Saturday 8pm (UK time),
Youtube and viewable RIGHT HERE.
#sdb
#imbackingbrig
#teamdan
It’s time to choose a side.
We are too good to you. In January we provided four hours of live entertainment, the likes of which the Internet had never seen before – a hilarious low rent version of German event television show Schlag den Raab (Beat (the) Raab) played across Youtube on webcams with fun and inventive games from the devious mind of The Crystal Maze and Only Connect‘s David Bodycombe. Fifteen mystery challenges of mental agility, psychology, dexterity and skill bought to you LIVE. THE WORLD HAD NEVER SEEN SUCH A THING. On the night Dan got lucky.
Almost three months has passed and I’ve been in training. I will prove once and for all Dan was a bit lucky first time round.
This Saturday night we’re back BIGGER, BETTER and MORE INTERACTIVE – play along at home, and in some cases influence the results in some of the games (so try to watch live!). A fresh fifteen games await us and me and Dan have no idea what’s about to hit us (except for the two proper You Bet!-esque games we’ve filmed outside a fortnight ago and have had video packages put together by proper TV person Michelle Martin, god knows she didn’t have much to work with but by all accounts they apparently look great). The only other person who knows is our referee and commentator for the night Lewis Murphy.
HQ link to Snooker Golf: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ncen8L5GGrE
HQ link to Merken Mercedes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMlzGPPyslQ
Watched the show? Fill in the feedback form!
We’d love to hear your comments – comment on the Youtube stream (or preferred) Twitter with #sdb and we’ll read them out during quiet bits. Or Lewis will at any rate, we’re not allowed to access Twitter during the recording.
Anything could happen – it’s an unrehearsed live show with lots of chains of technology involved and two people who are winging it completely, please bear with us if something goes wrong, follow me, Dan, David and Lewis on Twitter for updates.
If you miss it you should be able to watch the stream afterwards, for most fun we recommend watching live. We got great viewers last time, we want to smash that this time!
*chants* Schlag den Brig! Schlag den Brig! Schlag den Brig!
It occurs to me that there’s no reason why German game show fans couldn’t have got together to do exactly the same thing already, thus providing an early hint at all sorts of exciting possibilities of a pan-European EuroSchlag, or a Schlag den Champions’ League, or something. A quick search suggests that… well, if it’s happened, I haven’t been able to find it quickly. I’d like to think it must have done in a game-crazy country like Germany, though.
A search for
"schlag den" -raab -stardoes point to lots of irrelevant tipping competitions, but also a reasonably serious-looking Schlag den Lehrer, which translates to “Beat The Teacher” (I like it already!) and seems to have been an annual event at a school 25 miles east of Frankfurt since 2010. They got a thousand viewers for the Internet stream of their event, so I guess that’s a target of a sort. It also looks like a diner had their own little Schlag, so to speak, as an event to attract custom.Fingers crossed that the German Schlag fans find us and find out how much fun we’re having!
Three games in, and the imagination in the show thus far is freaking amazing. Brilliant stuff all round; I’m blown away.
Fantastic show guys, I really wasn’t planning to watch all of it, but it was surprisingly compelling 🙂
Thoroughly enjoyed that! I think my favourites were playing along with the sketching game again, and attempting to decipher the charades. Thanks for all of the effort that went in to making tonight such a great show!
Wow, what an enthralling 5 hours+ viewing that was! Great variety of games, I’d certainly love to have a go at Snooker Golf sometime! The outside broadcast segments worked particularly well. Good mix of strategic, lateral thinking, quizzy, and just plain daft (Moose and Bunny game springs to mind!;) games. Audience participation games great idea, I was surprised how many speed charades I managed to get! 😀
Overall, a great night full of amusement, merriment and occasionally educational – well done guys, and I hope to see it again in the future! 😀
Sensationally good. Maybe it’s just because I feel so close to everyone involved, but I enjoyed this much more than the Raab version. I don’t know if the YouTube numbers matched up to the first episode but the quality was outstanding. Thank you very much to everyone involved: Nick, Dan, David, Lewis and Michelle. If you didn’t catch it live, it’s well worth five hours of your life to go back and see the recording.
This has been my single viewing highlight of the year so far, even including SdB 1, Sport Relief Only Connect and The Genius.
