Spin The Wheel version 3
Spin The Wheel is a Microsoft Windows game developed by BMProduction. The game is inspired by the well-known television broadcast "The Wheel of Fortune" but makes countless changes in order to make it even more interesting and unique. This page explains the game rules and shows some of the features of this version compared to the traditional game.
Game rules
Single player
Only one player can play. The game, therefore, does not take place as in the television broadcast to identify the best competitor among those in the race, but a single player tries to overcome all the heats to win a virtual prize pool at the end and thus be able to enter the ranking.
Summary area
Before and after each round, the player is taken to a special summary area that allows him to see where he is on his path, how many heats he has already played, how much remains, how much money he has accumulated, how long he has averaged each round, how many jokers he still has available and so on. From this summary area, the player can save the game and at any time load it. The player has unlimited saves available (the only limits are physical ones, that is, the disk space or limits of the rescue system). Compared to the commonly known game, in this version, the player has the opportunity to buy new jokers (as well as win them through the reels). Depending on the degree of difficulty chosen, the cost of the jokers varies.
Once a game has started, it will not be possible to return to the summary area before winning the round. The interruption of the game within the heats involves the loss of the entire course made up to now (however if a save has been made it can be recovered by loading the game).
Play area
Entering a round, on the game board, a sentence is shown that the player has to guess. The basic rules are similar to those known for the game seen on TV. The player must turn the wheel. The player has a lever with which he can decide how much power to give the wheel before starting to turn it. The more power the wheel will spin for longer, the less power on the lever will make the wheel move less. The wheel, however, combines the power factor chosen by the user with a random factor that makes each spin different from the previous one, also keeping the power chosen by the player constant. It is therefore not possible to predict with certainty where the wheel will stop.
560/5000 In the lower part of the board, the player can find, on the left side, the topic of the solution, that is, a sort of clue to understand what the guessing sentence is about. Sometimes the topic is very general (for example: "common saying" or "proverbs") other times it is more specific and therefore better directs the player towards the solution. On the right side of the game board, the time still available before the end of the game is shown. In some game modes, time may not exist and therefore nothing will be shown.
The different wheels
The wheel can stop on an amount, on a "skip the turn" or on a "lose everything". Some heats also have special bonuses on the wheel such as, for example, jokers or cash prizes much higher than those on the wheel. These reels are shown only if you increase the level of difficulty of the game and/or choose to do several heats.
Skip the turn
If the wheel stops on "skip the turn" (on the wheel we read only "Passa" in Italian) nothing happens (pass is equivalent to nothing done). In the transmission here the game passed, in fact, to another player unless the competitor played the joker. Here, being the only player, the game does not pass to anyone else and the purpose of the "skip" is only to make the player waste time as he will now be forced to turn the wheel again. In this version it is not possible to play the joker to avoid the "skip". When the wheel stops on "skip" the player cannot call a consonant.
Lose everything
If the wheel stops on "lose everything" (on the wheel it reads only "Perdi" in Italian) all the amount won in the current round will be reset. Losing does not affect the total amount accumulated by the other heats nor does it affect the jokers the player has. If the player had not accumulated credit, in fact the "lose" is equivalent to a "skip" as it does not produce any change. Compared to the "skip", however, here the player can decide to use a joker. Using the jolly all the credit that has been lost will be returned and the number of jolly available to the player will be decreased by one unit. There are no limits to the use of jolly, as long as the player has them he can use them. During the game the player cannot buy new jolly (which he can do instead in the summary area between one mache and another) but he could win them if they are available on the wheel (on the wheel in this case it reads "jolly"). When the wheel stops on "lose" the player cannot call a consonant.
Bonus or Jolly
If the wheel stops on a "bonus" or on "jolly". In this case, the mechanism for accessing the bonus or jolly is the same as when a sum of money is indicated on the wheel. The difference, therefore, is that what is won is what is written on the wheel. The bonus, not having indicated what it is, brings with it a characteristic of mystery and unpredictability, however it is always something that increases the status of the player and is never something that curves him.
Numerical amount
If the wheel stops on a numeric amount. It is the classic case of play. At this point the player can call a consonant through the homonymous button. If the chosen consonant is present on the board (and had not already been called) the player wins the amount indicated by the wheel multiplied by the number of times the consonant is on the board. Example: if the wheel stops at "100" and the player calls the consonant "P" which turns out to be present five times on the board with the sentence to guess, then the player wins 100x5 = 500. If there was a bonus or a jolly on the wheel, he will win as many bonuses or as many jolly as the number of times the consonant is present. If the requested consonant (it is called "call") is not present (or had already been called and discovered) the player wins nothing and loses nothing, similarly to what happens with the "skip". After trying to search for a consonant, the player cannot search for another unless he first turns the wheel again.
