Countdown: DVD Game

Countdown DVD Game is a family game for up to four players / teams. The game comes in a large card box measuring 27cm x 27cm x 5cm looking like a traditional board game, inside are four Countdown pencils, a pad of plain paper with a Countdown front page, and a DVD in a keepcase.

There are two game modes on the DVD, Classic Countdown and the Conundrum game:

• Classic Countdown follows the same format as the television game, it has three sections:
  • Sections one and section two have four Letters Rounds followed by one Numbers Round.
  • Section Three has three Letters Rounds, followed by one Numbers Round and one Conundrum round.

In Classic Countdown mode the DVD keeps score for the players, totalling the lengths of the words found, how close the players were in the Numbers round etc and at the end it announces the winner.

• The Conundrum Game: Is a series of five conundrums at the end of which players are given their 'Conumdrum Rating - this is based on the number of correct solutions claimed and the speed with which they were solved.

The Letters Round: here players try to make the longest possible word from a random selection of letters. Nine random letters are drawn by Carol Vorderman. There's a pause giving the players time to copy the letters onto their notepad before it disappears from screen as the action cuts to presenter Des Lynam and the Countdown clock starts ticking away thirty seconds. When the time is up the players are each asked the number of letters in the longest word they could make. Des then gives the longest words that could have been made and it's onto the next round.

The Numbers Round: where the players are given a selection of numbers and have to use addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to devise a calculation that will match a randomly chosen target.

Once again Carol Vorderman is called into action, this time drawing six random numbers and running CECIL, the numbers machine, to generate a target. As before there's a pause giving players time to copy it all down before Des starts the timer.
When the timer expires the players are each asked how close to the target number their calculations got after which Carol Vorderman explains the best answer step by step.

The Conundrum Round: this round is introduced by Des. A nine letter word has been scrambled and its the player(s) job to unscramble it within thirty seconds, there's always just one possible solution to these challenges. In this game the player to shout out the answer and stop the clock, i.e. press the DVD controller button, wins the points.