Countdown quiz machines

[Tom]

Just a quick one here folks. Only recall seeing them out and about once or twice but has anyone ever had a go on one of the Countdown quiz machines in pubs etc and what the payouts are and if any of the entailments are any different?? Just curious as I've never tried one.

[Ben Pugh]

I've played on something like that in an airport where you had to answer some general knowledge questions and then you played a letters/numbers round for points. I managed to play one letters and one numbers game before I got a couple of random questions on 70s pop music wrong and lost my money.

[Michael Wallace]

I seem to remember playing on one when I was in Cambridge (in the Bath House, specifically), and all I recall is that the conundrums were hilariously difficult (I can't actually remember any, but can remember that the only time I managed to get one was by guessing something that sounded *vaguely* like it *might* be a word...).

[Benji Hanks]

I used to struggle with the questions... and then get UUIU as my vowels...

[Dinos Sfyris]

Yeah I played on one at a bar once. Normally its on one of those multi-game thingies where you can play Monopoly and shit like Deal Or No Deal as well. I tend to do quiz machines in a group to combine knowledge cause I suck at sport which accounts for about 30% of the questions. But every now and then you get something academic which I can get lol!

If I remember rightly it gives you choices like: Music 3 questions 3 letters, Sport 4 questions 4 letters and once you have a full 9 you do CVCVC.... and play as normal. Works similary for the numbers.

As for the payout one big word and a conundrum should let you break even, so providing you survive the general knowledge its not too bad. Got GENITALS when I played and doubled my money

[Jon Corby]

Yeah I agree with what's been written so far. It's quite fun to play for a short period, but don't expect to get through more than one round of letters/numbers/conundrum. Sometimes this will mean you get a £1, £2 or £3, but only if it's shoved those prizes down around the 1800 point mark.

There are a lot of games on the quiz machine like this, where you basically have fuck all chance of winning more than a quid or two back, and that's really shit design. There was even a Blockbusters one where you did a board and then did the "Gold Run" where you aimed towards one of three prizes on the right hand side. Almost every time we played, all 3 prizes were "Free Game". Appalling! At least with Deal Or No Deal, you always feel like you have a chance of winning something (relatively) substantial (and on occasion we have won £10+ on both.)

[Jon Corby]

Oh I've also just remembered something else - the conundrums are ludicrously difficult (and often not even proper words - I think we had CONSUMPTS once...) BUT - if you drag the letters you can tell if they're right because they'll go red or green while you hover over the letters in the answer space. So you can actually get every conundrum within the time regardless of whether you've actually worked it out or not. This sounds blindingly obvious, but while you're trying to work it out and drag the tiles around within the time limit, you tend not to notice. It took us several games before we realised the colour changes.

[Charlie Reams]

So you can actually get every conundrum within the time regardless of whether you've actually worked it out or not.

Wow, this sounds like the kind of game I'd like to pay £1 to play!

[Damian E]

It doesn't matter how good you are at the game, the machine has you in its pocket from the start.

If lots of people have played and lost, then the target points level decreases, so you may only need to get 1000 points to start earning money, which can be done by say, a 7-letter word, a decent numbers answer and a conundrum - but if the machine has paid out recently, then it sets the target score at something like 3000 points, just to win a 50p prize - which can mean answering about 50 questions correctly and playing over a dozen rounds of Countdown - and it costs you 50p in the first place.

The best pub machine word game i ever found was called Spelvin - which is a word game you can play on the web somewhere. Basically it involves forming words from a given selection - so if you had ABFILET you could get flab, flat, table etc etc - and keep on entering 4-letter words and above until you ran out of options. So long as you were fast enough, you could carry on right up to the maximum £20 jackpot if you wanted. After each round was over, the machine would offer you the choice of collecting your winnings or carrying on to the next prize level. I used to take it up to about £8 each time, then collect and start over again. My local pub sussed me out after a while because i kept on emptying the machine. Spelvin was one of the games you get on those machines that have several different types of game on, like Millionaire, Solitaire, Cluedo etc etc. I only ever found it on the one machine in my local pub, but i you see Spelvin knocking about anywhere near you, it's definitely worth having a go. So long as the machine has enough money in it to pay you out, then it's not uncommon to get £60 out of it within the hour, so long as the touch-screen is in good working order and it reacts quickly to your fingers. Some can be really dodgy and you have to keep on pressing until it registers, but if you get a decent screen you should be okay.

[Jason Larsen]

Who are you, and what are you talking about?

It sounds like you're talking about one of those slot machines in Las Vegas, only it's Countdown-themed.

[Damian E]

Who are you, and what are you talking about?

Is that a working title for your autobiography?

[Jason Larsen]

Damian, I don't know who this Tom guy is and I've never heard of these "quiz machines" being around in England.

If someone told me similar machines were the slot machines in Las Vegas, then I would see what he is talking about. Then, this topic would sound a lot more familiar to me because I am from America.

[Kirk Bevins]

I actually played on a Countdown quiz machine once. The machine was actually a Countdown quiz machine, rather than an Itbox with plenty of other games. You had to answer general knowledge questions correctly and when you got enough points by answering different types of question (e.g. sport 4 points, general knowledge 2 points) you could play the Countdown bit. If you only needed 25 points to play Countdown, and you got 25 points, you'd get 25 seconds at the anagrams. You could keep answering general knowledge questions to gain more time, but in the risk that if you get too many wrong, you don't even get a shot at Countdown!

In the Countdown bit, you usually had to unscramble an 8 letter word, then a 4 then a 7 letter word e.g. to win £1. Different words kept cropping up of varying length and if you kept unscrambling more, you'd win £2, £3 and so on. Trouble was that if you only had like 25 seconds to unscramble the words, even though I'd unscramble the 8 in seconds, it took 10 seconds to type it in using the damn slow touch screen rubbish.