I will also repeat my contention from SdB 1 that I think I would really have been struggling to score points against either of you competitors. Maybe you were both showing a little fatigue in game 13 but you had been going at full throttle for hours and hours; overall, in context, the standard of competition was extremely high.
I felt an idiot for forgetting it was today until a while into it, but I came in starting on game six and was hooked for the rest of it. Very entertaining, and congratulations Brig!
If the first 90 minutes of the video are missing, it’s because it’s still in video recorder mode. It might take a day before the full archived version is put up there.
Thanks to everyone who tuned in. Full debrief to follow.
Well done to everyone involved in Schlag den Brig. Nick, good job on pulling off the comeback. David, the games were so creative, Tetris Words was a personal favourite. Plus the OBs were a fantastic touch, so kudos to Michelle for her sterling efforts there.
I tuned in for the middle couple of hours (once Britain’s Got Talent finished, really – it would have been sooner but for the football). I hope that, as David says, the full version will appear on YouTube in due course. The much-lauded bibliographic treasure hunt sounds well worth watching.
Is it beyond geekiness to request a breakdown of some of the software and resources used to pull this off?
I can tell you what I was doing on my end (round scoreboard, timers, all associated noises, VTs):
A lot of the heavy lifting this time around was done by a piece of software called XSplit Broadcaster at http://www.xsplit.com – its primary use is broadcasting to services like Twitch but it also runs as a software webcam, and it allowed me to put layouts together showing both a scoreboard and a timer. Luckily I managed to scale everything so it was all pretty clear in the miniature view at the bottom of the screen.
The round scoreboard was made in microsoft office powerpoint – that one was done by David, I just had it running to change scores and occasionally provide a few sounds like the gun bang.
The main timer is XNote Stopwatch, at http://www.xnotestopwatch.com/ – I actually found this last time when Dan was using it to count down to when SdB would start. Pretty useful multipurpose timer, it does all sorts of things that I haven’t needed for either SdB.
The chess clock used for Nachahmer and Boku was Virtual Chess Clock, at http://sourceforge.net/projects/vchessclock/ – simple software that accepts keyboard commands and allows them to be customised.
The VTs were all just run in VLC media player. I shouldn’t need to link to that, you should already have it. There’s a minimal interface mode I used to avoid spoilers from the timer counting down, and also avoid spoilers on the toast VTs. The outside broadcast game VTs and the prize VT were run as a screenshare in hangouts, the toaster I decided to run through XSplit so I could easily switch between it and the scoreboard.
Much of the sound was run from my iPhone 3GS (yes really). The theme tune, the sting as each game was announced, the think music and the pieces for TV-Kisum were all run through a simple line-in out the headphone jack into my computer.
To mix the sounds coming from my computer, the sounds coming in my microphone, and the sound coming in the line-in all together was a piece of software called VB Audio Virtual Cable, at http://vb-audio.pagesperso-orange.fr/Cable/index.htm – it acts as an output that redirects to an input, so I can have that output listen to everything and send the input into Hangouts.
Thanks Lewis, that’s several very handy webpages bookmarked!
What was used to play the songs backwards in the TV theme round?
The songs were pre-edited by David, I’m not sure what software he used, but pretty much any decent sound editing software including Audacity will do a simple reverse. Then they were simply played as mp3s on my phone to the line-in I mentioned above.
Thoroughly enjoyable 5 hours. Even though my PC was throwing a strop – managed to watch on my phone and used my tablet for tne interactivity.
Watched the first hour, then my laptop threw a wobbly and I gave up. Watched the rest this afternoon, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Well done to all involved!
Couldn’t watch live, unfortunately, but did just finish watching on catchup. Brilliant job to all involved. I didn’t think the games could get more clever after the ingenuity shown on the first episode of SDB, but Herr Bodycombe (and faithful dogsbody Lewis) has outdone himself. Loved the VTs, they were extremely impressive. Congrats Nick, commiserations Dan, and I can’t wait to see the rubber match whenever it goes off.
One suggestion for next time: In at least the treasure hunt round (and possibly others?) It would have been easier to follow if we’d had audio commentary that could have included spoilers the contestants shouldn’t hear. I appreciate that may have been technically impossible, but something to consider trying to find a way of doing for next time?
