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Clowning Around with Clown In' Around

avengah

By avengah,
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avengah Εξερευνητής

avengah

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I was messing about with this machine on MFME today. I set it to 30p/£5 because it plays really well and gives decent boards all the time and I wanted to see how dead it would go after being done. I discovered the trick is simpler than I thought, because once you've got the Skill from the Reel Stop it doesn't matter where you land it - the point is that because it gives the hidden selection before processing the square, it still wants to process the square so does it after the feature. So I experimented and took all six of the hiddens while doing the method. On this prize and stake combination, most of them are worth £4 or so apart from Clowning Around (which has always been better than the jackpot and what I used to play for in the wild before knowing the emptier) and, surprisingly, Hide and Seek which can give £6. Whether you get £6 or less, as long as you picked the highest value, it offers a gamble which you should NOT take if you got more than £5, because the gamble will cap at £5. I don't know whether the fact it's paying out more than £5 on a single credit confuses the machine into making the wins free, but for most of the hiddens, the win obtained (or the last win with Clowning Around) is not banked straight away but at the start of the next hidden you take. This also leads to it paying out more than £5 on a single credit, and on any feature other than Big Top (Hilo cash, additive), Clowning Around and Crazy Sevens if they repeat past the credit break, it won't drop a credit. This means if you keep taking Hide and Seek, it will never drop a credit and you can watch it add the wins together as you get them up to crazy high numbers, far higher than the highest AWP jackpots of the day (I had it up to £29 or so at one point before getting bored and picking Clowning Around which dumped the £29 as it was at the bank limit of £25).

So I don't know whether all this confuses the machine so much that the wins are free - but after taking just over £125 with the method, I finished by taking the jackpot repeater which didn't, but the next board appeared to be rolling because the first spin was Skill, then it spun a star every spin until the repeater was at Jackpot again. I went round the board a few times just to see if it would go invincible but it didn't, so I took the jackpot again. Board after was still looking very good, giving Activate and Trail Run off the number reel, so I nudged in hiddens and took Clowning Around for a flat £5. (If the hiddens give you the BWBCode Bonus, it means it won't go invincible. If they give you the dapple with BWB button slowdown and you're not yet invincible, the board will go invincible if you take a few more shots.) Board after that didn't look like it was still rolling, but it was clearly still off its tits and made it very easy to get a quick jackpot off 3 Steps.

I'll keep playing it but I can't believe doing the method for well over £125 plus afters from a RAM reset has left it this happy. My first attempt gave the invincible on the second board, but this was my second go at doing it after a reset. This time it cost about £25 to get the invincible so I can understand there being enough in the roll pot for a roll, but after that it really shouldn't still be happy! Does anyone who understands these better know what's going on?

Was it a failed test Barcrest that got rebranded as a BWB? There were loads of them around, mostly in arcades but I did see a couple in pubs, so it wasn't a rare machine by any means. I'm surprised at that Hide and Seek glitch. I wonder if other Barcrests have that same glitch if set to 30p/£5? I might try it on Revolution.

EDIT: Actually it appears it was still rolling. Got another board that gave a Skill and a number of stars off the reel. Maybe it will tighten up after this.

EDIT 2: No, it's still flying. Got a board with JP 4 away and it gave 1 step and 2 nudges, giving it the benefit of the doubt that it might not see it that way, like Cash Beast and Revolution etc. don't see it off Nearest Win. Then a relatively dead board where I missed a Level 2 Skill Continue due to my old computer struggling to keep up with the emulation, then a JP off Nearest Win - that one really shouldn't have been so easy because I was short of nudges but it gave Trail Run off the number reel and threw more nudges at me when Nearest Win was already lit. It's like it doesn't care about people winning jackpots on it even when it's so far over percentage because it's "only" a fiver?

EDIT 3: Potted it yet again on the very next board, this time by getting stars from shots and the number reel, surviving a ? and getting the final star off the reel. It repeated twice! So unless this was a ridiculously long roll considering it was from a ram reset and shouldn't have had a chance to save up for one, this is really weird!

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avengah Εξερευνητής

avengah

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It finally went dead for a couple of boards, then potted again off Reel Magic. I got the feeling it didn't really want to pot at that point but it let me survive a ? with Skill Continue then hit Bonus for extra shots, and I had 6 red shots by that point and a green shot hit Activate. I imagine if it had been set to a higher jackpot it would have been unlikely to give Reel Magic at that point. It's also starting to cost for boards, just like the £15 version did, so I can see how it might be able to claw it back, but by still giving plenty of jackpot opportunities it's playing far better than I would expect it to after just being hammered.

EDIT: Just conned two more pots out of it on consecutive boards with 2 Steps in the green zone. I wasn't playing for particular setups on board entry, I just got lucky and had setups that only needed about 4 nudges. It really makes it too easy sometimes. I wonder if the £15 version could be taken for a ride this way? There are of course dead boards, and if boards are clearly going nowhere there's always the option to collect something, but if jackpot chances are frequent enough I wonder how far over percentage it could be taken without using the Reelstop Skill emptier, with it set to 30p / £15...

