"Millionaire" Project Progress - Project "Supermix"

[retched]

So here's something that I'm in the middle of working on at the moment. It's inspired by a controller screen I seen on a YouTube and something that drew me to these forums. (I think I saw someone from these forums spy on my Twitch stream while building this.)

While most of these I found were written in pure Flash or pure Java, I'm writing this one in Visual Basic and Flash. It's my hope that I can use this at anime/comic convention game show panels soon.

It's not much yet as I'm probably going about this in the wrong order but I'm still learning programming techniques and fashions. 

A key difference to note is that most controller's I've seen follow just one format (something I probably should've done instead), I went ahead and combined all of them here.

The eventual goal is that the person who is controlling the game will be able to go ahead and choose which format the game will be in. (Either "Classic" (Regis, Meredith), "Shuffle" (Meredith, Cedric, Terry), "Clock" (Meredith, and I guess Regis to an extent), and my own concoctions involving combining Shuffle and Clock together.) I hope that by the end of the year I'll have something to present to you all and I hope the forum admins don't mind if I make this a "journal" post of some sorts to show my progress.

Here's to hoping this turns out well and feel free to shoot any kind of questions you may have and any suggestions. (Like there's a small chance I might switch this board to be three separate boards instead >.>)



FAQ (as of original posting 8/1/2015)

1. What language is this written?
   This is written in Visual Basic and will tie in to Flash's ActionScript for the presentation. Some SQL will be used to tie in the database of questions. (Most of the programs I've seen use Excel spreadsheets, and not of the columnar kind... that's way too much for me. So for storing the questions, I'm using Access DB.) (*knocks on wood* Still trying to find out how to pass info from VB to Flash and Flash to VB.)
   
   
2. Can I try it out?
   Currently there is nothing to try out. It is just a screen with a bunch of boxes, there is no code tied to the buttons except the timer. I still have to add the logic for the other buttons, not to mention retrieving a question from the Access Database, and etc. And above all, the actual Flash projector which will handle all the projection animations for the "big screen" and screen 2.
   
   
   (What I like to call "Screen 2", Terry is pointing at it, on the current Millionaire US stages. This normally indicates the remainder amounts of the shuffle format, the total bank won when a contestant walks, and the total progress a contestant made.)
   
   
3. Do you plan on making the sounds and "stuff" available?
   That's kind of copyright infringement. (Technically this whole thing is technically trademark/copyright infringement but still.) If/when I'm ready to distribute it... it will be without the sounds attached. I'm sure there are several places to get the sound beds and effects, I just don't know if it's acceptable to add such files into the executable, so therefore I'm leaving it off. (Again still new to these forums.) A cool thing about this version is the fact that you can use your own sounds on each of the buttons but again that's like down the line. (There will be a README help file and a YouTube video explaining it.) I'll keep looking up the answer to this question and make a decision soon. (I will note that if sound files can be dispersed this way, there's a chance a "Soundboard Mode" can be made available. Again, decision time soon.)
   
   
4. Do you need help?
   To test it, yes. To code it, kind of.
   
   I'm trying to do this on my own as there are several other Q&A game shows I'd like to make that I haven't seen made yet. (Millionaire, Are You Smarter Than..., Jeopardy, 1 vs. 100, Winning Lines, etc.) Now I can But I may need help putting parts of it together. (Like I'm still trying to learn how to tie in Flash into a Visual Basic project that doesn't add up to several hundreds of dollars being spent on an IDE or by passing a variable back and forth between Flash and Visual Basic.) When that time comes, I'll just google search the hell out of the question first.
   
   As far as Testing it goes, so far from the few days that I actually joined it and from the time I spent following it, this group seems like a good place to try to find a bunch of people willing to test the game out. When I actually have a build to test, and as soon as I can control who can use the program, I'll release a beta of sorts for each version.
   
   
5. Will this be an open source project?
   I don't have a definitive answer to this yet.  I mean, I'm as big a fan of reading other's people code and learning from it as the next but this is the largest project I have ever worked on. Right now, assume that it is closed-source but free.
   
