Horrible Histories: Gory Games Explained

Genre:	Children's Game show
Presenter:	Dave Lamb
Country:	United Kingdom
Language:	English
Num Series:	5
Num Episodes:	66
Runtime:	25 minutes
Company:	Citrus Television and Lion Television
Network:	CBBC
Related:	Horrible Histories (2009) Horrible Histories (2015)

Horrible Histories: Gory Games is a children's game show, co-produced by Citrus Television and Lion Television for CBBC, that debuted in 2011. It is a spin-off of hit children's sketch comedy Horrible Histories and is a product of the same creative team.

History

The show featured music by Matt Katz and Richie Webb, produced at Noisegate.^[1] The gameshow's participants are aged between 8 and 12.^[2]

The gameshow was adapted into an iOS/Android app, allowing players to play along with the contestants. It was available at Google Play or the Apple App Store. The premiere app by the creative tea, SyncScreen was in charge of app design and user experience, and they used their proprietary SyncScreen Framework API technology. The app also used Civolution's SyncNow Automatic Content Recognition, which increased the synchronicity of the experience.^[3] It was the "first mainstream "second screen" apps for kids", and was designed to be used by children while they were watching the show.^[4]

The app was launched in 2014 when Series 3 (2013) was re-edited under the new format. Series 1 (2011) went the same way in 2016. New episodes were made under the play-along format in Series 4 (2016), but by Series 5 (2018) the app had been removed from the App Store. After Series 5 (2018) completed broadcast, Series 4 (2016) shown again, but was re-edited to remove the play-along function.

Gameplay

Gory Games is co-hosted by comedian Dave Lamb and Rattus Rattus, the rat puppet who also "hosts" the parent series. The show revolves around "horrible facts".^[5] Gameplay involves three child contestants (called "Horrible Historians") trying to obtain "Year Spheres" by completing either a historically-themed physical challenge or a quiz. Each Year Sphere contains a year which is either A.D. or B.C. If it is A.D., the year is added to the player's score at the end of the show; if B.C., it is subtracted from it. The player with the highest overall score after three rounds is the winner.

These Year Sphere's are:

