Nickelodeon Arcade
Host: Phil Moore
Announcer: Andrea Lively
Premise: Two teams play video games, solve puzzles, and answer questions, and hopefully go inside a video game to win a grand prize trip.
Play: Round one begins with one team member playing a video gane:
Meteroids, Laser Surgeon: Move your icon around and shoot things. Score 25 in-game points for each blob hit.
Post Haste, Jet Ski: Guide your character along a path, and don't get tripped by obstacles.
Battle of the Bands, like Pong, but the ball bounces off after each hit, 5 in-game points for each score off the other team.
Whoever scored more times (or moved the farthest) won the game, 25 points, and control of the round. If the 30 second Face-off ended in a tie, a question about video games was asked for the 25 points.
The gameboard was 3x6 in length or height, and the idea was to move "Mikey" (an animated character) from one side to the other side's goal. Teams could only move one space at a time, orthogonally, and had to do what the space said. The game boards were themed like The Ocean, Big City, Outer Space, Wild West, and so forth.
Pop Quiz: The controlling team chose a category from three options, and the team to answer correctly won 25 points and control. Questions had three choices to pick from. If no one was right, control stayed put, and that team moved again.
Points: An easy 25 points. The team gets the points and they get to play again.
Prize: The team won a small prize and kept it no matter the outcome. Something like a basketball hoop or rollerblades. The team winning the prize got to move again.
Puzzle: Various visual puzzles were played, and whoever won got 25 points and control. A personal favorite one was "Flash Frame": they spin a whole bunch fof different pictures on the screen, and the teams have to pick out the ones fitting a specific topic. Another fun one was "Fast Forward," where the teams had to guess the outcome of a sped up video clip, like how many free throws a person could make in a minute.
Video Challenge: One team member picked a game out of five (once played that day, it was out of the running) and the other bet any or all of their points on the partner's ability to obtain a certain score in 30 seconds. If the team had less than 25 points, they were allowed to bet that
much. (once a team actually went into negative territory).
Enemy: The resident villain came up, gloated, and transferred control.
Time Bomb: Spaces walked on had bombs, and if a team walked on one, they had to play this: a word was read, and the team had to spell it, one letter at a time alternating, for 25 points.
Goal: Worth 50 points. The opponents chose a category for the team to answer a question. A right answer won 50 points, but a wrong answer gave 25 points to the other team.
Round two: Quite predictable. Another face-off, and all points double.
If time runs out during the round, Mikey moves straight to the goal, and a question is asked as in a Pop Quiz, but regular rules apply.
The team with the higher score won and played the "Inside a Video Game" bonus round:
The two players where now dressed in beige jumpsuits, so as to not interfere with the green screens used. Each partner would be responsible for one level of the game, and both would team up to take on the Video Game Wizard of the Day to win the grand prize trip.
The video games were played on a green chromakey screen similar to that used by weather forecasters on TV. The players look off-screen to a computer readout, and must move around, trying to reach different icons.
There were more than a dozen different games used in the first two levels over the two-season run of the show, but all three levels ran by certain rules:
* To start the round, the player would have to touch one of several "START" buttons in the game.
* For each round, the player must track down and touch three different icons depending on the game, while avoiding various enemies and hazards in the level.
* Each time the player touches an enemy or hazard, and is not immune, one unit of health is deducted. The player begins each new life with five units of health, and must start the level again if he or she runs out.
* Most levels also had one "magic" item, that if touched, would grant the player temporary invincibility, make all the enemies go away, or freeze the action.
After completing the first level, the partner would try his or her luck in the second level, and after completing that one, the partners would team up to try and take out the Wizard, and win the grand prize trip.
Each of the items touched during the game wins $50 for the team to split, along with the 'magic' items. Completing a level also wins a bonus prize.
The teams would play for only one episode, and that was it. Various celebrity editions were played with the actors and actresses from various Nickelodeon shows would play the game for their charities, and the bonus rounds would be worth $500, and completing the game won $2,000.
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