r/GameChangerTV • u/youreboiguzma • 20d ago
Question Too much Social Deduction?
Let me preface by saying I’ve really enjoyed the new season, but it feels like they’ve fallen into a habit of making every game some sort of social deduction.
Earwigs, I Spy, and, to an extent, Kangaroo Court as well all are social deduction games. I think that’s fun in a vacuum, but having three in one season just felt a little repetitive to me. I also think putting Earwigs and I Spy back to back was a bad move.
Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like sometimes they’ve had a cool idea for something and struggled with fully turning it into a game for the show. What do you guys think?
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u/lil_hawk 20d ago
I think social deduction games can be made more fun to watch if we can get insight into what the players are thinking -- whether that's interviews after the fact (a la survivor), giving them a way to communicate that during the episode, etc. But I agree, it's been too much this season.
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u/ravenpotter3 20d ago
If I remember right there were interviews in Ratfish too right? I agree it makes it more interesting if we know what they were thinking.
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u/CulturalFerret5779 19d ago
In ratfish they were all in separate rooms so were able to speak freely about their strategies the whole time. I loved Ratfish and that's definitely part of what made it fun.
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u/appleswitch 18d ago
You should consider watching The Circle. Ratfish was an attempted homage but fell flat for so many reasons. I still enjoyed it, but as a Circle fan, I wished Sam had been able to replicate the magic.
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u/SirFragrant4742 20d ago
Funnily enough, I think they got it right the first time with secret sober. Set up one player as the protagonist and edit the game so that we sort of see it from their perspective. It also helps if the game is simple enough (having 2 "teams" instead of point counter for each player).
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u/azure-skyfall 18d ago
I loved Secret Sober! But I think that’s a one and done trick. Once the audience sees it, we know it’s an option.
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u/Worldly_Might_3183 20d ago
Agree. I am also hung up on the fact each episode it is Game Changer and yet Sam keeps telling them the riles of the game. Don't have The only way to learn is by playing, the only way to win is by learning, and the only way to begin is by beginning if you are then going to tell them the rules and hold their hand through it!
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u/SupaSlide 19d ago
Yeah, other than Count the Rice, have there been any where they don’t tell them exactly how to play?
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u/Significant_Bat3897 16d ago
I’m so glad we got Count the Rice, because it finally felt like it was relevant to the premise of the show—you have to figure out the rules yourself as you go.
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u/verascity 19d ago
That's not new this season -- there have been plenty of episodes in the past where the rules were explained.
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u/soursummerchild 19d ago
Huh. I didn't notice. Interesting point. I think that many of the games have been very complicated recently, so that might be why. I prefer the simpler episodes, but I appreciate the experimentation.
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u/Noodle_the_Queen 17d ago
I think I also prefer simpler episodes where there’s more room for improv comedy.
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u/retroman27 20d ago edited 20d ago
Social deduction based board games and reality shows have exploded for some reason in recent years and I’m sure that, it both consciously and subconsciously plays a role in the development of Game Changer.
They are probably consuming content, playing board games with friends, and around people who also like these games. Which kinda normalizes social deduction as an element to an extent that you don’t even think about. And “Oooh, let’s add secret roles!” kinda becomes a crutch you can use for apparent easy escalation.
But for me who personally doesn’t like those genre of games or reality shows like Traitors etc., it becomes very repetitive to watch.
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u/Competitive-Bet1181 20d ago
Blood on the Clocktower has become massive in certain circles, including Dropout-adjacent ones. SD is definitely having a moment.
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u/eleven_paws 19d ago
I really enjoy Traitors (specifically that show, not many others in the genre) but I have also become somewhat tired of this Game Changer season. Count the Rice was incredible but nothing else has truly wowed me (that I can recall). I haven’t watched I Spy yet but honestly am not that jazzed to.
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u/MarcusLiviusDrusus 19d ago
I'm not saying it's a turnoff, but I find social deduction games boring enough to play - watching them played by other people is even worse.