• 4,500,000,000 B.C. – Planet Earth was formed
• 2,500,000 B.C. – Neanderthal's first used tools
• 1,500,000 B.C. – Neanderthal's discovered fire
• 1,000,000 B.C. – Neanderthal's arrives in Britain
• 200,000 B.C. – Man appears
• 150,000 B.C. – Man creates art
• 110,000 B.C. – Man learns to fish
• 23,000 B.C. – Neanderthals died out
• 16,000 B.C. – Man invents pots and bowls
• 10,500 B.C. – End of last ice age
• 10,000 B.C. – Man domesticates dogs
• 9,000 B.C. – Man uses bow and arrow
• 8,500 B.C. – Man creates houses
• 8,000 B.C. – Woolly Mammoths became extinct
• 4,000 B.C. – Man starts farming/man domesticates horse
• 3600 B.C. – First known mummification
• 3500 B.C. – First pyramids constructed in Peru
• 3150 B.C. – Birth of the Awful Egyptians
• 3000 B.C. – Egyptian calendar created
• 2560 B.C. – Great Pyramid of Giza completed
• 2532 B.C. – Great Sphinx completed
• 2500 B.C. – Stonehenge built
• 2184 B.C. – Pepi II died
• 1479 B.C. – Hatshepsut becomes queen
• 1323 B.C. – Death of Tutankhamen
• 1213 B.C. – Death of Rameses II
• 776 B.C. – First Ancient Olympics
• 753 B.C. – The city of Rome is founded
• 508 B.C. – Democracy invented in Athens
• 495 B.C. – Death of Pythagoras
• 490 B.C. – Battle of Marathon
• 450 B.C. – First set of Rotten Roman laws
• 449 B.C. – Battle of Salamis
• 432 B.C. – Parthenon built
  • 405 B.C. – Peloponnesian War 399 B.C. – Socrates is executed
• 347 B.C. – Plato died
• 337 B.C. – Death of Hippocrates
• 332 B.C. – Alexander the Great conquers Egypt
• 305 B.C. – Alexander the Great conquers Egypt
• 287 B.C. – Archimedes was born
• 264 B.C. – First Roman Gladiator game
• 214 B.C. – Construction of the Great Wall of China begins
• 212 B.C. – Death of Archimedes
• 55 B.C. – Julius Caesar invades Britain
• 47 B.C. – Crafty Cleopatra returns to the throne
• 44 B.C. – Julius Caesar assassinated
• 30 B.C. – Death of Craftyt Cleopatra
• 27 B.C. – Caesar Augustus becomes the first Rotten Roman Emperor
• 37 A.D. – Caligula becomes Emperor of the Rotten Romans
• 41 A.D. – Caligula assassinated
• 60 A.D. – Bolshy Boudica rebels against the Rotten Romans
• 64 A.D. – The Rotten Romans burned to death
• 78 A.D. – Romans conquer Wales
• 79 A.D. – Pompeii destroyed/Rome Colosseum opened
• 122 A.D. – Hadrian's Wall built
• 476 A.D. – Fall of the Rotten Roman Empire
• 793 A.D. – The Vicious Vikings attack the Lindisfarne monastery
• 800 A.D. – Gunpowder invented in China
• 867 A.D. – The Vicious Vikings army captured in York
• 871 A.D. – Awesome Alfred the Great becomes king of West Saxons
• 899 A.D. – Death of Awesome Alfred the Great
• 978 A.D. – Ethelred the Unready becomes king
• 991 A.D. – Battle of Maldon
• 1014 A.D. – Sweyn Forkbeard becomes king
• 1042 A.D. – Edward the Confessor became king
• 1066 A.D. – Battle of Hastings
• 1086 A.D. – Doomsday Book completed
• 1099 A.D. – First Crusade
• 1135 A.D. – Death of Henry I
• 1170 A.D. – Thomas Becket murdered
• 1189 A.D. – Richard the Lionheart becomes king
• 1199 A.D. – Death of Richard the Lionheart
• 1215 A.D. – Magna Carta signed
• 1286 A.D. – Eyeglasses invented
• 1305 A.D. – Execution of William Wallace
• 1337 A.D. – Beginning of Hundred Years' War
• 1348 A.D. – Black Death
  • 1381 A.D. – Peasant's Revolt 1415 A.D. – Henry V of England beats the French at Agincourt
• 1431 A.D. – King Henry VI crowned King of France
• 1438 A.D. – Incan Empire begins
• 1452 A.D. – Leonardo da Vinci was born
• 1453 A.D. – End of Hundred Years' War
• 1455 A.D. – War of Roses begins
• 1483 A.D. – Richard III becomes King of England
• 1485 A.D. – Richard III killed in battle
• 1492 A.D. – Christopher Columbus discovers the New World
• 1503 A.D. – Leonardo Da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa
• 1509 A.D. – Henry VIII ascends to the throne
• 1533 A.D. – King Henry VIII marries Anne Boleyn/Incan Empire fell
• 1536 A.D. – Anne Boleyn is executed
• 1542 A.D. – Mary, Queen of Scots becomes queen
• 1547 A.D. – Death of Henry VIII
• 1558 A.D. – Queen Elizabeth I ascends the throne
• 1564 A.D. – Birth of William Shakespeare
• 1587 A.D. – Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots
• 1588 A.D. – Spanish Armada destroyed
• 1599 A.D. – Globe Theater opened
• 1603 A.D. – Death of Queen Elizabeth I
• 1605 A.D. – Gunpowder Plot
• 1607 A.D. – Jamestown colony is founded
• 1613 A.D. – Globe Theater caught fire
• 1616 A.D. – William Shakespeare died
• 1642 A.D. – Start of English Civil War
  • • 1658 A.D. – Death of Oliver Cromwell 1665 A.D. – Great Plague of London 1666 A.D. – Great Fire of London
• 1702 A.D. – Death of King William III
• 1707 A.D. – England and Scotland join together to create the UK
• 1727 A.D. – George II became king
• 1746 A.D. – Battle of Culloden
• 1756 A.D. – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is born
• 1760 A.D. – George III becomes king
• 1769 A.D. – Napoleon was born
• 1770 A.D. – Captain Cook claims Australia for Britain
• 1775 A.D. – American Revolution started
• 1776 A.D. – Declaration of Independence
• 1788 A.D. – First European settlement in Australia
• 1789 A.D. – French Revolution starts
• 1792 A.D. – Gas lighting is invented
• 1793 A.D. – Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette are executed
• 1801 A.D. – Union Jack is created
• 1804 A.D. – Napoleon crowns himself Emperor of France
• 1805 A.D. – Battle of Trafalgar
• 1815 A.D. – Battle of Waterloo
• 1819 A.D. – Queen Victoria is born
• 1821 A.D. – Napoleon Bonaparte died
• 1837 A.D. – Queen Victoria becomes queen/Oliver Twist
• 1840 A.D. – Queen Victoria marries Prince Albert/Penny Black
  • 1845 A.D. – Great Potato Famine 1851 A.D. – The Great Exhibition
• 1852 A.D. – London's first flushing toilet opens to the public
• 1854 A.D. – Beginning of Crimean War
• 1858 A.D. – Big Ben completed
• 1859 A.D. – Pony Express invented
• 1861 A.D. – Death of Prince Albert
• 1865 A.D. – Lewis Caroll publishes Alice in Wonderland/Abraham Lincoln assassinated
• 1867 A.D. – Antiseptic invented/America buys Alaska
• 1869 A.D. – Mahatma Gandhi was born
• 1871 A.D. – Bank Holidays are invented
• 1875 A.D. – Law bans child chimney sweeps
• 1876 A.D. – Vacuum is invented
• 1879 A.D. – Thomas Edison invents the lightbulb
• 1887 A.D. – First Sherlock Holmes book published
• 1891 A.D. – School is made free
• 1893 A.D. – New Zealand is the first country to give woman the right to vote
• 1901 A.D. – Queen Victoria died/King Edward VII becomes king
• 1903 A.D. – Wright Brothers invented the airplane
• 1910 A.D. – King George V became king
• 1914 A.D. – Beginning of WWI
• 1917 A.D. – Russian Revolution begins
• 1918 A.D. – End of World War I/Woman gain the right to vote
• 1920 A.D. – End of the Spanish flu Pandemic
• 1926 A.D. – Queen Elizabeth II is born
• 1929 A.D. – Wall Street Crash
• 1933 A.D. – Adolf Hitler becomes German chancellor
• 1939 A.D. – Beginning of World War II
• 1944 A.D. – D-Day
• 1945 A.D. – End of WWII
• 1948 A.D. – NHS begins
• 1952 A.D. – Queen Elizabeth II becomes queen/Beginning of the UK Singles Charts
• 1960 A.D. – End of the Third Plague Pandemic
• 1969 A.D. – Man lands on the Moon
• 1984 A.D. – Half Pennies discontinued
• 1985 A.D. – End of the Miners Strike
• 1991 A.D. – End of the Soviet Union

