Richard Osman's House of Games


Richard Osman's House of Games is a British quiz show hosted by Richard Osman and produced by Banijay UK Productions subsidiary Remarkable Entertainment for the BBC. The show is played on a weekly basis, with four celebrities playing on five consecutive days to win daily prizes, and the weekly prize of being crowned as "House of Games" champion. Points are accrued depending on where each celebrity finishes on each day and the points are doubled on Friday's show.
WWW bbc.co.uk/programmes/b094...

Format

Osman sits on a chair to the left of the screen, while the four celebrities sit on individual chairs. Osman hits a button on his table, activating a round generator, which is displayed on a big screen. He then explains what the round is about and in what format it will take place. For instance, whether it is a buzzer round, a pairs round or one where the players require use of their tablet computers. Five rounds are played each day, with the second round being played in pairs, and the final round always being "Answer Smash". The first round is quick general knowledge questions with a comic twist, such as rhyming words. The fourth round is typically "slow", where the question takes several minutes to be answered, and only one contestant receives a single point each time. In most games, a point is awarded for each correct answer, but in "Answer Smash", points are also deducted for incorrect answers.
At the end of each day, the scores are announced and the winner wins a daily prize, which is usually a normal everyday object of some description with the "House of Games" logo imprinted on it. The points are then converted to four points for the winner, three for second place, two for third place and one for fourth place onto the weekly leader board with the points doubling to 8, 6, 4 and 2 for Friday's "Double Points Friday" edition. The weekly winner receives the "House of Games" trophy from Osman. If there are two players tied for first place at the end of the week, both players are declared joint winners and win a trophy each. In more recent episodes, a tie for first place is resolved by a tie-break question; the first to buzz in wins if they answer correctly or their opponent wins if they answer incorrectly.
Starting with Series 3, special "House of Champions" episodes aired featuring players who had previously won a daily or weekly edition of the show coming back for another week to fight for the Gold Champions Trophy. There were also daily prizes, which were similar to the prizes on the regular version of the show. However, these prizes were mainly gold, rather than the turquoise-blue colour. In Series 6 and 7, there were also special "Redemption" weeks with four previous losing contestants who had never won a day prize.
A week's worth of shows is recorded on a single day, so the celebrities are booked for only one day, changing outfits between shows.

Games

Individual games

  • Correction Centre
  • Mouse of Games
  • The Answer's in the Question
  • And the Answer Isn't
  • Cine-Nyms
  • Highbrow Lowbrow
  • The Pen-Ultimate Round
  • Question Writers' Day Off
  • House of Gamers
  • Hose of Games
  • Hey, Alexander!
  • Look Who's Back
  • Hidden in Plain Sight
  • Klaus of Games
  • Previously on House of Games

Pairs games

In every episode, Round 2 is always a pairs game, and on each show, the person who is in last place after the first round gets to choose which of the other celebrities will be their partner for this round. However, if 2, 3 or all 4 players are tied in last place, there is no formal tiebreaker ; instead, Richard will just choose a player at random.
  • Distinctly Average
  • Build Your Own Question
  • Dim Sums
  • Chron-Illogical
  • You Complete Me
  • All in the Details
  • Venn Will I Be Famous?
  • You Spell Terrible
  • Totes Emoji
  • The Two Wrongies
  • I Complete You
  • Reichard Ösmans Haus Der Spiele
  • The Z-List
  • Don't State the Obvious
  • Password123
  • Stick It
  • My Perfect Match
  • Mime Time
  • Great Minds Link Alike
  • Richard Osman's Blank of Blanks
  • Why Don't You Answer My Letters?
  • Partners in Time

Random games

  • Is It Me?
  • The Nice Round
  • But What's the Question?
  • Lucky Dip
  • Win When They're Singing
  • The Nice Round
  • Who Goes First?
  • There's No 'I' in Osman
  • I Am Not a Robot
  • Tom, Vic and Abby
  • Bits of Hits

Tablet games

  • Put Your Finger on It
  • Where Is Kazakhstan?
  • The Rich List
  • Size Matters
  • I'm Terrible at Dating
  • Outplay Osman
  • Race the Dame

Final round

Answer Smash is played in the final round.

Contestants

Series 1

Series 2

Series 3

Series 4

Series 5

Series 6

Series 7

Series 8

Series 9

House of Champions

;Series 3
;Series 5
;Series 6
;Series 7
;Series 8

Redemption Week

;Series 6
;Series 7
;Series 8

Festive

Festive Series 1
Festive Series 2
Festive Series 3
Festive Series 4

Spin-offs

''Richard Osman's House of Games Night''

On 20 November 2020, Osman launched a five-episode spin-off called Richard Osman's House of Games Night, broadcast weekly in primetime on BBC One. A one-episode Christmas Special aired on 28 December 2020. A second series, consisting of six episodes, began on 1 October 2021.
The series follows the exact same format as the main show, but with the addition of rounds not seen in the original. There are no double points in the final episode. Series 2 features a house band led by David O'Doherty. In 2022, House of Games Night was cancelled
after two series.

New games

Contestants

Merchandise

On 17 October 2019, Osman and Alan Connor published Richard Osman's House of Games: 101 new & classic games from the hit BBC series, a quizbook based on the programme.