It's Whammy time as Press Your Luck for Facebook revives 80s gameshow classic

Press Your Luck is a new Facebook game based on the '80s TV quiz show. The game was developed by Ludia, a subsidiary of FremantleMedia, the current rights holders of the show. The game placed at No. 6 in our list of emerging Facebook games a little over a week ago, and has been growing both its MAU and DAU numbers steadily since its launch in late December. According to our traffic tracking service AppData, Press Your Luck currently has 270,000 monthly active users and 70,000 daily active users. Press Your Luck is an adaptation of the '80s show, with a few modifications to make it more suitable to Internet-based multiplayer play. Like the original TV show, the game is split into two rounds -- the Question round and the Big Board round. In the Question round, ten players answer a multiple-choice trivia question simultaneously, with the reward ranging from a virtual $500 to $1,000, which is then multiplied by the number of contestants who got the question wrong. Six questions are asked in total, with the reward being randomly chosen from the list each time. Once per round, however, there is no reward -- instead, any incorrect answers suffer the wrath of the show's mascot Whammy, who takes away all the contestant's previous earnings and resets their score to zero. When this happens, it is accompanied by an amusing animation and canned laughter from the show's "audience." Upon completion of the six questions, the players who have amassed the most virtual cash get to play the Big Board round. During this round, players press a big red button to stop a spinner on the board. This will reward them with money, bonus spins or, if they're unlucky, a Whammy who, again, takes away all their earnings from this round. If players have amassed a good amount of virtual cash in this round, they are able to pass their extra spins on to another player in the hope that they will spin a Whammy and lose their winnings. The game is designed for simultaneous online play. Ten players compete alongside each other and are able to see the answers that each other gave upon the conclusion of a question. There is also a real-time chat facility, dubbed "Backstage Chat," where all players logged on to the game are able to converse with each other. Facebook friends features include a friends' leaderboard where high scores for the week can be compared. Players can also take up to two friends who are also playing the game as "Wild Cards," allowing them to skip questions they don't know the answers to. Having greater numbers of friends playing also provides them with bonuses to their final scores, meaning that those competing against many of their peers will be able to attain much higher scores. The game is monetized through the direct use of Facebook Credits. These can be spent either on entering the Big Board round if the player did not place in the top three in the Question round, or spent on additional "episodes" to play each day. A player is able to play up to three times per day for free, but packs of 20, 50 or 120 additional episodes can be purchased using Facebook Credits. The game also provides access to the Facebook Offers interface, allowing players to earn Facebook Credits without having to pay for them. The game is currently rather U.S.-centric in its question bank. Although the show itself was American in its original format, it has aired worldwide in various forms over the years. As such, if Ludia hopes to build a worldwide audience for the game, a sensible option for a future update would be to include localized questions. Updates so far have largely been concerned with addressing technical issues reported by players via the official Facebook page. You can follow Press Your Luck's progress with AppData, our traffic tracking application for social games and developers.

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It's Whammy time as Press Your Luck for Facebook revives 80s gameshow classic

Pete Davison

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Pete Davison