Causing a bit of a stir.

[Chopaholic]

26 minutes ago, Mort said:

The way to prove this, potentially, is to find the block of compensators in RAM and then put read breakpoints in MFME across this compensator range (to include lo-resolution ones as well, 1-6 etc.).

Play the base game as normal, and when number reel spins, if it's reading compensators each time, then it will break each time OR it may only read compensators every so often. In which case, just before a spin to 1 or 12, I would expect to see a break in code execution due to the read BPs you have set.

If the base game is separate to the feature game entirely, then it could just be reading compensators, to allow that initial gamble to be won in the base game (with no knowledge of the feature being JP ready). Which was always what I saw numbering to be. Is it true that when numbering you will always be guaranteed a jackpot win on the feature game  (obviously with JPM that jackpot win could be under any JP capable feature, due to spread value) or if not, could it just be a by product effectively of the compensator read from the base game being high enough to allow the JP in the feature game _most_ of the time ?

Interesting stuff.

Numbering definitely doesn't mean the machine will drop jackpots into your lap, and skill/knowledge will often still be required to get them. A numbering Roller Coaster may well land on Test Your Strength, but cheerfully kill you if you carry on up the board.

One of the best examples of this is the videos I made for The Untouchable and Big Wheel when they got massively behind percentage. They then went on a ridiculously long 'happy period' (i.e. numbering) until they were back at target, but with loads of losing boards/gambles/etc and 'normal style' behaviour along the way.

 

[thealteredemu]

Numbering definitely meant the machine could afford to pay a jackpot.  I hammered a Roller Coaster and a ooor guy went on it a few minutes after me.  I told him I’d got a huge steak and it will take some time to recover.  I watched him for 10 minutes or so and not once did it drop 1 or 12 on the hi lo reel.  I’d say numbering is a clear sign the machine is jackpot capable.

It was certainly a sign we’d be happy to see on JPM and Ace Coin numbering machines for sure.  If it wasn’t dropping those signs you’d leave it.

J

[Projectgilda]

I'm not denying numbering is a thing. I just don't remember putting it in rollercoaster other than it being there for core compensator safety. That's in every JPM. Especially in the base game where reduction in bonuses and nudges was the main control. 

[Mort]

Glad you joined here Andrew, I hope that you can see the level of enthusiasm that's been key in this community over the past 25 years or so. FME is so niche, that we have been very fortunate to have some genius coders involved with our community who have provided us with the goodies to be able to create the level of emulation we can all enjoy now. After the coding genius of them, it's then been the job of the other creative geniuses to weave their magic in creating the classic and then graphical 'DX' layouts we all enjoy now.

Wizard was the main genius who coded MFME, he passed way, which was a very real sadness experienced by the community. We have had many other coding gods along the way as well, Dialtone for the original Impact emulator, JPeMu, ReAnimator for BFMulator (Scorpion 1 and 2 iirc), Guitar for an alternative MPU4 emulator written entirely in VBasic! (which introduced things like MUX strobing) and we are also fortunate to have the amazing @johnparker007 with us now who built Arcade Simulator, a 3D virtual arcade written in Unity, which uses MFME for the emulation.

We are all very interesed in emptiers and all that but we also welcome you with the opportunity to just tell us about the industry generally and openly, stories about working for JPM and Barcrest etc. Anything you can talk about, whilst it might seem non-interesting, would, I am sure, provide us with further insights and to understand the history, particularly on your side of the fence.

It's very rare for anyone in the industry to take the time to join our community, and I hope you find it a friendly place and can appreciate the amount of love that has been put in, over the many years, into making fruit machine emulation what it is today.

Oh and btw did Rollercoaster originally release on a £6 token ROM ? We have a flyer which shows it, and some have hazy memories of it, but it's never been 100% proven.

Edited August 1, 2025 by Mort

[thealteredemu]

Indeed, it’s great to see an ex machine designer/programmer that can share actual real insights.  We usually make calculated guesses or JP will do some of his magic .

