Hugo (game show)

Hugo, created by Danish company SilverRock Productions, later known as ITE since 1992, was originally made for Nordisk Film. It was first aired on the Danish television channel TV2 as part of the program Eleva2ren in September 1990, following the earlier success of the company's previous game, OsWALD. The show featured a video game that was remotely played by a contestant via telephone connection. A player randomly chosen from among the callers would be tasked with controlling the titular cartoon character on the TV screen by pressing digit keys on the phone (either 1, 2, 3 or 2, 4, 6) which represented different character actions or storyline options; an optional easy mode would be turned on to show on the screen the button that needs to be pressed. It was initially targeted for the children audience between the ages of 4-14. Target age was alternatively presented as 2-12 and varied depending on the country in licensed content, such as 6–16 in Portugal and 6–14 in Vietnam, with some family (group play) or even adult editions. The original show Skærmtrolden Hugo ("Hugo the Screen Troll") proved to be an instant hit, achieving high average TV ratings of 42%, and aired continuously on TV2 for five years. Since then, Hugo has been licensed to more than 40 (43 as of 2007) TV shows around the world, beginning with the Spanish and French versions in 1992. Its worldwide success also inspired several other similar shows during the 1990s, such as Games World (UK/Germany 1993-1998), Pizza Rollo (France 1994-1995), Joe Razz (Sweden 1994), Game Over (Finland 1994-1997), Galilei the Dog (Finland 1996-1997), Maxihra (Slovakia 1997-2000), and ITE's own Throut and Neck (Denmark/Brazil 1997-1999). Story, gameplay, and rules The show's first season, which ran on Danish television for a year, featured only the titular cartoonish character placed in a computer-animated world. The protagonist, Hugo, was a friendly and small, yet brave and resourceful, cheerful Scandinavian troll of 220 years (still a young age for a troll), who would navigate a maze in a dangerous old goldmine in a quest for hidden treasure, his movements controlled by the player through a press-button telephone. adding Hugo's 215-year-old beloved wife Hugolina (Hugoline) and their three kids: Rit (TrolleRit), Rat (TrolleRat), and Rut (TrolleRut, Ruth in some countries), who were aged between 20 (toddler) and 50 (little child). Also added was Hugo's archenemy, the beautiful but hateful and cruel witch that would become internationally best known as Scylla (or alternatively Sculla) but originally was named Afskylia in Denmark (with several alternative names in foreign-language editions, such as Hexana in German, Maldicia in Spanish, Maldiva in Portuguese, Maldícia in Brazilian, Mordana in Croatian, Bosnian and Slovenian, Skylla in Swedish, Tarastella in Finnish, Cadı Sila in Turkish, and Simla in Vietnamese). In the story, Scylla the witch, a terrible menace of the realm of Trollwood (in which she had been trapped by a wizard long ago The subsequent editions gradually expanded on this concept to involve more characters of good (Hugo's friends) and evil (Scylla's minions) talking and humanoid or regular animals. Scylla remained the only (not counting the original scenario's old miner) in-game human character to be met within the game's fantastic take on modern Denmark, but many human characters were later featured in the 2000s Agent Hugo reboot game series set in an alternative hi-tech world. , showcasing the 1991 TV format, along with its video game adaptation playable with a phone controller The globally familiar standard content of subsequent Hugo programs and their basic rules have been established in 1991 by the vastly expanded second season of the original Danish show. It now featured Hugo's dangerous journeys in search of his family, kidnapped by the evil Scylla and held captive by her within one of the witch's several skull-themed lairs. The contest's objective became guiding the on-screen Hugo through one of the given game scenarios (the choice between them could be left for the player to decide albeit more repetitive but less scripted, quick time events requiring the caller to press the correct button in time. The game over state could be also triggered by running out of time (usually represented by either some sort of a deadly peril constantly chasing Hugo, such as an avalanche or a flood, or by his remaining amount of fuel or oxygen) or by entering an incorrect password-like puzzle sequence at the end of some levels (the latter required the players to first discover and memorize the solution, presented in the form of a particular set of three symbols randomised for each session, and then to enter it correctly). Failing in any of such cases would make the game end instantly, no matter how many lives have remained in reserve. Several scenarios further required the player to use a map of the level (with the time countdown continuing while checking it) as Hugo would have to keep choosing correctly between