   
6. What exactly is a controller?
   The best way of thinking about the controller is to imagine if you're in the studio during the show taping. There are three key people. There's the contestant (the person playing the game), the host (the person who is MC'ing the game and guiding it along), and then there's the producer who is overseeing the entire production. Technically yes, the host could be the producer as well (and there will be an option to control the game via the host screen view) but for now the producer is there to support the host and give him one less thing to worry about. So just as the name implies, the controller is just a way to control the action and flow of the game.
   
   
7. Why are there buttons for ALL of the lifelines, why not just make three?
   So in order to make sure that I covered my bases in a custom game where any lifeline goes (regardless of format), I made a button for each lifeline. (It's actually a bit harder if I only make a button for a lifeline that is "available", so I took the easy way out.) There will be a display of what lifelines are available to use by the contestant (and I should probably include a button to put that on the overlay...) If a controller presses a lifeline button that corresponds to a lifeline not available, it will prompt the controller to confirm that they actually want that lifeline. I'll work on a way to allow double ups (like 2 Jump The Questions, 2 50:50's etc.). (Will also allow for the reinstatement of lifelines too by clicking on the icons.)
   
   
8. Where's the "Host Screen"? Where's the "contestant's screen"? 
   This gets a little bit more tricky. I will endeavor to work on these two screens at some point. Probably with photos I find on Google. This program is designed to work with the later US format of the stage in mind and not the classic hot seat. (The big screen and the smaller sub screen, not the two monitors.)
   
   • Wait... there's a host screen on the current stage?!
     Yes. If you've ever been to the NYC/Connecticut stages recently, you'll notice three monitors. One monitor where the money tree/bank/remaining amounts are (stage right), the center big screen where the question/Ask the Audience results are displayed (center stage), and then another monitor on the opposite side (stage left, attached to the ). That monitor, stage left, is the host screen. It doesn't do much beside:
     
     
     • Fill the whole screen with the question.
     • Then lifts the question above 4 spaces for the answers and reveals those one by one. (This is where Terry turns to the camera and reads the answers.)
     • Then changes into the normal host screen. (When I went during the shuffle format, there was still a space for a countdown clock, oddly enough.) It would show the remaining dollar amounts, total banked, amount if wrong (when I went to the studio it was always stuck at $0 even though this isn't the case), and a few other details. The hint that the question was wrong or correct wasn't displayed on the host screen but rather a producer under the screen, out of camera view, would nod and shake her head to Terry the result.
   
   
9. ---

[retched]

UPDATE - 8/7/2015

• So evidently Visual Basic has a thing against numbers being too large. I had to go back and change all the numbers from 16-bit Integers to unsigned 32 bit integers. (Because there shouldn't be a negative number as a tier amount.) Fixed. I noticed this when I tried to input 50000 which breaks the bounds of Integers. Hopefully no one needs to create a tier higher than 2 billion.
• Refined the Create New Game Form/Game Settings Form. Here's a look at it now.
  
  
  The Advanced Setup button will let the user go ahead and set up "special situations" like gain _______ lifeline after you answer the _______th question. I'm still trying to add in Double Money (will likely come after the first "Closed Beta" release.)
  
  Also as you can see there is an ability to define you're own custom amounts, time limits, and safety nets. There is no limit so if you want to set up all 15 as a safety net, you theoretically can. As for Time limit I'm going to cap it at 90 and floor it at 15. Unless someone really wants to set the clock to 10 seconds. I dunno.
  
  The slider at the top will let the Game Master configure how many questions the game will have.  the difficulty selectors will have one of four difficulties:
  
  - Joke/Freebie: reserved for those with the joke "D" answer or the three joke answers and the one correct answer. (Something they done a few times. A few people noted "wait where?!" ... the trick with the shuffle format is, they exist... just they get shuffled in. So if a person quits too soon, they won't reveal it.)
  - Basic/Easy: these are the moderately easy. Their placement would be 2-5 on the traditional 15 question list.
  - Intermediate: these are somewhat more difficult. Not exactly a walk through the park. Their placement would be the middle 5 (6-10) on the 15 question board.
  - Extreme/Difficult: these are the questions belonging to the final 5 tiers on the board of 15. (11-15) (This might be split up into two groups... to make it "Extreme" and "Difficult".)
  
