Gameshow Further Reading

Other websites, podcasts and fan works you might want to check out.

So! You’ve fallen headfirst into an obsession with gameshows and want to know more, but you have no idea where to start. Don’t worry, I’ve been there. Here are my fonts of gameshow wisdom for beginners so you don’t have to spend half a decade trawling through the internet.

YouTube: Reviews, Retrospective and Commentary

• Quickly plugging my old teenage channel, Adventure Gameshow Geek, for reviews, theories and thematic deep dives
• Julies WIDM does great De Mol and Wie is De Mol theory videos.
• Tom Fortey has done really funny retrospectives on Raven, Bamzooki, Trapped!, 50/50 and Robot Wars
• George Browning has done similar retrospectives with Raven, Trapped!, Jungle Run and Bamzooki

Websites

• UK Gameshows literally has nearly everything you need to know + Weaver’s Week which is an excellent gameshow review column.
• Bothers Bar has a lot of upcoming gameshow news and great commentary.
• Knightmare.com has everything you want to know about Knightmare and other Broadsword productions.
• Interactive Knightmare has even more information
• The Crystal Maze Database (OG) has all the information about the original series.
• The Crystal Maze Database (New) has all the information about the reboot.
• Interceptor’s Lair has more information about Interceptor then you’ll ever want to know.

It’s always worth checking Wikipedia, fandom wiki and the BBC press office/media centre as Wikipedia will likely have an article about it, fandom will have a whole wiki and the media centre may even have interviews with the creators and presenters.

And remember, the Internet Archive and the Wayback Machine are your friend, especially if you want to look at webpages of gameshows that have since been deleted.

Podcasts

• Temporal Discussion: The Knightmare Retrospective Podcast is beyond brilliant. It is an episode by episode review of the series with lots of interviews and behind the scenes knowledge. It is also my favourite podcast of all time.
• Professional Contestants is a podcast where three guys try and create winning strategies for every gameshow in existence, often dissolving into madness. They tend to focus mainly on American shows, which isn’t so much my jam, but they have done episodes on shows like Legends of the Hidden Temple, Jedi Temple Challenge, Splatalot, Floor is Lava, Only Connect, Terror Towers, Takeshi’s Castle and Raven.
  They were also the ones to introduce me to the wonderous marvel that is Where in The World/Time is Carmen Sandiego.
• Queers Gone By is a media retrospective podcast, and among their library include Raven, Trapped! and Jungle Run.
• Two Geeks Two Beers is much of the same whose gameshow episodes include Knightmare and Gamesmaster. It also has some great non-gameshow episodes.
• Jack’s Throwback Attack has interviews with David G. Croft (behind the scenes on The Crystal Maze), Richard O’Brien (hosted The Crystal Maze), James Mackenzie (hosted Raven) and Michael Underwood (hosted Jungle Run and appeared on the Crystal Maze)
• The Olden Days is a YouTube podcast with episodes covering Knightmare, Incredible Games, The Crystal Maze, Fort Boyard and TimeBUSters
• Reality Room Podcast is another YouTube podcast which is more reality TV than gameshows but did excellent recaps for the first 7 episodes of The Quest with contestant interviews.

Forums

• Knightmare.com has a forum
• The Raven Forum is a proboards forum so you’ll need an account to even access it.

Both of these forums are where the communities for these shows hang out.
(If you’re curious, I’m DragonsBeHere on the former and HereBeDragons on the latter).

Fanzines

• The Eyeshield is a Knightmare fanzine and issues can be found on Knightmare.com
• The Raven’s Eye is a Raven fanzine inspired by The Eyeshield. Note: an adblocker is recommended
• I can't remember how I managed to find The Questbook, but contains a lot of info about the OG series of The Quest

Fan Recreations, Own Series and Tributes

• Minecraft Raven especially the last series, may just be the best thing you’ll ever watch. Seriously, it is SO good.
• The Knightmare Audio Series are audio dramas that are scripted but mimic the actual gameplay of the show.
• Bricking It’s Lego Knightmare episode are also scripted but mimic gameplay.
• The Raven re-creation series are actual tournaments.
• Bad Dreem is an incredibly funny Knightmare re-creation/spoof
• The Raven series 12 rescore project which is just Raven series 12 but with the classic series music and some editing to make it look like the classic series
• Minecraft Jungle Run
• Stop=Motion Raven

Fan Fiction

While for fan fiction I’d normally point you towards AO3, in the case of older and more niche topics like gameshows, Fanfiction.net is your friend. Also, most of the fics are very OC driven so if you don’t like that, you’re probably not going to find much gameshow fanfiction you like at all. Here are some of my favourite gameshow fan fics.

• Oddment’s and Tweaks’ Mission: 2110 Trilogy: Mission Upgrade, Archive Run and Battle Rites. Battle Rites is unfortunately incomplete. Set during and after series 1 episode 13, but an AU where a member of the human resistance outside FutureGate manages to reach Caleb. It expands a lot on the world building and tightens up some plot holes and unanswered questions.
• Hunter’s Crescent Moon’s Mission: 2110 Trilogy: A New Recruit,Back to The Future and The Call Of Destiny. The Call of Destiny is also unfortunately incomplete. A New Recruit covers what it must have been like for the people in 2010 when the recruits went missing, and follows a future where all the recruits fail to stop Neuros, leading to the need for one last recruit. Parts Two and Three expand greatly on the world building but are also extremely angsty.
• Emii’s Knightmare fics: Kully and Battle of Twinn. There's lots of great Knightmare fanfic out there, but I enjoyed these two particularly.
• SmallInsect’s Raven fic: All Eternity to Figure It Out. A bit of an epilogue to Raven: The Dragon’s Eye.
• Oddments and Tweaks’ Raven fic: The Warrior’s Path. Based on Raven as it was in series 1. I swear this fic had a formative impact on me.
• TheShapeShifter100’s Raven fic Wolf and Raven, it’s sequel Old Friends and the Shorts. Featuring Reboot Raven, it is one of my favourite fanfics ever.

Other Cool Things

• This case study article about CBBC gameshows
• The Anorak Zone's rankings of the episodes of each series of The Adventure Game
• Numa Numa Nevar is just a silly little piece of editing I find quite funny.
• The Crystal Maze Rave is a very cool song with some brilliant audio editing.
• Urban Exploration videos of the previously-abandoned-now-destroyed Splatalot set are fun to watch, and this is one of my favourites.
• This Interview with James Mackenzie (Raven) done by Totally Excellent Visions
• And This interview with James Mackenzie done for the Raven Forum. Honestly, there are a lot of interviews with James Mackenzie out there.
• This review of The Satellite Game
• This retrospective of Interceptor
• This video about some really weird and obscure kids gameshows, the ones even I don't really talk about
• This fun little video comparing American and British kids gameshows (and how British ones are better)
• This myth-busting video about the winners of Takeshi’s Castle

There you are! I'll add to this as I find more stuff - and, hopefully, as more stuff is created. I hope you enjoy this journey of discovery, and remember: No matter how weird you think you are, you aren't alone.

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