New Wheel Arcade game from ICE

Another Wheel arcade game? Nice. Guess ICE got the license back. Here's a crop of the main part of the game:





This will be the first Wheel arcade game since the 1995 Funhouse game to have Bankrupt and the first since the 1989 Gametek game to have Lose a Turn.

This seems to be a hybrid of the Raw Thrills and Funhouse games, in that it has a very large physical Wheel and a puzzle needs to be filled in to win a jackpot.

Like ICE's other Wheel game from 2001, this game's Wheel uses proper pegs and a flipper. This Wheel has 100 pegs, so not all of the wedges are the same width. Counting the "Oreo" wedges as one, there are 21 wedges total - 17 of them are five pegs wide, 3 are four pegs, and 1 is only three.

Like the Raw Thrills game, there's a generic model on the screen.

As Kyle pointed out, the Wheel is spun by pulling a large handle from right to left, just like how contestants on the show spin. It appears there are both one and two-player versions of the game, with the "Player 1"/"Player 2" placards being colored red and yellow to mimic the show's player colors. Nice touch.

I can't wait to see this in action, but I hope one day we get another Wheel arcade game that plays like the GameTek game where you actually play Wheel like on TV and have to insert another credit if you lose too many turns.

By the way, did anyone notice how the Puzzle Board at the top of each unit is styled? They're the same dimensions as the old trilon-based Puzzle Board with the middle nine columns being used as a screen. The puzzle board in the screen at the middle of the Wheel, however, has the same dimensions as the current board.

Interesting...

Here's a clip of the game I found on YouTube. It's an interesting idea but doesn't relate much to Wheel other than the giant wheel and the name.

Wow, the Wheel sure doesn't spin very much...

I would think Bankrupt and Lose a Turn simply award zero tickets like the Bankrupt on the Funhouse game, or maybe one or two pity tickets. Each turn is one credit, so it's not like you can amass a total of tickets that can get wiped with a Bankrupt.

Another video surfaced, and the Wheel appears to spin much more freely here. By the way, does the music sound familiar to anyone? It does to me.



The music...

A lot of Wheel promotional media still uses the S22 logo. It's in the cookbook, it's the icon of the Wii U game, it was on a lot of the recent lottery tickets, and it was also on a poster advertising an appearance from Vanna at the Texas State Fair this year. I guess people just find it snazzy because, unlike the other versions of the "straight" logo, that one actually uses a Wheel layout for the "Wheel O".

The game is also being tested in the UK. It is now known as "Wheel of Fortune Mega Win", but it isn't clear whether this might be an international thing only. The "Oreo" wedges are now the L and M, probably because the original W appears twice in the new title. They are also now two pegs wide instead of one, and the mini Lose a Turns are just one peg wide instead of two like on the IAAPA version. Both "Oreo" wedges are now four pegs each instead of three and five. The Wheel's color scheme is also more vivid, and Player 1's placard is now blue instead of red. The model has also been changed to a blonde.

Well, it's simply Wheel of Fortune, but yep, they certainly changed the wording all right. The wording of Mega Win is a little more unique when compared to other terminology used for the show and its merchandise.

As for the Wheel's new color scheme, I like it. The colors seem to pop out a little more, and they appear to be just a tiny bit reminiscent of the 80s and early 90s layouts, even though those layouts didn't use green as a wedge color like the one used now.

I just came back from Dave & Buster's, and I'm sorry to say it wasn't there, but I am happy to say that I just came across yet another video of this thing! This video should put a smile on the faces of my fellow SEGA and Sonic fans because this was uploaded a month ago by SEGA Amusements. For those who've played Sonic Dash for Android, iOS, and Windows, the music should sound very familiar.



My family and I may head back to Dave & Buster's in August for my kid brother's birthday. Hopefully, the game will be there by then.