Unreleased/Rare WOF Games

Check out this version from the Apple II version. If only there was a functioning emulator to play it.

Whoops! My bad... Here:
www.whatisthe2gs.apple2.org.za/wheel-of-fortune/

It is NOT an officially licensed version per the description found on the link:



 

Got it working. There's a link to the .2mg file there. Load it with ActiveGS.

Ladies and gentlemen, I missed out on it once thirteen years ago. I made sure to not miss out on it again!

www.ebay.com/itm/Wheel-of-Fortune-Live-Play-Handheld-Electronic-Hasbro-Tiger-Game-2004-RARE/324025267568

I didn't get it yet, but I bought it. I'm on my phone checking to see for listings, and as soon as I saw that listing and price, boom. I showed absolutely no hesitation hitting that "Buy it Now" button. With that being said, however, the scary part starts now because anything can still happen at this point. So I'll keep you guys posted whenever something big happens, but no one please put up any information up over at Wikia until the game is safely in my hands, not even that it's been bought. I'll put the info up accordingly and the mods there can reword it to how they see fit if need be.

But since we have now have some terrific photos of this thing, I'll still allow discussion here. For one, my recreations of the layout are a little wrong. Let's compare this to my May 2010 recreation.

www.deviantart.com/germanname/art/WOF-Live-Play-Revised-164608998
For one, the red $600 on my layout should be valued at half that. $600 should actually be the value of the blue wedge that's right next to it. Speaking of blue, the blue should be much brighter, at least on the released layout. The prototype's blue wedges were indeed darker. In fact, most of the wedges were darker.

As for the $5000 space, it's still pink, but when compared to the ;avender $10,000 space, there's another difference apart from color and value. While the $10,000 space is styled the same way as the three-digit spots despite being the top dollar value, the $5000 is not. It's in a different font that's similar to the way the top dollar value was on the show at the time. In addition, while Bankrupt and Lose A Turn appear to the same font as one another, the Free Spin space appears to be in the same font as the $5000 space, noticeably different from the penalty spots. The word SPIN is clearly squished too.

One more thing about the layout, and I'm sure many of you may have noticed this too. From the red $800 going clockwise to the yellow $700, the color scheme in that area doesn't look 2004. It looks more like 1994, even though the $700 space was more orange than yellow back then. Still nostalgic, isn't it? 

And how's this for nostalgia? Shortly after finding out about the game in 2004, I read that it takes a whopping 6 AA batteries to power this thing, and some of you may be asking what else may be taking that many batteries. Two handheld systems from SEGA released back in the early nineties, the Game Gear and the Nomad (the latter of which was just a portable SEGA Genesis), each took six AA batteries to power, but despite this, you could get up to only six hours of portability if you were lucky. Fortunately, both systems could be plugged in. It would've been nice if the Live Play game offered such a luxury.

Now this may be the Parker Brothers' release as Tiger's logo is not at all present. Even so, Parker Brothers' logo is not present either. On the battery door, Hasbro is mentioned, but based on the packaging we've seen (as well as a regular 2005 handheld game that Parker Brothers themselves released), I can imagine that the copy I bought was released by Parker Brothers.

The only downside is that I do not have the packaging or the instruction booklet. Without instructions, it's going to take some toying around, but since the big I wanted was to see how this works, I guess I'll have fun finding out, but it would be much easier with instructions. That button marked "Extra" already makes me very curious. Then you have the dial on top that is really the selling point of this game. That's going to be a tough one for me to figure out as well. But hey, at least I now have a taste of how the Wheel works.

So, what are your thoughts about this game at this point, folks?

Well, thanks for the offer, but I do apologize. Even if it doesn't work, I've been waiting way too long for this thing. Besides, I made a similar mistake many years ago with a SEGA CD system. Although I have since gotten two better versions of the SEGA CD, I learned a tough lesson and promised myself I would not make the same mistake again. I'm staying true to that promise. Even so, I promise y'all a YouTube video to show how it works, at least in regular mode. If I find some early Season 22 episodes lying about in my plethora of VHS tapes, I'll see if it works with them. I have a small CRT television that I inherited from my grandmother, and it still works. Even so, using the Live Play feature is going to be an extreme move.

Anyway. The game's packed, shipped, and has left the origin post office in northern Connecticut just a few hours ago as I type this up. Knowing that it's on its way, I have overcome a very scary hurdle. Also, right after I bought it, I requested to the seller that the mailman ask for a signature when the game arrives. The seller responded to say he obliged. So the odds are looking really good at this point. According to the tracking information, the Postal Service stated that the game should arrive Tuesday (regular deliveries do occur on New Year's Eve but not on New Year's Day), but if all works out well, there's a chance it could actually arrive Monday.