  The Currency Symbol on the bottom of the form is to allow for people to let people choose what currency they want to "play" for. All currencies listed are those I found on Wikipedia's list of active/circulating currencies... Plus a couple of "defunct" currencies, like the Zimbabwean Dollar.
  
  Lifeline setup also takes place on this screen. You can use it to put as many lifelines in play as desired. (I'll use x12 indicated on the Flash projector to show).
  
  Also note the "Game Version". Currently this will include Classic, Classic w/ Clock, and Shuffle. (Shuffle 3-Tiered and Shuffle 3-Tiered with clock will come later.) (This will also setup the lifelines and dollar amounts too.)
  
• Speaking of custom dollar amounts, these were the amounts I was thinking of having programmed in. The green highlighted amounts are safety thresholds. The 15, 14, and 12 tallies are based off classic, clock millionaire, and rave respectively.
  (Anyone have any opinions about this tree?)

[thorklein]

The tree looks great, minor question i have. Are these all the amounts for the different iterations of millionaire?

[retched]

Aug 7, 2015 14:41:15 GMT -5 thorklein said:

The tree looks great, minor question i have. Are these all the amounts for the different iterations of millionaire?

Yes and no. The trees you're seeing are set up for a 15 question classic tree, a 14 question classic tree all the way down to a one question classic tree. The spaces highlighted in GREEN are the safety nets of that tree. For example, on the 15 question, the 5th and 10th question are safety nets.

Technically I have to make a new tree for Shuffle.

[thorklein]

Ah i see, hope it all works out great for you. Thanks for sharing this great post.

[retched]

Update for 8/13/2015:

- A bit more progress has been made in the programming of the game. (Using multiple formats is more difficult than I thought...) But I should be done with the new game setup. (Just hate seeing the same questions come up in the same order even though its supposed to be random...) Anyway, attached below is essentially the "Money Ladder" for the Shuffle variant of the game. (Evidently I had forgot to even code that portion.) So now all three game versions are now represented.


(How to read this, Gold backed texts indicated "Classic Millionaire". I'm not really happy with some of these numbers and how they turned out. It's really kind of hard to figure out how to space out the numbers for Shuffle Millionaire with smaller games.)

Attached below is a shot of the new game setup menu with Shuffle Millionaire being the game to choose. Also note the Autofill Values button next to the game selector. This button will enable itself when you make a change to any of the question values or change formats.



Working on the remainder of the windows during the live stream so if you want to drop in and give words of encouragement, feel free.

Additionally instead of using Flash, a lot of people are suggesting and that I wanted, I might try to go for WPF instead. Especially now since Flash is purportedly being deprecated soon. (Meh.) So since WPF ties into VB.net easier, I may go for this. Plus I'd rather not have people install much else to play. (Not sure if anything is needed for the Access DB options.)


(Controller form with a question loaded. All the other buttons still need to come in. Additionally, the logic behind the selection of questions is "off"... so that'll need some work. And more than likely I'll end up shrinking the Answers as there is no need for paragraph-like sized answers.)

I'll probably make another update if I have more to say.

[boogyman10o1]

Wow this looks amazing! I really like that everything is customizable. Can't wait to see the next update

[retched]

Okay brief update. 8/18

No screenshot though as not much has changed.

- The question logic NOW WORKS. It's no longer giving me the problems that I was having before. I am going to have to change the logic a bit as it was blocking questions that were selected but not necessarily played. So this may need a passcode being applied to the selection query and then inserting that. Also I'm removing the database stuff that was going to be used for single player mode for now and leave it at a presentation mode. Also I don't think this is working on anything sides two monitors... (The controller form is HUGE...) Maybe in a later revision when I get more confident in building.

- The next thing to work on is the logic for the buttons (particularly the lifelines, then the game control and displays.) From here it'll just be a matter of getting the "Projector" to work. Some have asked about making a single player mode, that is possible. I'm still stuck between one of three possibilities... Either Powerpoint, Flash, or WPF. (Is it even possible to use Powerpoint with VB.NET, we'll see. Flash is, from other accounts, difficult to tie in with VB.NET. WPF just seems, weird more or less. Still learning things as I go along.)

