I remember watching them on Challenge TV as an adult, and that really struck me.
When I was a kid, I just assumed if you were alive in the game, you could still win. But the game was more pre-planned than I remembered. As you say, if you picked the wrong two items in the clue room, you'd essentially be dead in a couple of rooms time. The actors, essentially, must've known some of the kids were going to lose as soon as they chose particular items.
Also, as an adult, when a kid needs to get a question correct to be awarded a spell, and don't, you know they are going to need that spell at some point in the next two or three rooms. In answering that question wrongly, and not getting the spell, you know they've lost.
You don't notice that as a kid.
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12 years ago
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hurricanehorton
12 years ago
Interesting insight. I applied to go on, but was never called back. :D
I always remember one time, one of the baddies had somehow cast a spell on Treguard, to make him faint or go to sleep or something. The Dungeoneers went to do a spell, but misspelled it by missing out the letter O. Treguard tried to help them by going; "Ohhh.. Ohhh...." As if he was in pain. They didn't take the hint, so physically said "Ohhh.... Ohhh... Letter O..."
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sarahfirman
12 years ago
I think it was much smarter than this analogy suggests. We are still thinking of the show from the contestant's perspective (as a child who saw and wanted to be on Knightmare), but re-consider the analogy from the adult producer's side.
The rooms didn't have to be laid out in any particular order, so a range of options are open to the producers. So: if an annoying useless team are given the choice of soap or gold to pick up, if they choose the soap, the producer prompts Lilith (or whichever character) to use script (b) - the one where the team needed to have the gold. If they choose the gold and the producers want rid of the team, the next room they enter could be the inside of a stomach: 'if only you had chosen the soap team, you could have upset the stomach and escaped'. Even better, the team is crap - let them pick up anything, and the next room they enter...BOMB ROOM. If they are useless, they'll either have to step up, or get off the damned show already.
Don't limit the CYOA analogy to the team perspective - it is the producer's choice and adventure too!
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