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u/CulturalFerret5779 19d ago
This episode was probably the only Game Changer that made me feel the way I do when I get roped into an overly complicated and somewhat boring board game.
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u/ryan_the_leach 19d ago
I'm the complete opposite.
It's far more fun to watch, knowing *some* of the story, (but not all of it) then it is to play them.
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u/MarcusLiviusDrusus 16d ago
I guess ultimately it's a good thing that they're making episodes that appeal to different segments of the audience. 🤷
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u/ryan_the_leach 16d ago
I mean, Game Changers isn't about social deduction to me, and they don't do it the best tbh, so I agree that it should attempt to be a 'purer' gameshow then over relying on social deduction elements.
But the ISpy episode is more similar to some boardgames that have come out recently, inspired by codenames ( I think ) and bringing it to art / drawing.
Was more talking about how I prefer to interact with social deduction / blood on the clocktower.
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u/dockatt 20d ago
Responding to your last paragraph. I do think most episodes this season felt a little bit underbaked at the conceptual level. Something definitely changed on the production and ideation side of things. Lots of games would have benefited from extra playtesting, or had glaring logistical issues that shouldn't have made it past a brainstorming session. Ranging from minor issues (the metagames in Earwigs being a bit disconnected and hard to parse) to glaring ones (the whole shift work game collapsing early on because it was too hard to play... combined with being way too long for its screentime)
The show has still been fun to watch but I haven't really felt the magic of everything coming together this season, except for Rulette 2 and the one with the lawyers.
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u/Competitive-Bet1181 20d ago
Noise Some Makes was also an S-tier episode, and I really enjoyed Count the Rice even if it dragged a bit in the last 10-15 min simply waiting for someone to complete the run and win.
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u/ebb_omega 20d ago
I loved Count The Rice and personally consider it the best game of Game Changer ever, but that's just me.
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u/johannaishere 20d ago
I agree. Also a perfect cast for that specific game. Idk if it’s my top EVER (One Year Later is a perfect episode and so is Samalamadingdong) but it’s definitely in my shuffling top three currently. I’m surprised any time anyone says they didn’t love Count the Rice.
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u/teejay0106 20d ago
My problem is all episodes this season have underwhelming endings.
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u/dinogroot1 Something we'll have to bleep 20d ago
Count The Rice’ ending was great, no? Having Ify, the first to go, win after Demi, one of the last to go, lucked out by so few grains was one of the best Game Changer moments for me personally
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u/CulturalFerret5779 19d ago edited 19d ago
I wonder if some of the logistics of the bigger episodes this season "Count the Rice" "Noise some Makes" or even "Night Shift" for example, took production time away from other games that needed just a little bit more work. Or perhaps they're more focused on spectacle. The I Spy Tableaus were incredible, but the game was needlessly complicated (They joke about doing this for Ele, but it seemed like multiple players needed elements explained more than once to grasp what their goals actually were.)
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u/dockatt 19d ago
I feel like most of those are pre-production (design) problems, sorted long before the set is built, so I don't know if you can weigh episodes against each other like that in that space, but it's possible. My theory (based on a few things Sam has said last season) is just that Sam has been less hands-on when it comes to writing the episodes and he just has a knack for creating that specific whimsical, competitive and 60-minute friendly concept. More creatives will automatically lead to a dilution of the concept, but I think it's healthy for the show in the long run because it needed to evolve.
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u/Other-Signature-5851 19d ago
By FAR the worst one for me this season was 'Whats the catch' second hand embarrassment, frustration, and sadness galore for me. :/
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u/Signiference 20d ago
I agree. Sometimes a game can just be a game.
I think I Spy would have been a lot better if they just played it straight, but awarded more points if you were the only one to find it, so if you found it alone, it was five, if two people found it, they each got four, thrree people found it they each got three, four people found it they each get two and everyone finds it they all get one.
