Fruit Machine Chat

I was wondering if any of you quiz game players could give me some help here?

Some may have noticed I primarily play a certain skill-based game, generally on the first few games I will win prizes of £2 or more. Following this will be a number of games in a row where £1 is the only achievable prize; eventually it will stop offering any prize except for the impossible jackpot. I will usually stop a few games short of it going to JP only and try to leave myself 50p credit for a game of bullseye.

The reason for bullseye is my knowledge is not very broad, instead it is specialised. For example I am very strong in one subject (history), above average in a couple of others (people & places, science) but weak in all the other areas. Bullseye suits me as I can choose what subjects I have at what time and will often result in picking up a £2 or £3 prize. This contrasts to DOND which I had a few goes at the other day, each time I failed to get past the first 5 boxes as I kept getting stuck on questions in my weak subjects.

So the question to the experts is what other games (if any) are similar to bullseye in the way you can pick the subjects? They must offer a similar or better chance to bullseye of picking up a £2+ prize and preferably have a History subject!

It used to be the case that a majority of games allowed the player some degree of latitude in picking and choosing subjects. I think that's much less the case nowadays, which as you say is to the disadvantage of people who don't have an all-round general knowledge base.

I think the games that are probably most similar to Bullseye are Battleship and the modern version of South Park. The former is the more modern version of the game found on ItBox and Paragon ; the latter is found only on Paragon I think. Probably a little harder on each to qualify for the endgame on restricted subjects, but both have an allegedly skill-based endgame similar to Bullseye, and both offer a reasonable chance of £1-£2. Other than that I'd advise setting a second 50p aside to play, say, Bullseye, taking all subjects available, in an effort to improve your knowledge which can then be applied to any SWP that's around. It's how we all learnt you know.

Bit of advice for Bully.

Choose your weaker (but not weakest) subjects first as they will be the easy choice of 2 questions.

Sound advice there CR, have employed that since my first game or so...

Usually kick off with The Arts / Music and save A to Z / Science / General / Food n Drink until after the third or fourth pop. I'm particularly poop at Sport and one of the others (can't remember - some other arty / literature thing), so if I only have those two left, I'll usually go for something I've already had, and as long as you hit the bull, you get the points and a 'random' question - which is a bit better for me (usually!).

Dunno if its any help but 1 to 100 lets you choose your category, although occasionally itll throw up 'Football' and 'Sport' as the only choices for example.

the only other one I can think of is Hangmans Haunted House- you could even get rid of categories on that one pretty quickly. Dont think its around anymore tho

Hangman's Haunted House is alive and kicking on quite a few Games Warehouse machines. I can think of two within five minutes of where I work. Otherwise it's pretty rare.

What a commoner i am

My specialist subjects are sport, music, science and usually general knowledge. History first for me :P

Right. Just in case this question pops up in any future quiz incarnation, Cardinal Richelieu's quiz categories from easiest to difficultest are as follows:

Science & Nature, A-Z, People & Places, General, Showbiz, Art & Lit, History, Music, Sport.


You heard it here first.

I think we should take into account the nature of the questions asked. In history and science one can employ contextual knowledge to arrive at the correct answer. They are more "guessable". My most hated subjects on quiz machines are without doubt music and entertainment because without having seen a film for example, unless it is famous, one could not know who stars in it. Ditto pop singles/albums. Many subjects lend themselves to linguistic deconstruction to aid the player - e.g. "What is somnambulism?" - if you know Latin you can simply work it out on the spot.

My list, starting with the most favoured, is as follows:

A-Z
Food and Drink
Geography
History
Science
People
Art and Literature
Sport
Music
TV and Film

Composite categories like "Pot Luck" and "General Knowledge" go somewhere in the middle.

QT.

Science & Nature, A-Z, People & Places, General, Showbiz, Art & Lit, History, Music, Sport.

That's almost identical to mine, although I'd probably swap General with People & Places.

Having given it a bit more thought, and assuming that a general knowledge question is randomly picked from one of the other topics, then it should really go between Showbiz and Art & Lit!

Eventually all games will be Q&A games, dull questions about New Order's record labels and which foods have the most calories

The only games I play now are Hangman-type games (at least they require some thought) and all the word games I enjoyed are long gone

countdown was a very good game (despite hardly any prizes)
it is a pity that it bit the dust, and i can't really understand why.

I've always remembered music facts so that's always been my top topic. OVer the last four or five years I've done so much cooking that Food and Drink comes pretty easily too. As for the rest:
TV and Film
Art and Literature
People
Geography
History
Science
Currently swotting up a lot of geography and history to get them a bit more up to scratch!

unknownpseudonym wrote:countdown was a very good game (despite hardly any prizes)
it is a pity that it bit the dust, and i can't really understand why.

neither can I, it was good fun although not having added hee-haw or whatever they call it meant that bottle-merchants like me never got further than a quid.

Can't see why they took Boggle off either. It's the perfect game for a quiz machine. Presumably it cost them a fair bit to licence and develop only for it to vanish after a few months.