Be Excellent To Each Other :: View topic - The pointless emulation thread

devilman wrote:

Have a nose through the Download section of Fruit Emu.

That said, if you can give us any kind of timeframe, vague recollection of what a game looked like, what sort of venue it was to be found in etc we can probably have a go at identifying something specific. (TBH though 'noughts and crosses' is a bit too vague as a whole load of low-tech machines conform to that sort of basic premise.)

devilman wrote:

Have a nose through the Download section of Fruit Emu.

I've just been using Archive.org and nosing back at your Web Hovel stuff.. the earliest entry they've got is 2003 - didn't realise it was that long ago.

I had a few goes on Indy last night and I never noticed that in the EULA for the JPM emulator, it says that you're not permitted to use it to analyse the play mechanism of a machine, particularly in association with the Fair Play campaign. Guess the author wasn't a fan?

I played a bit of Indy last night too.. I like it but Gladiators is still my favourite.

Any more you'd like to chuck my way?

devilman wrote:

Yeah Fairplay was a bit of a sore point for a lot of people, to say the least. Especially when the issue made the national press and television.

I assume to the more hardened gamblers seeing someone like me doing this immediately marked us out as an idiot whose money would soon be in their pocket

There was a cheat of sorts on a noughts and crosses game I was on about a while back.

If you had some nudges which didn't result in a win, and then on the next turn had the opportunity to hold, ignore the hold. If you didn't hold anything and carried on as normal then you'd always spin in a winning line.

It was only £1 but it did work (on the 2 or 3) occasions I tried it

Add me to the list of people who've never seen the point of Fruit machines. I used to put cash into a Space invaders one a while back but thats about it. I'm more a penny falls type of guy, they seem more fun and my favourites are either Namco's Pacman ball or Haniwa De Go (by Taito). I don't know if they can be simulated or indeed emulated, but they are about the only gambling type thing I can be bothered to sink a pound or two into.

I appreciate the advice from you and AE though - I'm trying to sort myself out again at the moment. Currently I'm at the stage where I'm blogging my progress daily just to have an incrementing record of my thoughts at the time so that I'm not bottling stuff up. I'm on a whole 8 days without so far, so it's very early days yet though.

(I tend to keep all this crap out of the Nay thread)

31 days now.

(Obviously to normal folk, a month is nothing, but considering how this year has gone, I was doing well if I'd go a week without) If I make it to 12 months I might even post in the Yay thread.

devilman wrote:

31 days now.

(Obviously to normal folk, a month is nothing, but considering how this year has gone, I was doing well if I'd go a week without) If I make it to 12 months I might even post in the Yay thread.

Congrats - keep it up dude

Seriously, in six months time you won't have a clue what to do with all the spare cash.

AtrocityExhibition wrote:

I haven't been able to get Visual Pinball running on Windows 7 at all, and it's still the utter fucking bastard it always used to be to get set up too, I spent an evening trying to get it running a few months ago and eventually gave up.

I did get it going but there was so many faffs and moving files around - what i'd love is a simple way to get a set of files so we could do a challenge and get people playing stuff like The Adams Family and posting scores.

I may have another go at the weekend to get something usable.

I'm such a fucking :belm:

Just run the VisualPinball executable as a fucking administrator, job done. It popped into my head yesterday and I just remembered to give it a try now.

There must be something around the vbscripts that Vista/Win7 doesn't like unless you run it with elevated privileges, as it was always when processing the scripts that it bombed out before launching.

TWILIGHT ZONE AHOY!

Right - after C64 stuff lets see if I can package up a set of pin tables for the next challenge !

Blimey.. good going there. I've never really played any of the £70 machines, or indeed most of the modern machines with features as I could never be bothered learning/finding out the best ways to play them.

(Oh, and 98 days without gambling now, so I'm not about to find out)

:facepalm:

I seem to remember reading this kind of thing before. Many times from many people. Don't get sucked in again man.

