Causing a bit of a stir.

[Projectgilda]

20 minutes ago, Boulderdash said:

I assume there's no roms for this available?!

Not that I'm aware of. The test machines stayed in the wild though.

[Cavey]

44 minutes ago, Chopaholic said:

you can't make a good compensated machine when the jackpot gets to those sorts of sizes relative to stake.

Lots of classic clubbers even at 5p play/£75JP ratio beg to differ (especially of the BFM Scorpion 1 and 2 variety).

[Projectgilda]

I wouldn't say clubs have anything near a good game compared to a classic AWP. £15 was manageable but after that you were going into club territory. Not much fun let's be honest.

[slotsmagic]

11 minutes ago, Cavey said:

Lots of classic clubbers even at 5p play/£75JP ratio beg to differ (especially of the BFM Scorpion 1 and 2 variety).

To be honest I used to play a lot of 5p/£75 clubbers. They were generally kinda naff, but equally when I lost interest in pub AWPs at £70 jackpot, that was when I started playing exclusively in clubs.

A much longer game. My preference was the JPM range - quite often taking 20 win spins on a £75 version would pay the jackpot (whereas taking the same on a £250 machine would probably pay £70-£85 - so the same, but not as rewarding as the full JP!)

15 win spins would be worth taking if you were getting itchy feet. Could still do 4 of a kind wins from that I'm sure, but you might struggle to get the JP from it. Still, I'd be expecting £50-£65 which isn't bad on a 5p a go machine, even if you had to push it out.

Never made catastrophic losses on the 5p clubbers. Can't say the same about the pub fruits!!

8 minutes ago, Projectgilda said:

I wouldn't say clubs have anything near a good game compared to a classic AWP. £15 was manageable but after that you were going into club territory. Not much fun let's be honest.

I found them more relaxing than a pub machine in that era, more a case of a 2 or 3 hour session machine, whereas by the £70 pub machines had just become 'skint this player ASAP so some other mug can take his place' machines.

Probably not as much in the way of fun on the club ones, especially if you wanted a lot of activity for your cash! But equally better value for money if you just wanted to pass some time in an antisocial manner as I did!

Edited August 5 by slotsmagic

[Cavey]

18 minutes ago, Projectgilda said:

I wouldn't say clubs have anything near a good game compared to a classic AWP. £15 was manageable but after that you were going into club territory. Not much fun let's be honest.

Well, each to his own. Personally I used to love "reel match" games like Club Attraction and semi-clones, and the six-reeler stuff like Club Six-Five Special, Cashino (with top reel holds) and Grandslam.

Early Club Cops 'n Robbers and PEN#1 were also good fun games with lapper/feature boards.

Certainly, these games were hugely successful, so plenty of people liked them.

Edited August 5 by Cavey

[Boulderdash]

1 hour ago, slotsmagic said:

To be honest I used to play a lot of 5p/£75 clubbers. They were generally kinda naff, but equally when I lost interest in pub AWPs at £70 jackpot, that was when I started playing exclusively in clubs.

A much longer game. My preference was the JPM range - quite often taking 20 win spins on a £75 version would pay the jackpot (whereas taking the same on a £250 machine would probably pay £70-£85 - so the same, but not as rewarding as the full JP!)

15 win spins would be worth taking if you were getting itchy feet. Could still do 4 of a kind wins from that I'm sure, but you might struggle to get the JP from it. Still, I'd be expecting £50-£65 which isn't bad on a 5p a go machine, even if you had to push it out.

Never made catastrophic losses on the 5p clubbers. Can't say the same about the pub fruits!!

I found them more relaxing than a pub machine in that era, more a case of a 2 or 3 hour session machine, whereas by the £70 pub machines had just become 'skint this player ASAP so some other mug can take his place' machines.

Probably not as much in the way of fun on the club ones, especially if you wanted a lot of activity for your cash! But equally better value for money if you just wanted to pass some time in an antisocial manner as I did!