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avengah Εξερευνητής

avengah

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It's taking it back, but I'm still getting jackpots out of it and hiddens (on which I've been taking Hide and Seek for the £6 chance, since the others aren't going to go past £5 in the state it's in). I remembered you could swap the third hold like you can on Spiker the Biker and Smokey Bikin' (it doesn't see this, so it can do it for big wins no matter how dead it is).

And if the board is an invincible board, it is invincible from the start of the board. The big flashy sequence is just a visual thing. I was testing from another reset and got the hiddens doing the dapple on a normal board, so decided to try and kill myself. The ? kept giving good things, and eventually let me kill myself with Hilo To Go and it came up INVINCIBLE, this being before taking any shots so no flash.

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avengah Εξερευνητής

avengah

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Correction: It is not always invincible from the start of the board, only sometimes. I decided to do some more testing to make sure, and this time I got the BWBCode Bonus, then took a shot and went invincible. From that point on, it did the dapple instead of the code. It can also go invincible from just going round the board, though this is very rare and only happened to me once so far. Shots is by far the most common way to trigger it. If you get the dapple on the hiddens, you're invincible with or without the flash.

To speed things up, it might be worth knowing that if you get a Taxi off the ?, just hold Start and you don't move, so you hit the ? again. And from the Skillstop square, if you hold Start, you move forwards one square, also hitting a ?. Even though the BWB button lights up for Stopper, there's no point using it because it jumps anyway.

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serene02 Ηρωική αφίσα

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It’s highly likely those £6 wins are not accounted for so the machine will just get happier.  Nice find, I love revisiting old machines and trying ways to defeat them :).

I think the emptier on this was never fixed, but never knew this £6 feature was a thing.

I guess you could investigate furth by just taking those £6 wins.  Check the actual percentage then hammer those features that pay £6 then go back and check actual percentage again, this will clearly give you a definitive answer on whether or not those wins are indeed free.  I think they will be, especially when the machine is staying so happy when it shouldn’t be :).  Again, great work.

Let us know the outcome if you decide to find it another go ;)

J

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Yeah, there were many issues with those lower stake Maygay conversions.  I remember similar things on Super Sleuth and Fight Night when sacking off the revolver feature it could go mental and give you big wins when stepping reels, it would clock up then clear the win completely.  Ha ha was pretty funny

This is different though as the machine is staying very happy, I’d be checking actual % and seeing what’s what :)

J

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stevedude2 Ικανοποιητική αφίσα

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Yeah those Maygay conversions were atrocious.  On Coronation Street the Trolley Dash feature used to go for something like £8.80 in one credit and it would clock it all up but when you pressed start for the next game the bank would change to £0.00.  I think Queen Vic had similar issues.  Fuck knows who they got to do all of those; it felt like bootleg software.

I remember the BWB conversions of Road Hog £8 jackpot, the auction would go past £6 and when it did it would lock-up and you'd have to power-cycle it or even clear the RAM to sort it out.  I also remember playing a 10p £6 cash blue Andy Capp that said it was by REO instead of Barcrest on the alpha during attract mode, and once you got past the last set of feature squares you couldn't get caught; Flo could be 2 squares behind you and roll a 12 and she'd stop one away.

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avengah Εξερευνητής

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I played a dodgy £10 Andy Capp in a snooker club in Wales. I think it was 20/25p a go. It 3-held for red sevens then secretly held on the line without the holds lighting up, like JPMs and Reds do sometimes. I wonder if the original Barcrest version can do that?

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avengah Εξερευνητής

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Yes, the £6 off Hide and Seek is a free win. £24 in, invincible after £18ish, two £6 Hide and Seeks (and several that were less that I took £0 on) and I finally sacked the board off with a £0 Hide and Seek. Actual percentage 00.

EDIT: It's all free wins. Just did it the normal way and got Clowning Around. Expected it to mostly not be free because it was dropping credits and paying £5 on some credits (though the last credit of the first Clowning Around paid more than £5 since it was the same credit as the start of the second Clowning Around). The feature did a total of £24 or so over two Clowning Arounds. Actual percentage 00.

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avengah Εξερευνητής

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£65 in, £81 out in total just collecting nothing but Clowning Around off non-invincible boards. Still actual percentage 00, still off its tits. How this was not worked out as being free back in the day I don't know.

Now I'm at £98 in, £94 out (it was playing a bit badly these last few boards, as even happy machines go through bad patches) and it's just gone invincible after 1 shot. I think it's at maximum happiness so it's random whether it decides to go invincible straight away or take the piss.

I'll try the other hiddens and see if they're free. It'll take too long to test every possible way of collecting money but I'll try a couple of other ways of potting it at least.

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serene02 Ηρωική αφίσα

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Ok, so target % is 92%, which is a bit high I'd say :)   Actual % is 93.2, so not a lot in it, you are slightly ahead but still not over the money in.  Are you just taking the £6 wins on this or a mixture.  It would be great if you had the time to just take those £6 wins and nothing else to get a true reflection of what's going on :)

J

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So boot machine, then click cash door, once it boots, press demo it will give credits.  Click refill then I think it cancel or first hold, it’s in short term stats, if you can’t sort it I will look later, not on pc at minute.  This should apply to most mpu5 machines, handy to know if you are looking for free wins :)

J

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