Sit-Up Trio Simulator

Anybody remember bid tv? I've probably left it too late to make this given that they’ve been shut down for a couple years now, but I thought I’d give it a go anyway. I remember a member of this forum made a bid-up simulator about 10 years ago. It seemed quite popular at the time, so I thought it would be a good challenge to try and bring out a new game: Sit-Up Trio Simulator.

This is an interactive recreation of the TV auction channels bid tv, price-drop tv and speed auction tv. You are able to run rising and falling price auctions, create your own custom lots, choose which studio and graphics set to use, and control the prices, camera angles, graphics elements and sound.

The game takes into account phone charges, postage and packaging costs, and bidder interest, and each phone call/bid placed by a viewer is simulated.

You are scored at the end of each auction (based on closing price and time taken), and your total profit is saved. As viewer and bidder interest is simulated, you may find some products are more popular than others, requiring lower prices to clear the auction etc.

Some features of the game:
- Accurate recreations of 14 graphics sets used throughout the channel’s history, with a full set of animations for each
- 8 different studios from the channel’s history to choose from
- Simulation of phone lines, and bidding/buying behaviour
- Some lots may be more popular with viewers than others
- Falling price and rising price, with options for 4 minute speed auctions
- Scoring system based on profit and auction duration
- Profits, p&p, call revenue and unit costs
- Create custom lots, or pick a random one from over 300 items sold on the channels
- Customisable keyboard shortcuts

Here are a few screenshots:
http://simulations.offtherailsmedia.co.uk/simulations/situptrio/screenshots/AuctionScreenA.jpg
http://simulations.offtherailsmedia.co.uk/simulations/situptrio/screenshots/AuctionScreenF.jpg
http://simulations.offtherailsmedia.co.uk/simulations/situptrio/screenshots/AuctionScreenD.jpg
http://simulations.offtherailsmedia.co.uk/simulations/situptrio/screenshots/AuctionScreenE.jpg

If anybody would like to give it a go, you can download it here:
Download Installer (Windows) The download size is around 170MB, and will need around 236MB to install.

Download (Mac) The download size is around 182MB. You may need to change some default keyboard shortcuts in the config window that opens on launch, due to the difference between Windows and Mac keyboards.

There’s a PDF manual included in the install directory, or you can also download the manual here:
Download PDF User Manual

Maybe there's no more interest in bid/drop/speed stuff, but it’d be great to hear what you think

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16/10/2016 - Version 1.1 Now Available

Changes since version 1.0 are listed here:



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7/1/2017 - Version 1.2 Now Available

Here’s a full list of changes in this version:


The above download links will download the latest version.

Hope you enjoy! For Windows users, if you run the installer it should just overwrite your current version, and your scores/statistics should still be saved.

Blimey, this will get some people on this forum quite excited.

Wow its brilliant - love it - the animations seem spot on - are you planning to add the particle effects they had and the exploding M for the megadrops?. Love that you even have the little Christmas pudding that price-drop used to have too and how the rectangle gets eaten by the triangle on the old bid graphics. even the pulsing of the graphics looks just how I remember them all

have you recreated every graphic yourself?
Are the studios recreations or high quality pics?
How long have you been working on this & what software did you use?

I was working on something similar to this in the past just for personal use but tried to keep all the controls in a thin strip at the bottom of the screen - whilst it was functional this looks a lot nicer.

I like.

Minor detail but I would probably suggest the Megadrop quantity when things go for a pound doesn't drop fast enough, as I do remember seeing them pretty much literally flying out the door in tens and twenties.

Also I don't think some of the buttons are working in the falling price section of the bottom bar, unless I'm missing something.

Still, I'm pleased as I got a score of 931 on one auction. Then sold some jewellery for 4 times the unit price and "only" got a score of 615.

Great job, well done.

*edit* figured out why the buttons aren't working, me being thick*

This is triggering.
But in all seriousness very excellent work and attention to detail, and quite a substantial advance on what I was doing 15 years ago!

This is brilliant. That's all I can say.

How weird! I only was thinking about the old simulator randomly earlier this week!

Unfortunately I'm a Mac convert now so I cannot see what this is like.

Thanks for the comments guys, glad you like it!


Thanks roo! You know I still have one of your sims installed on my old laptop


I did think about adding the exploding M, but wasn't sure of the best way to approach it. I'll add it to a list of potential things to look at then can maybe try to tackle it along with any other tweaks that may need done.



I've been working on this on-and-off on weekends for just under 12 months, though sometimes months would pass without me touching it. The game was made in Unity and coded in C#. I'm not a software developer so I was learning as I went along, so hit a few roadblocks along the way!



Yeah I used Illustrator to recreate the auction graphics, and HitFilm for the 'arrow explosion/particle effect' interface background.

I modelled the studios in Maya. I work as a 3D artist so this part of the project came much easier than the coding part which caused quite a few headaches!


Great, thanks for the feedback, I'll add the megadrop speed to the list of things to tweak. Would be great to hear more of what people think of the scoring system as that could also be looked at in future versions. Unfortunately it seems with Unity games any updates require a re-download of the whole thing, so I'll collect a bunch of tweaks before releasing any updates to save people having to re-download too often.



Unity also allows builds for Mac too I believe, so should be able to upload a version for this sometime this evening. I won't be able to test it to make sure it works as I don't have access to a Mac machine, but I can upload it if anyone would like to try it

Daniel, I have thoroughly enjoyed the past few hours that I have spent on your creation. You have clearly put a lot of hard work into this. Would you mind me asking though, if you would ever consider creating an editable news graphic simulator with for BBC News, ITV News, Channel 4 News, 5 News and Sky News. I don't intend to be cheeky but it's just an idea as I think you would be easily capable of creating it and I'm sure it would be received just as well, if not better than this masterpiece has been. P.S. I was able to sell 100 lots of Poop for £10 each. Any game where you can do that will get a 5/5 from me.

WOW its 1 thing to create a nice mock but to be able to play with it in real time is amazing
If you could add the particle effects like the flame thrower and coins etc that would finish it off really well

I looked at some of the studio shots and thought that some look like they were done on a computer but then others looked just like a high quality picture so amazing work there

A few other possible things to consider
- In the later graphics sets they could remove individual graphic elements to hide the price, quantity or phone number temporarily
- They could also change the quantity box to show how many had sold and the percentage of stock
- They used to be able to fade in and out the graphics and do nice effects which would wipe them all off the screen
- When showing a video the graphics would collapse to the bottom of the screen and cut off the ticker bars
- Product choice graphics would be a nice addition
- Maybe have a few dogs to chose from for when they did megadrops, warehouse clearance, cash mountain etc or maybe provide a template so we could make our own and load them into the game
- Recreating some of the idents to end the drop/auctions would be a nice touch
- fading between the different studio shots
- They started playing about with different coloured graphics towards the end such as the pink £10 Tuesday so a colour picker for full customisation would be good
- You have done great Christmas graphics so would it be possible to make the studios Christmassy too?
- Santa price plunge - he skated across the description bar and threw up some magic dust
- Recreating some of the backgrounds they used for non stop drops, warehouse clearance etc could go full screen instead of the studio shots all the time
- Countdown clocks over and above the graphics for when phone lines opened, price would drop, drop was closed etc when they stopped selling out before moving on
-Being able to run the megadrop sequence multiple times

but all of that is just mega nit picking and most people won't care about most of those

I'll have to wait for the Mac build also but this looks seriously impressive! I remember the old simulator from years ago and how it was good for its time, but this is on another level!

Is this a virus? I really want to play it but Windows says its unsafe.