[Bar-X 5 and Bar-X 10]

11 minutes ago, BarXQueen said:

Thanks but it wasn't this. I remember they used to have them in Showboat amusements (maybe Quicksilver too) and they were in the tall cabinets that BarXs were in where the reels were high up (like the Universal cabinet). Same reel layout as Big 7 and Red Bar, 4 win pattern. I definitely remember £4.80 token jackpot, I think the wins were Blue Seven (with the word Jackpot or Super on on them), Red Sevens, Bars (I think) and Melons (possibly). I think the one in my local arcade must have been there for a long time as I started playing it in 1997 and it was there for a few years.

This sounds very much like Projects Sevens and Melons rather than an Electrovoin...... this is emulated.... 

 

[peoples thoughts]

As Jono says - too big a range for that to be that simple - download LOADS, see what you like, then look for more from same manufacturer.....

JPM's £10 Rollercoaster is a decent place to start. 

[Prize Space Invaders]

29 minutes ago, Boulderdash said:

It was definitely a space invaders game, not questions. Maybe I'm mistaken - I usually am 

I meant they had a few game games down the years, for prizes, with no questions.... lots of card based ones, some memory ones, hidden object ones. Tetris style and other games as well - the one where you have to destroy blocks with a ball springs to mind, so Space invaders definitely possible. 

Some of these had leaderboards, and after something like 200 games had been played, you could claim your prize.

(My mate had memorised one of the "find me" type games, so had the high score everywhere reasonably local.... just needed to wait for the game to complete to claim his prizes)

[Prize Space Invaders]

2 hours ago, Boulderdash said:

I'm sure I've played a different version where your prize depended on where you got on the leaderboard 

Thats sounds like a Pub quiz machine variant - they had a few games like that down the years

[FM name request - Superhold emptier]

I thought this worked on many more BFM's in the day, just as has been posted, some were harder to get Superhold on.

[Worst playing / surprisingly bad pub fruits and why...]

9 hours ago, woodsy said:

 

 

superstar and a spitfire one maybe?

 

I'll never forget or forgive; went into a town centre arcade with my last few quid, played a jackpot junction, flashed first board and went £75, done the pick yer pesos quickly next and then thought i'd try a board on ooh ah dracula, thinking at worst £8 before a forced roll in, but no £47 later for a 2 press board, and forced removal from the premises in a meltdown. 

 

Those two and Top Dog? (definitely dog based0

 

Ohh ahh Dracula..... did exact same to me when we hit a locals pub late on a Sunday evening..... the only 2 at the bar were sat watching. sniggering - presumably having just had £45... It Dropped and boarded on pound £46 for as you said an instant kill...

2nd board, £3 later  - flash, 3 repeats, £10 profit...... 

One of my luckier escapes. 

 

[Worst playing / surprisingly bad pub fruits and why...]

4 hours ago, TommyH said:

The Big Cheese - 30p play machine. Seemed to have a block at a fiver on the board that if you got offered it twice and didn't take it, tough shit, dead if it wasn't in the mood to pay.

I'm going to have to hammer it at some point to see if my memory is correct or middle-age has made me think of it too badly.

 

And clones - and there were 3/4 of them..... 

[Worst playing / surprisingly bad pub fruits and why...]

1 hour ago, slotsmagic said:

Note - I'm avoiding the £70/£100 era as in my opinion they are basically all garbage. I'm playing older layouts, for nostalgia / the hope of a better game.

My current choices :

1) JPM Megabucks £15 

I used to have one of these local, and don't remember it being too bad, but in the emulator it's an awful pile of crap, despite what I assume is a decent percentage. Possibly a case of rose-tinted specs when I used to play it, or could be the emulated version is some awful chip?

I'd recommend someone play it, to see if they have the same thoughts - there's a great DX layout released by @vectra666 a few years back.

https://www.desertislandfruits.com/forum/index.php?/files/file/1338-mega-bucks-£15-dx/

Why is it so bad? There's so many things. The machine is designed to look like an upgrade to earlier JPM games, it's a normal start to end (not a lapper) feature, with bigger award ladders. It's got a 'SUPER' upgrade which is bloody rare, and upgrades features, cash and knockouts. It's got a top feature at the end of the trail.

