avengah

Actually having played around some more, the super hold is very unreliable on the £25 version of Hi Spirits. It can give two steps but often gives one, I think it's a two step super hold only if there's nothing in view AND you have a symbol on the number, or something like that. And making it go red this way is much rarer than on the £15; it can still happen but it's just as likely to go red on a normal entry if it's happy enough.

Now Hi Spirits on the other hand... That's a truly great Global from that era. Even when upgraded to £25 the super hold trick still worked up to a point - if there was a big win within 2 steps and it didn't want to give it, it could give only one step after the £25 upgrade. I was originally told you couldn't make it go red via the super hold feature any more but that's false. It just needs more value with the jackpot being higher, but if you force it for a bit to buzz it up and simulate muppets losing, you'll find it works like a charm. Generally they wouldn't be happy enough in the wild, which is why everyone thought it didn't work any more on £25.

We know Globals from this era (e.g. Cannonball Run and similar) are not stupid when it comes to nudges on the board. (Well, except for the invincible trap on A Knight's Trail, but that plays differently and has different base code.) For example, put Cannonball Run in demo and use the cheats to get 10 nudges on the board with a shield on the number, and shuffle to hold two pots on or above the line. Use demo cheats to give yourself more nudges and watch the shuffle avoid putting the third in range - even in demo! (It can shuffle closer when you're low on nudges so it's there if you replenish them, but that doesn't count as during play you can't make it give extra nudges. It can avoid it and give bonuses and change colour etc.) Well, I just forced D&DQ round from a reset. £33 in and it played like a dog. I know you're not meant to force these, and it did swap holds for £4 a couple of times, but for the most part it was abysmal. Boards offering very little then dead. After £33 in, it just hit +3 nudges on the super board while I had a load already, best win £25, one repeat. So if I walked then I'd be £17 up. But the way it played... Utterly appalling. Never any sign of life other than swapping holds for £4 twice. When it potted it knew exactly what it was doing. It just wanted to pot having shown zero signs. By the way, here's a cheat for this and Cannonball Run: Get 2+ blasts, take them and when you have 2 left, blast and shuffle. Now it says 0 blasts and the next blast collects, but due to the glitch it can hit anything including jackpot symbols. A semi-useful thing while scabbing if there's nothing better.

And the answer is, if you manage to get a win above the block, it tries to pay it out anyway. I tested this by enabling the checkboxes, getting a set of blue bars, disabling the checkboxes and it successfully paying the win out. As I thought, it's a different part of the code that tries to block the high wins.

I've managed to do it with it set to 20p / £8 by disabling the hoppers and checkboxes 65, 66, 68 and 69 for the two token tubes. I'm sure it was a 25p one that I played with the glitch, though. Setting this one to 25p / £10 with empty token tubes doesn't replicate the glitch so maybe it was a very early £10 chip.

Ah ok thanks.

Hmm. I seem to remember it saying 4 and 10 but always giving the 4. Strange. I wasn't the only one to play a Snakes like this; I read about it online so it must have been a common problem. I can't set this Snakes to £8 jackpot though, it won't let me even on the earliest chip we have. Coin test doesn't mention tokens, just £1 and 20p. Disabling switch 65 makes it think the 20p tube is empty. It still wins for Reel Cobra though so it's not put it in that mode. I'll play around some more.

OK thanks, I'll give it a go. Seems strange though with it being a £10 cash machine that it should do this, but maybe it was residual code they hadn't removed from the £8 days.

Many years ago I played a Snakes & Ladders in a little hotel bar, 25p/£10 but it was glitchy. It would not offer wins above £4 or £5, as if it thought higher wins were still paid out in tokens and it was out of tokens. It never won a hi/lo gamble for Reel Cobra, Sidewinder never went straight across the top stopping you getting more than £4ish and it never hit any of the features near the top (except perhaps Lucky Ladders). If you got all five dice you got £4 (and it didn't repeat for me), and the top feature also only did £4 for me the one time I got it. One time it did hit The Rattler with a jackpot in view but unfortunately I missed it as I wasn't paying attention. I'd love to know what it would have done in that situation! I assume it would have worked correctly as it was probably only part of the machine's code causing the glitch. Another one appeared in another pub near me but this one played much better and offered all the good features. One time I turned down the top feature from a skill stop and took the jackpot instead because I was worried about the same thing happening, but my fear was misplaced as I got a £40 top some time later. I downloaded an earlier program ROM for Snakes & Ladders (I think version 8 or something), but I can't replicate the glitch. Is there a certain dip switch setting or something I can change in the configuration? I'd like to experiment with it if possible. Thanks!

Here's another one to add to the database if you don't have it already: Impulse - Dambuster: Chris Norton & Frank Mizen - Chase Me! Where is your database? It'd be interesting to look at.

Thanks!

Another thing I worked out years ago about Cash Explosion and clones: The board will usually allow no more than two Big Money icons if it wants to open the super board. If you have 3+ symbols and super active, it's a jackpot board. On the same token, you're normally safe in assuming that if you have 3+ symbols, super isn't opening (unless it's pot happy), but it can still offer around £10 cash sometimes if it wants to. I think the super board is a separate pot from the cash and nudges, as I recycled several sets of hiddens and got several jackpots without once opening super. So it was probably possible to pot it off super AND hiddens if both pots had value in. I don't know how the IM works and I don't know whether it makes any difference how you pot it. If I had a choice I'd probably take Big Money from icons as it doesn't come from the super board. Maybe that way the jackpot will come out of the current pot and you can still play for the super board pot afterwards, which is easier to get. Or maybe it doesn't matter how you get it on an IM - maybe it's a separate pot completely? I hardly ever got IMs on the real machines. You can nudge hiddens through and take them any time afterwards with Exchange, even on a ?. Having been given Skill Spins from hiddens in the past, I try to put the right pot on the line if I do it this way, though sometimes it isn't an option as you hit a ? and have to take the nudge pot. And Roll Even and Yes/No Continue are true skill.

Emmerdale has an interesting mechanic where the logo flashes just for a moment at the start of the board if it's a jackpot board, but it doesn't mean you're invincible! Oh, when I said before "On Cash On The Lash, the IM is slightly better hidden - instead of a flashing name, one bulb lights up that's named as "Woman" in test mode", the bulb isn't assigned in the layouts we have. I found it in the lamp matrix.