Spot the trickery before it’s too late.

After all… the best game shows always have a twist.

WHO WE ARE

DBC Creative is a collective of 10 designers and developers at RIT, brought together by a shared obsession: crafting immersive, interactive experiences that entertain and educate. For our capstone project, we’re pulling back the velvet curtain on the shadiest moment in game show history—the 1950s game show cheating scandal—all under the bright lights of Imagine RIT on April 27th.

WHY THIS SHOW?

Scandal, suspense, and a touch of theatrics—TV networks in the 1950s had it all. But when contestants started getting fed the answers, everything changed. RUN / RU(I)N THE SHOW explores how the scandal shook the industry, leading to modern regulations that shape game shows today. This exhibit isn’t just a history lesson—it’s a live pitch from our “network” to get you hooked on the wild world of televised deception.

In partnership with The Strong Museum, our exhibit serves as a testing ground for their upcoming History of Game Shows exhibit, set to launch in the next two years. You’re getting a sneak peek before the big premiere.

IMAGINE RIT EXPERIENCE

Step onto our set. Take a closer look at how game show history unraveled. Expect visual storytelling, behind-the-scenes breakdowns, and a dash of suspense as we recreate the scandal that rocked an industry. For now, consider this your exclusive teaser—but after Imagine RIT, we’ll be back with the full story.

OUR PROCESS

Every great show goes through many revisions before it hits the air. We’ve gone from early sketches to wireframes, from ideation to iteration, fine-tuning every aspect of this experience.

We also thought of different archetypes of game show hosts that could potentially be. Looking back to old game shows, we wanted to give him a stereotypical look with a little snark because he is doing things that shouldn't be done with a gameshow.

INSPIRATION

We experimented with many different ideas to present this game show, like having many different screens and old style consoles.

CONCEPT IDEATION

We actually started off with completely different ideas and worked with the Strong Museum to get to our strongest idea. We landed here from our original idea of having a "hot seat" game show theme. Ruin the Show, however, had much more appeal because of it's user interactivity and uniqueness. 4 competitors that could be given "cheats", a host that actively promotes chaos, and an audience with the power to sway the game made it stand out immediately.

The core mechanic of letting players ruin the game instead of just playing it created an experience that felt unpredictable, funny, and fresh. The Strong Museum encouraged us to lean into that chaotic energy, and from there, we iterated on how to give each role—the host, audience, and players—ways to break or twist the traditional game show format.

Testing out different podium features, we had quickly decided what the podium would look like with the playing screen. And after painting and sanding, we finally finished it up.