Maybe the numbering was a similar mechanism attached to show how far the machine was behind %.   Thing is you’d still need some skills on those JPM’s to take the full value.

J

[Projectgilda]

I'm not denying numbering is a thing. I just don't remember putting it in rollercoaster other than it being there for core compensator safety. That's in every JPM. Especially in the base game where reduction in bonuses and nudges was the main control. I've spoken to the developer of Rollercoaster and he confirms it's in there on testing it was rarely used as players didn't know the game that well. As you guys push it to it's max numbering is a 'tell' of the machines state. 

[Projectgilda]

Thanks Mort for your response. Rollercoaster was originally a £6/£3. This was what I initially designed and where it played it's best. Personally this was my favourite stake to prize ratio. I could give you a great game with lots of frequency and skill features that weren't too restrained. £8/£4 handled my games well, but £15 was difficult for the older machines to handle. You need to design from scratch for £15. A more gambling experience. £35 fucked it for everyone, particularly me who wanted to create games as opposed to pure gaming machines. Cash Attack 2 and Psycho Cash Beast 2 were my only successful machines of that era. I left the industry shortly after. 

[vectra666]

7 minutes ago, Projectgilda said:

Thanks Mort for your response. Rollercoaster was originally a £6/£3. This was what I initially designed and where it played it's best. Personally this was my favourite stake to prize ratio. I could give you a great game with lots of frequency and skill features that weren't too restrained. £8/£4 handled my games well, but £15 was difficult for the older machines to handle. You need to design from scratch for £15. A more gambling experience. £35 fucked it for everyone, particularly me who wanted to create games as opposed to pure gaming machines. Cash Attack 2 and Psycho Cash Beast 2 were my only successful machines of that era. I left the industry shortly after. 

great to have you aboard and this gives us an insight to the makings of these classic games

don't suppose you've the program roms for roller coaster £6 kicking around on a old floppy disc or any other gems or even other  resources for emulation

[Projectgilda]

I don't have any roms I'm afraid. What I do have I wouldn't be willing to share from my Barcrest days as they're still an outfit and I could get in trouble.

[Mort]

18 minutes ago, Projectgilda said:

Thanks Mort for your response. Rollercoaster was originally a £6/£3. This was what I initially designed and where it played it's best. Personally this was my favourite stake to prize ratio. I could give you a great game with lots of frequency and skill features that weren't too restrained. £8/£4 handled my games well, but £15 was difficult for the older machines to handle. You need to design from scratch for £15. A more gambling experience. £35 fucked it for everyone, particularly me who wanted to create games as opposed to pure gaming machines. Cash Attack 2 and Psycho Cash Beast 2 were my only successful machines of that era. I left the industry shortly after. 

Thanks for the response. It's great to have it fully confirmed that it started out on £6. The £6/£3 RC ROM is one of those holy grail ROMs. It's not out of our reach to hack the win table for the earliest £8/£4 ROM we have to put it back to £6/£3 but I'm not sure if this would be enough to make the machine fully aware of that change and to behave in the same way as the original £6/£3. It's something I have on my list of things to try one day anyway.

I originally started out enjoying the club machines available in FME, being a club player back in the day, but I much prefer and appreciate the golden AWP games of the £6 era nowadays.

[thealteredemu]

Yeah, I’m in the 4.80/6.00 AWP era.  This is the golden era of fruit machines in my opinion.

I stopped playing fruit machines seriously in early 2000’s.  Was some decent £25, I played on and off usually in summer months but since then it’s a very casual play and maybe a couple of visits to skegg in the summer months just for old times sake.

Not actually played a physical fruit machine for 2 years!!

J

[Projectgilda]

I don't touch machines now and haven't for a number of years. I used to love playing machines but never considered it gambling. Just a way to spend time having fun, sometimes you won sometimes you didn't, but you never lost your hat!