[Jason Larsen]

Wow!

Those sure make Countdown look like Jeopardy.

At least they aren't totally unusual.

[Joseph Bolas]

Am I the only one (in the UK at least) who has never heard of these machines either (regardless of the fact I don't go to pubs)?

[Jason Larsen]

Joseph, is that ever ironic?

[Kirk Bevins]

If you don't go to pubs, how do you expect to know they exist apart from seeing them on the news?

http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=itb ... a=N&tab=wi

[Jason Larsen]

We hear of them, Kirk. We hear of them.

[Joseph Bolas]

If you don't go to pubs, how do you expect to know they exist apart from seeing them on the news?

http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=itb ... a=N&tab=wi

I know there has been a machine for Crystal Maze (which I actually played at Tesco) and there has also been one for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, which I came across at Blackpool arcades. I haven't been back to Blackpool for a while so wasn't sure if the machines would be in any arcades.

[JimBentley]

Damian, I don't know who this Tom guy is and I've never heard of these "quiz machines" being around in England.

Jason, Tom is Tom Hargreaves, who was an octochamp back in Series 47, when he was just 16. He's older than that now, of course. He was blindingly good, but lost out in the final of the series to Chris Wills, who was blindingly better on the day.

And of course we have quiz machines in England. They're everywhere - in pubs, cafes, bowling alleys, amusement arcades, brothels, foreign embassies, etc. All over the place. I've not seen the Countdown machine yet, but when I do, I'll give it a go.

I used to like the Tetris machine, but they seem to be extinct now.

[Jason Larsen]

Welcome to Tom, and I hope everyone else has fun.

[Joseph Bolas]

And of course we have quiz machines in England. They're everywhere - in pubs, cafes, bowling alleys, amusement arcades, brothels, foreign embassies, etc. All over the place.

Yeah, but the Countdown machine MAY just only appear in pubs.

[Jason Larsen]

Is that why you've never heard of it, Joseph?

[Damian E]

We hear of them, Kirk. We hear of them.

That is illogical, captain.

[Jason Larsen]

Really, we hear of them, Damian.

[Charlie Reams]

Pardon?

[Jon Corby]

Who are you, and what are you talking about?

Is that a working title for your autobiography?

[Jason Larsen]

Had I not been here, I would have never heard of them, Charlie.

[Gavin Chipper]

Had I not been here, I would have never heard of them, Charlie.

You heard of pubs from a Countdown forum?!

[Jason Larsen]

No, quiz machines.

[Gavin Chipper]

No, quiz machines.

I heard of Countdown on a forum about pubs. I used to think Countdown was the same as Closedown in the schedules until then.

[Jason Larsen]

Of course.

You're in England, and pubs have been around much longer than Countdown.

That's no surprise to you, is it?

[Jon Corby]

By the way, if anyone's seen a game on their local pub quiz machine called "Buzzword" (or Buzzwords maybe), where you have to make as many words as you can from a nine-letter selection and got excited thinking "hey, I do that all the time, I'll be good at this!", think again. We had a few goes the other day, and while my scores were only a few hundred shy of that needed to get a prize, it remained out of reach. So we armed ourselves up with an anagram solver on an iPhone and went at it again. Even just keying the longest answers from a list, it seems you can't win money. We won £1 (from a 50p stake) on our first go and after that the prize money was out of reach for the next few games. Around 2400-2500 points is the most that can be gained. Ever. Shithouse. It might be worth checking any you have local for one game - if you notice the target for a prize is much less than 2400, take it. They've armed against people cheating the machine, which is fine, but also renders the game utterly pointless for anybody playing it normally.

[Liam Tiernan]

When "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" quiz machines first came out I used to make a good profit on them because a lot of the higher value questions would come up again and again. At the time I was working as a courier for a clothing company covering the east coast on a weekly route.
I asked around to find these machines and played them every week. For the first couple of months I was making£200/£300 a week.Pity the fad didn't last a little longer

[Paul Howe]

A couple of us won £60 on the Crystal Maze game a couple of weeks ago. We're barred from playing it now . If you can get to 8 crystals (not too hard if you get the right games) and have two people to do the crystal dome, its very doable, despite the highly suspicious glut of silver tickets once you get near the target.

[Ryan Taylor]

A couple of us won £60 on the Crystal Maze game a couple of weeks ago. We're barred from playing it now . If you can get to 8 crystals (not too hard if you get the right games) and have two people to do the crystal dome, its very doable, despite the highly suspicious glut of silver tickets once you get near the target.

In one go? Because all the quiz machines I've ever played on only ever have a maximum achievable jackpot of £20. Maybe it's something to do with the North.

[Paul Howe]

A couple of us won £60 on the Crystal Maze game a couple of weeks ago. We're barred from playing it now . If you can get to 8 crystals (not too hard if you get the right games) and have two people to do the crystal dome, its very doable, despite the highly suspicious glut of silver tickets once you get near the target.

In one go? Because all the quiz machines I've ever played on only ever have a maximum achievable jackpot of £20. Maybe it's something to do with the North.

Yep, in one go. What I like is you can choose the jackpot depending on how many crystals you have. So £60 was the top prize, but you can also go for £5 or £10 (with a lower target of gold less silver tokens) if you haven't done so well, although you'd probably need 5 crystals to have a chance of winning anything. You really need 8/8 crystals and 2 quick fingered people to tackle the dome to have any chance of the £60.

[Jeff Clayton]

To support the above, my solo endeavours playing The Crystal Maze in Leicester drinking establishments have proved feeble. Variables such as time of day/night, state of sobriety or otherwise, and whether the machine faces east seem to exerce little effect.