That’s right, I’ve spent £35 so you don’t have to, it’s the new Microids Fort Boyard game out today featuring as many as “some” new events but the big deal are the “perks of Sir Fouras” – not a recognised knight of the realm as far as I know, which emulates the show’s big twist from the last few years, a modifier that affects the adventure – ancient games, not seeing the clock, poisoned gifts… like on TV, some work better than others (the one I’m showing off, Poisoned Gifts, feels a bit… janky? Broken? See for yourselves). Whatsmore some of the events don’t have their music, they just have the theme tune playing over it – rubbish! For balance, what I would suggest is that the new events feel a bit more involved than many previously. PS5 version played.

The new series of Fort Boyard, the 35th! begins on Saturday night on France 2 at 8:10pm UK with the unlocking of the Forbidden Cells, this year’s gimmick. The last few years France TV have turned their geoblocking off for the Fort, but if they don’t you’ll need a VPN to watch. The show will be discussed on the Discord in #fortboyardchat.

It’s great news for adventure fans, but before that worth pointing out that Deal or No Deal starts filming its second extended series from today, you can grab tickets for future recordings from Applausestore.

This Thursday sees the release of Fortress Challenge: Fort Boyard on Steam and the major consoles, we will have a video review ASAP, this year’s offering is “ten new events” and Sir Fouras (not a recognised knight) will be playing his aspect cards to modify events.

This is leading up to the new series of Fort Boyard starting on France 2 on Saturday night just after 8pm UK (officially 8:10 but you know what French schedulers are like). The last few years France2 have been taking their geoblock off between 8-11 so it may still be possible to watch without a VPN, auto-translated subs might be more useful than ever as it feels like a lot of lore happening this year – the subtitle for the season is “The Forbidden Cells”, lots of new characters, looks like a few new events but also lots of one-off games, the Passes might vocalise a bit more, it’ll either be really good or “a bit 2002”. Needless to say we’ll be chatting about it in #fortboyardchat in the Discord.

And! This Friday not just one but TWO seasons of The Mole starting, the first the US one on Netflix which will likely be as artless as the first but hey! is in English, the second a sort of surprise civilian series of Wie is De Mol? set in Oman exclusively streaming on NPO Start (kind of Dutch iPlayer). I understand that unofficial English subs will be coming for this eventually but possibly not immediately, we’ll be talking about these on #netflixmolememorialthread and #molchat on the Discord respectively.

The new show from the Jet Lag guys on Nebula, The Getaway, features six Social Media Personalities transporting $10,000 from A to B, seemingly performing challenges along the way. The twist? They’re all secret saboteurs.

It’s a funny idea, but I would say there’s normally an entertainment limit in watching people consistently doing things badly, even The Mole has a bit of give. I’m intrigued to see how it all plays out, anyway.

Actually it was out a few days ago. No review from me unfortunately as I can’t do VR, it’s currently £24.99 on the Metaquest Store (Meta Store?), there’s a delay in the version coming to Steam but it’s coming soon.

Don’t worry though, we’ll have a video review of Fortress Challenge: Fort Boyard out June 27th (two days before series 35 premieres on France 2).

Edit: It’s out on Steam now.

Next week’s Korean Netflix Fun is Agents of Mystery which drops June 18th, where a team of Korean celebrities “are tasked with getting to the bottom of unsolvable cases occurring in mysterious locations,” which basically means messing about completing challenges in really neat looking sets with some sort of throughline connecting them all. From the trailer it feels like a tighter version of early Netflix hit Busted, and it looks like it might be really fun. Also it’s being directed by Jung Jong-yeon of The Genius and Devil’s Plan fame, although this is probably a bit closer to his Great Escape series.

Great news! Game Show Network in the US premiered Beat the Bridge last night and they’ve put up an episode – a different one – on Youtube. Pretty much all strategy has been removed, there’s basically no risk until someone makes two mistakes, it’s only getting the third that ends the round and halves the money which the rest of the team can mitigate with their emergency button. Pathfinding is not an issue, it’s basically a set of seven (plus replacement) Dis or Dat (or Dother) questions throughout, the final is closer to the end game from Trivia Murder Party in its writing than the original, rather than statements it’s “which of X, Y or Z fits the category?” Charitably we will say there’s not much messing about, they fit four bridges and the final within a 20-minute runtime, less than half the UK one, so you’re getting quite a lot of questions and decision making at a decent clip. Cameron Matheson is, er, enthusiastic. The money is quite irritating in that the values on offer aren’t quite round and most of them don’t divide neatly between three people unless you get the $15,000 maximum, uniquely figured out to be aggravating to contestants and viewers alike.

No I’ve no idea why the thumbnail shows a different team to the one playing either.