The £70ers are pretty brutal, catch one wrong and it'll take £200 over the back and give you a flat £70 for your trouble. I got a proper kicking off one a couple of months ago (£150 down) but learned enough from that to get the profiles pretty much sussed, and haven't come unstuck since then.

The only one I did play was a Bullion Bar type clone called Pure Gold (I think). I've never seen it pay a jackpot, although on the feature I have seen the combined win value reach £70 once. It also has a Mega Streak type feature which I've never seen anyone get either.

I've also put £250 through it in one session. Me=mug.

This must be like what my gf hears when I talk to her about computers...

From the other viewpoint, I like not knowing anything about newer machines - it means I'm less tempted to invest the time in figuring them out.

As I said to my chum last night, 'I ain't here for the view motherfucker!'

Now post the graph from your internet fruit machine experiment.

£3000 is a lot of red.

Craster wrote:

£3000 is a lot of red.

But I had SCIENCE on my side!

Admittedly it turned out to be bad science, but still.

So basically, it was your £100 jackpot watered down to 10p. But it had a memory of being a hundred quid, and that was the main thing.

Plissken wrote:

So basically, it was your £100 jackpot watered down to 10p. But it had a memory of being a hundred quid, and that was the main thing.

I don't get it :?:

A joke on the bad science part relating it to homeopathy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy where instead of medicine or even natural remedy's instead things are diluted until they contain absolutely none of the original ingredient but contain the 'memory' of it.

Author:	TheVision [ Wed Jun 15, 2011 21:24 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
AtrocityExhibition wrote: devilman wrote: Have a nose through the Download section of Fruit Emu. That said, if you can give us any kind of timeframe, vague recollection of what a game looked like, what sort of venue it was to be found in etc we can probably have a go at identifying something specific. (TBH though 'noughts and crosses' is a bit too vague as a whole load of low-tech machines conform to that sort of basic premise.) Thanks for the download link. I'll have a look through later.. as for the noughts and crosses game, I've seen it in various different guises to be honest and I can't be any more specific than that it had red crosses and black noughts and you won £1 if you got the crosses across the centre line. Don't worry though, I'll have a good look through the downloads section and see what I can see. Just out of interest, which emulator is best for these? Or do they come already prepared like Gladiator/Wildzone/Arcadia did?

Author:	devilman [ Wed Jun 15, 2011 21:40 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
AtrocityExhibition wrote: devilman wrote: Have a nose through the Download section of Fruit Emu. That said, if you can give us any kind of timeframe, vague recollection of what a game looked like, what sort of venue it was to be found in etc we can probably have a go at identifying something specific. (TBH though 'noughts and crosses' is a bit too vague as a whole load of low-tech machines conform to that sort of basic premise.) I've just been using Archive.org and nosing back at your Web Hovel stuff.. the earliest entry they've got is 2003 - didn't realise it was that long ago.

Author:	Hearthly [ Wed Jun 15, 2011 22:24 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
devilman wrote: I've just been using Archive.org and nosing back at your Web Hovel stuff.. the earliest entry they've got is 2003 - didn't realise it was that long ago. I started The Hovel back in 2001, 'public' fruit machine emulation is very nearly ten years old Like the OCD bugger I am, I've got the whole lot archived out. Feel free to browse the past http://files.enjin.com/62279/offlinehovel.zip (Just unzip and open index.htm from the top level folder.) It's even got he who must not be named in there.... (From the October 2001 issue of PC Zone.) Attachment: pczonearticle.jpg

Author:	Hearthly [ Wed Jun 15, 2011 23:32 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
One you might like to play TheVision, definitely one of my favourite machines ever, and on the original 'proper' £6 jackpot here. (The machine itself was released in, IIRC, 1994.) http://files.enjin.com/62279/indy.zip Attachment: indianajonesreal.jpg

Author:	devilman [ Fri Jun 17, 2011 8:54 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
I had a few goes on Indy last night and I never noticed that in the EULA for the JPM emulator, it says that you're not permitted to use it to analyse the play mechanism of a machine, particularly in association with the Fair Play campaign. Guess the author wasn't a fan?

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Author:	TheVision [ Fri Jun 17, 2011 8:58 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
I played a bit of Indy last night too.. I like it but Gladiators is still my favourite. Any more you'd like to chuck my way?

Author:	Hearthly [ Fri Jun 17, 2011 9:17 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
devilman wrote: I had a few goes on Indy last night and I never noticed that in the EULA for the JPM emulator, it says that you're not permitted to use it to analyse the play mechanism of a machine, particularly in association with the Fair Play campaign. Guess the author wasn't a fan? Yeah Fairplay was a bit of a sore point for a lot of people, to say the least. Especially when the issue made the national press and television.

Author:	Hearthly [ Fri Jun 17, 2011 9:24 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
TheVision wrote: I played a bit of Indy last night too.. I like it but Gladiators is still my favourite. Any more you'd like to chuck my way? If you like the Maygay style of play (and they do make entertaining machines, with brilliant use of samples), I'll get a few more of theirs uploaded in due course and post the links here. (Alternatively TheVision, PM me a name and address, and I'll burn out a DVD of the complete FME collection and pop it in the post for you. Was running to around 5GB IIRC last time I checked.) Here's a nice little machine called 'Deluxe Monopoly' to have a crack on, all kinds of snippets from 80s and 90s music on this, although Spandau Ballet and The Stranglers wouldn't normally be on the same playlist http://files.enjin.com/62279/deluxemonopoly.zip Attachment: deluxemon.jpg

Author:	Mr Dave [ Fri Jun 17, 2011 13:55 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
AtrocityExhibition wrote: devilman wrote: I had a few goes on Indy last night and I never noticed that in the EULA for the JPM emulator, it says that you're not permitted to use it to analyse the play mechanism of a machine, particularly in association with the Fair Play campaign. Guess the author wasn't a fan? Yeah Fairplay was a bit of a sore point for a lot of people, to say the least. Especially when the issue made the national press and television. I've still never figured out why this was the case.

Author:	Zen-Chan [ Sat Jun 18, 2011 14:10 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
I fortunately never really got the bug for fruit machines as a teenager - I would occasionally put a few quid in them in the arcade while waiting for Virtua Fighter or whatever hot new game was free, but I'd begrudge being as much as £3 or £4 down and wouldn't try and "chase" my money back. What I do recall, though, was the amount of (presumably completely fictional) "codes" and tricks that various machines were meant to have. For example someone at school would tell you that their big brother says if you get holds on a certain type of Monopoly then if you lit them up in one direction, then cancelled, then done them the other way, then cancelled, it was a cheat code to increase your chances. Of course, after trying it a couple times the machine would (randomly and completely unrelated to your actions) give you maximum nudges on the next spin and like Pavlov's Dog you then believed it really worked! I assume to the more hardened gamblers seeing someone like me doing this immediately marked us out as an idiot whose money would soon be in their pocket

Author:	DavPaz [ Sat Jun 18, 2011 14:30 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
A hardened gambler would of course never have the money in their pocket as it would be shoveled straight back in

Author:	TheVision [ Sat Jun 18, 2011 14:37 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
There was a cheat of sorts on a noughts and crosses game I was on about a while back. If you had some nudges which didn't result in a win, and then on the next turn had the opportunity to hold, ignore the hold. If you didn't hold anything and carried on as normal then you'd always spin in a winning line. It was only £1 but it did work (on the 2 or 3) occasions I tried it