Edited August 1, 2025 by Projectgilda

[Boulderdash]

56 minutes ago, Mort said:

Thanks for the response. It's great to have it fully confirmed that it started out on £6. The £6/£3 RC ROM is one of those holy grail ROMs. It's not out of our reach to hack the win table for the earliest £8/£4 ROM we have to put it back to £6/£3 but I'm not sure if this would be enough to make the machine fully aware of that change and to behave in the same way as the original £6/£3. It's something I have on my list of things to try one day anyway.

I originally started out enjoying the club machines available in FME, being a club player back in the day, but I much prefer and appreciate the golden AWP games of the £6 era nowadays.

I remember getting £24 from the top feature on rollercoaster in hotel burstyn in Folkestone, which was the first time I'd ever seen it on £8 jackpot. I didn't know about numbering so probably left it with a nemesis ready for the next person to take...

[Projectgilda]

It could repeat through 4 credit breaks, so you didn't get the max from it. Still good mind

[MikeyMonster]

Very nice when it gave the max £75 on the £15 chip (which i once had feature on the next spin after £75, go to Test your Strength which I collected, and that repeated!)

Incidentally, where I am we were told by the arcade owners that the £15 chip was really hard to get hold of - which surprises me as this must have been when JPM were hugely succesful.

[Projectgilda]

Nice payouts there the £15 prom 'was' wildly successful. Don't know why it's gold dust?! Very strange.

Edited August 1, 2025 by Projectgilda

[Boulderdash]

1 hour ago, Projectgilda said:

Nice payouts there the £15 prom 'was' wildly successful. Don't know why it's gold dust?! Very strange.

Never seen one on £15. 

[MikeyMonster]

10 minutes ago, Boulderdash said:

Never seen one on £15. 

This is sort of what I mean, I live in a seaside town. and there were a total of 5 £10 rollercoasters in the arcades. Only one got a £15 chip, and yet pretty much every other machine there seemed to be no issue upgrading to £15......

In my travels, I only ever saw one other on £15. They must have all been down South......

[Hamsun]

Good to hear from an insider.

I started playing in the early 90s but found most AWPs in the mid 90s to be deadly dull.

It was really only when JPM released machines like Big 50 and Fast Trak towards the end of the decade that my interest was piqued again.

Fast Trak was a fairly rare machine but it's one I have recently played to death on the emulator. It had numerous 'hidden' paths to the JP and other decent wins and was a truly absorbing machine that rewarded skill and familiarity (as did Big 50). I don't think I've come across another AWP that gave so many potential JP chances from the pre-prize and feature entry bonus. They certainly don't make them like that any more!

'Numbering' is something I became gradually aware of on JPMs simply through playing them. When they were in a bad mood they tended to throw in lots of 7s and 9s &c  on the number reel, and no 12s or 1s, whether or not there was a gamble available. You still had to know how to hit the skills and play the features if you were to come out ahead. That era of JPM offered players a real challenge rather than brainless gambling.

With most feature-rich JPMs, the 'good' numbers usually begin to reappear within one or two jackpots worth of credits so they rarely go completely dead. Exceptions would be a machine like Arcadia where very skillful players (more skillful than me) could hit the max win on the 'shoot 'em up' feature almost every time.

I'm fairly sure that later JPMs from the early 2000s onwards did not 'number' in the same way or if they did, the JP features were so well blocked it meant almost nothing.

I haven't played a machine in the real world for 20 years and nothing would me entice me back. Playability went out the window after the £25 era.

[Projectgilda]

I'm glad you liked Fast?Trak. I struggled with that one for a while, to balance it correctly. I though it looked awesome, sounded great and played well. We only sold a few (800 is a guess but around that) and thought it deserved better. Another machine I did which was inventive was Twin Turbo, loved that game. But again only sold in small numbers. Games like Big Banker, Big 50 et al were my bread and butter. Sold very well. Way back then games were games, not sad note accepting, random playing, gambler addicting shit. I'm glad you enjoyed them and more importantly, like me, stopped when you did.

[Chopaholic]

Hi Andrew hope you don't mind me cross-posting from the FB group but this seems really interesting and also quite significant.

