Game Show Simulator
History
This idea actually came about because of two things; one is that I am very good at game shows like Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune and Family Feud, the other is that I sucked at Trivial Pursuit (Classic Edition). The problem you see, is categories. There are many subjects of which I am very knowledgeable and many that I am not. While the Game Shows on TV certainly have a diverse selection of categories, it always seemed like my percentage rate of success in Trivial Pursuit was a fraction of what it was on the Game Shows.
I wanted to write a program on the PC to play custom versions of these games, however the score board and interactive elements made a computer seem like a poor choice. I know there are version of these games on the PC, however the console versions were able to be played on a TV and the controllers meant that everyone didn’t have to huddle around a single keyboard. Everyone essentially had their own buzz-in button.
Rethinking the Home Version of the Game
I wanted to do things a bit differently. That is, I wanted the TV to display the main gameboard, but bring the player scores and other information out to individual “podiums“. Each podium would have a buzz-in button, front-facing score display and player-facing smaller score display. An RGB light bar would simulate the timer bar used in Jeopardy to indicate the time remaining to answer a question. The “emcee” would have a custom podium to control the game, accept / reject responses, select game options, etc.
For the buzz-in buttons, I used these Blue, Red, Green and Yellow Big Dome Pushbuttons from SparkFun Electronics. I also used Blue, Red, Green, Yellow, White and Black Concave Buttons, like those used on arcade machines. The player-facing score displays are 0.36″, 8-Digit, 7-Segment, MAX7219 Display Modules. There are also four of these on the emcee podium to make it easier to see the individual scores of the players. The front-facing score displays are 1.8″, 7-Segment, Common-Anode LED displays. These displays are driven by ULN2803A Darlington arrays, which are driven by 74HC595 shift registers.
The player podiums are linked to the emcee podium via network cables. The emcee podium controls everything, including the TV output.
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Game Show Simulator by Chris Savage is licensed under CC BY 4.0
