The Games Are Winnable...Sort of

Every game in the park is winnable. Every single god damn one. But what no one will ever tell you is the employees actually have a significant influence on the hardest games. Crazy thought right? Here's an example. Everyone is familiar with the ladder game right? Well if you're not. Here's a quick run down. You have to climb a rope ladder and ring a bell at the top. But the trick is you have to do it without flipping over. There is also usually a red rung at the top you have to stand on first to prevent taller people from ringing the bell early.

That game is probably the hardest game in the park that is completely skill based. Once you figure it out, you can pretty much beat any one at any park, assuming the park wants you win. What we used to do in an attempt to pull some extra cash in was make the game extremely easy in the morning when no one was in the park. Simple task. If you loosen the ladder, it's easier to climb. Once some little kid won and was walking around with a giant Scooby we'd tighten the ladder back up to how it was originally. The game was still winnable, but no average joe was going to be able to win the game anymore. If you didn't know what you were doing, the chances of you making it more than halfway up were pretty slim. But since people saw a kid with the prize, chances are they'd be curious as to how he'd attained that Scooby Doo. "The kid can win it, so why can't I?"

I used to take it a step further. After a year or so of working the game I had it down to the point where it didn't matter how the tight the ladder was. The station I worked had three ladders and people usually paid near the far left or the far right ladder.

So what I would do is make the two ladders closest to where you pay harder than the one on the far side. Most people would just hop on the one closest to them and they'd fall relatively early in the game. This made my transactions quicker, and if I had kids play I wouldn't need to help them get on since I could just put them on the easiest ladder. Whenever people asked for demonstrations, I'd demonstrate on the hardest one so they'd want to climb that one. Simple way to pull in more money.

I haven't done that in awhile, now I just make them all hard.