Board games and other adaptations

Due in part to its longevity and in part to its simple play-along factor, Wheel of Fortune has received many board games by way of various companies. Unless otherwise noted, gameplay is of the play-for-cash nighttime version with no Bonus Round.

For the video game adaptations released since 1986, see Video games.

Milton Bradley (1975)
Issued two editions as part of their "Key to Fun and Learning" line (strangely, both classified as #4532), each containing an instruction/puzzle book with 168 puzzles, Milton Bradley Bucks (play money in denominations of $5-$10-$20-$50-$100-$500), a 30-space puzzle board, a large supply of cardboard letters, and a spinner representing the Wheel.

The boxes show a host who somewhat resembles Chuck Woolery, but isn't (Susan Stafford mentions in her book that the Milton Bradley Company paid her $500 for her image on the box and instruction booklet); they also feature the color-coded contestant displays and the "real" version of the in-game Wheel, complete with the original special spaces. The puzzle board on the First Edition reads L_DY M_CBETH, with the A's replaced by the green-glitter side of their respective trilons.

The instruction booklet shows a similar picture with a different Wheel angle and several prizes to the right of and behind the puzzle board (including the second set of pricetags), plus the complete LADY MACBETH puzzle.

Gameplay
Much like the NBC version at this point. The categories are Event, Fictional Character, Landmark, Person, Phrase, Place, Thing, and Title (although none seem to hint at a compilation date; all mentioned titles, events, and characters date to 1974 or earlier). The play money is handed out upon correct letter calls to keep score during each round, and paid back when vowels are bought.

Unlike subsequent versions, there are no pre-made puzzle cards; the puzzles are instead listed in the instruction booklet, with the host placing them into the puzzle board letter by letter, which also allows for custom puzzles. Also unlike subsequent versions, there is no Used Letter Board.

Shopping is represented by a deck of 20 prize cards: three $100, two $200, one for each $x00 value from $300-$1,700 (minus $1,300), and a single $3,000. Gift certificates are marked by the player putting their remaining money on the prize cards they bought, while not doing so is "on account". Oddly, there is no mention of a house minimum nor what to do in the event a player solves with less than $100 or the lowest remaining prize, although money put "on account" can be spent on vowels.

There are four Free Spins, represented on cards much like the prizes. All 24 cards have the Wheel logo on the reverse.

Wheel
Unlike subsequent versions, the Wheel does not use its standard fonts and appearance. While the color scheme mostly matches that from June 7, 1976, the special spaces do not use their original look (seen on the cover): Bankrupt is green, Free Spin is light blue, Lose A Turn is orange, and Buy A Vowel is yellow.

The layout, starting from Bankrupt and going clockwise, is Bankrupt-$500-$175-$300-$200-$500-$125-$100-$300-$200-Free Spin-$100-$200-$150-$450-Lose A Turn-$100-$275-$200-$150-Buy A Vowel-$100-$250-$100.

Second Edition
The cover for the Second Edition is slightly different: the logo is white, the "Some Assembly Required" note is not present, the "Object" box on the left has enlarged text and no suggestion of players (3-6 on the First Edition cover), and there is a yellow "NEW SECOND EDITION" item on the side of the Wheel with a large "2". The sides of the box are changed from yellow with red letters to blue with the First Edition's yellow letters; "TV GAME" is shrunk and moved over to fit the "2 NEW SECOND EDITION" words, which are in white.

The puzzle on the box is changed to K_NG R_CHARD, in a very different font (most notable with the C). The 168 new puzzles use the First Edition categories plus Things and People, although their scarcity (Things in #20; People in #64, #125, and #147) suggests that "plural" categories were a very new concept. The prize cards, minus the $3,000 Hawaii trip, are entirely new.

The assembly instructions on the inside box cover, plus the cover and first few pages of the instruction booklet, are clearly recycled from the First Edition (the LADY MACBETH puzzle on the cover and BABY BUGGY samples), and the other game parts are likely the same. As recycling parts was (and remains to this day) a common practice to reduce costs, it is not certain whether Buy A Vowel was still in use on the TV show when the Second Edition game was released.

The games proved to be profitable for the company, as noted in the February 6, 1976 issue of Variety. Despite becoming outdated by the end of 1975, they remained on store shelves until at least the beginning of December 1977, as indicated by this newspaper ad (which also offers the company's adaptation of Jackpot!).