[kplewisvox]

Looking forward to hearing more!

[retched]

Another quick reply... So I found an image set a while ago for classic millionaire as well as a few other of the other question layouts on this thread:
regisfan.proboards.com/thread/2515

97thparallel gave permission to use the graphics so long as its for personal use. So since I can't find any decent scans of the "Modern" lifeline bubbles, I'll use these graphics on the interim until I somehow get better at making the bubbles myself or find someone who wouldn't mind me using them.

So I used those three graphics included in 97th's pack of graphics (50:50, Ask The Audience, Phone A Friend) as the basis for me to try to make the other six lifelines (Ask The Expert, Jump The Question, Crystal Ball, Plus One, Swap The Question, and Double Dip). These aren't exactly looking pretty good as I upload them to imgur but ehhh like I said, it's not much to work with. I started with 97thparallel for the first three. Then I managed to get the two fresh ovals I made in Fireworks (yes, I know not the best image editor) to size up the same way to match what 97thparallel did and then apply the appropriate image. The crosses came from 97thparallel.

Crystal Ball (shuffle format only): This one was kind of annoying to make. What I ended up doing was making the two ovals as a base and then just google searching what the image was. From there I found a screen cap from Meredith's run with the icon on the screen and then selectively selected around it and did my best to match the positioning of it.


Ask The Expert(s): Another "Google Search is your friend". This one came from a hi-res screen grab. And pulling the "webcam and laptop" from the image to copy onto a blue and black ellipses.


Jump The Question: Yes another "Google Seach is my friend". This was a little bit more difficult.... I had to make sure I selected JUST enough to get around the end of the arrow in the screen grab from a US Millionaire taping. I was hoping on not having to do it since I know there are a few typesets that actually have an arrow that stayed true to the form of what I was going for. (Thanks to GSK for trying to help with that one.)


Double Dip: Another I kind of made from scratch with the two ovals. But I actually just used the Copperplate Gothic Bold with the "x" being size 39pt and the 2 being size 50pt. This actually worked.


Plus One: This was a weird one to build. I ended up using Arial at size 52 for both. But evidently my Fireworks listed the style as "Black". Not "Regular", "Italic", etc... just black. It actually looks decent.


Swap the Question: I wish I can pull the Q aside and find out what font it is... but shy of that, this image from a screengrab on a google search.



Since 97thparallel gave permission for personal use, I'll apply the same rule to these. You may us the both the used and normal lifelines on any personal not-fot-profit usages. Some changes to the form, I removed the "Audience Contestant" button and created it as a main menu option instead. Still need to figure out where to place of some of these items.

Here's the programs use far:


Just need to change up whether I want the images as indicators or images as buttons.

[leimeisei]

Kinda reminds me of my controller from years ago. Maybe that was the YouTube vid you saw? Good work though, this looks like it has a lot more features than I ever put in

[retched]

Sept 18, 2015 10:10:18 GMT -5 leimeisei said:

Kinda reminds me of my controller from years ago. Maybe that was the YouTube vid you saw? Good work though, this looks like it has a lot more features than I ever put in

Yeah leimeisei that was your YouTube video I found. I was hoping it would be eventually released but I realize that it couldn't be. Then I just said, screw it... let me try to make it. So I just best guessed at your mechanics and went about making it myself. (Like I didn't know if you tied it into flash or if it was pure Visual C++/Basic/C#/etc.)

So far I'm almost done with the mechanics of the buttons but I still need to work out the lifeline/jokers. After that it's just designing the host screen(s) and somehow working with sounds.

[leimeisei]

Well I could release it, but the code (C#) is terrible, and it looks like you've got a lot more feature-wise.

For sounds all I did (and I definitely wouldn't do it this way again) was make a simple Flash project that connected to the socket server and listened for commands to play sounds... for example "PSOUND ata_polling". But I would never use Flash again, for sound I'd use some sort of prebuilt sound triggering software or maybe something HTML5 based.

The graphics for the Season 9 version of the software I made were actually Ventuz based. That uses the special "Ventuz remoting" DLL that you have to include in your VS Project.

