Richard's Online Journal
[16/02/08] The Crystal Mess
I don’t normally stick random images and webjunk up on the site, but I’ll make an exception for this one. If you were of TV viewing age during the 90s - or alternatively were a police officer involved in some accident who woke up in 1991* - you watched The Crystal Maze, by order. Or by hiding from your parents, as the case may be. The British version of the atrocious Fort Boyard, it was great, and if you disagree, leave, Satan.
However, what made it fun wasn’t seeing contestants complete great tests of skill. No. It was seeing some of the dumbest people in the history of the world struggling with such basic concepts as ‘reading instructions’, ‘pulling levers’, or ‘walking’. The stupidity of Crystal Maze contestants was legendary, as seen in this spoof, and this all too real clip.
Darwin Awards without the death, that’s what it was.
But what I hadn’t seen was this; a compilation from behind-the-scenes, complete with producers and engineers’ commentary as the teams struggle towards failure. You may have. But I hadn’t. And since I’m in a sharing mood, I share. Thank goodness they were such gentlemen (and ladies) to the poor unfortunates in their charge.
The sound’s a bit quiet, but you can’t argue with the sentiment.
Randomly, there’s a behind the scenes diary of how the show actually worked over here, but I’d recommend not reading it. Like Knightmare - the wonderful, tacky, glorious Knightmare - it’s more fun to pretend it’s an alternate world of discovery and adventure than accept the mattress of lies and deception that all television actually is.
Except for Interceptor, of course. That one was totally convincing.
(* I’m looking forward to the fifth season of the Life on Mars epic, in which a cop from 2011 wakes up two weeks earlier in 2011, mildly confused but basically untroubled.)
Not many. Eight teams, IIRC. The early seasons were far, far more brutal - one team lost because they picked up a rune that they were ‘supposed’ to remember, and so got trapped in the dark.
The later teams were much more likely to die because of bad footwork or or the lethal Play Your Cards Right on Level 3 in the last few seasons.
I loved the development of that show. I still remember the excitement back in school when they were able to leave the dungeon proper with the Eye Shield, followed by the crushing disappointment that almost all the locations were now over-touched photographs, and worse, those ghastly, ghastly 3D renderings of the last season (albeit made up for by the faster pace and and Mark Knight’s wonderfully sardonic Lord Fear). Although when it first started, I really had a problem with the Wall Monsters.
“FALSEHOOD!”
Erp! (hides behind sofa)
Posted by Richard on Saturday 16th February
I always felt sorry for the kid with the helmet on. Presumably he could see nothing but his own feet as he tried to follow the orders the rest of the team barked at him.
Posted by Scylla on Sunday 17th February
Pretty much, although apparently some kids were sneaky and would tilt the helmet up a bit to see the tables and things that were in the room.
But yeah, aside from things like that, it would just be their feet and the colours underneath.
The proposed remake was to change that quite a bit - the pilot’s floating around in a few places, but I can’t see any live links at the mo. Here’s a review of it, here’s a clip. I’ve got a link to the theme song, but it’s just… too… awful.
Anyway, in this version, the dungeoneer was to have full control and visual feedback, with the advisor being exactly that. And thus something of a third wheel, especially with such banal puzzles.
Nobody was particularly interested, and the creator quickly decided that the mix of styles was the key to it - the whole idea of regular kids being able to step into a fantasy world being core to the appeal, as opposed to watching someone play a frankly pretty awful RPG. The whole thing got canned aeons ago, and deservedly - it completely forgot everything that made the original show fun.
Posted by Richard on Sunday 17th February
Yes, the wall monsters were pretty creepy. The face representing their health that peeled away into a skeleton freaked me out a bit too. T’was my favourite show at the time, looking back it was really quite impressive and creative despite some of it’s cheesyness (but still fun cheesyness). I never saw anyone win it as I mentioned, I think the furstest I ever saw someone get was to that coridoor with all the spinning blades.. which always ended in death when they did.
Posted by Nick on Sunday 17th February
Yeah, I never really got that. With a couple of exceptions (the Corridor of Blades was a literal death-trap at least once - they stepped in without the time to react to the incoming sawblade due to screwing up), it was one of the easiest danger rooms. Ages and ages to avoid the blades, and that’s if you don’t notice you could just lie flat on the floor and you’d be fine.