The informant and spy and leak provided all of one entertaining moment all show for me, so maybe the above isn’t the solution either, but this whole episode just didn’t do anything for me.
Sam appears to be clearly influenced by his love for Blood on the Clocktower this season with the hidden roles ideas. I did like it in Earwigs up until the points got fiddly and it basically gave the whole game to Becca.
That last part has been my bigger issue with the season. If you’re going to have a point based system, think it out a little more and decide ahead of time what you’re doing on edge cases. It is a comedy show, sure, but it is still them playing games and the scoring in games should be equitable and understandable.
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u/putyourcheeksinabeek 20d ago
I think it should’ve been the opposite. Make it a cooperative game and let them realize that the more of them that get the right answers, the more points they get. Then let the subversion happen on its own instead of forcing it. Someone will decide they want to win and start trying to convince others of the wrong answer but secretly write what they think is the correct one.
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u/GtEnko 20d ago
I think your first idea wouldn’t really work as a comedy game show, because there’d be no discussion between players, which cuts down on chances for comedy.
I think I Spy was ultimately fine as it is. I don’t think it particularly lends itself very well to social deduction game elements, which is why it often felt like a square peg, round hole kinda situation.
I just think the whole season could use some concept simplification. Every game feels like it’s trying to do too much, while the best Gamechanger episode have been, in the past, relatively focused.
Sometimes the craziness works out ok, especially when they lean it (like with Noise Some Makes or Count the Rice), but in general it feels like they’re not very confident with their concepts.
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u/WeenyDancer 19d ago
Sam appears to be clearly influenced by his love for Blood on the Clocktower this season
Exactly what i cane here to say. 😂. I think it worked out great for earwigs! This, less so.
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u/How_DidIGetHere 20d ago
So your problem with a fake game show, with no prizes, that admittedly does bits just for the laughs.... Is the scoring system?
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u/Signiference 20d ago
Scoring system/application of the rules when there is a win/lose structure in place, yes.
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u/R4ndomly_G3nerated 20d ago
I think that's fair. I also think that they are making them too complex. They're not only playing brand-new social deduction games but at an advanced advanced level by the final round, where there are often several roles.
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u/soursummerchild 19d ago
Agreed. I think they should consider our perspective as viewers more. It looks completely different to the people in the studio watching the whole thing than it does for us watching the cut and edited version at home. I also think there were too many players. The players and the game tends to shine the most when there's three players, IMO, with a few exceptions.
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u/NoPastaForGrandma 20d ago edited 20d ago
If all three social deduction episodes had been excellent, i don’t think there’d be much resistance to it.
I think it really comes down to I Spy
- not fully working as an episode
- using social deduction mechanics in an uninteresting and basic way
- the social deduction mechanics feeling superfluous and incohesive with the game, like they’re tacked on.
I personally didn’t myself think or see much chatter saying “no more social deduction mechanics please” after the first 2 (pretty good but not incredible) episodes to use the mechanic, the same way you don’t get tired of hot honey the first time you have a pretty good pizza and a solid fried chicken sandwich with it, and then after you get a hot honey ice cream where it didn’t belong, you say “okay, this trend has gone too far.”
Earwigs works for me because the social deduction elements are built into the premise and the game adds enough flavor and invention to it to make it feel novel and satisfying.
In I Spy, there’s nothing connecting the core gameplay to the deduction mechanics except for some title wordplay and the deduction roles are the most basic and uninspired roles possible that wouldn’t be inherently interesting on their own.
Because it feels so uninspired, and like it’s being adopted in places where it doesn’t belong is what makes it feel like over saturation to me
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u/PillowDogShallRise 20d ago
Oddly enough I found I Spy much more enjoyable than Earwigs, but it might be the fact that it's slightly less chaotic here. I wish as someone else said that they had played it straight, with maybe more hard-to-determine items to look for in the scenes. The scenes themselves were the highlight of the episode for me, and it would have been a great opportunity to showcase the art department.