Even on £200, Barcrest clubbers played a reasonable game, because they were essentially £40 jackpot machines. Only brave souls who gambled out huge wins, or those lucky enough to be playing when the pot rolled in, would win more. 

But that meant they got lots of casual action in golf clubs, so those big gambles were usually available to players. 

[Cavey]

26 minutes ago, Boulderdash said:

Even on £200, Barcrest clubbers played a reasonable game, because they were essentially £40 jackpot machines. Only brave souls who gambled out huge wins, or those lucky enough to be playing when the pot rolled in, would win more. 

But that meant they got lots of casual action in golf clubs, so those big gambles were usually available to players. 

Yeah, if you think about it, 20p play/£200JP is actually not as extreme as 5p/£75JP, so the best of these "full stake" (at the time) clubbers did play well.

I agree with you in respect of Barcrest clubbers - these behaved like AWPs for most of the time, and consequently were pretty lively with little difference to an AWP (with the added bonus of an almost invariably higher %RTP setting in a working mans club, as opposed to skuzzy service station, cafe or backstreet arcade).

Those early 90s BFM clubbers went about things in a different way, rewarding bravery (a force to an extent, if you will) and could be pushed if caught at the right time. Most old gimmers in the clubs wouldn't dream of gambling past a fiver, so it was all good if you were up for it. (Crystal clubbers were also similar - owned by JPM of course!)

[Boulderdash]

10 minutes ago, Cavey said:

Yeah, if you think about it, 20p play/£200JP is actually not as extreme as 5p/£75JP, so the best of these "full stake" (at the time) clubbers did play well.

I agree with you in respect of Barcrest clubbers - these behaved like AWPs for most of the time, and consequently were pretty lively with little difference to an AWP (with the added bonus of an almost invariably higher %RTP setting in a working mans club, as opposed to skuzzy service station, cafe or backstreet arcade).

Those early 90s BFM clubbers went about things in a different way, rewarding bravery (a force to an extent, if you will) and could be pushed if caught at the right time. Most old gimmers in the clubs wouldn't dream of gambling past a fiver, so it was all good if you were up for it. (Crystal clubbers were also similar - owned by JPM of course!)

Yeah, BFM Club Attraction and clones are still some of my favourite games to play in the emulator

[Cavey]

Absolute belters mate! I much preferred these to any AWPs at the time. £100 in cash piling into the payout tray off half the stake (10p) was great, this being quite a lot of money at the time.

Club Six-Five was a heck of a gambler's machine, even at 5p play.

Been thinking of possible reasons why the early to mid 90s seemed to be peak fruit machines in the UK; a "golden era" of sorts. My theory: no internet, no smart phones, very few mobiles generally - so much less widespread "pro network" and the dissemination (or even trading) of illicit cheats ruining the games for everyone else. (In the case of AWPs, much more sensible JP size as well, natch).

Edited August 5 by Cavey

[Boulderdash]

9 minutes ago, Cavey said:

 

Been thinking of possible reasons why the early to mid 90s seemed to be peak fruit machines in the UK; a "golden era" of sorts. My theory: no internet, no smart phones, very few mobiles generally - so much less widespread "pro network" and the dissemination (or even trading) of illicit cheats ruining the games for everyone else. (In the case of AWPs, much more sensible JP size as well, natch).

Anything over £200 seems too much for a compensated club machine. I think that's why the late 80s machines were so playable - the base games, if properly balanced, would be great fun for casuals. 

The profile on Barcrest blackjack, celebration, pontoon club etc was pretty flat, so if someone had lost a bit you could win a bit, but you'd never really get torn a new one. 

[thealteredemu]

I’ve only played a few clubbers, they weren’t really my bag unless you were pot chasing on Cops N Robbers original.  The one I have fond memories of for some reason was BFM Fungouse, I loved the look of it.  My mate used to play for reel match and was able to hit a fairly high up symbol.  Used to always serm to be value in that one.  Not sure if this is one you can just full out force back then.  He didn’t do that.

