Here’s something quite interesting and fun, 5Hole productions (basically the guys beind Buzzerblog) are branching out from their podcast gameshows into internet flash gaming. Their first game is called The Money Vault. I remember when the format idea was pitched to a discussion group a while ago, and I wondered if there was anything in it, and lo and behold, a fun internet game (which crucially up until the resetting of the scores a little while ago I WAS WORLD CHAMPION AT with a score of $580k-odd).
The game is quite simple, and actually the ordering of random things is not a new idea – pick cards off of a board, each one with a value of between $1k and $100k. As you discover the value of each one, stick it on a board. Once moved it can’t be unmoved. If you can order ten cards from highest to lowest, you win, if not you lose. If you get into trouble you can get help twice – either by passing or by swapping the new card with an old one, which leads to some interesting strategies. Ten of the cards are bail-outs, the more you’ve found, the greater the percentage of the bank you can walk away with – but it is a decision that must be taken there and then.
Would it actually work as a TV show? The counting up in the beginning feels interminable, but when you’ve forced a gap I was getting surprisingly excited when the money clock reached safe amounts and at the end I was mentally willing it to stop which surprised even me – sort of the opposite of The Colour of Money really. As such, it’s an exciting second half in need of a more interesting first half. As an internet game, it’s more than worthy of an advert and five minutes of your time.
You can play it here, if the site is coping with the pressure.
I got to $497k, final card needed to be between 21-40k. It was 97k. Damn.
I think it could work if it simply revealed the values for the first 3 to 5 amounts (or until the first gap appears) instead of the suspenseful count. You could speed through this portion of the gameplay and arrive at the “second half” sooner.
True enough, although I still don’t think that’d be a good telly solution.
To be honest we have alternate rules and additions for a TV version. We made this game with ulterior motives, which shouldn’t be a massive shock. But some of our TV friendly rules seemed pointless in a Flash setting where it’s not really TV and there’s nothing on the line so we stripped it to be a little barebones.
We’re going with the tag line, for all our games, of “Real Fake Game Shows.” What we’re thinking about doing, since Money Vault is doing well so far and we have a second game in line, is letting programmers who like game shows pitch us their fake game show ideas, and if they want to make it and we like it we’ll place it and promise our large audience and syndication abilities. Sort of a fake game show channel. It’s a stupid idea, but we want to add to the site and make it a gaming destination
Its rather too good for a flash game.
Alex, Screen pilot please 🙂
I would like to play this, however.
A) It’s asking me to download Xvid (which I already have and it’s sat there on the buffering screen for the last 15 mins not doing anything) and
B) automatically downloads clickpotato which I’m guessing is useless in the UK as it won’t play anything as it’s a US TV streaming site.
Not really having a go – but is it really necessary to find somwhere to host a flash game, that forces a download of software you don’t really need (or can use), and then doesn’t download the required software you need to play it…
..or am I the only one who has had trouble trying to even fire it up to play it?
Right, I was confused by this at first, however you can ignore the download/play stuff, it should just load up in the page after a moment or so.
That’s a banner ad. You don’t have to download anything. It’s just a banner ad. If nothing else by clicking it you’re giving me money, so thanks. The game is below it.
Cheers Alex (and the ‘boss’ for your advice)
I’ve played the game a few times, and I think it could have the makings of a tv show in there.
I’m not sure a commissioning editor of entertainment would buy the out and out randomness of the format as it exists at the moment – but throw in some element of skill (like answering questions to progress further or maybe win an extra bail/swap/drop pass) then it may fly in the world of television.
Tricky decision I ran into first play through which would really show off the telly chops. One slot left, card needs to be between $17k and $38k but I had my pass left so effectively giving 2 chances to find the card I needed. Then pulled a bail. Take $54,750 or risk $400k+?
I played on, first card was $39k. Passed, second was $41k. I think it could work quite well on TV, provided as some say the first half is sped up a bit.
Maths says 44.1% chance of victory (assuming of course that all figures between 1k and 100k are equally possible) so in this case it was +EV to carry on
I was THIS CLOSE away from a $620k pay off.
There you go, $612k. That will do I suppose.
Of course, I proably wouldn’t ue the same strategy if I was playing for real money, obviously.
Brig Bother is dethroned with my 652k /brag
Well I can only assume you cheated. And that means I’m still world champion! Amazing.
9th with $519k, will have to do…
The key to masive scores, of course, is that you have to average 60+ across all the slots. So if you get a 60-65 early, there’s no point putting it at 6, you might as well put it in 4-5 and see how it all pans out.
Alright! Just won at this game for the first time and got a not too shabby $643,000! My cash cards were:
10) $96k
9) $92k
8) $77k
7) $75k
6) $74k
5) $67k
4) $47k
3) $45k
2) $36k
1) $34k
Sorry, forgot to put my details in the boxes. That was me.
Just looked on the leaderboard and I’m 2nd, $9k behind Chris
Amusingly, instead of the game it redirects me to one of those fake virus scanner adverts, complete with fake Windows XP interface. I’m running Ubuntu(!).
Oh on second click, it works. Freaky.
Alright there were enough people not realizing the top part was an advertisement and the bottom was a game that I took out the ad for now and I’ll place it somewhere else later. Sorry about that.
It’d probably be fine if it didn’t use the words ‘play now’…
I’ll fix that.
Also, the issue was (and not sure who you use so just a heads up) GoDaddy was hacked, yet again, and they specifically hacked WordPress. They put a line of code into all the recent posts and pages which was the cause of the issue. I’m removing the code right now. It’s nothing deeply rooted in the site. It’s just a small line of code. Most of the major stuff, like the game and recent posts, should be fixed.
I’m still getting malware popups, but not on every page. Looks like a nasty one to fix…
Hopefully some of it is being remedied. I’ve fixed every individual page, including every game page, and I’ve cleared five months of the archives manually. Hopefully some automatic plugin comes out soon to remove the rest of this. I was supposed to be off from tomorrow through January 3rd, but that’s becoming an issue now.
Celebrity pointless is now up on the iPlayer – this is the missing final episode from Series 3!
The Money Vault is a great flash game that with a few tweaks could be an enjoyable tv gameshow.