Camouflage is a television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 game show

Game show

A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...

 airing on GSN

Game Show Network

The Game Show Network is an American cable television and direct broadcast satellite channel dedicated to game shows and casino game shows. The channel was launched on December 1, 1994. Its current slogan is "The World Needs More Winners"...

. Hosted by Roger Lodge

Roger Lodge

Roger Lodge is an American game show host, sports radio host, and actor.-Life and career:Lodge was born as Rogelio Chavez in Fontana, California and raised in Cerritos, California. Lodge currently serves as Executive Producer and host of HDNET's "CELEBRIDATE", scheduled to debut in October of 2011...

, and billed as "the hidden word game where the answer is always right in front of you", Camouflage originally aired for 40 episodes from July 2 to 27, 2007. The show is a word game

Word game

Word games and puzzles are spoken or board games often designed to test ability with language or to explore its properties.Word games are generally engaged as a source of entertainment, but have been found to serve an educational purpose as well...

, with contestants searching for a hidden word or phrase in a string of jumbled letters.

Originally, two shows aired per night at 7:00 and 7:30 PM Eastern time. However, on July 30 the second run was removed and replaced by Lingo while the airings moved to weeknights at 1:30 AM Eastern. On January 5, 2009, Wheel of Fortune

Wheel of Fortune (U.S. game show)

Wheel of Fortune is an American television game show created by Merv Griffin, which premiered in 1975. Contestants compete to solve word puzzles, similar to those used in Hangman, to win cash and prizes determined by spinning a large wheel. The title refers to the show's giant carnival wheel that...

took over its time slot.

Gameplay

Three contestants are shown a jumble of letters which contains the answer within, spelled out in correct order (albeit with intervening or "decoy" letters). A clue is also provided to aid the contestants with the puzzle, but the clue is often indirect; most clues involve some sort of word play

Word play

Word play or wordplay is a literary technique in which the words that are used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement...

. Similar to Jeopardy!

Jeopardy!

Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...

the show features puzzles titled "double" and "final" Camouflage.

As each puzzle is played, decoy letters are removed one at a time, making the answer easier to discern. (The process stops once there are no more decoy letters remaining.) Each letter that drops out reduces the value of the puzzle by 10 points. A player may buzz in at any time during a puzzle to give an answer. If correct, the answer is revealed, and the player is credited the point value of the puzzle at the time the guess is made. There is no point penalty for a wrong answer, but a contestant who is incorrect may not make any more guesses for that particular puzzle.

The game is played in three rounds. Gameplay is identical in each round, but the difficulty of the puzzles increases. Each puzzle in the first round has a starting value of 100 points, and each answer consists of a minimum of one word. The second round's puzzles are worth 200 points to start, and each answer consists of a minimum of two words. In addition, the first two letters that drop from each puzzle do not affect its value (they are "free letters"). In the third round, puzzles have a minimum of three words with a starting value of 300 points. Also, the first five letters drop from the puzzle without decreasing its value. At the end of the third round, the player with the highest score moves on to the endgame. If there is a tie, a tiebreaker puzzle is played using the Round 1 format.

All correct answers to all puzzles have letters that read from left to right.

Examples of puzzles

The following are actual puzzles used on the show and their original air dates.

• Round 1: Letters: MYNAMEISEARL Clue: "twang!" Answer: nasal
  Nose
  Anatomically, a nose is a protuberance in vertebrates that houses the nostrils, or nares, which admit and expel air for respiration in conjunction with the mouth. Behind the nose are the olfactory mucosa and the sinuses. Behind the nasal cavity, air next passes through the pharynx, shared with the...
  
  
• Round 2: Letters: AMSTERDAM CLEAVERFAMILY Clue: Cruising altitude? Answer: Sea level
  Sea level
  Mean sea level is a measure of the average height of the ocean's surface ; used as a standard in reckoning land elevation...
  
  
• Round 3: Letters: IFTHEYREBOUNDING AROUNDTHEIR PARENTSTIELEASHES Clue: Television show about hyperactive children? Answer: The Young and the Restless
  The Young and the Restless
  The Young and the Restless is an American television soap opera created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS. The show is set in a fictional Wisconsin town called Genoa City, which is unlike and unrelated to the real life village of the same name, Genoa City, Wisconsin...
  
  (July 2, 2007)

Double Camouflage

One puzzle in each round is designated as a "Double Camouflage" puzzle. The first part of these puzzles is played identically to the others. However, the player who solves the puzzle can double the point value by solving a secondary puzzle. The secondary puzzle is "camouflaged" inside the answer to the primary puzzle and involves a new clue. The player has ten seconds to solve the puzzle without the benefit of removing letters from the puzzle. To counter this disadvantage, players may guess as much as they wish without penalty, and the secondary clues are generally more straightforward than in the main game. If a player solves the secondary puzzle, the player is credited with double the value of the primary puzzle; if incorrect, the player still retains the value of the primary puzzle.

Final Camouflage

The endgame revolves around solving a "Final Camouflage" puzzle. The contestant gets a certain amount of help based on his or her performance in a speed round. The player is given 45 seconds to solve as many puzzles as he or she can. Decoy letters automatically drop from the puzzles one at a time. As in a "Double Camouflage" puzzle, a player may make as many guesses as he or she wishes at each speed round puzzle. When time expires, the "Final Camouflage" puzzle is revealed to the player. For each puzzle solved in the speed round, a decoy letter is dropped from the final puzzle. The player then has 15 seconds to solve the final puzzle, giving as many guesses as he or she wishes. A player who correctly solves the final puzzle wins $5,000; a player who fails to solve the puzzle is given $250 for each puzzle he or she solved during the speed round.

Interactive play

GSN.com has a smaller, modified version of the game that can be played on an Internet-connected computer.