But -

1) The feature board. It's end-to-end and is far too kill-happy, even at the bottom of the trail.

2) It's totally unforgiving - and it might just be me and my failing reactions as I get older, but it feels like skill-stops on the feature trail jump. If they do seem to jump, and you miss a jackpot, the next spin is almost certainly death. No second chances.

3) The 'arrows' which light up at the beginning of the feature, and can be added to via 'xtra arrow', have absolutely eff-all value. Each arrow acts as a 'hi-lo' to the next level of the board. But the gambles are so brutal I'd say the only safe numbers are 1 and 12.

4) It's such a brutal, block happy game that I can't see any way to take value out of it, it just feels like a constant run of blocks, before it does an easy board with the blocks off and repeats a few times, or it does something like chuck in a Fireman's Lift off the red boxes and it repeats a few times.

5) The top feature - much like the arrows the machine likes to tease the player by lighting a 'random' amount of the required 8 symbols to trigger the top. But it's all academic as you are more likely to get a the jackpot via a roll-in, good use of SUPER upgrades, or something like a Fireman's Lift. 

Compared to other JPMs in the same era, like £15 jackpot Thunderbirds, Viva Rock Vegas e.t.c., this feels totally nerfed. I wonder if it was a case of them taking a winning formula and ultimately ending up having patched it up so many times they destroyed it?

-----

2) Barcrest Smash Martians £25

This one surprised me. I'd never played it out and about in real life but figured I'd give it a quick session, nice layout from @kutjebef if needed :

https://www.desertislandfruits.com/forum/index.php?/files/file/1292-smash-martians-£25-barcrest/

Ended up taking £130 to cave for an IM, which paid a £42 Mega Streak. Next board, also went IM, another £42 Mega Streak.

Very odd coding, not what I expected from a Barcrest of this era. A much more progressive game than Megabucks, but then a massive hard block on the Mega. I expected a much more casual, fun game than ending up balls-deep into a machine I expected to be a fairly safe force. It just blocked board after board, with a rigid block around the £15/£25 area, for ages, before caving.

I did end up getting back to percentage, but absolutely shocked that a Barcrest, that offered JP (knocked back pushing for the Mega Streak) within the first £20 would then take an additional £110 to give the Mega. I used to feel Barcrest were a safer option, albeit often with £75 streak potential that obviously would have to be saved up for somehow.

I was never a big fan of games that looked like Cash Bang Wallop / Full of Beans, even though I'm sure there was something on early ones (a free win?). But this was a shocker. It owed loads, why do two identical £42 Mega Streaks? Machines of this era could easily do £75 tops. It feels like an artificial cap, and a bloody weird value to pick.

Anyway, rant over. Despite how it may sound I'm really enjoying playing MFME again at the moment after a small break. Reminds me of just how crap some machines are.

Would be nice to hear from machines in MFME that surprise others with their crapness, especially if it also comes to machines you'd think would be safer!!

Also happy to hear from people telling me 'you are playing them wrong!' and similar  

 

 

I sessioned Meggabucks the other note - and yep - its garbage IMO.

Seems to be next to no progressiveness in it - so like most JPMs a force, not good - BUT seems to be no other way to get any value out of the thing. Evil Nastiness.

 

49 minutes ago, vectra666 said:

The like s of mpu4 flash cash and clones 

they’d take a age to fill action cash up and most features you win 10p repeat for another 10p but I still played em but lost loads unless you catch the flash cash feature apart from that they were shit 

I like these, always did IRL - i have had one of them do 7 repeats in the emulator - a juicy £16! Seriously though, if I had ever had this backn late 80s, early 90s, I was still disciplined enough to run away to the local book shop  

[Causing a bit of a stir.]

