- Site: Jeopardy! Deluxe
- Site: Wheel of Fortune Deluxe
- Publisher: Freeverse
- Developer: Encore USA
- Genre: Puzzle & Trivia
By Brad Cook
They feature more than 5,000 total clues and puzzles created by the TV shows’ writers, multi-player competition against the computer or live opponents, and a unique clue or puzzle for each day of the year.
What are Jeopardy! Deluxe and Wheel of Fortune Deluxe?
Correct! Both recreate those classic game shows on your Mac, complete with realistic gameplay, authentic sound effects, and true-to-life versions of their sets, including Wheel of Fortune’s ability to play in venues across the United States. And with three levels of difficulty for computer-controlled opponents, you’re sure to meet your match whether you enjoy answering trivia statements with a question, solving word puzzles, or both.
Create your avatar and get ready for solo or multi-player competition; the latter lets you compete against computer-controlled adversaries or friends who join you at the keyboard. You can create up to 10 identities, each with a variety of historical statistics, such as percentage correct and Daily Doubles solved in Jeopardy! and total cash and jackpots won in Wheel of Fortune. Each game also features many trophies to collect, including the Final Fanatic! for winning the Final Jeopardy! round 20 times and the Wheel Wizard for the 150th Wheel of Fortune game completed.
When the Answers Become Questions
Jeopardy! opens with an overview of the first round’s categories, as it does on TV, before giving you the first selection. Because the game can’t allow open-ended “What is…?” answers, it offers four choices for the response, which has a time limit. Select the correct response and you get to choose a new question; make a mistake and you lose that amount of money, giving someone else a chance to take control of the board. Unlike in the TV show, however, you won’t run out of time for all of the questions during either round.
In the second round, the money increases but so does the difficulty level. The first round features a Daily Double while the next has two of them; each requires the contestant to bet a certain amount of money from their winnings before viewing the answer. The last round is Final Jeopardy!, in which the contestants place bets and then answer a question — those in the lead should be cautious, while those who are behind should bet as if they have nothing to lose.
Take It For a Spin
As in the game show, a Wheel of Fortune session begins with Toss-Up Puzzles that determine who gets the first spin in each round. Letters randomly appear on the board until someone buzzes in and solves it. During the rounds that follow, players take turns spinning the wheel and guessing consonants, earning the amount of money they landed on multiplied by the number of times a correct guess appears in the puzzle. The wheel features bankrupt and lose-a-turn wedges, along with one space that has $10,000 sandwiched between two slices of bankruptcy. Players can buy vowels during their turns.
The first round is a regular one, followed by a jackpot round that starts with a $5,000 jackpot that increases by the dollar amount that each player spins; if someone lands on the jackpot wedge, they win all of the money in the jackpot if they call a consonant in the puzzle and then solve it. Round three is the mystery round, which features two mystery wedges that earn players $1,000 per correct letter, or the chance for $10,000 — or bankruptcy — if they want to give up the $1,000 and turn the wedge over.
After round three, the player with the most money heads into the bonus round, where they spin a different type of wheel to get an envelope with preselected letters. Then they choose three consonants and a vowel, hoping they reveal enough letters in the puzzle to guess it correctly. You only have a few seconds to figure out the answer, however.
We’ve all shouted at the TV while someone struggled with a seemingly easy final “Wheel of Fortune” round, and we’ve all groaned when a “Jeopardy!” contestant gave away a lead during Final Jeopardy!, so if you’ve ever thought “I could do better than that!”, here’s your chance to prove it.
Game Hardware
Check out our systems for your best gaming experience.
I’ll Take “Gone Fishing” for $1,000. Mark takes the lead — and control of the board.
Billy Works at the Pentagon. If you land on big money, guess “P.”
Jeopardy available for online ordering 24 hours a day, every day.
Wheel of Fortune available for online ordering 24 hours a day, every day.
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Jeopardy! & Wheel of Fortune System Requirements:
- Mac OS X version 10.3.9
- PowerPC G4 or Intel processor
- 256MB of RAM
It Began With “What’s That Question?” and “Shopper’s Bazaar”
“Jeopardy!,” which predates “Wheel of Fortune,” rose from the ashes of the 1950s quiz show scandals. Producer Merv Griffin, playing off the fact that contestants had been given the answers to questions ahead of time, decided to create a show in which players had to come up with questions after hearing the answers. Originally called “What’s the Question?”, “Jeopardy!” first aired in 1964 with Art Fleming as the host. That incarnation was cancelled in 1975, only to return three years later with Fleming again in the starring role.
The second go-around lasted just a year, however, and “Jeopardy!” was dormant until 1984, when the current iteration debuted with Alex Trebek. It has aired continuously since then.
“Jeopardy!” was originally a daytime show, and when it was cancelled the first time, the version of “Wheel of Fortune” that we know today took its place. The daytime edition of “Wheel of Fortune,” which started with Chuck Woolery as its host, lasted until 1991, while the evening version began in 1983 with Pat Sajak and has been on the air ever since.
However, an earlier show named “Wheel of Fortune” premiered in 1952 and ran for a year. Each episode featured a Good Samaritan and the beneficiary of their deed, who spun the wheel to decide how much money the do-gooder was playing for. The version of “Wheel of Fortune” we’re familiar with was called “Shopper’s Bazaar” when the pilot debuted in January 1975, before changing its name.