The vowels
The vowels. The player can call (i.e. search) the vowels at any time. The vowels can also be called several times consecutively and are not linked to the wheel's turn. The vowels, to be called, ask that the player have, in the credit accumulated in that round, the amount indicated as the cost of the vowel. Compared to the television game, in which the cost of the vowel was scaled only if it was not found, here the amount is always scaled, regardless of whether or not the vowel was found is found.
The playing time
Time. While the TV game had no time limit, except for the final mache, this version of the game, with no other competitors, focused on finding the solution within a certain amount of time. The time available begins to flow with the entry into the playing area and stops only when the player finds the solution or the time itself runs out. When the time is running out, a different sound accompanies the last few seconds and also the color of the time display warns in a different way that the time available is running out. Once the time runs out, the round is over. If the player has not found the solution, the player has lost the mache. By losing the round, the player loses the whole game and any progress made so far is lost. The player can only retry the round if he has saved the game in the summary area before starting the round. The "easy" game mode does not have time and therefore presents itself as a training mode.
Solution
The solution, if known, can only be given after the player has won something, an amount or a bonus or a jolly. If the player, by turning the wheel, ended up on a "skip" or "lose" game, he cannot give the solution. Even if the wheel has stopped, for example, on an amount but the player has not found a consonant, the solution cannot be given. If the player can give the solution, the solution button is enabled. If the player tries to give the solution but is wrong, he loses nothing but cannot try a different solution. The wheel must turn. Only after all the consonants are finished, it is possible to give the solution at any time and continuously without having to turn the wheel anymore. If the player finds the correct solution, the round is won. If necessary the solution is also shown on the board (as, theoretically, the player may have already turned all the boxes finding all the consonants and buying all the vowels). Once a round has been won, the amount accumulated is added to the overall amount won in the other rounds and in addition a bonus is added in cash for winning. The amount that the player wins therefore is given by: total accumulated amount = (amount won in one round + bonus for winning the round).
The solution can be written as it appears on the board, following the rules of punctuation of the game language (Italian or English) but it can also be written without inserting the spaces between one word and another. The solution can also be entered by inserting the apostrophe character after the letter instead of using the already accented letters. This possibility, which no version of the game has, proves very useful to save time, especially when this is about to end.
The final round
The final heat, which is not available in the "easy" game mode, is similar to that seen in the television broadcast. However, some features are unique in this version of the game. Before entering the final round, if the player still has jolly that he has not used, since in the final round I will not be able to use them since there is no wheel, he will have the opportunity to "convert" them to other prizes. Each remaining jolly can be converted into an extra consonant that can be called, or into an additional amount that will be credited to the total won so far or it can be converted into more time to find the solution of the final round. The user can also decide not to convert the remaining jolly and therefore to lose them.
Entering the game area of the final round you will notice that the wheel is not there. The boxes of the final sentence to be discovered are colored on the board. The solution topic is not indicated and the time countdown has not started. You will have to choose some consonants and some vowels and then, after having chosen all of them, start the round. This phase has no time limit, compared to what happens in the television broadcast. Once you have chosen these letters and started the game, appear on the board, in the usual places, both the topic of the sentence to be discovered and the time. The player will only have the opportunity to give the solution. You can try to give the solution as many times as you wish. The round ends either by discovering the player's solution before the time runs out or by the end of the time. In this second case the player has lost everything. If the player has found the solution, he has won the game and virtually wins the prize pool accumulated so far having the opportunity to enter the rankings.
The game modes
The game allows you to choose different game modes, called "difficulty level". The "easy" level is a training mode in which the player does not have a time to find the solution in each round. The heats only end when the player finds the solution (or exits the game losing any progress made). The "normal" level is the one most similar to the game mode known by the famous television broadcast. The "difficult" level is aimed at those who are now able to successfully pass the normal level and want to test themselves on a more complex terrain. In this scenario some different reels are proposed, the time available to find the solution is reduced, the cost of the vowels or jokers is higher but the winning bonuses for each heat are also greater. Finally, the "extreme" level raises the bar even further. If you decide to play many heats with extreme level you will have the possibility to see also other special wheels that are visible only in this scenario. With the extreme level even the wheels can be really extreme!
Last update: 2020-05-20