Although I’m sure that’s down to the producer telling them ‘We’ll drop a weight on you if you try it...’
Some of the best deaths came from the characters - one crippling problem for the show was that it was effectively a linear trek, especially later on, when the Spyglass would outright state what the teams were doing and why. I think my favourite was the team that tried to tell Skarkill the Goblin Master that the (goblin) horn they were carrying was a cornucopia of gold or similar. He promptly invited them to blow it there and then, and laughed his ass off when his minions showed up to say hello.
It was always a shame that teams weren’t given more leeway to negotiate or play off the characters, especially the rubbish, unthreatening ones like Sylvester Hands. “Like feet, but Ow MAH NOSE!”
The winners didn’t get much in the way of glory - a quick parp of music, a quick reunion, Merlin/Hordriss showing up to hand them a trophy, and dispatched by Treguard before they had a chance to go ‘Yay!’. The prize was a pair of very cheap squires’ spurs at the start ("Excuse me? For conquering the dungeon, I get to be some knight’s dogsbody?"), then medallions for a few seasons, then a single Frightknight trophy for all four to share (which was pretty staggeringly cheap, all things considered), then a full set.
And they got their names added to the Scroll of Awesomeness or something, now referred to as ‘The Internet’, given the number of fan-sites around. Not worth the effort in terms of prizes, although that wasn’t really the point.
Posted by Richard on Sunday 17th February
So wait a minute; how was it all done then? I thought it was green screens and lots of computer generated stuff?
Posted by William Main on Sunday 17th February
Also AWESOME! The episodes are on YouTube!
Does anyone remember Scavenger, that strange ITV adventure show thing that was hilarious and stupid all at the same time?
Posted by William Main on Sunday 17th February
Blue screens, but a lot of retakes and fakery - like the rooms actually being filmed in isolation, then setup for the next take, then the whole lot edited together to look like the quest was taking place in real time. It actually took days for the longer quests to be completed. They only had the one room for the wandering about stuff, with a second to do close-ups on things like Smirkenoff the dragon, and the hilariously cheap physical goblin tunnel corridors.
But if the Dungeoneer tilted their head back a little, they could see some of the props and things put in place, actors waiting off-camera, and so on. While mostly it wouldn’t help, sometimes it would break the illusion. Amusingly, the production crew would sometimes have to threaten to blindfold the Dungoneer (under the big helmet!) when that happened.
Posted by Richard on Sunday 17th February
Scavengers. Oh, god, what a disaster that was… The ultra expensive, cheap-as-hell set, John Leslie’s acting, the tedious games, the sub-Laser Quest atmosphere…
IIRC, they got funding for that flop by claiming they’d be able to make the awful set available to other production companies. They apparently wanted it to be the on a level with that old stalwart Sunbury Pumphouse, as featured in damn near everything during the 90s (Red Dwarf’s Justice facility, the Gamesmaster oil-rig, something in The Tomorrow People, and a kazillion others. It’s that place with the stairs down the side and the big machine covered in dials.)
Instead, I think producers took one look and asked about the old Parallel 9 set. That had way more gravitas.
Posted by Richard on Sunday 17th February
Arf, i just watched a clip from Episode 1, Series 1 on YouTube. Talk about idiots.
The room basically had on the ground “P,O,E,N” or open. First thing they do: make the guy shout open. Next thing they do: make him walk around a bit, then eventually land him on P. P!! Treguard mumbles “Remember they must spell exactly.” Whispers “Idiots.”
Eventually they got him to spell open. But 3 minutes in and it’s already awesome and funny all at the same time. ^_^
Posted by William Main on Sunday 17th February
My favourite bit in the first couple of seasons is the desperate dwarf behind bars in the castle. The noble adventurer just glances at it like “What the &*%^ was that?” and rides on without a second thought.
Which rather begs the question: what’s Treguard doing holding prisoners?
I love the way that Hugo Myatt so shamelessly launches into the character that would utterly define his career. Somehow he takes some of the worst lines in the history of both fantasy fiction and inappropriate rhyming, and gives them at least some sense of gravitas with that absolutely shameless delivery. Even if he does spend the first few seasons being a real prick.