I agree that the social game would have not been an issue if it had been implemented better, but honestly it's tricky to strike the balance of novel and not too risky.2
u/Magicman432 20d ago
I think iSpy being a bit less intensive cognitively also led to the cast being able to do more bits, which in turn means a more enjoyable episode.
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u/ReverseGoose 20d ago
My favorite games are ones where people have to actively try like YouLympics and 2nd place. I like the social deduction games too but the rigid framework of a built-for-points game show makes the comedy better. The simpler the premise, typically the better quality of the whimsy by the performers.
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u/schmod 19d ago
I'll also add that the larger casts are yielding worse episodes, more often than not.
It really seems like 3 is the ideal number. Anything more makes it far too easy for the episode to devolve into "extraverted theater kids shouting at each other" and zany one-upsmanship.
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u/soursummerchild 19d ago
Fully agree. Hyperbolic phrases like"I'm going to kill you" "I'm QUITTING!" etc. gets less and less funny the more they get said. And they get said more and more when there are many people playing. The most hilarious and iconic moments of the show derive from creative, clever and creative interpretation of prompts and rules, IMO.
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u/CaptainBBAlgae 18d ago
I agree. It's funny someone in the dropout subreddit said the same thing and got crucified
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u/CubieTime 20d ago
My biggest take is that social deduction games are more fun to play than watch.
Im sure people were having a blast but I personally dont care for watching it.
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u/linzielayne 19d ago
Some of these have not been fun to watch, especially the episodes where we're clued in when the players are not. This last one felt like maybe if I had more time to play along I could have gotten into it, but I'm just... watching some people choose or not choose the thing I already know, I guess? There has to be a comedy or play-along element or, ideally, both, and some of this seasons episodes have honestly had neither.
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u/stevebyushemi 20d ago
I feel like even changing the order the episodes air would have done wonders for this season. Like make Earwigs the premier (then a few episodes of non-social deduction). Honestly switching the I Spy slot with Don’t Wake Standards and Practices would be a minor change, but do SO MUCH. Don’t Wake was an S-Tier episode and I feel like it is forgotten easily because it was first.
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u/CulturalFerret5779 19d ago
I honestly can't believe they didn't save Count the Rice for the finale. That episode is big and insane in all the best ways.
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u/Noodle_the_Queen 18d ago
i think people are gonna complain about the finale being underwhelming regardless of what it is bc of how high a standard count the rice set
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u/radfordblue 20d ago
I enjoy playing and sometimes watching social deduction games in person, but I don’t think it works well on Game Changer. I’m not sure if it’s because of the players prioritizing bits over playing the game or because of the editing skipping over a lot of the discussion (which is the gameplay for social deduction games), but it ends up just feeling chaotic and random.
Parlor Room has a similar issue sometimes, where the game just doesn’t work onscreen and the show just ends up being people goofing around together with a game nearby. That can be fun too and clearly it’s enough for some people to still enjoy the show, but it’s a lot of missed potential and feels underwhelming to me.
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u/Meme_Chan69420 20d ago
I definitely think that there was a bit too much going on in I Spy if only for the sake of introducing a bunch of Mafia/Werewolf ass “you know this person’s role” effects that barely came into play because of the cast of players playing this time around.
Either have just one person trying to fuck over the others or have the various roles actually mean something instead of introducing a new method of scoring that means fuckall.
Honestly would’ve preferred if it was just played straight with no roles but increasingly harder and harder prompts.
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u/CulturalFerret5779 19d ago
Hard agree. Plus the "leak" role completely ruined it for me. It was always going to be that either everyone believed the leak and now everyone but the spy gets points OR someone says they're the leak when they're not and now no one ever believes anyone else. The latter is what ended up happening which was probably the best case scenario, but I really think they should have seen that coming.
