This page is for people moving up to the Game Show Presenter PLUS Edition from the Presentation Edition.

If you need to download the Game Show PLUS Edition for either Windows or Macintosh OSX, click here.

What's Different in the PLUS? | Click here for How To Advice

•  New name and icon. The program name is Game Show PLUS.exe. The new icon is shown at left. When you install the PLUS edition, it should leave your old version as it was. So clicking the old version icon will start the old version.
• Quizzes and settings are saved in external files. That's new because the Presentation Edition (PE) kept them in an internal database. The new way saves your settings, such as the show name, within each quiz file you create. You can have an unlimited number of quiz files.
• Choose the quiz show format. When you create a new round, you can choose whether it is a category-style game or a classic quiz show. We'll be adding more options, too. The old version just had one format, the classic quiz show.
• Buzz-In Mode is Standard. Since the PLUS has more competitive quiz show formats, buzz-in competition is now on all the time. (In the old version, players could take turns answering questions instead of buzzing in.) With the PLUS, you do not have to have physical buzzers to use the buzz-in feature, although they add a lot to your game show atmosphere. (Here is a list of buzzer vendors). To operate buzz-in without buzzers is also easy -- you just use the keyboard number keys. Player 1's buzzer is the 1 key, player 2's is the 2 key, etc. If you have a tenth player, that's the 0 key. Normally, you would have players signal you in some way and you would press those keys to buzz them in. When you do, that player's name appears on screen and a countdown clock begins to motivate them to answer fast. There are many options for buzzers in the Quiz Editor's main screen so you can fine tune this. Just click the buzzer icon button to open the control window.
  If you are new to buzz-in mode, here are some important tips:
  1. If nobody buzzes in, you can pass the question with the ENTER key or SPACEBAR key.
  2. There's an option (see the buzzer icon in Quiz Editor) to let players buzz in after a wrong answer with additional guesses. There's a further option to have the points reduced by half after each wrong guess.
  3. The Software Manual has great explanations for the buzzer features.
• Up to 12 rounds. The PLUS can have from 1 to 12 rounds of play in a quiz show. Each round can have a different number of questions. Each round can have a unique title screen. And you can change the quiz show format between rounds! All this means you can create game show presentations that are full of variety and surprise. The older version was limited to 3 rounds and the software controlled the distribution of the questions in the rounds. In the PLUS, you have complete control over which questions are used in each round.
• All new Quiz Editor. The PLUS Quiz Editor opens to a main screen where you can choose settings and preferences for the game show file. (The old version kept most of those settings under a PREFERENCES menu.) To write questions, you choose a round (or create a new one), and the program stores the questions you write in that round. (The old version lumped all your questions together and used an easy-medium-hard rating system to sort questions into 3 rounds.) The PLUS gives you full control.
• Pictures and Sounds in Questions. You have the option to add JPEG pictures or MP3 or WAV sound files to questions. (Earlier versions were only text questions.) Larger pictures appear scaled down, but you can enlarge them during the game show with one click and with a second click, shrink it back in line with the text.
• Preview Questions in Editor. You can preview how questions will appear as you write them with the new PREVIEW button. You can also do previews of entire rounds, so if you are writing a game with 5 rounds, you can jump straight to round 5 for a preview. (In the earlier version, there was no preview.)
• Flexible Question Display. During the game show, the PLUS edition displays each question at its ideal size for maximum legibility. This easily accommodates questions with lots of text without overlaps. (Earlier versions were limited in the text length.)
• Add Follow-up Info Screen. After a question has been answered, an optional screen of follow-up information can appear if you wrote this screen in the Quiz Editor. (Earlier versions had no extra info.) The program pauses on the follow-up screen until you click to move on, so you can have as much discussion as you like.
• New Themes. There are three new music themes and one additional visual theme (Boot camp) to help you add variety.
• Import from Excel. The PLUS has a flexible import tool. You can import quiz data into your quiz file from an Excel 2003 file or from a tab delimited text file. (The older version was limited to text import and lacked flexibility about the format.)
• Help Learning the Program. The PLUS has an all-new Software Manual with many screen images , explanations and a complete index.

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How to Move a Quiz from the Old Version

For Windows users, this is a two-step process:

1. Save a Copy of the old quiz. Here's how: Start the old Presentation Edition, go to the Quiz Editor, choose the quiz you want to move, go to the QUIZ menu and choose SAVE A COPY*. (TIP: Choose an easy to find location for the file save).
2. Open the file in the PLUS. Start Game Show PLUS.exe. Click the Quiz Editor and choose to OPEN a file, then select the file created in step 1. The PLUS will recognize the file needs updating and ask you to give the new file a name, so name it. (This file will be the final quiz file -- the one created in step 1 was just for temporary use.) Next, the PLUS will offer to import your quiz into the new file. Follow the onscreen instructions and the rest is easy.

* NOTES: The SAVE A COPY command was named TRANSFER SHOW in early versions of the Presentation Edition. Very early versions may not have this feature at all, contact us.

For Mac OSX users, here are the steps:

1. Export your selected quiz Here's how: Start the old Presentation Edition, go to the Quiz Editor, choose the quiz you want to move, and click the blue EXPORT button and create an export file.
2. Import into Game Show PLUS Edition. Start Game Show PLUS for Mac. Click the Quiz Editor and choose to create a new file. Add at least 1 round to the new quiz show file. Then select IMPORT from Quiz menu. Select the file created in step 1. As you complete the import process. There are more detailed instructions on this in the PLUS Software Manual under the Mac help tips section.

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How to Make a New Game Show.

1. Start the program and create a new file. Start Game Show PLUS.exe. Click the Quiz Editor button and choose to New File from the window that appears. Give the new file a name. (TIP: Save it somewhere easy to find.)
2. New Show Wizard will offer to create rounds. Choose the number of rounds for your show. (You can add more later with the New Rounds button, if you wish.) The Wizard will create the rounds and let you choose what quiz show format you want for each one (and an optional name if you want to name each round).
3. Write your quiz questions. To do that, open a round by clicking on it in the list of rounds. This will open the empty round so you can write questions and choose settings for that round. To write a new question, click on the large gray area on the right side of the screen and choose New Question from the drop down menu.

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