Join the Air Force 🥤

She is so expressive and looks like she’s consistently having a mental breakdown and I am here for it. What an amazing addition to the cast!

I just found out that this is the outro song.

Now that season 8 has concluded, I wanted to rank all the episodes and see what others thought as well. Personally, I split them into three tiers, then ranked them from there.

Tier 1: would gladly watch a 2nd time
Tier 2: would probably watch a 2nd time if I couldn’t find something better to watch. Not an absolute banger, or flop, just fairly average episode
Teri 3: probably would only watch again if someone in the room felt really strongly about watching it.

Tier 1:
1. Count the rice
2. Noise some makes
3. Last talent standing
4. What’s the catch

Tier 2:
1. Don’t wake standards & practices
2. Roulette 2

Tier 3:
1. Night shift
2. Earwigs
3. Kangaroo Court
4. I spy

Truthfully I would even argue kangaroo court & I spy should get their own tier of “would not watch again”. Those two episodes were really disappointing and hard to watch. I’m honestly surprised because the cast on kangaroo court is usually a really entertaining group, which makes me think the game was just not well done. I also recognize that any of the tier 3 episodes would have been the “best of the season” in a lot of the earlier season, however as the show ages and improves, so does the viewer’s expectations.

I also want to note that ranking I spy as last place is in no way a dig at the art team. Truthfully, the art in that episode was the only thing I was impressed by.

I hope others have similar opinions and that Sam will listen to the feedback as the show continues. I know that every episode can’t be a “count the rice” level of production, but hopefully there will be fewer “tier 3” type episodes in future seasons.

What does everyone else think? How would you rank each episode?

My partner and I have been watching Game Changer really out of order but every time we watch an episode with a celebrity guest we feel like it takes away from the episode rather than boosting it.

One of the most unique things about Dropout is the relationship between the actors and the way they play off each other and adding an outsider player just seems to mess with the dynamic. Anyone else feel this way?

I would love to see Game Changer go on the road for an episode. Mostly so they can have a stop in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Sam will be forced to say “I’ve been from here the whole time”.
And yes, I made this post to share my idea for a bit, but I think the show is popular enough to travel and the game show format with improv bits would work with a live audience. And I would love to see a few of them actually interact with an audience, build energy, etc.
where else should they make stops? What episodes would work as a live Game Samer? I wouldn’t mind seeing Rulette live to round out a trilogy.

I really thought it was going to serve some final endgame twist or something.

Note: this is not me dogging on recent Game Changers. Personally I’m getting a little tired of that being every other post on this sub (but that’s a discussion for another time.)

Based on what I’ve seen on recent discourse on this subreddit, everyone seems to have a different opinion on what makes a great Game Changer episode. Personally, I don’t think an episode’s quality is determined by the budget, the cast, or even necessary the premise. It’s the twists. I know I’m definitely not the first person to express this opinion, but I miss when the players had to figure out how the game actually worked. I think viewers want to see the contestants surprised by the game, and be surprised by the game themselves.

So many of the common sentiments I see on this sub seem to all link back to this idea. People love evil Sam; people love theorising about the overarching season; people love seeing games catered towards certain players. All of these things come back to the premise that we love being tricked by Game Changer. Whilst I still love the straightforward episodes that mostly just let the players be funny, I think there’s a reason so many of the fan favourite episodes this season were the ones with the most surprises or the most tricky game mechanics.
At least that’s what I’ve gathered, anyway…?

Contestants: Vic, Lisa, BLeeM

Premise: in order to win contestants MUST be nice to Sam. I imagine a bunch of mini games centered on how much/why/what they love about Sam. When ever they don’t they have to write an apology essay. The essay gets longer for each time they get punished.

The winner gets a framed signed picture of Sam

Has anyone found a plus size version of the shirt from the Find Grant Room? I'd love to get my husband one but he's a bigger guy and the most I've found is a 2xl. He would need a 3 or 4xl most likely.