J

[thealteredemu]

@Cavey  Early to mid 90’s was definitely the golden era in my opinion.  Stuff could last for months if not years as we just weren’t connected like we are today.  There weren’t that many players about back in the early 90’s.  You tended to get small groups of guys in each seaside resort but I mainly played Skegness/Ingoldmells and Chapel St Leonard’s and it was a bit of a gold mine back the early 90’s.

I mean we knew an older guy who defrauded machines back in the earlier 80’s.  We found out about Line Up emptier from watching him, I’m sure he had plenty of stuff up his sleeve.  I remember him, so this kind of thing has always been a thing.

He’s probably the reason we started thinking differently about machines, the Line Up thing stayed with me.  Lol, it wasn’t too many years later we’d be plugging all those 2p Ratraces when a win is paid into the bank, you could keep resetting it and it would reset the win and keep adding it so you had to keep Switching it off before the win had completed it’s count up.  The limit was maybe £5 or £7 can’t remember.  But you could do it a fairly lo down win, maybe grapes or even lower so you could keep the machine ready as that inflated bank was not accounted for only the initial win.  I mean it’s been a while, I know it works on most rom revisions we have but it was fixed.  It worked on other BWB  similar to rat race, I guess the issue was from the code base so a lot of clones were almost identical just different artwork.

J

Edited August 5 by thealteredemu

[Chopaholic]

3 hours ago, Boulderdash said:

Even on £200, Barcrest clubbers played a reasonable game, because they were essentially £40 jackpot machines. Only brave souls who gambled out huge wins, or those lucky enough to be playing when the pot rolled in, would win more. 

But that meant they got lots of casual action in golf clubs, so those big gambles were usually available to players. 

This is the point with club machines, very much two machines in one really. I hardly ever played them as I was rarely in the places they were, but there was always a 'main game' and a sort of 'jackpot game' going on in terms of the RTP split, we comprehensively proved this with the Super Blackjack Club deep dive which showed there was ~10% of RTP permanently allocated to 'under the block' play and it turned out 'Press G for George' would actually take all the value out of the machine if you just left him to it  

A very different proposition in design terms to AWPs IMO, although one could argue that's sort of where Reflex ended up with their £100 jackpot fruit machines which basically played with a '£25 jackpot' most of the time and then rarely unlocked the £100 actual jackpot.

One of the main selling points of AWPs was that the jackpots should be frequent and relatively easy to win, so the bigger the jackpot the got, the harder it became to stick to that core philosophy.

[Boulderdash]

19 minutes ago, Chopaholic said:

This is the point with club machines, very much two machines in one really. I hardly ever played them as I was rarely in the places they were, but there was always a 'main game' and a sort of 'jackpot game' going on in terms of the RTP split, we comprehensively proved this with the Super Blackjack Club deep dive which showed there was ~10% of RTP permanently allocated to 'under the block' play and it turned out 'Press G for George' would actually take all the value out of the machine if you just left him to it  

A very different proposition in design terms to AWPs IMO, although one could argue that's sort of where Reflex ended up with their £100 jackpot fruit machines which basically played with a '£25 jackpot' most of the time and then rarely unlocked the £100 actual jackpot.

One of the main selling points of AWPs was that the jackpots should be frequent and relatively easy to win, so the bigger the jackpot the got, the harder it became to stick to that core philosophy.

The later BFMs like Redial and Big Box also played like £25 jackpot. I guess the designers were trying to make something in the AWP spirit, and you could genuinely play those things for half an hour and only lose a tenner. 

Sure, you could try and force out a jackpot, but you wouldn't usually get it for less than you paid. 

[Boulderdash]

5 hours ago, Projectgilda said:

Not that I'm aware of. The test machines stayed in the wild though.

If only there was a way to track them down. I'd love to have a go on rollercoaster 2...

