[09] I Lost on Jeopardy, Baby

Edit: Sadly, this was posted barely a day before the death of longtime Jeopardy host Alex Trebek.  Rest in peace.

So this brings me to the 5th grade, when I won a few prizes on a Nickelodeon show.

It was a show called Total Panic, a variety show somewhat modeled after the original You Can't Do That on Television episodes aired in Canada in the late 1970s, before being picked up by Nick.  Amongst the fun, I did a call-in contest where I won a Casio keyboard, a 110 camera, and a trip to Busch Gardens, Florida -- and their water park, known at the time as Wild Water Kingdom.

The tech story isn't in Florida, although the 7 day, 6 night trip was too short (and my parents made me give up a couple of those days to visit my grandparents, losing valuable theme park time).  No, it's the flight back, when my piece of luggage was lost.  It took them a while to find it -- and then had to drive it over 2 hours north from the airport -- so it wasn't until weeks after the trip that I was able to enjoy two bargain-bin games that I bought there.  For CGA monitors, in DOS, here's Pat Sajack and Alex Trebeck.

Oddly enough, it turns out that all the games I bought were published by ShareData.  ShareData was a company that published cheap titles from the mid 80s through the early 90s, when it appears to have been absorbed into another conglomerate and then eliminated.  Their reputation for low-cost is likely how I got mom and dad to shell out for software; I assume the titles were no more than $5 each.

Pat Sajak does not appear in this game, and the presenter looks nothing like Vanna White, so how is this the "official" program?

So into DosBox I go, to play these titles.  The first is Wheel of Fortune, the 1987 release.  Since I got this in the summer of 1989, I expect I was very disappointed with the CGA graphics.  I mean, really:

Some research tells me that while the PC release looks pitiful for the time, it was only marginally worse than the Commodore version, and the Apple II... unless all this green was supposed to just make me think of money?

The Commodore version at least gives Vanna a dress that doesn't match the letter tiles

And while the resolution sucks, the Apple version has the nicest colors of them all

But I was surprised by how much fun this was to play, if you overlooked the obvious issues (horrible color scheme, PC speaker music) because one issue I expected wasn't as bad as I thought: dated puzzles.  Remember, this game was released in the 80s, how much of the references would be dated pop culture or ancient history that would have been more recent to someone in that era?

Examples of the puzzles I faced; not exactly unreasonable

Another question... it was officially licensed, right?  So why is the music played in the game Be Kind to your Web-Footed Friends?  I mean, hearing that song over and over as I won got repetative.

The game does have a save function, of sorts.  If you play an entire game to the bonus round, and win, you get added to the list of champions.  Then, the next time you start the game, you can choose that name to continue, and the total will grow and grow.

Next up: This game gives you answers, and you must pose questions.  What is Jeopardy?

Again, it's the officially licensed product, and this time, they have the music!

Again, they spared no expense on the PC graphics.  And I mean that literally: they expended nothing, it seems.  Comparison:

Apple II

Commodore

PC

Once more, it seems that they developed this for the Commodore and then did crappy ports to the other systems.

This time, also, was torture because of the dated references.  I'm sure that, just as with Carmen, some things have changed in the world as well, making them difficult to answer. 

I barely got through one game without quitting, it was just that boring.  Two topics I care about and four I don't. I suppose if I was a contestant, actually in the running to win big money.

One day, I'll tell the story of a college roommate I drove to auditions for Win Ben Stein's Money, but that's much later in this blog.

Somehow, even with no knowledge, I still managed to win it all.  Mainly, because there's no AI in either of these games.  Probably percentage chances, like, player 2 has a 20% change of getting the right answer or something like that.

Even though I have no deep learnings of Europe, I still got at least one question right.  Name of the body that passes laws and governs.  What is parliament?

Somehow, I made it to the end.

As I said, I won mostly because of bad computer opponents.  I barely knew anything -- so I guess no game shows for me, although I'd love to be on Family Feud or The Price is Right:

I had this game and could never find anyone willing to play with me.  I suspect the pricing might be a little outdated now.

Next time, we'll play some ASCII classics...