I did consider that but if that happened the contestants would have had to call our text for every clue. I thought that, even on a relatively simple hunt there’s always ways of getting stuck, it was more expeditious to do it with audio.
I belatedly watched the sequel, and it was great fun! Thanks to everyone involved. The editing was much improved, with more shots of the contestants and less of cards. I watched in two sittings, and it did feel overlong even so – maybe lop off a few of the games if you decide to go for it again?
Games were almost universally awesome, although a game of watching toast dry at the end of a long broadcast seemed a bit cruel. I was surprised Bunny bunny moose moose didn’t sit well with the players; it’s a great party game. Radar had great playalong, and I was susprised it didn’t go off in a tangent with maps of the night sky, Middle Earth, meteo or somesuch. I found the treasure hunt susprisingly easy to follow along, since most of the puzzles didn’t really depend on the particulars of the book for their a-ha moment; the slides were required though, since following with the cameras would have been imposible. I think the Gears jigsaw was the only one with nothing to commend it; we couldn’t really see the board or the contestants’ expressions.
I find the inspiration unwatchable due to blandness and padding. I’ve had great fun watching both your episodes. Maybe you need to translate your CV’s and have a go at working on the real thing.
I’d like to say a HUGE thank you to anyone who watched, voted or even sent in a poem during the broadcast. It was a genuine pleasure to play, and I hope you guys enjoyed watching it as much as we did playing it.
A MASSIVE thank you to David – the time, organisation and creativity involved is quite something… to COLOSSAL thank you to Lewis for becoming part robot and dealing with the technical issues as well as filming and commentating too, and lastly a REASONABLY BIG thank you to my opponent Nick. I say reasonably big because, well, see game 15. 😉
When playing the treasure hunt game, whilst I knew David would be showing a play by play for viewers at home, I was a bit worried it wouldn’t translate well across the screen. So I’m very relieved to see that people loved that game!! I certainly did playing it, especially the ingenious ending.
Thanks once more – and here’s to hopefully seeing an SdB3.
I’m torn. On the one hand, I feel like the first SdB had more play-along value, and three of my four favourite games are from it (Bilderwurfel, Sortieren, and A Capella, with Radar filling up the top four), but I think this one was better overall? The lowpoint – probably Sortier Formen, though I loved the concept – wasn’t nearly as bad as Pipe Riders last time.
I’ve just now watched Snooker Golf and that looks SO FUN. I wonder if anything like that exists near me. (Although I hope to move to England at some point anyway, so it’ll be something to keep in mind if I achieve that life goal..)
If you are in the US then there’s a fair chance there’s one near you. The website is topgolf.com
The snooker game is one if about 6 modes you can play. The default game just requires you to whack the ball and win some points if it goes in a hole.
Alas, none are close enough to make it a singular reason to make a trip. Although it’ll be something to keep in mind when planning my next vacation and/or where I decide to move. Thanks!
Pretty much a newcomer to all of this, but was pointed in the direction of the first SDB by a friend, and enjoyed it. Wasn’t planning to watch all of this, just dip in and out, but having watched the first hour live, I then watched all the rest on catchup yesterday – I was hooked! Some great games, and fantastic OBs! Particular favourites were Radar and the coloured dots on a hexagon where you had to make 5 in a row (apologies, forgot the title there). The only one I wasn’t too keen on was word Tetris. Partly because I was awful at it! It may have just been me, but seemed you really needed the physical shapes in front of you to have a good chance of following it.
Having lived in Austria for a while, I’ve watched a fair few SDRs (all in German obviously), and only watched the most recent with your commentary, but I enjoyed that as well.
All in all – brilliant production! Congratulations to everyone involved in it – the 5 hours flew by!
Just caught up, that was remarkable. Shame about Lewis’s PC doing the dirty through the music round, but all came together. Didn’t realise Top Golf was still open, to be quite honest.
I’ve caught up too, and I must say it was brilliant again. The highlights for me:
+ The atlas treasure hunt (sorry, I’m terrible with German and can’t remember most of the names) was particularly clever, and made me truly wish I could play along with the actual items in the envelopes. My hat’s off to David for creating such a clever series of puzzles.
+ Tetris Worte was also awesome. This time I did actually manage to play along in my head (with middling success) even though I didn’t have the pieces.
