slg@ukma.UUCP (Sean Gilley) (11/13/85)
I hit the old arcade again yesterday after months of ignor- ing the poor thing, and what did I find? A `Trivial Pursuit' video game. Being a fan of the board game, I went over to take a look. With just a slight glance I decided to try it. (Expanding the mind you see...) So I stuck my token in. A quick glance at the high scores showed three people with scores of about 600,000; the rest with scores of about 20,000. The game is simple to play. First you choose one of four characters to represent you on the playing board... yes there is a playing board. The board is rectangular, with various catagories marked by certain squares. In each of the four corners is a square that allows you to try for a ``Pie piece''. If you get all four, you ``win''. But I'm getting ahead of my story. I choose the last pictured character on the screen; a roman gladiator type. The machine started me in the upper lefthand corner, and showed the two squares I could move to. You move by pressing one of two buttons, depending on which way you desire to move. I pressed the button that allowed me to move clockwise. My little character moved to the left, but he himself was split into two parts -- his back half moved first, and then his frount half! But that was ok. Now it was time to answer the question -- excitement began to build.... the question was asked.... and in- stead of the usual fill in the blank that real _Trivial Pursuit_ has, or a multiple choice that might be expected on a video game, the machine showed one answer and asked whether it was right or wrong. After carefully considering all the posibilities, I de- cided it was wrong. I pressed the red button, and another answer appeared. ``Right or wrong -- You decide'' the machine de- clares... this time it was the correct answer, so I pressed the green button. A fanfare exudes from the machine and I smile to myself with pride at my accomplishment. So I continue on in a similar fashion. I move around the board getting most of my answers correct, and I get one or two wrong... Then the machine askes for the Scottish equivilent of the name `John'. Aha, says I, no question there -- *my* name is the Scottish equivilent of John! The first answer was incorrect (it wasn't `Sean'), the second answer was incorrect.... But wait! This machine says the Scottish equilent of `John' is `Ian'! I know that it's incorrect - but how do you argue with a video game? But I continue playing, despite the machine's indiscrepen- cies. And I begin to notice a few things. The number of squares that you are allowed to move never changes. And then I notice something else.. could it be? Surely not... but it is!!! The answer to *EVERY* question, is the second one given. In other words, at each question, you press the red button, then the green and you have answered the question correctly. So I moved between my two favorite catagories (sports and leisure, arts and literature) answering all the questions correctly. When I had about 100,000 points, I got bored (and my hands started to hurt from pressing buttons..) and I began moving around the board and picking up my pie pieces. When I had the last one, the machine announced I had won, gave me about 500,000 bonus points, and end- ed the game. I was *thrilled*. Sean. -- Sean L. Gilley Phone: (606) 272-9620 or (606) 257-4613 {ihnp4,decvax,ucbvax}!cbosgd!ukma{!ukgs}!slg, slg@UKMA.BITNET Watches are a conspiracy by Swiss confidence men.
davidl@teklds.UUCP (David Levine) (11/19/85)
I've just got to respond to the referenced article, in which the author stated that in the TP video game the number of spaces per move is fixed and the second answer is always correct. The one time I played, neither of these conditions occurred. I think the author must have had a game whose random number generator was stuck, or whose difficulty was set ridiculously low. I thought the method of selecting answers was a good compromise. (The machine shows one answer and the player must pick "this answer is correct" or "this answer is wrong, show me another".) Typing in answers would never have worked, because of the possibility of "almost-right" answers and the difficulty of maintaining a full alphanumeric keyboard in a video-parlor environment. The method used increases the excitement of the game and reduces the possiblity of guessing correctly, because you never know what all the alternatives will be. On the other hand, I am somewhat displeased by some aspects of the game. It's never made clear how many answers you can get wrong before you "die", and I was enormously disappointed when getting all four "cheeses" ended the game. The 500,000 point bonus is gratuitous; the enjoyment of the game is in playing, not in accumulating points. The animation and theme songs of the player characters also got intensely annoying. All in all, I enjoyed the game but I'm afraid it will flop. It won't die because people don't play it, but because a reasonably knowledgeable player can play for a long time on a single token, and therefore the parlor operators won't leave it in service for long! David D. Levine (...decvax!tektronix!teklds!davidl) [UUCP] (teklds!davidl.tektronix@csnet-relay) [ARPA/CSNET]