“And what reward do you seek?”
(off producer’s instruction) “I seek knighthood.”
“That will not be possible. Only the first step to knighthood can be taken here. Squiredom is the reward-”
“Hang on. What the crap kind of reward is that? What happened to systems of fealty and feudalism? Are you saying you’ve set up the equivalent of a mail-order diploma mill, only instead of sending a cheque, I’ve got to risk exploding rooms and deadly wizards and that idiot Folly, all for the chance of polishing some knight’s mighty lance?”
“Um.. Of course, this is but the first-”
“Yeah, you know what, I’m okay? I’ll just go get an internship as a Page, and work my way up through the ranks the medieval way. That way, I get three square meals a day, and not the kind that leave you starving to death five minutes later. And if the King calls me up to fight, I’ll have some martial training beyond ‘sidestep right’ and answering riddles about cave moss.”
“But… honour! Glory!”
“Uh-huh, great. Spellcasting: T, A, X, I, H, O, M, E...”
Great show though. Tacky as it is, especially through modern eyes, I remember watching it when it was the greatest thing ever made - something I can’t do with, say, The Adventure Game, which I saw much later on, or any of the follow-ups/rip-offs (Incredible Games, Virtually Impossible, or gah, Cyberzone and so on)
Posted by Richard on Sunday 17th February
My absolute favourite Knightmare moment starts at 4:10. This was the only team ever to actually defeat one of the enemies with stupidity…
(It’s pretty obvious, but just to put it in context for anyone who’s never seen the show, to dispell something, you spell it backwards.)
Posted by Richard on Sunday 17th February
On a slight tangent, I seem to remember a similar sort of show that used those old VR setups you’d sometimes see in the bigger arcades, I think Craig Charles was presenter. Ring any bells with anyone? Or is it just something I’ve made up out of partly-remembered kids tv shows?
Posted by M on Monday 18th February
Yeah, that one was called Cyberzone. Really bad. The technology wasn’t even remotely good enough to impress people, and the basic game was achingly dull. One team ran around solving puzzles like ‘shoot the duck’ and ‘press the button’, while the other drove around in a blocky car/helicopter thing, usually inconveniencing them slightly less than the obviously horrible controls.
Posted by Richard on Monday 18th February
Just talking about old games on the PW forums, i remembered the laughable interactive game that was:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daedalus_Encounter
Remember it? Silly fun!
Posted by William Main on Monday 18th February
Sure. Terrible game, but at least there was some element of a game there, unlike things like Critical Path, Harvester, Johnny Moronic, Night Trap, or… yes, I’m about to mention the Dark One… Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties!
(Some genuinely good interactive movies: the Tex Murphy games, especially The Pandora Directive, Gabriel Knight 2, The Journeyman Project 3, Wing Commander IV, and hell, I’ll throw The 7th Guest a bone for old time’s sake, since I remember how impressive it was to play at the time. Most of them though? Gah! Run away! Run away!)
Posted by Richard on Monday 18th February
What...in god’s name...did you just make me watch?
I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or hang myself.
I was just left speechless. o_o
Posted by William Main on Monday 18th February
(nods) It’s known as one of the worst games of all time for a reason. A very good reason. Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties. Its legend lives on.
Posted by Richard on Monday 18th February
Don’t forget Spy Craft as a good IM! If it was ‘movie’ enough to be considered an IM anyway.. it had a fair amount of live action acting anyway. We talked about it before but we were playing TF2 at the time and couldn’t discuss it in length, but it was nice to find someone else who not only played it but liked it too.
Posted by Nick on Tuesday 19th February
Ooh, hell yes. Spycraft was a great little game - unquestionably a case of style over real substance, but really nicely done.
Posted by Richard on Tuesday 19th February
That was brilliant.. I particularly liked the “take him outside and give him a good kicking” one.
I had a teacher who looked and sounded almost exactly like Treguard from Knightmare, which was pretty cool as an 8 year old. Did anyone ever actually win Knightmare? It seemed bloody hard.
Posted by Nick on Saturday 16th February