Nice looking game. Very impressive for a downloadable game.
However, I have 2 questions/issues:
1. If I pay for the game, will I be able to move the executable/files or is it stuck on my desktop? I ask because I'd like to install it in my laptop and/or what I do in the event of a major crash and I lose the game.
2. What's the difference between this and the retail version, aside from the delivery method? (broadband vs CD)
Thanks for the comments. Here are your answers!
1- I'm unsure as to how Trymedia works. I'll talk to the people who did the wrappers and such to see how it handles installs on multiple computers. We're not implementing the copy protection ourselves.
2- The retail version will have more products (around twice as many), higher quality videos (I did the encoding; right now it's set to a good size/quality ratio. In the retail version, I'll crank out the quality settings on our encoder) and bonus material. Unfortunately, it won't come out until Fall. Since the downloadable version is rather cheap, I'd recommend buying both (yeah okay so I work for the company, but it's what I would personally do in this case). It will also include an additional game mode called "Classic" - I'll be discussing it later in this post so look for it!
One question...is there a possibility of setting up a contest to "give away" a few free downloads of the game? I've only got 7mins left on my trial Sad and I'm broke from buying the DVD lol. I simply LOVE this game!
As I said in the second post, we're working with John to give away some keys to you guys. We should get them today, so as soon as I have them we'll organize a little something. Good luck!
Considering $9.99 is the highest price you can input into Check-Out, I'm hoping there aren't any products higher than that?
It's in the Bag was kinda' disorienting, matching the prices to the product, rather than the other way around. I don't know if it was necessarily harder, but it probably didn't help that I got the toughest product for the first bag Razz.
I got two achievements. One for a pricing game, and the other for contestants' row. I can take a good guess what my achievement was for the pricing game, but I have no idea what the heck I did to earn it in contestants' row, besides winning a really cheap prize Shocked....
I'm kinda' curious if it's possible to get the wheel to not make a complete spin. I tried a few times, but no matter what I did, the wheel always went all the way around. Ah well.
9.99 is indeed the highest price you can input into Check-Out, and none of the products are valued at more than that.
It's in the Bag was made this way due to technical and gameplay problems - technically, we had to go in a slightly different route than we initially expected while still retaining what we had decided early on and this made the classic gameplay impossible. Gameplay-wise, crafting a workable user interface with It's in the Bag's gameplay proved to be incredibly difficult, so we made the change to associate prices with items rather than the other way around. It's still the same game, more or less.
The achievements are sort of modeled after other systems - initially we had a popup that displayed exactly what you had achieved, but this proved too cumbersome and was slowing down the gameplay. You can always go check in the Awards page in the main menu to see what the requirements are.
And it's not possible to make the wheel do an incomplete spin. The decision was taken to ensure it always made at least one complete spin simply because it removes quite a few variables into the system. Considering the game is primarily made for the casual market, we wanted the Showcase Showdown to be as simple as possible.
But I loved the realism of the game. I won the first bid and got up on stage and played plinko for 20,500! I like the grabbing and spinning of the wheel, but not sure how precice or even it can be by your mouse fling. Seemed very similar (speed of wheel every time i did it) even when i varied my mouse fling greatly.
Also played Checkout, and had many questions about it. Don't think the prices may have been realistic in some for current time period. A bottle of Suave Shampoo or gel is only $1.99? and a package of Chips Ahoy Cookies are $0.55? Cookies should be in the like $2.50-4.00 range no? Or did they get them from the local vending machine? And the Shampoo/Gel should have been more. The ads shown for those products could be very misleading. (but that is the object of the game... lol)
The 3 Strikes idea for the playing of the game can be good, but I don't think it is realistic to miss an IUFB and then go to a stage game anyway. IMHO the 3 strikes should go for contestants row and if you miss all 3 IUFB then you are game over. If you get 1 IUFB correct, then you get on stage and try for prize and spin wheel and qualify for showcase. I understand that you want people to get a good score and continue playing til they x out... but I would prefer the real realistic way of qualification advances up to stage/wheel and showcase.
Overall it is a very accurate game and very realistic so far. I am curious as to what the full list of 16 games are. I love Hole-In-One as a TPIR game my self but doubt it is in there because of how to aim putt and hardness of putt?
First, sorry, I cut up your post a bit, but I'll answer what seem to be mostly questions
The wheel does indeed go at different speeds, depending on how you fling your mouse. It might be due to the fact that it can't do an incomplete spin. I'll look into it, but we haven't had that comment here in ages.
The cookies are indeed $0.55. In fact, every item taken directly from the show has the exact value as it was displayed on the show. We got quite a few DVDs of the show from Fremantle and extracted the items from them. By the way, we took items from shows ranging from seasons 33 to 35, so the prices are quite current. As for the Suave item, it's a sponsored item - I found it to be a bit on the inexpensive side but it is indeed the price they have given us for integration.
Thanks for your comments on the 3 Strikes system. It's something we're proud of; I understand your concerns, though. What we're doing is in the retail version, there will be an additional game mode called "Classic Game" which does a complete replication of a contestant's experience in the show: you get called down for the first First Bid and you don't advance unless you win it. While it's truer to the show, we felt it could be more tedious for the download audience - people who aren't already big fans of the show wouldn't find any additional value in this game mode. Not to mention the game would have come out even later should that mode have been implemented.
If you want to look up the complete list of pricing games, check the Awards page in the main menu. You'll notice Hole in One is present - we've simplified putting greatly but put a lot of care into making sure it was correctly balanced. We initially had manual putting (holding down the left mouse button and doing a forward motion) but this created WAY more problems than it solved, so we went with a more casual approach to putting. It's no golf game, mind you, but it's very efficient. If you guys have more questions regarding Hole in One's putting mechanics I can always go into more detail as to why we decided to go this way.
When is the XBox 360 or XBox Live Arcade going to be released?
I don't have a definite date for the Xbox Live Arcade version, though I can confirm it will come out on XBLA rather than retail. We also have a very nice project supervisor at Microsoft who is a huge fan of the show and worked on mobile versions of TPIR before he was at Microsoft so we're in good hands!
So there you have it folks! I'll keep checking the thread regularly to see if you guys have more questions or comments about the game.
I can personally say I'm very happy at the reception we're getting. I was a bit scared with the changes we've made to some of the pricing games, but overall your comments are very positive. None of the team is in yet (it's 7am after all, and I got here at 6:30!) but it'll be a very nice way to start the day for sure! Everybody's been keeping up on your comments and I'm sure they'll be extremely happy with the results.
Thanks again for the kind words!