[retched]

Sept 22, 2015 23:53:30 GMT -5 leimeisei said:

Well I could release it, but the code (C#) is terrible, and it looks like you've got a lot more feature-wise.

For sounds all I did (and I definitely wouldn't do it this way again) was make a simple Flash project that connected to the socket server and listened for commands to play sounds... for example "PSOUND ata_polling". But I would never use Flash again, for sound I'd use some sort of prebuilt sound triggering software or maybe something HTML5 based.

The graphics for the Season 9 version of the software I made were actually Ventuz based. That uses the special "Ventuz remoting" DLL that you have to include in your VS Project.

I wouldn't mind looking over the code if possible as I'm still trying to figure out how to work your "A Button" aka my "MAGIC BUTTON" on my screen. (My Visual Basic coding is probably miles worse.) As for the graphics, I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to get that to work for the Projector screen. (I'm leaning towards Flash although I'm horrified at that process. There doesn't seem to be an easy way to tie Flash and VB together.) As for the Host Screen, that's just going to be another Visual Basic Screen since nothing needs to animate there. (That might be the next thing I work on after I get the lifeline buttons working.)

[retched]

Wow... I kind of forgot that this thread was. I've been busy getting things squared away with my schooling (two more semesters towards a late Bachelor's)...

Anyway, I haven't abandoned this project I just put it on the shelf while poking around for answers to the almighty "How do I get the graphics..." Answers still are bouncing between WPF/Silverlight, Flash, and an engine like OpenGL or Unreal Engine. (Personally leaning towards WPF or Flash...)

So here are some notes:

• I've finished fixing the logic of the database selector. It now really does give a random question from the database. The next step here will involve some insight on how games with DLC do question packs. (Do the questions get added into the general pool? Or when you select the DLC, you only get questions from that DLC pack. Thanks to a "limitation" of Steam, I can't buy Special Editions' DLC to find out.)
• I modified the "Setup - New Game" screen. I kind of forgot that the United Kingdom (and to an extent, Australia) didn't follow the US rules for their clock format. Instead of running the clock the entire way, the clock actually went up partway on the board and then was turned off. Furthermore, no banked time was done on UK or Australia. So there is now an option to enable or disable Banked Time AND there is an option to enable the clock on a per question basis.
• I removed the currency database table from the master database and allowed free entry. Also I "bettered" the internationalization of the currency display by letting the GM choose how the numbers are separated. (NOTE: This isn't exactly something that can be easily done as different countries use either commas, periods, or a combination of both. So I just dumbed it down to replace all grouping characters with either a comma or period or space. Additionally, the currency symbol can be placed in front or behind the value.)

Things still need to be done:

• The actual host screen. This shouldn't be too hard to do either in Flash or WPF. Just a matter of figure out what font is used on the projector studio setup in the US. (I want to say either Arial or Helvetica.) This will probably be done first before the main projector graphics (still struggling on how to make the hexagons for the question and answer blanks). 
• Lifeline's. This one is kind of two fold.
• • Each one of the already existing lifelines will need a separate winform for it. I know I know. I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill. Remember that there are more than just simple things for them. Example: Ask The Audience will ask the game master to input the results of the poll. Double Dip will need to input the first answer choice. 50:50, if you read the shoutbox I asked about should the result be randomized or preselected by the GM. Thanks to someone's response, I went with both.
  • I still need to add in some of the international lifelines. Mainly "Ask Three (of the Audience)" I think is the only missing one.
• Write MOAR questions and improve error handling. (PC to itself: "Uhhhh... we ran out of possible questions. Throw an exception up and crash the program.)
• Bank logic. I kind of forgot to work on that when I got the "Up Progress" and "Down Progress" buttons going. This is kind of not too difficult. I'll provide a note sheet about it in a few. From a programmer's standpoint, it's really basic. Main reason I haven't added it is because I'm still working on the "workflow" of the game. Yes, there will be a "Magic Button" (or "A Button" if you're watching leimeisel's video I linked above). But it wouldn't hurt if all the options are available.
• Additional UI access needs to be done. (Like Replace Question for the non-lifeline, a question editor, a DLC builder, etc.)

If anyone has any suggestions feel free to write in.


New Game Setup








The 50:50 lifeline GUI: