119 replies to this topic

[phattbloke]

Send them back then

[CrAzYbAr]

Haven't posted in a long long time, however I've been reading this thread with great interest just now. Takes me back to when I used to sketch out a few UK machines for fun. Made one based on The Chase, Strike It Lucky, Golden Balls, a few original titles, even did one based on the Gamera Japanese slot. Unfortunately I feel times are long gone for the UK AWP, so I've taken to sketching out Japanese pachislo in my spare time.

 

It's a good challenge, as the games are very intricate and use their themes. However, they have far less to display at face value. So for aesthetics, you have to be very selective on what's on display, what will appear as you go deeper, lights for show, and even moving parts. They stick very close to the theme, if they are themed. If you had a slot based on a TV show for example, each feature should follow a story arc or event, and all the characters, music and recurring elements should be used. Not just sticking the word "Noel" or "Box" onto bog standard features. 

I did a few rough sketches of UK lotechs for the Japanese market too, such as a Hokey Cokey. They'd be quite easy to do, however you'd be digging hard for enough music and player hints.

[Mavroz]

Ed, do you know how,where,when and by who the prize machines turned up? I remember an Ace Prize National and maybe a Barcrest Prize Vegas or something similar.
I mean the ones with the cheap watches and lighters etc etc.

[edwardb]

Oh god those prize vend machines! Yeah they were a bit of fun. You are right, Ace did a prize version of Grand National, Barcrest did quite a few including one of my favourite games of all time, What's On?
I used to have one of those machines, actually, and I gave it to a mate of mine at Mazooma who worked at Barcrest and did the artwork for it. Same guy that did the Crystal Maze AWP art...he put a caricature of himself as one of the contestants...

Anyway, they were a pain, prone to getting jammed and were discontinued pretty quickly. However, they were very popular in France as "gumball" machines, where you insert cash, and can either buy a gobstopper or play the game to win "points" and then swap them for differing colours of gobstopper depending on how many points you had. Of course, these gobstoppers were all caked in fag ash and/or stale beer and were revolting...so you took them to the bar where they were swapped for cash. Legal loophole....and the gobstoppers got put back in the machine again....

 

We did a prize vend unit at Mazooma, basically two metal boxes bolted to the side of a Smiley II cabinet (Wet & Wild was the first game we did with it) and you won these "super tokens" which you inserted and then swapped for iPods etc which were expensive things back then.

 

The design of them was quite fun, I remember lots of meetings and visits from BFG to us, it gave the mechanical engineers/designers quite a headache. BFG had (probably still have) a very good mech eng team who would design all kinds of stuff and do really good technical drawings, and not just on the back of a fag packet as was the case at other places..!

 

Anyway, they got them designed, had some prototypes made and we got all the software/motor control stuff working.........and then I wondered if someone could get their hand up the prize chute and do anything. So I tried. I have long and thin arms, and yes, I could actually grab prizes out even though they'd put a few bends in the way!

 

I remember the look on the faces of the designers at BFG....not happy. Anyway, they just extended one of the bends in the metalwork and problem solved.

 

I used to love trying this stuff. I remember when rodding was a problem, and we had to update the hopper metalwork to stop people from trying that on. I think we reduced the time that a coin could be seen by the sensor without alarming (i.e. if something blocks the opto for too long, then alarm). I built a "rod" for the casino cabinet and was able to trick the machine into paying out continuously. Got that fixed in short order too.

 

Fun times!

Edited by edwardb, 21 July 2017 - 07:49 AM.

[Mavroz]

I had a vast collection of lookalike Zippo lighters from the prize machines back in the day. Steered away from the watches as the display ones always had a handle that had dropped off.
Interesting how these came along and how they thought the prize was worth six or eight quid, equivalent to a jackpot. ?

Thanks Ed.

[fuzion]

I remember travelling around to play Project Coin Bullseyes back in the day, we actually found a few prize versions, this is the only machine where shitty prizes fitted in well with the theme.

J

[edwardb]

Never knew Project did a prize vend unit; I vaguely remember seeing a Maygay machine but I think they all got discontinued pretty quickly. People just wanted cash, after all.

[fuzion]

I played a prize Eastenders in an arcade in Chapel St Leonards, many, many years ago, this was the £6 token era.   

 

Here is a list of prize version roms we have.   Some might have the word 'prize' in the search field but there was many from the £6 token era.

 

J

Attached Files

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[Guitar]

I remember travelling around to play Project Coin Bullseyes back in the day, we actually found a few prize versions, this is the only machine where shitty prizes fitted in well with the theme.

J

 

If it paid out one of the Bully statues I would've played that, also if crystal maze had dropped a "I cracked the crystal maze" crystal.

[fuzion]

Travelling around to play the Bullseyes, we did find a pub not too far from us, a pub called the Axe and Cleaver, near to Mablethorpe.  The pub had a Bullseye machine and the friendly bar-man actually had a bendy bully, he'd actually been on the show....   What are the chances?

 

J

[edwardb]

Any requests for what to write about next?

 

I might post some stuff with some tech info about games, some of the stuff that gets used to print glass and make vac forms etc. I should be able to dig out all the source code this weekend too (buried on CDs in my parents attic, lol) and other stuff.

[gambogaz1]

 

You mean the big win compensator - something that it's obvious BFG use now, or something very similar...
On most games the DOND is blocked for ages, and then all of a sudden, the reins come off...

 Not anymore, BFG appear to have done away with all compensators. No random GATW board, Nothing off Cash or bust above the current board value and the DOND game is no longer blocked but it is heavily rigged to pay a box or offer that is of the board value.

They've become completely unplayable.

[edwardb]

 Not anymore, BFG appear to have done away with all compensators. No random GATW board, Nothing off Cash or bust above the current board value and the DOND game is no longer blocked but it is heavily rigged to pay a box or offer that is of the board value.

They've become completely unplayable.

 

Sounds like maxwin control to me. I used to do this on my games, has its good points and bad points. Wouldn't do it this way now, however. Much prefer a random within boundaries style of control, if I had to do a game now.

[wayne123]

Any requests for what to write about next?

 

I might post some stuff with some tech info about games, some of the stuff that gets used to print glass and make vac forms etc. I should be able to dig out all the source code this weekend too (buried on CDs in my parents attic, lol) and other stuff.

anything!, very interesting reads, 

 

looking forward to seeing the source code - i really find the compensators interesting, so maybe a bit more on them also, i.e different comps on lo techs?, comps savings for what events?, and also your view on current games

 

Thanks

[edwardb]

For current games, honestly, ever time I see a modern AWP I just sigh. They're just uninteresting, far too over complicated and they tear your arms off before you get a board usually. How is that fun?!

I'll write up some more stuff on compensators if I can, maybe add some stuff about floor and ceiling values with some better examples, and code too when I can. It's pretty simple stuff, really.

[phattbloke]

Yeah compensation is actually really straight forward. In its simplest form all we would do is check whether the compensator has enough money on it to afrord the win we were about to offer you. If it didn't, we would either offer you something else that was allowed or you'd get a Game Over...

Of course in practice it wasn't quite that simple but it's not that far off... It only gets complicated when you have dependencies...

[wayne123]

Yeah compensation is actually really straight forward. In its simplest form all we would do is check whether the compensator has enough money on it to afrord the win we were about to offer you. If it didn't, we would either offer you something else that was allowed or you'd get a Game Over...

Of course in practice it wasn't quite that simple but it's not that far off... It only gets complicated when you have dependencies...

dependencies ? 

[phattbloke]

Yeah... So for example, if I pick a square that is going to give you 3 nudges, but those nudges could affect a super hold feature, or reel blasts, then that's where the code can get complicated.

[fruitman69]

And if you dont get that code right and cover all the bases, that's where an emptier will be born  lol

[niallquinn]

The guy who did those style of games for Electrocoin was a member on here many years back.

 

 

Did he come up with a Labyrinth 2?  25quid one.  Don't think it was ever released,   I've got a pic of it somewhere was posted on here or FF.

 

NQ.