[Projectgilda]

I did 'Casino Crazy Club' and I'd like to think it played well. It certainly sold well. Compensation was very different to an AWP but my goal was to still give a good game and not have the famous club barren spells. I think we achieved that.

[Cavey]

19 minutes ago, Projectgilda said:

I did 'Casino Crazy Club' and I'd like to think it played well. It certainly sold well. Compensation was very different to an AWP but my goal was to still give a good game and not have the famous club barren spells. I think we achieved that.

That was an amazing machine. I always went for 20 or 30 winspins, or Casino Crazy feature (hopefully not with the cherry on 4th reel!)

Only one niggle - the nudges were never worth anything or were involved, but hey

[dondplayer]

27 minutes ago, Boulderdash said:

The later BFMs like Redial and Big Box also played like £25 jackpot. I guess the designers were trying to make something in the AWP spirit, and you could genuinely play those things for half an hour and only lose a tenner. 

I assume it was so that the deal game was achievable to a casual player. I remember this guy (not seen him around for a while but he used to throw a few quid at anything) showed up whilst I was on a triple and said 'never seen it offer that when I've tried it' referring to the deal game. Of course he'd never risk 50 quid or whatever and as it was always being done thus would never see the deal game nor a bust message.

[Boulderdash]

8 hours ago, dondplayer said:

I assume it was so that the deal game was achievable to a casual player. I remember this guy (not seen him around for a while but he used to throw a few quid at anything) showed up whilst I was on a triple and said 'never seen it offer that when I've tried it' referring to the deal game. Of course he'd never risk 50 quid or whatever and as it was always being done thus would never see the deal game nor a bust message.

Yeah, once they controlled the deal game it became just another way to win £15-£20 and rarely any more. 

[Cavey]

13 hours ago, thealteredemu said:

I’ve only played a few clubbers, they weren’t really my bag unless you were pot chasing on Cops N Robbers original.  The one I have fond memories of for some reason was BFM Fungouse, I loved the look of it.  My mate used to play for reel match and was able to hit a fairly high up symbol.  Used to always serm to be value in that one.  Not sure if this is one you can just full out force back then.  He didn’t do that.

J

Not sure about Funhouse, but I always used to find that with Reel Match in general (which was often quite a lowly feature on the trial and reasonably achievable), the melon was easy to hit IF the machine wasn't blocking it. If you did get the melon, you would know that the machine would allow the bell to be stopped if you hit it & was therefore JP ready (so deliberately miss the 4 melons so as not to knock the machine back).

Other classic BFM features for JP were Choose a Nudge (just look for bells) and the Cashpot off Ricochet.

Forcing for the cashpot also worked on many other BFM games as well as CnR/PEN#1, especially Cashino - which then ALWAYS gave 3 bells (i.e. the JP if on medium or top stake) in afterplay. Changing up c.£200 in coins off a 10p play clubber always went down well with the suspicious bar staff at the old social club, with incredulous old gimmers looking on.

[Cavey]

13 hours ago, thealteredemu said:

I mean we knew an older guy who defrauded machines back in the earlier 80’s.  We found out about Line Up emptier from watching him, I’m sure he had plenty of stuff up his sleeve.  I remember him, so this kind of thing has always been a thing.

Line Up emptier...? *What* Line Up emptier!?? (Just a tad late in the day eh  )

Is this the one where you could somehow get £2 off the attract mode? (I don't think that worked on the £3JP Super Line Up did it?). Or was this something else, J?

Fascinating stuff.  Btw, I completely agree that emptiers/flawed code has always been a thing. As we've both said, though, it's probably just a case of far fewer "pro" players knowing the cheats back then for it to have been a problem, hence fruities were far more widely played by casuals, their having not been "done" all the time. (No internet, smart phones or even mobiles etc.)