If I'm reading this right, when you originally wrote the code for Roller Coaster (and presumably by extension other games as well), numbering wasn't part of it, but then another developer came along afterwards and specifically made numbering a thing in the code as part of a rechip?

Also numbering doesn't stop the skill/good features still being the best ones to collect, it just tells a player who knows about numbering if the machine is going to offer them or not, within about £3-£4 of credits. (i.e. You never need to lose much, for example on the £15 Roller Coaster I had in an arcade here, if I was getting to the end of my credits (I did £5 max) and I hadn't seen a 1/12, I'd collect a Log Flume or suchlike just to get some money back before walking away.)

I don't see that another developer coming along and adding numbering to Roller Coaster benefits anyone except the people who know to look out for it?

[Boulderdash]

1 hour ago, Chopaholic said:

Hi Andrew hope you don't mind me cross-posting from the FB group but this seems really interesting and also quite significant.

If I'm reading this right, when you originally you wrote the code for Roller Coaster (and presumably by extension other games as well), numbering wasn't part of it, but then another developer came along afterwards and specifically made numbering a thing in the code as part of a rechip?

Also numbering doesn't stop the skill/good features still being the best ones to collect, it just tells a player who knows about numbering if the machine is going to offer them or not, within about £3-£4 of credits. (i.e. You never need to lose much, for example on the £15 Roller Coaster I had in an arcade here, I was getting to the end of my credits (I did £5 max) and I hadn't seen a 1/12, I'd collect a Log Flume or suchlike just to get some money back before walking away.)

I don't see that another developer coming along and adding numbering to Roller Coaster benefits anyone except the people who know to look out for it?

You couldn't 'rape' Rollercoaster, if by that he means empty it. You could certainly extract all the value by learning the skill features and only playing when numbering, but then it would get itself back to RTP average by 'raping' the casual punters who followed you. 

It's still the perfect AWP. 

Edited August 3, 2025 by Boulderdash

[Chopaholic]

6 minutes ago, Boulderdash said:

You couldn't 'rape' Rollercoaster, if by that he means empty it. You could certainly extract all the value by learning the skill features and only playing when numbering, but then it would get itself back to RTP average by 'raping' the casual punters who followed you. 

It's still the perfect AWP. 

Yes that's what I'm getting at, if the control of the machine that AW coded in already worked (which it did), then adding the numbering afterwards just means there's now a handy 'tell' for people in the know to inform them to abandon ship after £3-£4 worth of credits.

[Cavey]

One thing that always piqued my interest about IMPACT JPMs was the difference between the old classics like Indy, Roller Coaster, Big Bucks etc. and the later ones, which didn't play anything like as well - and differently too? Specifically, the more recent ones would often be found absolutely DEAD for many credits, and then would eventually roll over and throw a JP at you (if you were lucky). I realise that I was playing them completely wrongly - trying to semi-force some of the decent higher features, whereas even I now know you can't even remotely force these games and you have to stick to the low wins and features until the machine itself gives you some value.

It's weird, because this seemed like a real own goal for JPM, who (from a clueless perspective) went from genuinely entertaining/giving a run for your money - to plain crap?

[Boulderdash]

1 hour ago, Cavey said:

One thing that always piqued my interest about IMPACT JPMs was the difference between the old classics like Indy, Roller Coaster, Big Bucks etc. and the later ones, which didn't play anything like as well - and differently too? Specifically, the more recent ones would often be found absolutely DEAD for many credits, and then would eventually roll over and throw a JP at you (if you were lucky). I realise that I was playing them completely wrongly - trying to semi-force some of the decent higher features, whereas even I now know you can't even remotely force these games and you have to stick to the low wins and features until the machine itself gives you some value.

It's weird, because this seemed like a real own goal for JPM, who (from a clueless perspective) went from genuinely entertaining/giving a run for your money - to plain crap?

Impact covered machines like Red Alert, Hi Impact, Streaker and G Force which were all player favourites, no?