't have to explain that one to you guys), the Showcase Showdown and the Showcase.
4- I can say the DS version is better than Deal or No Deal. I've played that... It's typical low-budget stuff, and we're keeping an eye out for other game shows on the DS to see how we stack up. So far, so good!
5- We don't have pricing games you haven't seen with Drew, since, well, if there are any, nobody's seen them outside of the fine folks at Fremantle, I'd wager. I'm not even personally aware if there's anything like that. So, no.
6- The game is coming out for the Wii. I know someone mentioned that - it's clearly listed on playtpir.com.
7- As for the fonts, we've taken GREAT care to ensure the game sets are as faithful as possible to the TV show. The Cliffhangers board is particularly impressive - we have some very , very good artists in-house that worked long hours to make sure the sets look great.
8- About that mistake on the website - I told the guy who handles the website and he fixed it right away. There are some rather funny anecdotes about the naming of the various games of the show I'll probably share once the game's out.
9- The game is based on the american version. Although I'd love to know what wording you guys refer to in PAB...
10- Having written Rich Fields' script for the game, I guess I should have put more "eh" and "hoser" to it. Why didn't I think of that? By the way, he's an awesome guy.
11- Check is the proper english spelling, I'd think. Chèque is the proper french spelling, although I don't recall seeing it anywhere in our recent builds...
12- Yes, the DSW rule is intact. The video doesn't show the whole sequence.
13- I can proudly say that there is absolutely NO fictional pricing content in the game. It would have made absolutely NO sense to have "A brand new XYZ car!" instead of having real makes.

That's about it for most of the questions I've seen in the thread. If there's anything else you guys want to ask, I'll answer as much as I can. I hope you guys enjoy the game as much as we loved making it!

[SteveGavazzi]

5- We don't have pricing games you haven't seen with Drew, since, well, if there are any, nobody's seen them outside of the fine folks at Fremantle, I'd wager. I'm not even personally aware if there's anything like that. So, no.

I think you're misunderstanding this question...16 of the pricing games haven't been played yet this season because Drew hasn't learned them yet.  I don't think anyone would be surprised if some of them happen to be among those that appear in your video game.

Thank you for coming on here to answer our questions.  I think it says a lot for your company.

[Shredder]

It does look pretty amazingly well done .  Perfect Party game, so I'll be picking up the Wii version. 

Although a tad boring if there is no bob voice over, even if just the usual script of him announcing how each game works..  Having to read text throughout the whole game with just music or crowd noise just seems...lacking.

[ClockGameJohn]

My name is JC and I'm the lead game designer for Ludia's TPiR game. (yes, I'm aware some people will not believe me. The board's admin can look at the email address I used to register this account - it's at ludia.com)

JC indeed registered from his Ludia.com e-mail address, so please welcome him here and try not to overwhelm him with too many questions that we might consider to be "nitpicking." 

Welcome JC, and thanks for taking the time to post here for the benefit of our members.

[Scott5114]

Hey, JC, thanks for taking the time to come by and post. I hope you can understand the diehard fans' nitpickiness (if that's a word ); even something small as using a sportstype display instead of an eggcrate display can sort of ruin the 'suspension of disbelief' that you're really on TPiR! But judging from the your post and the attention to detail I noticed in the set designs (I was struck by the quality of Cliff Hangers in the video before you mentioned it!) I'm sure that you guys will get everything ironed out.

On Punch-A-Bunch, the term that Bob always used for the bits of paper with the money on them was always "slips". I'm not sure if Drew has changed it to something else or not.

I was pleasantly surprised to hear Rod announcing Plinko in the video! Can you can select your favorite announcer on a setup screen? (And if so, can you pick Johnny O?)

Unfortunately, I don't have a computer running Windows at the moment, but hopefully I can get a copy and tinker with WINE on Linux to get it running. I've wanted a TPiR computer game for years -- thanks for all your hard work!

[JC_Ludia]

I think you're misunderstanding this question...16 of the pricing games haven't been played yet this season because Drew hasn't learned them yet.  I don't think anyone would be surprised if some of them happen to be among those that appear in your video game.

Thank you for coming on here to answer our questions.  I think it says a lot for your company.

Oh, well with that - if you give me the list of the games Drew hasn't learned, I can tell you which ones are in the game.

It does look pretty amazingly well done Smile.  Perfect Party game, so I'll be picking up the Wii version.

Although a tad boring if there is no bob voice over, even if just the usual script of him announcing how each game works..  Having to read text throughout the whole game with just music or crowd noise just seems...lacking.

Once the game comes out I'll be able to explain a bit about the voiceovers, but rest assured there are plenty of authentic voice overs (including game instructions).

Hey, JC, thanks for taking the time to come by and post. I hope you can understand the diehard fans' nitpickiness (if that's a word Smile ); even something small as using a sportstype display instead of an eggcrate display can sort of ruin the 'suspension of disbelief' that you're really on TPiR! But judging from the your post and the attention to detail I noticed in the set designs (I was struck by the quality of Cliff Hangers in the video before you mentioned it!) I'm sure that you guys will get everything ironed out. Smile

On Punch-A-Bunch, the term that Bob always used for the bits of paper with the money on them was always "slips". I'm not sure if Drew has changed it to something else or not.

I was pleasantly surprised to hear Rod announcing Plinko in the video! Can you can select your favorite announcer on a setup screen? (And if so, can you pick Johnny O?)

Unfortunately, I don't have a computer running Windows at the moment, but hopefully I can get a copy and tinker with WINE on Linux to get it running. I've wanted a TPiR computer game for years -- thanks for all your hard work!

I fully understand about the nitpickness (I think it's a valid word!). I'm a diehard fan of many things in life and I tend to be the same way about certain things. However, if there's a certain set you guys have seen in trailers that you don't think looks right, you can always inform me and I'll see with our artists if there's anything we can do.

Thanks for the PAB term - I hadn't noticed him calling him slips. I'll get that fixed.

And unfortunately, the Rod voice slipped into the trailer, but he isn't in the game. Believe me, I would have LOVED to have Rod do our voice overs... The video was taken from a development version that happened to be also a version where we were testing this type of voice over. Sadly it didn't turn out as well as we anticipated, so we took another route for our voice overs (which do sound terrific anyway), but it means no Rod. Sorry guys, I know I might be disappointing to some people but we put the quality of the game's audio first and it was pretty much impossible to have very clear voices using that method.

I'm not sure if the game would actually run in WINE - I'll talk to our technical director to see if it could. If anyone knows, it'd be him; the guy's a guru in those things.

[theworstboy]

7- As for the fonts, we've taken GREAT care to ensure the game sets are as faithful as possible to the TV show. The Cliffhangers board is particularly impressive - we have some very , very good artists in-house that worked long hours to make sure the sets look great.

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?

[SteveGavazzi]

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.

[tpirfan28]

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.