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Treasure Ireland: The Game The idea for the Treasure Ireland game (Winning Streak) originated in the summer of 2000 and was far removed from what we see today on a Saturday night on RTE. The following piece gives an insight into what was involved behind the scenes in making of the new game for the popular long-running show. Originally, Treasure Ireland was a game that involved the contestant travelling in vehicles across Ireland collecting treasure through the ages, past, present and future. When the enormity of the project proposal eventually came to light, with the help of a number of brainstorming sessions in conjuction with Lendac and the National Lottery, it seemed a different solution had to be found. This came in the form of the main character "The Streak".
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| Having a main character in the show allowed us to devise a better, more structured format to the game. We eliminated the time periods and fixed on a modern day, positive portrayal of Ireland and incorporated locations that were easily identifiable. The main "helper" character allowed the contestant greater interactivity and introduced some fun along the way in their journey to spinning the big wheel. | |||
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Software Development & Systems Design The Software Development team consisted of four members who were responsible for programming and designing the systems to be used on air. The team had to animate the character "Streak" to move along random paths to the scenes and allow for his interactivity with other 3d objects (prizes). They also had to create and apply a small special effect to the back of Streak so that when he flew he would leave a trail or "streak" behind him.
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An essential requirement to "Treasure Ireland" was making sure that the real-time game was completely random and that there was no skill involved, i.e. if you travelled to the same location every week the same prizes should not appear. Locations were also not path specific so Streak had to be able to fly in from any direction. It was also vital that scene locations be rigourously tested by the programmers for any mistakes and checked for the correct frame rates. Aside from the real-time game element, the programmers had to also write code for 2d graphic overlays making sure that they appeared at the correct time and were displaying the right totals. Finally, the most important task the team had was to make sure that the game system is written so that it can be controlled by one operator from Lendac, and go out live on air every Saturday night from the studios at RTE.
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Credits: 3d
Models & Graphic Design Software
Development & Systems Design System
Operation
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