alternating paths, where choosing wrong would have Hugo eventually reach a dead end. While advancing towards the witch's hideout, the players were given an opportunity to collect the scattered treasure (initially mostly bars and bags of gold) to increase their game scores. Usually, several people would participate as players during the typical half an hour of airtime. The game could sometimes become much more difficult to play due to input lag problems. Over the next years, not only various new scenarios but also alternative end scenes have been added to the show (and consequently also to its video-game adaptation series). One of them was no longer chance-based and involved Hugo having to steal the key to Scylla's treasure chamber while avoiding her lightning bolt spells. A new program format titled Hugo: Jungle Island) premiered in Denmark in January 1999, replacing the content of all the Hugo programs from that point (usually still as Hugo, with the subtitle Jungle Island limited to its video game adaptations). Its set changed from the familiar magical woods of northern Europe to a remote and exotic island somewhere along the coast of Peru, where Scylla has moved after once again abducting Hugo's family and built a new home for herself on the top of a volcano located in the center of the island. The various ways leading there were not only full of traps, too, but now also populated by pirates loyal to the witch and infested with stupid and mean monkeys that she sends after Hugo. It featured all-different main scenarios and end scenes, with diamonds replacing gold as score items, as well as introducing several new major characters such as Scylla's devoted chief henchman Don Croco and Hugo's local talking-animal helpers and guides Fernando and Jean Paul. As before, the game ended with the chance-based final confrontation with Scylla, featured in two different versions (choosing the correct magic elixir or pulling the correct lever), but with both of them this time having only two possible outcomes: Hugo would either fail entirely or he would sneakily free his family and capture the witch, with no middle result. One particular Jungle Island scenario, set inside Scylla's weird magic mirror world from the 2002 video game Hugo: The Evil Mirror, was aired in some select countries such as Poland. Production Hugo was created by the ITE founder Ivan Sølvason, who commissioned Esben Kragh Hansen to design a new game idea. Sølvason worked with animator Niels Krogh Mortensen and programmer Esben Kragh Hansen for Eleva2ren to replace their earlier game show OsWALD. The troll's character was originally portrayed by Michael Brockdorf, who developed the voice while serving in the Danish Army. Several others have since taken over the role of voicing the character, including Amin Jensen and Torben Simonsen. Hugolina was originally voiced by Louise Engell, sister of Thomas Engell who composed the show's symphonic music and its 18-bit sound effects. Their mother, Winnie Engell, was the original voice of the antagonist Scylla, whose visual design was modeled after Hugo producer Sølvason's aunt Vivi Feltman. The game's early pixel graphics were created by Mortensen, assisted by his brother Lars, using Deluxe Paint. The expanding company would keep developing the show's gameplay and basic assets, as well as computer hardware to run it on, for more than a decade. The rest of the content for each of the licensed programs, however, were produced locally by various companies in their countries, tailored by them for local audiences. Because Hugo and other characters spoke Danish only in Denmark, foreign viewers often believed their localised programs to be local inventions. Technology For Hugo and its related television program projects, ITE made the custom-built computer system named ITE 3000. It was able to convert any push-button telephone's dual-tone multi-frequency signaling (DTMF) into control commands for the characters in the game, allowing the callers to remotely interact with the action on TV from their homes during the live broadcast. This complex and difficult to use system was based on two Amiga 3000 computers combined with a new audio control system, MIDI sampler, and other hardware, all of which reportedly cost $75,000. The ITE 3000 was later replaced by the PC-based ITE 4000, which used a real-time motion capture Animation Mask System (AMS). The new system was invented by Bjarne Sølvason (father of Ivan) and could transfer an actor's body, head, eye movements, and facial expressions to Hugo's character on screen. The actor providing the voice of Hugo wore a helmet containing sensors that would capture his facial expressions and translate them to the character, but all of the characters' body movements have been pre-rendered in advance. In 1996, ITE created a 3D graphics system for Hugo using Silicon Graphics' Onyx Reality Engine. A new technology for the real-time 3D animation of Hugo was unveiled in 2005 but was aimed only for export, specifically to Asian countries. == List of programs ==