This is an introductory post for my new fantasy forum series, explaining the background behind it.

Why I'm doing this

Very simple; I've done fantasy series before, and invariably they've become out of date or else not quite "real" (ITV08, anyone?). It's obvious that DoND will remain on Channel 4 with Noel Edmonds in charge for two years, and will either continue in this guise or be cancelled thereafter. I don't see any excitement in a fantasy series that recreates what already exists on TV, so I took the logical step and created a fantasy series in a fantasy world, nowhere near as bizarre as (to take a notable example) the Skyline/NoelsFan series, but defiantly existing in its own universe.

And so we get this.

About The Kytler Peninsulae

The Kytler Peninsulae is an imaginary nation that I have created on the NationStates online game. It is formed of two peninsular strips of land jutting out to sea. The land area (29,100 km2) and population (9.5m) are very similar to Belgium's.

The country's currency is the toak, abbreviated as Tk. The country has a mean per capita income of Tk24,500 (£17,600); a reasonable comparison is with South Korea or Spain. Key industries include high-tech manufacturing, tourism, and book publication; healthcare, education, and the police are the main sources of public sector employment. The country also has a large gambling industry, but this is largely geared towards international rather than domestic demand. Economic inequality is roughly comparable to that of the UK, although the nature of the social safety net is very different (a "Citizen's Income" of Tk375 per month is paid to all legal Kytlerian adult citizens, except those in prison, and this is in lieu of all other benefits except for additional payments to parents and the disabled). Self-employment has become very common as the Citizen's Income provides a safety net for entrepreneurs, and this has helped unemployment fall to around 7%.

The country only recently became established as an independent nation, having been subject to a number of major wars and many years of being a de facto anarchy with no government to speak of, effectively being ruled by drug barons in and around Kytler Bay City. The capital city, Zube, was purpose-built as a new seat of federal government, though many powers remain in the hands of "the states", which are typically about the size of an English county. Kytler Bay City remains the largest city in the country with over 900,000 residents, but people are moving out to smaller nearby towns, which combined will soon have a larger population than the city itself, even though it is no longer a notorious haven of criminality (it does, however, still have the highest crime rate in the country).

Around 70% of the population are considered to be "white European" in origin, with half of these being of British descent, and the rest traceable to various bits of mainland Europe. Just under 15% are migrants from Vephrall, another imaginary country which suffered an economic collapse some years ago and has now ceased to exist. (Don't ask.) The native aboriginal population - similar to that in Australia, and sometimes facing similar discrimination to this day - comprise just under 10% of the population, with the rest being of mixed, African, or Asian descent.

About the Kytlerian Deal or No Deal

Deal or No Deal airs every weekday at 5:25pm for 50 minutes on KBT, which is the third most-viewed television channel in The Kytler Peninsulae, but historically the most successful in daytime. The awkward slot is because of a major reshuffle of KBT's daytime shows after Tammy Hillier, who hosted a very popular two-hour talk show between 4:30pm and 6:30pm, was forced to retire from television due to ill health. Initial plans were for two one-hour talk shows, but market research showed that the public did not want to replace Hillier's show with another talk show. Instead, the plan was to create a game show block to challenge TV3's hit shows "Jeopardy!", "Wheel of Fortune", and "Race To A Million". After a number of disastrously rushed pilots, only two shows were deemed adequate for broadcast - DoND being one, the other being teen-oriented action-adventure format "Escape Purrett Cove". It was felt that neither of these shows would work at an hour long, so each were given 50-minute slots, with the KBT Nightly News moved from 6:30pm to 6:15pm and extended to 45 minutes "to provide the most in-depth journalism on Kytlerian television". The five minutes from 4:30pm to 4:35pm would be used for local news, with "Escape Purrett Cove" following.

The Kytlerian DoND follows the European model of future contestants opening boxes in lieu of models. In total, there are 24 boxes; the top prize is Tk300,000, making this version comparable to most European daytime versions. The offer pattern is 5-5-3-3-2-2-1-1. There are three adbreaks in the show: at 19-box after the first offer, at 11-box after the third, and at 6-box after the fifth. Kytlerian game show prizes are tax-free. Here's your board:

Tk1
Tk5
Tk10
Tk20
Tk50
Tk100
Tk150
Tk200
Tk300
Tk400
Tk500
Tk750
Tk1,000
Tk2,500
Tk5,000
Tk7,500
Tk10,000
Tk15,000
Tk25,000
Tk50,000
Tk75,000
Tk100,000
Tk200,000
Tk300,000

The host is Beth Lapointe, a comedienne and plus-size model who stars in the hit Kytlerian sitcom "The Girl In The Other Room". She is noted for her red-streaked hair, husky voice, interesting glasses, and improvisation ability. At least one of these will be useful for hosting "Deal or No Deal".



Any questions or comments on this series in general should go here. The first game will be later today.

Our series isn't bizarre, it's as sane as ever.

Are the graphics of the people from The Sims?

Yup, Sims 3

Loving the ironic smilies in response to my description of your series (which does, by the way, regularly crease me up with laughter - there's nothing quite like seeing ligers from London Zoo gambling £1.5m on a pencil case/£4m finish or whatever your games end up with).