Raw Thrills Arcade Game Observations

I visited an arcade several times earlier this month and I binged on the Raw Thrills Wheel arcade game (the newest one where you actually guess letters on a Wheel of ticket values) and noticed something about the puzzles, at least on the model I was playing...

The game does not choose a puzzle at random. Rather, the game just progresses through the puzzle database alphabetically, meaning that in any given game, the puzzle will come immediately after the one before it in alphabetical order. So next time you're at an arcade with this game, if you see somebody else playing it, or if you plan on playing it consecutively, make note of the puzzle so you can get an idea of what letters the next puzzle starts with. When I play, I try not to pick "obvious" letters since the game doesn't let you pick wrong letters anyway.


Recently, I watched several videos on YouTube of people playing consecutive games and in all of them, the puzzles were played alphabetically. One video of two guys playing four puzzles in a row had VAIL COLORADO > VIRGIN ISLANDS > WARM DINNER ROLLS > WEEKLY SWAP MEET. Most of these videos were of the first model of the machine, with the physical Wheel and touch screen. The model I played was the second model with the computerized Wheel. In the videos, the puzzles were ordered by the puzzle itself, which meant the category varied. On the machine I played, however, the puzzles were ordered alphabetically by category and then by puzzle, which meant that all puzzles in one particular category had to be played before the game would give you another one.

A few more observations I figured I should share after my binge playing and watching the videos, along with my own recollections of playing the older model back when it was new:
- The older models often had puzzles more than two rows. When I last played, I only had one three-row puzzle and no four-row ones.
- On many videos of both the older and newer models, two or three single letters would often be revealed at the very start. This was never the case when I played.
- In the past, the game never used punctuation, likely to make puzzles more difficult to solve. "I'M" would be displayed as "IM", for example, and I remember once firsthand watching someone fail to solve "THEYRE GETTING AWAY". However, one puzzle I played did have punctuation in "U.S.". I don't know if this was a one-time thing just for that word or if there was an update that had the puzzles use punctuation now.
- Early on, the puzzle database had Same Name, but the machine I played most likely didn't, as after several hours, the game's "puzzle sequence" went from Proper Name to Show Biz. Of course, it's possible there was a very small number of Same Names and they were all played during that gap. It's also plausible they later removed the category in a software update since only Wheel fans would know how Same Name works. I don't think I've ever seen Before & After on the game.

The game is no longer in production, and software updates ceased in 2014. A log of the software updates can be seen here. The game's manual can be downloaded here. It's mostly assembly instructions, but the sections involving the software, settings and Wheel layouts are pretty interesting to read.


I wrote down all the puzzles I played or watched someone else play in order. Puzzles between line breaks were played or witnessed consecutively. Note that this was over the span of several days.


I ended up breaking the game. Near the end of my binge, the screen started flickering in and out but the sound kept going. It finally gave way when the game prompted me to solve the last puzzle, which I managed to do without the image by remembering the order of letters the cursor would scroll through and listening for the clicks whenever the cursor changed letters.

One more observation that doesn't really help anyone, but I kind of get a kick out of - as annoying as the Pat and Vanna knockoffs are, I like how this game has unique voiceovers of "Pat" saying the quantity of letters in the puzzle ("One R", "Two S's"), while the recent console games with Pat have to piece them together ("There are... THREE! ...of those", "There's no... C!") and the WOF Free Play game just uses generic yes and no phrases.


So there you go, a little tip or two for the next time you get to play Wheel at an arcade and can hopefully cash in big on tickets.