1 hour ago, Hamsun said:

RC was a good machine when compared to most of what was around at the time but I preferred the JPMs that gave more of a reward to players who built up familiarity with the features and mastered the skills.  All the features below test Your Strength were fairly useless so there wasn't much point in going for them and TYS wasn't exactly much of a challenge.

Also...tokens. Machines that effectively paid out most of their value in token streaks were hardlly good value.

I think the all-cash £10 JP ushered in a much fairer era for players. No more stupid tokens to fiddle with and good balance between playability and RTP.

I think you will find with a lot of posters (and certainly from me), the love of RC is when it was upgraded to £10.

It was a players dream TBH, firstly it numbered, so if it didnt do so off £3 you just took a low feature or £2 and walked.

Secondly, you could play for Nemesis for that nice £28.80 - which you just couldn't do on most games

Thirdly, the public loved it, so it got LOTS of play, therefore lots of value to extract.

My big arcade had two £5 versions for the kids - you could easily make £30 - £40 off both of them on a Sunday in Summer - I don;t mean in one go - you could go back every 30 mins and take the calue.

 

@Projectgilda there has been a lot of talk about the regulation that banned credit breaks being more than 50/50 and i think the post earlier which mentioned that maybe this was just a programming error that allowed.... however, my question is, how long did that restriction last? Was it the £6t to £10 cash times? Or was it in theory in place for the £15 Era and was something Barcrest were manipulating with Party Animal / Temple of treasure and the like. Did this only apply to Hi tech machines, or were the lo techs similarly restricted? Again, things like Red hot Roll / Super Streak seemed designed to double / treble repeat, and as we went into the £15 era, for some machines, again this seemed the desired aim. What about the games like Big Top  (£15 era)- which had a sequence on the 3 red symbols which always paid £75 - so four credit breaks - and you knew after JP, then £10 next spin you were getting £75; or if it gave £10 then £15 - you were getting exactly £52. How do these fit into the max 50/50 chance break restrictions as these were clearly programmed sequences - and never mind that it could hold and do it again?  

(One thing that does make sense - is multiple invincible boards, given that machines were only allowed a 50/50 repeat, it would have to keep going invincible instead)

I in no way doubt your word - I am just really interested in how these mechanics were allowed given that you - and all other designers - were working to this restriction.

[Barcrest Wild King]

3 hours ago, Blinky3i said:

Just watched a video on YouTube for the first machine featured (Barcrest Wild King), did a quick search in the Barcrest section of the downloads and I cant seem to locate it. 

Perhaps its not emulated yet or no resources available? 

 

Looks like a semi-clone of Gold Rush - I have never seen it IRL, nor seen it in the legacy section

 

EDIT - There is a £25 classic in legacy

[JPMs Club Rollercoaster £250 DX]

Re the "causing a stir post".... possibly a good job the club version doesnt have Nemesis.......

[Five years!]

2 hours ago, Boulderdash said:

The oldest I've ever felt was in the pub with @woodsy, and one of his mates was also there with his 18 year old girlfriend. 

So basically I'm in the pub with someone young enough to be my granddaughter

Im like that in work - Im a team leader, youngest on my team is 18 - so 32 years...............................

Drinks after work.... I'm being outpaced - its an unsettling experience.

[Causing a bit of a stir.]

On 07/10/2025 at 10:06, Chopaholic said:

 

There was definitely a £10 chip that was a 100% lock-in for Nemesis to go all the way, never missed.

Well... maybe 99% - Very occasionally, it would give just one credit break and give the yellow then blue bars, but not the £10 for the JP.

You were absolutely DEVASTATED when that happened - cos as we have said, it was a lock for £28.80 on the £10 chips we all saw. I mean, it was one of the best payers in the arcades - cos I don't recall (and I was making plenty in the arcades in this era) anything else being as 99% guaranteed. 

[Causing a bit of a stir.]

3 hours ago, Retrofruit said:

They are on £15 in The Reel Vegas Blackpool.

The main reason £15 wasn't wildly implemented is because they number for a £105 and 9/10 times go empty paying it so arcades put it back on £10. The tube capacity just isn't there to justify this as a £15 game, but it's fine on £10.