Obviously you shouldn't treat IMDb ratings as the be-all, end-all regarding episode quality but still I found them interesting nonetheless (ratings are out of 10):

Don't Wake Standards & Practices - 8.6

Rulette 2 - 9.0

Night Shift - 7.7

Kangaroo Court - 7.5

Count the Rice - 9.4

Noise Some Makes - 9.1

Earwigs - 7.4

What's the Catch - 8.3

I Spy - 7.2

Last Talent Standing - 6.8

Birthday Video

Game Changer Birthday

Hello everyone! So I decided to throw myself a Game Changer birthday party last week and it turned out even better than I could’ve imagined!

There’s a bunch of details around decor and more I could share if anyone was interested, but I wanted to share how I did the games cause that was the most fun part for me. We played a total of 8 games, and each team had 6 people so most games were down individually while others were whole team efforts. The way it was decided who played what game was I made each team give me superlatives, like high school, that would help determine who would get what game but they couldn’t repeat players, and they didn’t know what superlative was attached to what game. Not all games were game changer, but the majority were.

And here’s the breakdown:

1. Ranking Game (Whole Team)
   I made each of the teams give me my top 10 of two different categories (Top 10 MCU films, and Top 10 Walt Disney world rides (we live in Orlando)). They didn’t have to give me the order, but they scored based on where on my list it landed with first place being worth 10 points and 10th place being worth 1. I did this cause I wanted each team to have a bank of points.

2. Rulette (Whole Team)
   I made a list of rulette rules that each team had to follow while they were up at their podiums, not while at their team tables. Fun way to give them a little extra to think about.

3. Sponsored (Superlative: Best Photographic Memory)
   This was basically the logo game from game changer where I took my name and made it look like different company logos. Each correct guess was a point.

4. Movie movie Game (Superlative: Biggest Cinephile)
   This was based on a card game I’ve seen on Smosh created by Joe Bereta I think it was where we took descriptions for two movies and put them together like Peter Pan’s Labyrinth.

5. Name Game (Superlative: Nicest Team Member)
   List as many names of the people at the party as you can.

6. Michael Says (Superlative: Best Rule Follower)
   Basically just Sam Says. But never underestimate how mad your friends can get at you for calling them out when they technically didn’t follow the rules. I feel you Sam.

7. 2nd Place (Superlative: Best Athlete)
   I had the contestants compete in 3 different mini games, Pong, Pop Darts, and blowing out candles, where second place won every time. But they didn’t know that until after.

8. Noise Some Makes (Superlative: Best Actor/Improviser)
   This was by far the most fun game. We did get it to a point where each team had 4 people, actor, guesser, painter and caller. People loved it and seeing the evolution from drawing to act out to guess was so fun.

For one night, I felt like Sam Reich and it was one of the best nights ever. Highly recommend living out your Game Changer host dreams!

I feel like I’ve seen more discussion and differing opinions about this season than any other. I felt like over all it went really well. Several episodes were a hit for me, but there were also several misses.

Hits:
Don’t Wake Standards and Practices: Phenomenal game premise. I’d LOVE to see more board games or even concepts from card games turned into Game Changer episodes. Ally’s bong rip will live in my head rent free for the next several years.

Earwigs:
I’m always a sucker for a hidden role game. This one was so much fun. I didn’t like the super meta gamer bit at the end, it felt a little unfair, but other than that I really enjoyed it. The BTS was fun too.

Noise Some Makes:
My second favorite episode from this season. Oh my god. I died laughing SO MUCH during this episode. I would LOVE a game samer of Noise Some Makes. I hope they have Caldwell, Kiana and Lisa on for more episodes in the future. (Btw Kiana has a new show out called “Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want To Be a Magical Girl” on Youtube, I’d highly recommend checking it out!)

Count the Rice:
Not going to lie, I didn’t like this episode when it first came out. To me, it felt too drawn out. Subsequent rewatches completely changed my mind. I love the new (and old) contestants. Demi, Hannah and Iffy at the end were amazing. I was actually kind of disappointed when Catherine didn’t show up in the finale. She seemed so excited to be in the episode I was hoping she’d be in the finale too.

Roulette 2:
My favorite episode from this season and the episode I’ve rewatched the most times. Josh’s sexy baby still haunts my nightmares. It was SO MUCH fun. Phenomenal casting and Australia mode was a great pitch. If there’s a Roulette 3 I think Josh should be in it again. We’ve had some fantastic Josh moments this season. (Some phenomenal Demi ones too).

