Countdown

Countdown is a video game in the puzzle genre and published by Macsen Software originally released in 1985. It is currently playable on Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, BBC Micro.

Countdown is a Channel 4 television program that has continued into the 2010s, despite the death of original presenter Richard Whiteley in 2005. It is a word and number game show, and the original format of 6 letter games, 2 number games and a riddle, is recreated here. There is no computer opponent, so two people are needed.

In the letter round, a selection of 9 letters is formed by alternately choosing a vowel or a consonant, and players have 30 seconds to find the longest word available. The letter combinations generated are not always realistic with the program. As in computer Scrabble, the entire dictionary is not stored in memory, so the game will ask if the words entered are real. The longest word scores its length, with 18 points for a 9-letter word - both players score for words of equal length.

The numbers game also lasts 30 seconds and involves choosing 6 numbers from a set that includes 25, 50, 75 and 100, as well as 2 from 1 to 10. You choose how many large numbers you want, and the set is chosen randomly. A three-digit target is randomly generated, and you have 30 seconds to add, subtract, multiply and divide to get as close as possible.

The riddle ends the show: it's a 9-letter anagram, which the first player to solve buzzes to give his answer, scoring 10 points if it's correct.

It is possible that we have multiple downloads available when different versions exist.