£15 also does crazy things like the Nemesis can end at any point except cherries, so can end even on mixed bars or grapes.

I got reliably informed at the time that the £15 was rare - low numbers made compared to the amount of RC units - hence not that common.

I got 105 once, not on RC - that gave £75, but it boarded on the no spin, and went to Test your strength - which repeated,

 

[Coinworld Cash Cops (Englishish)]

Thats awesome! Thank you 

[Are most MFME Fruit machines UK based?]

Its mostly UK, cos the Uk (along with Spain that I know of) where machines for many many years (40+) have been compensated, rather than purely random like the US slots.

There used to be 2+ in every pub or bar or nightclub in the country - fruit machines were almost a way of life - but with compensated machines - comes advantage play, and pro players.

Its a long long long story

[keeps crashing]

On 08/06/2025 at 11:27, Mort said:

Worrying times this.

I've yet to go to Win11, but we always knew the day would come when issues may well develop like this.

Hopefully it's a one off and can be fixed through some configuration options / driver updates etc.

But it may not be long until we need to look at a Virtual Machine to keep MFME running.

My laptop has upgraded to windows 11 - no issues at all running mfme

[New User Recommendations Please]

29 minutes ago, keneth said:

 

Appreciate the responses though so thank you, just waiting until i can download again as i miss clicked the download button so ended up hitting the d/l limit with the first 2 games

Donation works - then you get unlimited downloads. 

Well worth a tenner - which is what I give every now and again. 

[New User Recommendations Please]

Hi Keneth and welcome  

It very much depends on what your past faves were - they will pretty much all be here.

I have turned 50 this year, and for me the most playable are the £10 and £15 JPM or Barcrest games.

Start with JPM's £10 Roller Coaster and you won't go far wrong..........

 

[Causing a bit of a stir.]

24 minutes ago, thealteredemu said:

I don’t blame anyone for my gambling addiction.  I had a blast in the early to later 90’s and had some great info and emptiers and I loved the lifestyle.  I got progressively worse early 2000’s but that’s no-one’s fault but my own.

J 

I could have written this.

[Causing a bit of a stir.]

@Projectgilda I never saw a £6 Token, RC as per its original release, and never really played the £8 one. My experiences are really based on the £10 version.

I think its a distinct possibility, that on the original, the credit break was 50/50 max (and isnt there another JPM game - maybe one of the Popeyes, which has a similar feature?)

Its not the case on the £10 version though - so presumably changes were made on the upgrade - whether deliberately or in error we will never know. 

[Causing a bit of a stir.]

7 minutes ago, thealteredemu said:

That’s why I said there are other variables in play.  I don’t want to just diss this guy, I’m not a coder so I don’t know.  Why would he lie about it?

J

Thats why my longish post is written the way it is. I'm defo not attacking Andrew - but the £10 RC is not 50/50 for a credit break on Nemesis.

AND - there can't be any other variables - its either 50/50 (or worse like the 0 % chance we know some repeats have) or its not. If it can't legally be higher as is claimed, then other variables are all irrelevant.

@Chopaholic work on BIG 50 would seem to bear more resemblance to a straight 50/50 - you can get the machine miles behind, and yet the repeats do seem to be 50/50 and once in a fair few times you will get 2/3/4 repast's - absolutely in line with a genuine 50/50 at best shot.

Nemesis behaviour is not like this at all. 

[Causing a bit of a stir.]

26 minutes ago, Projectgilda said:

A true skill Jackpot has already passed it's 50/50 so instead of the player just hitting a fast yes/no they get a skill shot. Feels better for the player. If you play Nemesis enough it'll work out at max prize = 1/4. You may not believe it but it's true. Rollercoaster feature can repeat 4 times so circa £50. Though after 2 the 50/50 chance is reduced (can't remember to exactly what). Nemesis was always 50/50. My machines were more interested in giving a Jackpot as opposed to multiple 'big streak' jackpots that just killed the machine. Indiana Jones is a great example where going for the end is a fruitless task when your passing on several jackpot features on the board. Going back to Rollercoaster. I see people turning down test your strength which I've always thought was crazy. Turning down a jackpot for a small chance of landing on a bigger feature that has to pass a credit check. But everyone has there own way to play I guess. The only time I'd collect the waltzers or nemesis is if I landed on it and not test your strength.