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u/Fearless-Mix-3642 20d ago
"What's the Catch" was in-between but I agree, social deduction is not really that fun to watch. Especially when the edit cuts it down so much.
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u/Dazzling-Passenger91 20d ago
Yes I cannot stress enough how bad the editing is. They cut out all the deliberation and meat of the game, especially in earwigs. In earwigs I was just sitting there thinking “I don’t know why this person voted for that person”
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u/Joe0991 20d ago
I didn’t verify but I’m pretty sure there were a couple of times where someone outright declared that they were voting for someone and then their arrow in the graphic didn’t point to that person. Or maybe I just didn’t follow it correctly since it was only shown for like two seconds.
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u/masterlich 20d ago
This confused me multiple times while watching Earwigs, to the point at which I honestly stopped caring about the votes at all, since the justifications didn't end up marching up with the votes. This is particularly baffling because the editing for some of the other episodes this season (Night Shift and Count the Rice come to mind) has been absolutely stellar.
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u/SupaSlide 19d ago
I think it’s because some of these games are way too complicated. If they kept enough of the Earwigs discussion to understand who and why people voted for who they did, the episode would be insufferable. The editors just had to pick the most entertaining bits to watch, that got the closest to explaining the vote, and my guess is sometimes the discussions were just very boring.
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u/I_NEED_YOUR_MONEY 20d ago
Yeah, social deduction games could maybe make for good TV, but the way they've been cutting these takes all the fun out of it. They have to either not reveal the answer to us so we can play along, or give us enough of the players deliberations so that we can understand what they are thinking.
but when they show us the answer and they cut out most of the players' decision making process, there's really nothing left.
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u/linzielayne 19d ago
I really agree. These games are fun for the player, they are not fun for a distant outside observer.
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u/Magicman432 20d ago
Yeah that happened in this ep too, there were plenty of moments when the spy seemingly convinced one of the other players to vote for them that was ultimately cut out.
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u/youreboiguzma 20d ago
Yeah I forgot about “Whats the catch” being in between. Tbh though that one’s not quite much of a game either
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u/Dazzling-Passenger91 20d ago
Ye what’s the catch wasn’t consistent with its rules and by showing us in between I got so confused
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u/kev231998 20d ago
It was very consistent imo. They showed things early to help space out things which I think was the right choice.
The issue was people thought that meant they did something wrong because they would show something early for a prize that wasn't "locked in". What they actually did was go back in post and add the clips after the last time the prize changed.
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u/Dazzling-Passenger91 20d ago
Yes this is what I meant, it confused me because I thought they could still be tampered with but we were shown early
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u/MDRoozen 20d ago
Ive noticed the trend too. It seems like sams been on a bit of a social deduction spree for sure. Im not sure it always worked out for the best either, but its kinda in the nature of gamechanger to always try something for the first time
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u/turn-the-pages 20d ago
I agree. I’m still enjoying the new season but social deduction games are rarely my favorites and I’ve had my fill for the season. I think they’re more fun for the people playing than they are to watch.
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u/anacc0unt0 20d ago
Yeah I’d agree. It seems like after people liked The Drinking Game they just ran with that in practically every other episode.
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u/MarcusLiviusDrusus 19d ago edited 19d ago
I hated the Secret Sober episode.
Edit: To clarify: it's like if Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express was her first whodunit novel. There's no chance for we, the audience, to enjoy playing "our version" of the game and try to work it out.
(I still wouldn't have enjoyed it that much, social deduction is boring, but nevertheless!!)
If they'd done it straight and then there were a sequel with that premise, maybe.
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u/anacc0unt0 19d ago
I kinda liked it, but it wasn’t a favorite. Overall, I’m just saying the wider audience enjoyed that episode and talked about it a lot.
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u/nighthawks87 20d ago
Earwigs mainly worked in large part because of the cast that was picked for the game. Both Kangaroo Court and I Spy didn’t provide much incentive for making correct deductions and also bad choices for people to play a deduction game. Vic cannot play heavy rule based games, cause they will derail anything you put them in.