Definition (1981)
Six years later, the Milton Bradley Company recycled the puzzle board, legs, letter cards, and prize cards for its adaptation of the long-running Canadian game show Definition, hosted by Jim Perry. Rather than reuse the old 27-slot (9&times;3) letter tray of the Wheel games (which the player had to assemble), the Definition tray is a single blue 32-slot (8&times;4) piece of about the same size.

While the puzzles are on cards and revealed to the host by a red holder, they otherwise resemble and may themselves be recycled from those in the Wheel instruction booklets (one known puzzle is SIMPLE MINDED, not present in the First Edition). The only change is that the category is replaced by a clue.

Amusingly, the box and instruction booklet show a drawing of the set with four civilian players, despite the format still using celebrity/civilian teams at this point. The format switched to all-civilians on December 16, 1985.

Pressman (1985-1991)
Pressman released five "regular" editions, the Second and Third in 1986 and 1987 respectively. Each contains a 33-space puzzle board (referred to as "Conceal-N-Reveal"), a Wheel spinner card, a Used Letter Board with dry-erase crayon, and play money in denominations of $50, $100, $200, and $500. Free Spin is now represented by a group of tokens which resemble their TV counterparts, and players may keep any accumulated tokens until the game ends.

The Wheel itself has a red dollar-sign spinner and now resembles its TV counterpart, with top dollar of $750. The layout is Bankrupt-$750-$250-$300-$200-$100-$500-$400-$300-$200-Free Spin-$100-$200-$150-$450-Lose A Turn-$400-$250-$200-$150-$400-$600-$250-$300; strangely, much like several other home games (including electronic adaptations), $350 is absent. The "house minimum" is $200.

The individual letter cards are replaced by 24 large puzzle cards with four puzzles on each (96 puzzles total), which slot into the top of the puzzle board. The category display is on top, and the spaces used for the puzzle are underlined; the instruction manual helpfully outlines which spaces to reveal, by looking at the puzzle number and then looking at the space numbers in which the letters are in the puzzle. A "0" (zero) indicates that the letter is not in the puzzle.

Strangely, landing on Lose A Turn costs that player the current turn and their following turn as well. Also, contestants who incorrectly solve a puzzle are "locked out" for the rest of the round and lose all their money, a rule apparently used on the earliest daytime episodes. The player with the most money after Round 4 is the winner.

The back of the boxes show a prototype with a generic spinner, plainer-looking money, and white-on-black puzzle cards.

While the first three regular games and both Deluxe Editions (see below) use an artist's rendering of the puzzle board and Wheel (the pre-1986 Round 3 template with a black Lose A Turn), the Fourth (1988) and Fifth (1991) Editions use a photo of half the Round 1 template on the front and sides, though the Fourth also includes a photo of the puzzle board with title. The side of the Fifth Edition reveals that the other half of this Wheel is the Round 4 template. The Fifth Edition also has a large-print instruction booklet and offered a $5 rebate.

Pressman's six years of producing Wheel adaptations proved extremely profitable, so much so that on March 11, 1991 the landmark 10,000,000th copy (a Fifth Edition game) was presented to Merv at a special ceremony in his Resorts International Casino in Atlantic City.

Deluxe Editions
Pressman's Deluxe Editions (released in 1986 and 1987, respectively) have more puzzles, a money tray, a replica of the Wheel with a single flipper which spins much like on the show, and play money denominations of $50-$100-$500-$1,000. As the game progresses, the host adds new wedges ($500, $900, $1,000, $2,500, $5,000, and Bankrupt) to the Wheel; while the instructions give suggestions as to their placement, the host can place them in any manner s/he wishes or not use them at all. This allows for many possible layouts, including one with three adjacent four-digit values and a double-width Bankrupt.

The Deluxe Edition boxes are mostly identical. The back and sides of each show a prototype with the regular-edition play money and extra Wheel wedges of $1,000, $1,500, $2,000, and $2,500; the cover has a smaller cropped version of the aforementioned illustration, plus a small photo of the Wheel replica with the text "Featuring an Authentic Replica of the Wheel".

Interestingly, the first Deluxe Edition is one of only two board or video game adaptations that are known to have been offered as a prize (the other being the Wii version): on a late-1986 daytime episode, it was part of a $350 collection of Pressman titles.