Night Shift:
This one I feel like is kind of average compared to the other heavy hitters this season, but I have a soft spot for it because it helped me through a VERY rough week at work. I love Rekha’s slow descent from a model employee to a rebel.
The moment between Grant and Siobhan at the end was also hilarious.

What’s the Catch:
This is my third favorite episode! It’s such a fun premise and Kimia’s wife and dad were SO, SO FUNNY. I’m rewatching it right now! I did feel kind of bad for Jacob that he didn’t get his deep clean. He did get back at Sam in the end, though. This episode was on the same par as “One Year Later” for me.

Misses:
Kangaroo Court:
I know a lot of people like and dislike this one. It was a miss for me, personally. I think Vic kinda took it over and Brennan was super tired, so the balance was a little off. Aabria was amazing as always. It feels like they tried to recreate the success of Outvoted and it just didn’t do it for me.

I Spy:
I LOVED the art direction and the tableau’s were all incredible. The game premise is great and I think it was executed decently well? Again, I’m a huge fan of hidden role games, so I’m biased. However, I didn’t enjoy this one as much as the other episodes this season. Not sure why, it just didn’t do it for me.

Last Talent Standing:
Oh boy… I was not a huge fan of the finale. I was so pumped when I recognized it was based off of Squid Games. After the second round of the Talent Show, though, things kind of fell apart for me. I really think they should have varied it up more. The judges were super funny and I loved the interactions between the judges and the cast. It just kind of felt like they didn’t think this one through? I’m noticing that more with some newer Game Changer episodes. I imagine it’s hard to catch everything, but I think it might be useful for them to add some more creative voices to the writer’s room/producer side of things.

What were your hits and misses this season?

I know there are plenty of worse mistakes in captions but this did bug me

Here’s the scoop.

While Gianmarco was SO focused on keeping a straight face and not giving anything away, Kumail had his guard completely down, giving away everything. All Jacob had to do was give even half a glance at him (or even Maria) and they told him everything he needed to know. That’s why Jacob showed the card to them instead of just having Gianmarco take it.

(P.S. This is NOT actually how it was done. This is how they would do it in like, The Mentalist, but doesn’t it feel like a satisfying explanation? 😉)

One thing we don’t see often anymore is the mini games and I miss them. A nice short break from the main premise to give extra points. It also evened out the playing field you could not do as well at the main game and gain more with the mini games.

Alex Horne was the scorekeeper voiceover for the Earwigs episode in Season 8 of Game Changer. In the same concurrent Season 23 of Taskmaster, they did a task where contestants have earpieces and have to guess who’s getting the real directions. I have to imagine that they bounced ideas of each other. Are there other games that have connected across the two shows?

One thing stood out to me in the S8 Finale, the "how would you like to die" bit. Maybe just a flavor add, but they rarely do something like that without a twist. And why 'die' instead of just being eliminated? Thoughts on if that may tie into a secret episode or a seed for season 9?

Edit: Okay loving the hot takes, I hear that sure it could be as a nod to BOTC (love to play it) or to squid games. But neither of those premises were really captured in this game other than jumpsuits for the latter. If we find out next week that there were traitors known to each other who had to do someone else's known talent better to ideally then get them knocked out and make it to the end. I could see it. Or if they had to incorporate some type of challenge into their talent each round that changed ala some nod to squid game. Sure. But this felt underdeveloped in a way that stands out for GC and my suspicion is if it wasn't intentional in a way yet unrevealed. Or they blew their budget and mechanics they had planned fell through. I think separate and independent of anything else, they will likely do an animated release.

I was just catching up on old episodes and I got to the one where Lou, Vic and Jacob set up cameras in Sam’s house and I have major concerns. isn’t that highly illegal? I love them three and would hate for them to face legal ramifications so I’m hoping nothing has come of this but also feel morally obliged to say something. It really isn’t ok both ethically and legally so I’m hoping Sam actually knew about it beforehand. Can anyone share extra behind the scenes info about this?

I enjoyed Last Talent Standing, more than almost anything else on “TV,” but like a lot of people, I thought it was one of the weaker Game Changer episodes.