Author:	zaphod79 [ Sat Jun 18, 2011 14:45 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
Zen-Chan wrote: I assume to the more hardened gamblers seeing someone like me doing this immediately marked us out as an idiot whose money would soon be in their pocket Yes and no - there were tricks and cheats on the games (i remember a bit in a newspaper about a long complicated key pressing set built into the £6 jackpot Bellfruit cops'n'robbers) but for all those silly things there were legitimate cheats which worked some were just knowing how to do something in a particular way , or some were turning the machine off at the right moment. The problem is that the ones which you can easily demonstrate on the emulated games typically are hard to do (or we dont have the right rom versions for the cheats to work). Here is an example of one that uses a particular feature If you can do the feature every time you'll get a jackpot - you just keep taking it - the jackpot is £15 and it will cost you less than that to get back to the feature - do it long enough and you'll take all the money out of the machine (thats not going into the 'tricks' they built into the machine for you to find like holding down cancel to slow down skill stops or random stops / 3 holds for wins / let em spin after nudges etc etc)

Author:	devilman [ Sat Jun 18, 2011 15:14 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
TheVision wrote: There was a cheat of sorts on a noughts and crosses game I was on about a while back. If you had some nudges which didn't result in a win, and then on the next turn had the opportunity to hold, ignore the hold. If you didn't hold anything and carried on as normal then you'd always spin in a winning line. It was only £1 but it did work (on the 2 or 3) occasions I tried it That's one of the more common ones - a lot of the Astra ones do it. Usually it'll spin in the win that you'd just been nudging for, but occasionally it would upgrade your win to the next one, or even a jackpot occasionally. The bloody enormous Double Decker was good for that - Attachment: doubledecker.jpg

Author:	devilman [ Sun Jun 19, 2011 12:19 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
Just noticed a friend of mine on Facebook playing 'Slotomania', which I'd not heard of before. For those who might be curious as to how modern machines play, it's worth a nose - it has Wilds, Scatters, a feature and free spins, but also shows how little interaction there is with them these days - you're just hitting spin over and over, so when there's nothing at stake, it shows how tedious they soon become.

Author:	Bear or Bust [ Sun Jun 19, 2011 16:25 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
Add me to the list of people who've never seen the point of Fruit machines. I used to put cash into a Space invaders one a while back but thats about it. I'm more a penny falls type of guy, they seem more fun and my favourites are either Namco's Pacman ball or Haniwa De Go (by Taito). I don't know if they can be simulated or indeed emulated, but they are about the only gambling type thing I can be bothered to sink a pound or two into.

Author:	Hearthly [ Sun Jun 19, 2011 17:07 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
Bear or Bust wrote: Add me to the list of people who've never seen the point of Fruit machines. I used to put cash into a Space invaders one a while back but thats about it. I'm more a penny falls type of guy, they seem more fun and my favourites are either Namco's Pacman ball or Haniwa De Go (by Taito). I don't know if they can be simulated or indeed emulated, but they are about the only gambling type thing I can be bothered to sink a pound or two into. The problem there is emulating, or rather, simulating, the physics. For pinball 'emulation' they had to splice Visual Pinball and VPINMAME, with VP handling the table design and physics, and VPINMAME handling the emulation of the electronic gubbins. The penny/coin falls machines would require a similar pairing. As for the 'point' of fruit machines, once you get past the obvious 'to try and win money' I honestly think that many of them stand up as decent games in their own right (which is where emulation comes in) - but of course not everyone will agree

Author:	devilman [ Wed Jul 06, 2011 22:39 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread
devilman wrote: I appreciate the advice from you and AE though - I'm trying to sort myself out again at the moment. Currently I'm at the stage where I'm blogging my progress daily just to have an incrementing record of my thoughts at the time so that I'm not bottling stuff up. I'm on a whole 8 days without so far, so it's very early days yet though. (I tend to keep all this crap out of the Nay thread) 31 days now. (Obviously to normal folk, a month is nothing, but considering how this year has gone, I was doing well if I'd go a week without) If I make it to 12 months I might even post in the Yay thread.

