Game Changer has become a popular online TV show, in all probability as a result of it’s enjoyable to observe such masterfully managed chaos. The collection, which simply aired its seventh season finale solely on Dropout, is all about forcing comedians to play completely different, usually weird video games, with none of the contestants being informed upfront what the sport is, the way it works, or the way you even win.
For instance, in a latest episode, three comedians have been positioned in velcro physique fits after which pressured to spin a wheel lined in modifiers and guidelines that they needed to apply to their our bodies every time they spun the wheel. Stuff like “Always be smiling” or “Be rude.” As the principles piled up, the contestants started to activate one another, and ultimately all of it resulted within the sport’s host turning into a contestant. It’s bizarre, hilarious, and in contrast to anything on TV. I needed to study extra about the way it all works, so I sat down with Dropout CEO and Game Changer host Sam Reich to speak about how he and his crew design a number of distinctive, humorous, and unusual video games for his or her comedians to play every season, and all of the work concerned. I used to be shocked to study that for many of Sport Changer‘s run, they’ve prevented playtesting and simply hoped issues would work out on the day.
“Yeah, people, I think, would be scandalized to know that [season seven is the first time] we did any game testing,” mentioned Sam Reich throughout our Zoom interview. He laughed about it and defined that there have been some exceptions, like an escape room episode in 2023, however for essentially the most half, they traditionally haven’t achieved a lot playtesting in any respect, no less than earlier than the newest season.
So if the present has principally prevented playtesting, I requested Reich how they knew a sport or an episode concept was prepared for manufacturing, and as soon as once more I used to be stunned by how wild Sport Changer‘s manufacturing is. Reich informed me, “I think there’s probably a few different answers to that question. One is we don’t. And we do it anyway.” We each laughed on the response.
“The second [answer] is that, particularly in earlier seasons of Game Changer, a lot of our games were loosely inspired by games that already exist, whether they’re improv games or other games. There’s a lot of ‘this-meets-that’ going on. And in that sense, we kind of know something like Like My Coffee is going to work, because it’s based on a popular improv game that we’re just doing our spin on.”
“The reason why game testing becomes more relevant now as the seasons climb up is because, by virtue of the show going on and by virtue of us backing ourselves into a corner where originality is more and more hard to come by, we can’t afford to be derivative anymore. Like we have to be more inventive,” defined Reich.
One other widespread drawback that Reich and his crew of proficient writers and creators run into when developing with concepts for brand new Sport Changer episodes is ensuring an concept is humorous for greater than a minute and has locations to go all through a full episode. A standard pitch entails having the host and others communicate in a international or gibberish language the comedians have to determine. However whereas that sounds humorous, Reich says it actually has nowhere to go. The identical is true of episode pitches constructed round a number of tiny video games that aren’t related thematically, together with a pitch for a Conclave-like episode to switch Sam Reich with another person.
[The Conclave idea] turns into a type of ‘who can be the best game show host?’ competitors,” defined Reich. “But, the games don’t relate to each other enough…there’s no sort of journey of competence or discovery there. This gets into game design wonkiness. I’m really big on game design and it’s rare these days…that I’ll get excited about a game that feels like it’s just a series of mini games.”
How Dropout’s Sam Reich turned a sport designer
Reich’s pondering on this has come a good distance since he began Sport Changer again in 2019. As he informed me after I requested if he realized he was going to should develop into a full-time sport designer to create a present like Sport Changer:
“I loved games, but I wouldn’t say that I loved games, like, more than the average person. I wasn’t a big board gamer,” mentioned Reich. “I’d probably done three escape rooms in my life. And thank God, because I think if I had been–if I had started Game Changer as the game designer I am today, I would have had far less room to grow into the show. Like in a way, I think my competence as a game designer has sort of grown as the show has grown and the budget has grown. So if you start Game Changer from the beginning, you can kind of watch my journey as a game designer, which I think is fun.”
Reich admitted to me that earlier than beginning Sport Changer, he didn’t actually know what the time period “Balanced” meant in sport design phrases. Now, he consults usually with desk high, online game, and escape room designers in addition to comedians to create the odd beast that’s Sport Changer. And whereas loads of sport design goes into the present, particularly in its newer seasons, it’s nonetheless a comedy collection and the viewers comes first, over guidelines, stability, or anything.
“Ultimately, I will break any rule in service of the audience or in service of entertainment,” mentioned Reich. “It’s like, even if this isn’t a very well-balanced game, or even if it is a little clunky or whatever it is, we’ll plow forward with it if we think it’s going to be very entertaining. We’ve totally taken out clunky moments [in post-production].”
Sport Changer is falling aside, in a great way
And that clunky, generally messy, usually chaotic nature of Sport Changer is, in response to Sam, one of many causes it has related with such a big viewers. “I would almost equate it to, like, Saturday Night Live in a way where it’s like, the fact that it’s live will always make it feel a little dangerous,” mentioned Reich. “And that’s part of the fun.”
“There is sort of an excitement to every episode of Game Changer, which is like the excitement of: Is this even going to work? And I think that some games sort of require that more than others,” mentioned Reich. “Look, at the end of the day, we’re making a show and production schedules are what they are. And Game Changer always feels like a trust fall by the time we’re on the shoot day. [During the episode] Beat The Buzzer, I swear to you, five of those buzzers weren’t working in dress rehearsal. We’re hanging on for dear life to this show,” defined Reich with a chuckle and a giant smile.
He did admit that he expects future episodes and seasons will function much more playtesting as concepts get larger and video games get extra difficult. However he additionally defined that he desires Sport Changer to keep away from the “sterile” and generally boring really feel of fashionable big-budget sport exhibits which have been on the air for many years, including: “In a way our show feels sort of like, um, it’s always falling apart a little bit. Just a little bit, which is a part of the fun, you know?” So don’t fear that future seasons of the hit collection will playtest the life out of all the things and ensure the sport is completely balanced. There’ll nonetheless be loads of chaos sooner or later.
Game Changer‘s season seven finale is now live on Dropout. You may watch all of the previous episodes of the present solely on Dropout.