Junior Edition
Released in 1987, the child-friendly tweak uses a unique rainbow-colored puzzle board and play money denominations of $100, $200, and $500. The Wheel itself has a blue dollar-sign spinner and values in $100 increments, with a top value of $700; as a result, vowels and the house minimum are both $200.

The layout is Bankrupt-$700-$100-$300-$200-$100-$500-$400-$300-$200-Free Spin-$100-$200-$300-$500-Lose A Turn-$400-$300-$200-$100-$400-$600-$400-$300. Although the color scheme of the spinner used in-game is the same as its regular edition counterpart, some wedges were recolored on the Junior Edition's box cover. Also on the box cover, the arrow is red instead of blue.

Travel Editions
At least three were released: two regular editions in 1988, then a Junior Edition in 1989. Along with a wipe-off puzzle board, the dollar-sign spinner is extremely large for the Wheel size. Also, in the Junior Edition, the values are the same as its regular counterparts.

Tyco/Mattel (1992, 1998)
Tyco created two editions in 1992 with Vanna White on the box, along with a Travel Edition; Mattel reproduced them in 1998. Each contains the same contents and rules as the regular Pressman versions (including a version of the 1986 daytime Round 1 layout), albeit with just 50 puzzle cards. The Wheel resembles the Pressman Deluxe Editions, and the front and side box art features Vanna and the Wheel with Round 4 template (though on the front, the Wheel is blurred to look as if spinning). The puzzle board cover is now two separate pieces instead of one large piece, and the board itself includes a Used Letter Board that is used in the same manner.

Andrews & McMeel (1996?-)
Produces a licensed Wheel day-by-day calendar each year, dating back to at least 1996. Each day has a puzzle treated like the Bonus Round, giving RSTLNE plus another three-and-a-vowel. Strangely enough, Same Name, Before & After, and all other "long-puzzle" categories are used, even though they have never been (and will never be) used in the Bonus Round.

Notably, both Megaword and the yellow $1,000 appeared in the calendars long after they had disappeared from the show: Megaword for February 10 of the 1996 calendar (LABYRINTH), the yellow $1,000 for the artwork of the 1998 calendar.

Parker Brothers (1999)
Parker Brothers' rendition also resembled the Pressman games, with 96 puzzles. The box shows the 1997 puzzle board with title and the 1996 bare Round 1 template with the yellow $1,000, however two purple spaces have different colors than the show: $500 is blue, while $600 is peach.

The Wheel has only 12 wedges and a top value of $800, with the layout Bankrupt-$300-$100-$500-$800-$700-Lose A Turn (gray)-$300-Free Spin (orange)-$600-$200-$400. The spinner itself is a carbon copy of that from The Game of Life, and may have been influenced from it. This version is also the first to feature the new puzzle board cardboard piece.

Strangely, vowels still cost $250 (also the "house minimum"), and play money denominations are $50-$100-$200-$500-$1,000 (albeit as very generic "Game Show Money"). There are also Free Spin tokens and Prize wedges (the first board game to do the latter), which are earned as usual. The Prize wedges are each worth $2,000 and first used in Round 2 (placed on $100), although the Prize is simply replaced if it is not picked up.

Oddly, unlike nearly every other home adaptation, the winner is determined by who reaches $10,000 first. Also, unlike the Milton Bradley and Pressman games, the legs used for the puzzle board snap in rather than simply sliding in and out; these legs consist of three "prongs" with the center piece facing the opposite direction, a design which makes the legs difficult to insert and remove.

The instruction booklet also contains a "letter guide", which shows where a particular letter appears in each of the 96 puzzles (with a dash if it is not in that puzzle), a layout which devotes two pages to each letter even if they appear infrequently enough for one page or less (such as J, Q, X, and Z). Also, while the booklet's intro correctly mentions that Wheel debuted in 1975, it then incorrectly states that the nighttime show airs on ABC.

Pressman (2002-)
Pressman re-acquired the board game rights to Wheel, typically using very similar parts to their first era. So far, there have been:


 * Three regular editions (the first two using a 30-space puzzle board; Third Edition released in 2009).

Originally, the Wheel used the then-current Round 4 layout, with $5,000 as top dollar and Free Spin used throughout the game; however, the layout has since become stagnant and very outdated, failing to adapt Free Play, the second Bankrupt, or any alterations made to the cash values and their positions.

The dollar bill denomination is changed, as well. Although $50, $100, and $200 from the 1980s versions are present, $500 is strangely decreased to $400. Due to the larger Wheel amounts, $1,000 bills are also added.