+ I quite liked the five-in-a-row game, especially once the sandwich rule started coming into play, and very especially Brig’s clever use of it to turn the match around starting on game 2. I think this was the game most reminiscent of a Death Match on The Genius.
+ Also found myself playing along with Das Toaster, which I discovered does in fact have a consistent pattern and was probably a lot more skillful than the rules led on, in a way reminiscent of some of my favorite Main Matches in The Genius. Specifically, I attempted to count at 150 BPM in my head (as I do when playing along with Time Freeze on The Cube). Turned out I was a bit slow — I timed myself after the game, and it turned out to be 140 BPM — but that happened to be in sync with the toaster. The first setting popped after almost exactly 18 measures, and each subsequent one popped after 2 measures longer than the last.
Other comments:
+ Bravo to Dan on that perfect guess on the car game. That was very impressive.
+ Quite liked the concept of Snooker Golf, although it was a shame the game became a runaway so quickly and ended in a bit of an anticlimax.
+ TV Kusim was pretty fun to watch although I was pretty clueless. It seemed like a missed opportunity to use some of the themes from the shows frequently covered on this site. I suppose that would’ve handed an advantage to Brig though.
I was sad that at least The Crystal Maze’s iconic theme wasn’t used.
There’s a pattern to the toaster settings because they were cut that way. My toaster, even on its lowest setting, takes 80 seconds to pop. I filmed it and then Lewis cut the videos down to 35, 38, 41, 44… seconds for each level. The relatively static image made it easy to edit.
We added the different settings as an extra element because I felt the original game was missing a trick. Otherwise you might as well just have an stopwatch alarm, frankly.
Taken me a while to get round to it but I have to say what a triumph Saturday was!
As good if not better than the first time round. The poetry and charades games, albeit not traditional Raab fayre, really added something with the audience voting etc and made it feel like a proper “event.”
The OBs were excellent and were made even better by the editing – hat tip to Michelle for that.
The cogs game was probably my least favourite as it was a little tricky to see the “race” progression at times from the camera angles but it was a traditional Raab-style game so certainly still had a place.
The Moose/Bunny game, although I did understand the rules, I was as baffled as I think Nick was as to how you were meant to react so quickly to the cards so very well done Dan there!
As for the other rounds, the Toaster homage to Schlag was great and simply the fact that Nick looked well out of it, 3 match-lists down at about 11:45pm and yet somehow took it to a decider and won it at 1am was well worth staying up for!
Excellent job all of you. Deserves many times the viewership – Good luck for any future ones.
You say the poetry and charades game aren’t traditional Raab fare, but I seem to remember hearing about an artwork game on SdR that pretty much used that system; Raab and the candidate had to produce a work of art in a given time, and then an audience vote determined which was the better work.
Yes indeed, Christmas trees I think Lewis suggested.
To be honest I’m all for deviating a bit from the norm if the deviation is likely to provide a few more laughs.
A very memorable game too if you’ve seen it! It was indeed christmas trees, but even more memorable is the fact that it occurred during the episode when Raab had a wrist brace on and couldn’t use his right hand, so the kandidat was also disallowed from using their dominant hand during any of the games (yet one of them still managed to produce a pretty fine piece of art).
I’ll link the game on myspass in the morning when I can find it.
As promised: show 26 game 3, Malen http://www.myspass.de/myspass/shows/tvshows/schlag-den-raab/Spiel-3-Malen–/12865/
Of course, even though they were painting christmas trees this show had no christmas theme whatsoever.
Just a coincidence.
Ah OK – I must have missed that episode!
Yes – I agree Brig – a slight deviation definitely added to proceedings rather than detracted and made good use of the broadcast medium/technology.
There’s an exciting feedback form now. Do fill it in if you have the chance, it would help us out loads. Thanks!
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HKVW7V6
Just stopped by to leave a massive thank you to David, Lewis, Nick and Dan for giving up so much of their free time to give us an evening of fine entertainment. I had a really good time and, felt that this time the production felt a lot more fluid, especially in the games. The games themselves were engaging and entertaining – it still intrigues me that the games that should be dull as dishwater on paper, are often the most fun to watch.
I have diligently filled in my form and supplied my game ideas and hope we can enjoy SDB – The Decider soon.