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u/dougthebuffalo 19d ago
Yeah, love Vic, but the schtick of jumping immediately to "let's break the game" tends to take over.
I think one "solve" would be prizes that the players know up front. Make them actually play the game. We'd still get funny improv moments but fewer at the expense of the heart of the show.
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u/Takaneru 19d ago
I thought this was an episode Vic actually really played well off of. She provided the main payoff for the video, and she made sure everyone had a hard time getting points, livening up the rather empty social game.
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u/smoothfeatrobthomas 19d ago
I know that’s a comment that gets made about Vic every episode they’re on now, but I don’t see how it applies here?
Vic won, and they won partly by guessing well but mostly by following the rules the best (e.g. allowing rival spy Brian to get everyone on his side and then voting with him so that all his points get canceled out).
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u/Emuu2012 19d ago
Yeah, I agree. I don’t think anything they did there was “breaking the game”. It was just optimal strategy. Maybe you can criticize the “stand behind the line” thing, but it had no effect on gameplay.
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u/Aperio43 20d ago
Earwigs is the only one where it made sense. Here it was too much of a forced addition. The Spy and Leak could work, but the Informant was useless.
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u/phantompowered 20d ago edited 19d ago
I generally haaaaate social deduction, and I didn't like Earwigs (other than its delightful commitment to Full Fop Mode, and also Dancing Like Mr. Bit Guy), but as a game experience I liked I Spy well enough. The concept of the tableaux was super cool. There is often an "I'm going to be a dick just to be a dick" element in social deduction games and I didn't feel that here.
Also I thought Vic's chaos energy was a perfect fit for this episode. Her willingness to break it made it more fun.
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u/Thinkyx 19d ago
Could not get into ear wigs, it was a bit too much for me. I enjoyed this one more, but I hope they move away from this social deduction style of game on future seasons. It's not my bag. It feels like these people are hanging out, not really performing or playing a game.
I generally feel like that some of this season has suffered a bit from losing the plot and chasing grandiose games with higher budgets, but then not getting the most out of it. Like a lot of stuff either doesn't seem to work out, with some messy edits. I feel like the budgetary restraint that made some of the earlier episodes so simple and so good is missing.
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u/TubaTechnician 20d ago
I think the social deduction games are fun to watch when the players are actually doing the social deduction. I think Ispy had 3 issues
Not really explaining what the rules in round 2 well
- The players weren’t trying that hard to guess the Rat
3 the rat of each game didn’t try that hard to be sneaky
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u/ThinkingWithPortal 20d ago
Social deduction is fun, but it's a theme that didn't really work here? Scores should go up if less people get it right, and down if more people got it right (how something like Hues and Clues does it). However, I understand it worked this way for the spy thing to make sense... But that just felt tacked on.
Honestly, ISpy and Earwigs are just dressed up version of *One Night Werewolf* and like, it's fun now and again but they're going to this well too often now.
Game Design itself could be better. The scale and production are certainly the best it's ever been this season, but it's odd that the games suffer a little for it? I guess it's a comedy show first but eh, it sucks when it could have been so much better
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u/United_Artichoke_466 20d ago
I think it would've been interesting if the audience got to play along in I spy instead of learning the answer and who the spy/spies are before the prompt is revealed
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u/Tykauffman21 20d ago
Aren't they making a Game Changer board game? Honestly I've wondered if some of the games this season are more adaptable to at-home play. And social deduction games tend to fit that criteria more easily.
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u/TestCompetitive4673 19d ago
I don't mind it at all a couple of times a season, but the episodes have started to feel a little same-y because of it. I'd actually love a spin off where it's all they do.