Endless Games (2008)
Released a Wheel card game as part of the "Quick Picks" line. The game contains 30 Wheel cards, 100 puzzle cards (each containing three puzzles and a Bonus Round puzzle), five Bonus Round prize cards, a wipe-off puzzle board, a wipe-off scoreboard, a dry-erase marker, and a 10-second sand timer.

Strangely, the scoreboard includes a column for the yellow $1,000 wedge, despite the fact that there is no such card in the game and the wedge itself had not been present on the Wheel in any form since the PlayStation 2 video game five years earlier. It is possible that the Mystery Wedge was planned but scrapped before the $1,000-per-letter option could be removed from the scoreboard.

Some notes about this game: first, one of the Wheel cards is a $10,000 Jackpot, using the tenth wedge; second, the wipe-off puzzle board is the most accurate of all board game iterations thus far, sporting the correct number of spaces and their correct layout; third, as the Bonus Round deck has only five cards ($25,000, $30,000, $40,000, $100,000, and a car), it is hence a variant of the W-H-E-E-L envelopes.

Wendy's/Oldemark (2011)
A set of five toys offered through kids' meals from April 11-May 15, containing the game and a puzzle card for a contest on the week of May 23. As with many kids' meal toys in recent years (especially those with fewer items to collect), unopened full sets were quickly made available on eBay.

While "Portable Game" uses the Round 4 Wheel layout (minus Free Play), "Spin to Solve" and "Wheel on the Go" use a somewhat different layout with letters above each cash value, a top dollar of $900, and Free Play represented by Free Pick (using the colors of Lose A Turn and letter format of the Free Spin wedge). Notably, there are two Free Pick wedges on the Wheel.

The layout is Bankrupt-$600 (A or E)-$400 (Vowel)-$300 (B or C)-Lose A Turn-$800 (T)-$350 (P or V)-$450 (O)-$700 (N)-$300 (Q or R)-$600 (I)-Free Pick-$600 (A or E)-$500 (H)-$300 (D or L)-$500 (F)-$800 (X or Z)-$550 (U)-$400 (Vowel)-$300 (M or G)-Free Pick-$500 (S)-$300 (J or K)-$900 (W or Y).

Most of the letter-to-wedge assignments appear to be arbitrary, minus two: the pink $300 next to Free Pick, the only one which does not present its choices in alphabetical order, offers the initials of Merv Griffin. The other, $350, offers the first-name initials of Pat Sajak and Vanna White.

3-in-1 Card Game
A 32-card deck containing four each of $300, $400, $500, $600, $700, $800, $900, and Wild Card (its only appearance thus far). The instructions contain rules for Match Play (a truncated UNO), Wheel War (a version of War), and Hi-Lo Solo (Acey-Deucey, but with the ability to guess "tie").

Portable Game
Of the five toys, the closest to the show. Contains the spinner, 10 double-sided puzzle cards (with categories of Food & Drink, Living Thing, Person/People, Place, and Thing{s}), a four-letter puzzle board (attached to the spinner), and instructions for Classic Play (just like the show) and Four Spins to Win (try to get as much money as possible in four spins).

Spin to Solve
Includes a crayon, two dry-erase scorecards, and instructions for Word Race (collect letters to spell 3-, 4-, or 5-letter words; most money after three words wins) and Solo Word Builder (spell a 3-letter word before accumulating $2,000). The spinner uses a push-button process.

Toss-Up Game
Contains a blue, arrow-shaped light-up device with a red Wheel of Fortune button, a set of "cards" with various letters and dollar amounts (plus Wendy's Wild Cards), and instructions for Buzz Words (flip over cards until a 3+-letter word is visible, then hit the red button), Match 'em Up (flip two cards to try and get the same background pattern {or dollar amount}), and Speed Match (a solo version of Match 'em Up).

Wheel on the Go
Contains a basic round spinner (spun like Pressman's Deluxe Editions) and instructions on how to play I See It! (find an object that starts with the letter you spun; alternately, the letter and color), Build-a-Word (try to make your preselected 3- or 4-letter word before your opponent), and Color Match (spin 10 times to match the color you spun beforehand).

PennyPress (2009?-)
Publishes Wheel of Fortune Word Seek, a series of word searches with missing letters which, when filled in, spell out a puzzle. The category is given at the top of the page for each puzzle.