The games are divided into six categories: "Brainy", "Messy", "Scary", "Silly", "Gory" and "Death" (hosted by Death himself). Quiz questions manifest as either multiple-choice or true-or-false questions and may be asked either by Dave, Rattus, a live-action or animated character from that period, or—in Series 3—Death. "Prop questions" are also asked.

Similarly to its parent series, the games are grouped under randomly selected historical eras or civilizations based on Terry Deary's original books. To date the eras used in Gory Games are:

• Awful Egyptians
• Rotten Romans
• Measly Middle Ages
• Terrible Tudors
• Vile Victorians
• Vicious Vikings (Series 1–4)
• Groovy Greeks (Series 4–5)
• Savage Stone Age (Series 4–5)
• Slimy Stuarts (Series 3–4)
• Nasty Knights (Series 3)
• Putrid Pirates (Series 1–2)
• Gorgeous Georgians (Series 1–2)
• Frightful First World War (Series 2–3) (Note: This category was part of the Gory Grid in series 1, but it was never chosen in any of the rounds.)
• Awesome USA (Series 5)
• Incredible Incas (Series 5)

As from series 3, at the end of the show, the two runners up ended up having to go home through the Time Sewer which was a slide leading to a tank of thick brown gunge.

Cast members from the parent show make frequent cameo appearances as the historical questioners, as does Horrible Histories author Terry Deary.^[6]

Reception

Julia Raeside of The Guardian commented that the show has "no bleepy, flashy nonsense", and added that it "would have enthralled 20 years ago and is all the better for it."^[7]

The Guardian deemed the Gory Games TV Play-along app the 25th best app for kids for 2014, deeming it impressive that the technology that allows at-home children to play along with contestants in real-time also worked with repeats.^[4]

Awards and nominations

In 2013, the show was nominated for a Children's BAFTA award in the category of Entertainment.^{[8] [9]}

Transmissions

Series	Start date	End date	Episodes
1	30 May 2011	2 August 2011	13
2	15 April 2012	8 July 2012	13
3	27 May 2013	6 August 2013	15
4	6 June 2016	24 June 2016	15
5	15 January 2018	26 January 2018	10

Notes and References

1. Web site: July 7, 2011 Archives. Noisegate Media. 2016-09-13.
2. Web site: CBBC Horrible Histories Gory Games Application – Brynmill Primary School . Swansea Edunet . 2012-10-19 . 2018-10-04.
3. Web site: Hands on with Horrible Histories' Gory Games – News. en-GB. 2016-09-13.
4. News: The best iPad apps for kids of 2014. Dredge. Stuart. 2014-12-24. The Guardian. en-GB. 0261-3077. 2016-09-13.
5. News: Terry Deary interview . The Telegraph. 5 June 2011 . Preston, John . London.
6. News: Horrible Histories writer Terry Deary to be torchbearer . BBC News . 9 January 2012.
7. News: Tonight's TV highlights . The Guardian. 30 May 2011 . 4 May 2012 . Raeside, Julia . London.
8. News: Wolfblood leads 2013 Bafta Children's nominations – CBBC Newsround. 2013-10-22. en-GB. 2016-09-13.
9. Web site: British Academy Children's Awards nominees revealed. 2016-09-13.