 There is just no way - i'm sorry - We will have to agree to disagree.

I played £10 RC's in a very specific way  - always going for Nemesis as long as it was numbering. I would ALWAYS gamble hi lo off Test your Strength and Waltzers, on any number, because the £28.80 reward for Nemesis was so good AND it did not mind winning - even on normal JPM death numbers from 5 through 8. I would also gamble off any number on the JPM cash win to get to the yellow bars, cos it would then happily spin a 1 or 5. If it went past Nemesis, then I would take a JP rather than push for RC, and just recycle.

This method was far more profitable than just collecting any JP's offered - which is how I had originally played it. Even If I was offered TYS 1st board, I wasn't collecting.

Its worth mentioning, that I live in a seaside resort, at one point I had 5 or 6 £10 versions very locally at the same time, and they were almost by bread and butter. I had a LOT of experience with this game.

A second factor was that TYS would repeat once in a blue moon, Waltzers more often but would only step once on the repeat (you could get around £18 if you hit it before and let it step to JP for the repeat) but that was it - you werent ever getting £30 of TYS or Waltzers and yet......for Nemesis....I said 90% plus in an earlier post, but it was more like 95% - you just knew you were getting £28.80.

It defo changed on my local one which did get a £15 Chip, which I then started to play differently - but the £10 version was Nemesis all the way, and onto a JP or RC feature if it went past. 

Other games, you hoped for a repeat or a streak - just like with the RC feature itself. Nemesis was a pretty much sure thing.

Honestly - collect Nemesis 100 times on the £10 versions emulated on here. You will get the full amount way way way more than the 1 in 4 you are suggesting here. My money is on between 92 and 99 going the full way. 

EDIT - Maybe, just maybe, this is how a fully settled in RC with tens of thousands of £'s worth of play through it would behave - and not how it was intended.

[Causing a bit of a stir.]

6 minutes ago, Projectgilda said:

It'd be illegal to guarantee anything over £10. 50/50 is the highest chance you can give. This i can guarantee is correct. 50/50 breaks were one of the gaming commissions big bug bears and we have to prove this on most of our machines. Some other companies games, especially lo-techs, were dodgy as hell in this regard but my machines always stuck to the rules.

This would explain why machines didn't repeat on JP's when you were sure they were going to and KNEW they had the value to do so, however, how does "true skill" which Barcrest and others definitely had on JP's work then? Yes, it can be missed, but its now not a 50/50 proposition.

I think you mentioned that you didn't code RC - is it possible then that the RC feature was 50/50, but Nemesis was incorrectly coded? I mean back in the day, if I was on Nemesis on a 1 or a 12, I would collect this rather than Rollercoaster, as the £28.80 was that close to guaranteed, and even if RC credit broke once, you would be worse off. Incidentally, on the £15 version, it was much more common for it to credit break once not twice but would still happily give the £43.80 for a full climb at least half the time and no break was rare.

Give the £10 game on here a whirl, there are plenty of versions, but they all happily do £28.80 on Nemesis well over 50% of the time and if the credit break was a genuine 50 50, it should only be 1 in 4. 

Hope this doesn't sound too badgering, I am genuinely interested here - as machines were it was better to take something other than a straight JP feature, or JP repeat always intrigued me.

[Causing a bit of a stir.]

3 hours ago, Projectgilda said:

Nemesis is classed as a Jackpot feature in the control. With genuine 50/50 credit breaks for further wins.

Really? Even on the £10 chips? In my experience, Nemesis on £10 chips would go to £28.80, almost every time, like at least 9 out of 10, 

You were gutted when it stopped on £18.80!