[slotsmagic]

12 hours ago, Projectgilda said:

I did 'Casino Crazy Club' and I'd like to think it played well. It certainly sold well. Compensation was very different to an AWP but my goal was to still give a good game and not have the famous club barren spells. I think we achieved that.

Well known as a 'classic' machine and still sought after by collectors! The fact it was 'cloned' so much even into the Heber Pluto 6 JPM era is testament to that. I had one of the last clones (OK, not an exact clone, but definitely a close derivative) - an Al Murray £400 jackpot multistake version. Obviously it wouldn't have been as good as the original, but the fact they kept the same formula (albeit with tweaks over the years)... I can't think of any other hi-tech formulas that had such longevity.

Here's a photo when it arrived in my garage.

Edited August 6 by slotsmagic

[thealteredemu]

@Cavey I’m not too sure if it was a Super Line up.  There is a YouTube vid of someone with the machine running the early roms.  Sadly we don’t have access to those.

I tried to find the YouTube vid but I can’t seem to locate it, pretty sure I’ve seen it in there.

J

Edited August 6 by thealteredemu

[Boulderdash]

32 minutes ago, slotsmagic said:

Well known as a 'classic' machine and still sought after by collectors! The fact it was 'cloned' so much even into the Heber Pluto 6 JPM era is testament to that. I had one of the last clones (OK, not an exact clone, but definitely a close derivative) - an Al Murray £400 jackpot multistake version. Obviously it wouldn't have been as good as the original, but the fact they kept the same formula (albeit with tweaks over the years)... I can't think of any other hi-tech formulas that had such longevity.

Here's a photo when it arrived in my garage.

Ah yes. Oxford graduate Alastair James Hay Murray, son of a lieutenant colonel in 131 (Parachute) Regiment, descendant of novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, and grandson of former British ambassador Sir Ralph Murray, from the Scottish aristocracy, made a great career pretending to be a xenophobic pub landlord, with a cut price Alexei Sayle persona. 

In reality he's a wet liberal and the joke is supposedly at the expense of people who think like the landlord. But he carries on with the facade, even though he's coining it in at their expense. A bit like Johnny Speight's Alf Garnet character. 

Gervais is the same with Derek. 

Edited August 6 by Boulderdash

[stevedude2]

12 hours ago, Projectgilda said:

I did 'Casino Crazy Club' and I'd like to think it played well. It certainly sold well. Compensation was very different to an AWP but my goal was to still give a good game and not have the famous club barren spells. I think we achieved that.

This was an absolutely fabulous club machine, second only to Cops 'n' Robbers in my opinion.  Pretty unique because there were no nudges in the base game and this made for a rapid throughput of money.  The base game was still fun to play though because if you held a pair of fruits there was a good chance of the third one coming in to get you on the hi-lo gamble, which felt very fair on the numbers.

On the feature board you could go round a few times building stuff up and it felt very fair, even though there was a lot of jeopardy because it was possible to lose from any square on the board - you could always reach a LOSE of a question mark from anywhere.

It was genuinely exciting when the columns started getting high up, and if you got an extra life it was a great feeling because you knew you were assured of a few more moves and at this stage you felt you had a good chance of getting 20 or 30 win spins, especially once the bingo numbers started filling up for the double and triple add.  Also exciting was the fact that you might even fill the name up again before you lost your extra life so you now had two, and then it was all about hoping you got one of the columns to the top before your lives ran out.  Getting Boombastic with an extra life was really annoying though!  But you'd also get Boombastic quite a lot instead of getting kicked off the board, so at least the player could take something.  I used to find that you'd get a lot of Boombastics early on in the feature if it was close to paying the jackpot, but it might have been my imagination.

I liked the way the game alternated between paying the Jackpot and the Cashpots - if you got the Jackpot from the cash/win spins column, the next jackpot would be paid from the Cashpots, and vice-versa.

A tremendous club machine in every respect.  The way the jackpot was delivered was great - if you've got an extra life you're going to carry on aren't you?