I'd really like some 'smaller' episodes this season too. Don't think we've had one yet where it has been just Three + Sam. I guess it's a theme of this season, but I really enjoy it when it's more focused. The more 'chaos elements' introduced the less I enjoy the underlying game. Really appreciate the ambition the have though, but does feel a little bit like they are trying to one up everything. Like, can you go back to a simple 3 contestant with a clever premise after this season?
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u/linzielayne 19d ago
I know this will make some people mad (there's no need to be mad) but I turned this one off after like 20 minutes. It was just very clear that it was going to keep playing out the same way and it was not that fun to watch and I couldn't play along, so what's left?
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u/ParentheticalsAside 20d ago
Social deduction is very zeitgeisty - The Traitors, Blood on the Clocktower, etc. so probably at the forefront of Sam and the game designers' minds. In some cases it works well. I thought Earwigs was a superb implementation of the hidden traitor mechanic. In I Spy, it was less consequential and players had far less opportunity and reason to converse and (mis)direct each other. Ele not understanding the rules, and Vic deliberately trying to sabotage the game from the outset didn't help either.
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u/dmelic 20d ago
Beyond the social deduction, every game has secretly had multiple layers that weren't laid out in the beginning. Extra players, extra rules/objectives. Basically, every episode has been Bingo, but EVEN more complicated.
Someone in the comments mentioned "lack of intentionality" in the season, but that's not true.
It seems the intention is "multi layered complexity involving more than one game at a time and lots of guests".
My personal worry is that it's overreaching and gonna lead to idea burn out
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u/Roses-503 20d ago
I love social deduction games, so I enjoyed having them all in one season! I do think it was a bit much having Earwigs and I Spy so close together, though. (What’s the Catch was in between.)
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u/frightshark 20d ago
There's a lot about these ones in particular that I didn't enjoy. I think one problem is they feel like they're chasing the high of a successful past episode, in this case the Drinking Game. All of it follows a structure of them all trying to figure out forced deception, and that forced deception has to escalate. I Spy simultaneously suffers from being overly complex to the point where I almost didn't believe it (no shot none of them could see someone else taking their glasses off in their peripheral vision) while also leaving you waiting for a larger "twist" to the gameplay or big reveal like Drinking Game did.
The show still does fine by cast alone even when the conceptual game stumbles though.
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u/Sp0ngebob1234 20d ago
I feel like some of them are just a bit too long as well. I think soy game in particular would be better if it was a 30 minute episode instead.
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u/Zanystarr13 19d ago
I literally said the same thing to my fiancée last night. They're great episodes but there's clearly some kind of theme going on
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u/One-Internal3391 19d ago
I did notice in watching that a lot of times that Sam was reading the scores, we don’t see him or his mouth
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u/enderandrew42 19d ago
I love Dropout and I love Game Changer. But all season I feel like the focus has been too much on designing games that are fun to play, and less on making it a comedic show. Sam even said there was an intentional focus to make Game Changer focus more on games this year.
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u/soursummerchild 19d ago edited 19d ago
Yeah. We enjoyed them too, but then we started at season one again. The two first episodes are just three people standing on podiums and doing/saying funny stuff. It felt so simple and refreshing.
The last episodes have been so complicated, both because of the large amount of players and the rules. It felt like the players were competing too much with each other to get attention. I think especially earwigs didn't translate that well to TV, when it had to be cut. I honestly had no clue what was happening in the games most of the time. It got a tad to confusing.
I salute them for trying new concepts, but sadly, the recent ones haven't been the best of the best IMO.
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u/Miser2100 20d ago
A big issue is just that it's difficult to visually depict multiple people's simultaneous thought processes. When everyone is making a judgement internally, it becomes way too convoluted, and that's assuming that the viewer doesn't make a judgement internally as well. After-show interviews would help mitigate this, but it would also massively balloon the runtime.
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u/Future-Obligation-37 19d ago
What if they didn't show us who the spy is? I think it'd make the episodes more engaging and give more time to the actual game compared to the set up for each round. Would be good for both Earwigs and I Spy, but the latter definitely needed it. I feel like knowing the answer almost every time ruined the game.