And the game works beautifully. The proof is in the pudding - pardon me - pictures. So that shouldn't be a concern.

As I said earlier, I've been waiting over fifteen years to at least see how this game works. I'm happy to tell you folks two fantastic words about the wait. It's over. I still think about had I gotten thirteen years ago because had I done so, I don't think I would've placed as much value on it as I do now. So with that being said, I would like to say thank you to everyone who helped me out any way they could. I would like to thank MarioGS for making those purple $10,000 and pink $5000 spaces a few years back.

So with that out of the way, I can finally tell you how this thing works at long last. The theme music is neither Changing Keys nor Happy Wheels. It's a generic theme, but it does show some resemblances to Changing Keys here and there. It's also a talking game, similar to Tiger's 1998 Wheel of Fortune Slots, with a host telling you "Welcome to Wheel of Fortune!" and the music playing right after.

I haven't checked out the Live Play feature yet, and it may be a while before I do, but that's not what I got it for anyway. Matters aren't helped with the dial at the top making some sort of springy sound whenever I try to rotate it. So I got to be careful with that. Even so, you don't need to be watching the show to operate this thing. I played a little test game under normal mode, and it plays very similar to Tiger's other Wheel of Fortune games. $900 is the top dollar value in Round 1, with $5000 becoming active in Round 2 and $10,000 becoming active in Round 3. The category chime is straight from the show, but the sound effects, namely the bell and buzzer, appear to be similar to Tiger's 2002 Crossword game. You have an audience that applauds when you solve a puzzle and groans when you hit Lose A Turn (I didn't hit Bankrupt on the test play).

When you spin the Wheel, as I figured, a light does indeed go around, going clockwise, but what surprised me was that it changes color with every wedge. Fittingly, the lights are red over the penalty wedges, but for the others, they're mostly yellow and green. My first spin, interestingly enough, was Free Spin. You still have to choose a letter for no money, but if the letter's in the puzzle, the host will tell you verbally that you won a Free Spin.

A big difference to Tiger's previous games is solving. When solving, you don't go from left to right. Instead, when you type in a letter, all instances appear. When you're finished, you don't even have to hit the enter button. The audience applauds and that tells you right then and there that you got it right.

The Bonus Round hasn't changed much. It still uses the W-H-E-E-L format and either E is chosen at random. Apparently, you cannot check the category when choosing your three consonants and a vowel. I pressed the category button and nothing happened. Even so, I still managed to get the Bonus Puzzle for a cool $25,000 which I presume is still the top Bonus Prize. So there's no 10x the value shown on the Wheel like in the 1995 game or the 1999 Deluxe Edition.

All in all, it's a lot of fun, and the fact that this thing is so rare helps add to the worthwhile value. So I'm keeping this well protected in the box it came in, but I'm a guy who lovers spares. So I won't mind at all getting a second copy of this gem should one pop up, but in the meantime, I cannot thank you guys enough for all the help and support you've given me when it comes to this, and I wish you guys a very Happy New Year and Happy New Decade as well. I'm sure I will have one with this game in my hands at long last. Even so, it's probably going to take a week for me to realize I'm no longer dreaming over this thing like I was for the past fifteen years. I mean I probably will still dream only to wake up and this time, there it is safe and sound.

Thanks again, folks! 

I actually promised earlier that I would, Hirsk. I'm staying true to that. Besides, I'm sure just about everyone else here is also interested. You guys are why I'm planning to make one.

Anyway, I figured out the problem with the Live Play dial at the top making that clanking sound when turning on TV mode. It's being wound too far when being turned off. To turn it off properly, there's a faint click. Once you hear that click, that means you should not rotate the dial any further. Needless to say, with this info I still need to be careful with that. I'm also making a wise decision to not touch the dial while the game is on. I'll bring all of that up in the video.

So after figuring that out, I tried the Live Play mode. The game told me to point it at the TV. I pointed the device at the LCD TV, had a different TV show play, what could possibly go wrong? Well, the red light at the top left was on, and the game was telling me that it was looking for a signal. Much to my expectations, it then told me it couldn't and had me refer to the instruction booklet. If only it could print the instruction booklet out or better yet have the instructions built in so there wouldn't be any need for a booklet! I'll see if I can find a digital scan of this thing online, but I'm not getting my hopes up with that. Anyway, after telling me to refer to the booklet, it automatically tried again, and after that, it was the same pattern. After another cycle or so, I turned the game off, making sure to do so while the game was displaying the "refer to the instruction" message. It's rare, it's delicate, I waited too long to get my hands on this thing, I don't see a single reason why I should take any chances with this.