A French Language Look At Adventure Game Shows by @Meeea

Here's a little something for the 13 of you reading this in France, and for anyone else who understands French. I've been picking the language up from watching Fort Boyard every Saturday night recently but not enough to fully appreciate this video. Here's a 40-minute history looking at adventure game shows by YouTuber MrMeeea

There are shows included that even those who didn't grow up in France may recognize such as TCM, Fort Boyard, Treasure Hunt, Legends of the Hidden Temple, and French versions of Knightmare and The Desert Forges. May have to do something on Knightmare and even The Desert Forges after I do Fun House next week. I'm soon running out of shows during this TCM mid-series break.

With Any Good Franchise Comes Merchandise - The '90s Merch

From the desktop of Phil Newton-England

With the exciting news of the Eastern Zone expansion pack coming out soon for the awesome Crystal Maze board game, we thought this would be a great opportunity to take a look back at some official Crystal Maze merchandise that has been released throughout the years. 

Most of you will already have the fantastic ‘The Crystal Maze Challenge’ by Neale Simpson, Chris Lore & the team. This 224-page book not only contains ‘play at home’ games & puzzles, but also has some superb on-set pictures and informative interviews with presenters & crew, talking about the maze from its premiere in 1990 right up to the modern version we all know & love today. The Crystal Maze Challenge by Headline is, by far, the biggest & thickest book there has ever been about the show. If you haven’t got a copy yet, we truly recommend it. 

Adventure Game Shows, Further Reading/Watching

I'd say this blog makes it quite clear which adventure game show I and many others consider to be the best of the genre but there's plenty of others that many people under a certain age have missed out on. Not to say they're all great, missing out can sometimes be a stroke of luck.

"Les Mondes Fantastique" - because Fort Boyard is too obvious.

After The Crystal Maze had been on UK screens for a couple of years, in 1992 Jacques Antoine (the brains behind TCM) brought a cross between TCM and Fort Boyard to French television. Primarily a children's game show, it borrowed a few elements from TCM such as the colourful wireframe map to show where the contestants were, as well as a very familiar lightbulb themed steady-hand game (see below from 2:00). The show was so closely related it even took the original board game for The Crystal Maze and repackaged it under the LMF name.