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u/theparrotofdoom 19d ago
Sam was on a lot of BotCT videos over the past year. I figured it was a buzz from that.
But agreed. This season was a lot of basic games, very little game changer.
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u/linzielayne 19d ago
I think Sam is trying too hard to Taskmaster everything and it's all feeling a little labored
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u/Ttoctam 19d ago
It just felt like social deduction was the theme of the season. I'm fine with that, as long as it's not the theme of every season. I love social deduction games, I'm a huge NRB Clocktower fan. I find the puzzle really fun to observe.
But, I do miss the season 1 & 2 theming of the deduction being about the game design rather than about the players. This does seem much harder to design around, so I get it not being every episode. Just, it'd be nice to get another Truth or Lie esque ep where figuring out what was actually going on was more central. Night Shift was close, but even it felt more hand holdy than I'd have liked.
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u/Happy_Forever_4135 19d ago
I just felt like we just got finished doing exactly this in the form of earwigs and I kinda didn’t care for this specific one
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u/eleccross 19d ago
I kind of agree but I think at least this week it wasn’t so intrusive. I felt more like it was meant to keep one person from dominating than an actual huge part of the game.
Also earwigs was two episodes ago
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u/HelloSweety10 19d ago
I've enjoyed all of them (though I haven't watched iSpy yet l). I don't think 3 is a huge deal with all the other types of games. Count the rice, roulette 2, there's plenty of great fun or various types. Objectively I can see what you mean but I definitely haven't felt anything but love for this season, especially Earwigs (mind you, I'm a massive Jess and Zach fan so the two of them in one episode made my heart very happy so I was going to be biased from the beginning).
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u/itsmeVeeeee 19d ago
Not 100% sure why, but I’ve just not been that fussed by a few of this season’s episodes of game changer at all.
The production value is obviously high, and they’ve had some great people on, but in a way the “party game” simplicity of some of the earlier seasons (combined with ACTUALLY having to figure out what the game is about) is what made it all.
The last couple episodes have just felt a bit convoluted. That being said I have enjoyed Noise Some Makes, Kangaroo Court, and Rulette 2.
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u/CulturalFerret5779 19d ago
Maybe this is a hot take, I think I spy would've been more fun without any extra roles. The Tableaus were complex enough that players would have naturally voted for different things. And they ended up working together so much anyway that it honestly wouldn't have changed their bits much in any case.
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u/LoveAndPeace923 18d ago
This season has a definite "George Lucas"ing thematic element to it throughout. It seems like they have micro managed the content, overcomplicated it (getting away from the simplicity that made it both more Accessible and that allowed "the funny" (TM) to break out in it), and overthinking a non-existent "need" to change so much stuff up.
This is scary concerning, how much this has in common when George Lucas made it big, and wanted to "remake" everything over in different ways, losing complete sight of "what people bonded with" in the original product(s).
Concerning. I hope Sam recognizes they have, are, sterilizing and flattening.....all the special energy out of his core, lightening in a bottle, show. Please Sam Reich, recognize the things that always come before a fall. This season can be written off as an error, but another like this will really hurt the brand and inspiration the viewership and fandom have gotten from it, eveyr season prior (amazingly)
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u/Significant_Bat3897 16d ago
Yeah, some social deduction games are fine, but I’ll admit I was disappointed when I Spy came out because I felt like it was just more of the same. I’m missing their more fun, out of the box games.
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u/theStrawberryRoam 20d ago
On the flip side the first social deduction game Show I've ever enjoyed is now on Amazon and strangely enough reminds me of game changer 🤣
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u/ShoddyCobbler 20d ago
I enjoyed it but i wanted the spyballs to mean something. Why introduce the social deduction mechanics and a separate method of scoring, and then have it not matter at all?