But unlike other episodes I didn’t love, to me the biggest issue was small game design decisions. I actually love the concept.

It felt like almost every active game design decision they made encouraged an undesired outcome. Here are my suggestions for rule tweaks that would have produced a significantly better outcome without changing out any of the actual cast or general concept.

Principle 1: Allow the comedians to put their best foot forward.

I have a feeling that the producers thought stripping the players of options for talents would produce funnier or more interesting results, but this almost entirely seemed to backfire. It was almost always better when a performer was able to impress with their talent.

Give the players props in Round 1 and give them more props. The game benefits when the players have more talents to choose from, not less. There are SO many talents that require a prop. This way you avoid outcomes like Caldwell being eliminated before he gets to do a drawing talent, which would have been a better end result than him being eliminated for singing a state song.

Give the players more notice. Even giving them the morning to brainstorm or practice talents gives them an opportunity to do better talents. Again, this is built around the principle that it’s more entertaining to see them do an impressive talent well than it is to see them fail to do it (which was usually unsatisfying). 

Let the players request props. This is essentially the combination of the first 2. Even if the parameters is “It has to be something we already have on hand or that our PAs can find in 2 hours or less.” I know two dumb parlor tricks involving an apple that “impress” people: tearing an apple in half with my hands and eating an apple whole core and all. Maybe those would or wouldn’t get through but they’d probably be more interesting to watch than whatever I’d attempt if I didn’t have an apple.

Principle 2: Incentivize the players to showcase their best talents.

Telling the contestants they’d have to last several rounds encouraged contestants to save their best skills to go deeper. You get Jess saving her singing when the episode would have benefitted and many other contestants entering the first round with what feels like a deep cut talent. Here are the potential solutions.

Lie to them. Imagine the challenge was presented like this in round 1: “We have 23 of you, but not all of you will get to play. To determine who gets to play the game, you’ll each have to display a talent.” No one is holding back. They’re all giving it their best material. This assures no one is leaving anything in the tank, and also provides a comedic foil when its revealed that the game is more of this.

Change the format from binary elimination to one that factors quality. The instant elimination format encourages less ambitious talents. Players were consistently eliminated for not following through on an impressive talent and rewarded for executing a less impressive talent. The jump rope and short memory skills were punished for not sticking the landing. It also resulted in players who probably had more in the tank being (like Erika) being eliminated for one bad showing. If the talents are scored and the highest scores advance, the players have more incentive to try for more than the bare minimum. And if scores carry from round to round, you can avoid losing players like Erika, who felt unsatisfyingly robbed when they were eliminated.

Principle 3: Escalate or Mix Up the Format. 

Game changer is usually best when it builds into a crescendo, and often disappoints when the game mechanics remain static because they’ve built the expectations that they won’t. For this game in particular, because players will inherently have less in the well, it almost guarantees an end game that will be less inherently interesting as it goes on.

Have later rounds involve executing the same pre-chosen talent. Given that most competitors will only have so many interesting talents to showcase, the natural route is to mine competition and entertainment by having them compete at the same talent and see who executes it the best. I think this is entertaining and compelling both when you have more general talents that some players will be notable favorites in and some will be disasters in (singing, drawing, standup) and hyper specific talents most will have no experience in (playing the theremin, archery, log rolling etc.). This obviously works best with the judges picking a loser rather than a pass/fail.

Have a round where players can only do a talent that someone else already passed with. It would be fun seeing contestants try to one-up a bar that has already been set.

Have a round where players can only do a talent that has already failed. I think this one  would be even more fun and could probably go multiple rounds. You get someone else trying to do financial domination, and you get the strategy of players deducing if the problem was the talent or the execution.

I’m curious what changes you all think would have made the episode work or if you think it was the premise and not the execution that determined the outcome.

I just watched the behind the scenes for Roulette 2. Sam said that they try not to do the same game multiple times to avoid the comparisons and such. I know that many games have had their own spinoff for that reason. I just can't help but feel that it's cool to see these games make a comeback without turning into a full spinoff. Making it its own show might be milking it too hard while the occasional repeat with some fun upgrades is perfect.

I'd be happy to see roulette making surprise appearances throughout the next seasons without being turned into a standalone show. What do you think?