Author:	Hearthly [ Thu Jul 07, 2011 20:07 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread
devilman wrote: 31 days now. (Obviously to normal folk, a month is nothing, but considering how this year has gone, I was doing well if I'd go a week without) If I make it to 12 months I might even post in the Yay thread. Congrats - keep it up dude Seriously, in six months time you won't have a clue what to do with all the spare cash.

Author:	Grim... [ Thu Jul 07, 2011 20:12 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
Well done, mate.

Author:	devilman [ Thu Jul 07, 2011 20:36 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread
AtrocityExhibition wrote: devilman wrote: 31 days now. (Obviously to normal folk, a month is nothing, but considering how this year has gone, I was doing well if I'd go a week without) If I make it to 12 months I might even post in the Yay thread. Congrats - keep it up dude Seriously, in six months time you won't have a clue what to do with all the spare cash. Hopefully the next Steam sale will have kicked in

Author:	Hearthly [ Tue Jul 12, 2011 20:45 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread
zaphod79 wrote: AtrocityExhibition wrote: I haven't been able to get Visual Pinball running on Windows 7 at all, and it's still the utter fucking bastard it always used to be to get set up too, I spent an evening trying to get it running a few months ago and eventually gave up. I did get it going but there was so many faffs and moving files around - what i'd love is a simple way to get a set of files so we could do a challenge and get people playing stuff like The Adams Family and posting scores. I may have another go at the weekend to get something usable. I'm such a fucking Just run the VisualPinball executable as a fucking administrator, job done. It popped into my head yesterday and I just remembered to give it a try now. There must be something around the vbscripts that Vista/Win7 doesn't like unless you run it with elevated privileges, as it was always when processing the scripts that it bombed out before launching. TWILIGHT ZONE AHOY! Attachment: Untitled.jpg

Author:	zaphod79 [ Tue Jul 12, 2011 22:35 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread
AtrocityExhibition wrote: I'm such a fucking Just run the VisualPinball executable as a fucking administrator, job done. It popped into my head yesterday and I just remembered to give it a try now. There must be something around the vbscripts that Vista/Win7 doesn't like unless you run it with elevated privileges, as it was always when processing the scripts that it bombed out before launching. TWILIGHT ZONE AHOY! Right - after C64 stuff lets see if I can package up a set of pin tables for the next challenge !

Author:	Hearthly [ Tue Jul 12, 2011 22:55 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread
zaphod79 wrote: Right - after C64 stuff lets see if I can package up a set of pin tables for the next challenge ! Bit of refinement on this, it can still be a bit twitchy, especially if you load more than one table per session. Quitting out of VP and then loading it again for each table seems to make it happier. Setting it to Windows XP Service Pack 2 compatibility mode, and checking the box for it to run with administrator privileges, seems to properly be the charm. The VP 8.1 consolidated installer should do the job zaphod, then all you/me/we ( ) would need to do is add in the required ROM and table files. I'll do a test run on Mrs AE's laptop to make sure I'm simulating a 'clean' install, and post back here as to the simplest way to get it all running. Banzai Run's music - pure heaven

Author:	Hearthly [ Mon Sep 12, 2011 0:43 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
I done got me a YouTube channel. Mostly for my own masturbation purposes really, but it's important to share jackpotty goodness! Averaging about £100 profit every Sunday evening at the moment, only started filming the wins the last couple of weeks though. If I could be arsed to travel around a bit there's definitely more to be made, but I just can't be doing with going back to that kind of discipline. http://www.youtube.com/user/chopleyspinach

Author:	devilman [ Mon Sep 12, 2011 0:54 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
Blimey.. good going there. I've never really played any of the £70 machines, or indeed most of the modern machines with features as I could never be bothered learning/finding out the best ways to play them. (Oh, and 98 days without gambling now, so I'm not about to find out)

Author:	Hearthly [ Mon Sep 12, 2011 1:07 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
devilman wrote: Blimey.. good going there. I've never really played any of the £70 machines, or indeed most of the modern machines with features as I could never be bothered learning/finding out the best ways to play them. (Oh, and 98 days without gambling now, so I'm not about to find out) Absolutely stay quit devilman - over three months is a great achievement so don't mess with that I'm just getting a little bit of payback at the moment with the £70ers which I have pretty much sussed out and also now have the discipline to walk away from one that's dead or not quite ready to go (which back in the bad old days I could never do). I'd need to carry on winning £100 per week for the next ten years or so to get back to even over a lifetime, it's just a personal satisfaction thing mostly, which is why I'm not going to start driving around the island's pubs to find 'doable' machines. The £70ers are pretty brutal, catch one wrong and it'll take £200 over the back and give you a flat £70 for your trouble. I got a proper kicking off one a couple of months ago (£150 down) but learned enough from that to get the profiles pretty much sussed, and haven't come unstuck since then. It's keeping me in beer and petrol money overall, not exactly lottery winnings but not to be sniffed at either

Author:	Nemmie [ Mon Sep 12, 2011 7:06 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
I seem to remember reading this kind of thing before. Many times from many people. Don't get sucked in again man.

Author:	Hearthly [ Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:34 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
Nemmie wrote: :facepalm: I seem to remember reading this kind of thing before. Many times from many people. Don't get sucked in again man. Nothing can possibly go wrong!

Author:	Zardoz [ Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:37 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
Yeah, think on.

Author:	devilman [ Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:42 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
AtrocityExhibition wrote: The £70ers are pretty brutal, catch one wrong and it'll take £200 over the back and give you a flat £70 for your trouble. I got a proper kicking off one a couple of months ago (£150 down) but learned enough from that to get the profiles pretty much sussed, and haven't come unstuck since then. The only one I did play was a Bullion Bar type clone called Pure Gold (I think). I've never seen it pay a jackpot, although on the feature I have seen the combined win value reach £70 once. It also has a Mega Streak type feature which I've never seen anyone get either. I've also put £250 through it in one session. Me=mug.

Author:	Hearthly [ Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:50 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
Zardoz wrote: Yeah, think on. I've had consistent periods of winning in the past too, so it's not unprecedented. Indeed there was one time I quit (going back 8 or 9 years now) simply because they were taking up too much time and demanding too much travelling around, I scrupulously updated an Excel spreadsheet with wins/losses to make sure I wasn't deluding myself. In fact, just had a little search, I've still got the spreadsheet in my backups, it was actually 11 years ago And yes I do have backups going back 11 years, because I'm that sad. Anyway, point remains, that after an initial loss period where I was practising the craft, I consistently made a profit on the buggers, although back then the jackpot was £15, not £70. Attachment: geek.jpg

Author:	Hearthly [ Mon Sep 12, 2011 12:11 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
devilman wrote: The only one I did play was a Bullion Bar type clone called Pure Gold (I think). I've never seen it pay a jackpot, although on the feature I have seen the combined win value reach £70 once. It also has a Mega Streak type feature which I've never seen anyone get either. I've also put £250 through it in one session. Me=mug. Is that a lo-tech or a hi-tech? I'm sticking rigidly to certain hi-tech AWPs in pubs where I know the staff and/or their mates aren't into them. I also think that certain Barcrests and Reds have some kind of rip on them at the moment, there's an Indiana Jones machine in particular (I've come across them at more than one location) that is consistently dead to the extent that it makes me think they've been hammered with some kind of manipulator. I don't know what it is so I'm steering clear of them now.

Author:	devilman [ Mon Sep 12, 2011 13:50 ]
Post subject:	Re: The pointless emulation thread - fruit machines
I forget what the definition is, but I suspect lo-tech. It's a bit of a weird one actually - it's one of those with a second reel at the top as the feature and on the normal reels there's no actual way of getting the jackpot - the highest win on there is £15 and anything higher has to be won on the feature.