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

[Boulderdash]

3 hours ago, thealteredemu said:

Yeah those games with the action nudges that are saved were literally shark machines.  I grew up on these machines, they aren’t great but by no means the worst machines.

One of my favourites from back in the day was Barcrest Top the Lot, with the 1.50 repeat chance.  Think it was called top the lot.  That could repeat a fair few times.

J

There were loads of jpm machines with three word titles like top the lot, stop the clock etc.

I loved them

[Cavey]

12 minutes ago, Boulderdash said:

There were loads of jpm machines with three word titles like top the lot, stop the clock etc.

I loved them

I think they were all early MPU4 'Crests?

(Not a fan, personally. I preferred JPMs of a similar vintage like Moneybelt etc. Castles as well).

[Boulderdash]

3 hours ago, Cavey said:

I think they were all early MPU4 'Crests?

(Not a fan, personally. I preferred JPMs of a similar vintage like Moneybelt etc. Castles as well).

Not sure why I said JPM. Yes, they are barcrests

[woodsy]

On 03/12/2025 at 13:13, Chopaholic said:

They do keep to percentage, the problem is with 'standard' percentages of the day they'll just grind you out against that 74% or whatever it is and make it borderline impossible to ever win.

@Boulderdash has put some serious play into Top Tenner and outside of the (very!) rare big(ish) repeater on the £2, they're death by a thousand cuts. Well, probably not even that many cuts.

Low RTPs and low volatility are a pretty toxic combination.

i assume you mean the £4 top tenner? the £10 one is a decent game as well as its clones and similar variants

[woodsy]

On 02/12/2025 at 14:11, thealteredemu said:

JPM totally altered the profile in later machines they just became fairly generic and flat.  Even later machines became BFM machines, force for a jackpot and hope to trigger the saved for streak.

Vinda loot and all those games.

J

bfm £15 era was awesome fun for me, turbo cash jp's galore, games like rich geezer and hilowatha etc, happy fruits was my most loved game, there were so many to play, easy sytreak, lockbuster. the flawsh happy ones like wwtba millionaire, all of them so profitable. mind you the whole £15 catalogue was profit really

[logopolis]

On 03/12/2025 at 10:10, slotsmagic said:

A few of you have mentioned Big Cheese and clones. I've probably mentioned elsewhere about the time I got absolutely shafted by High Flyer, which I guess is the Spitfire themed one referred to above. You also had Super Star, Top Dog, Hot Rocks and possibly more.

The High Flyer was ridiculous. I can remember the exact location (O'Neills in Peterborough, opposite the Wetherspoons on Broadway). I remember it being incredibly frustrating. Totally unwilling to go through blocks. Didn't help that my college friends were waiting for me to sit with them and got so tired of waiting they walked off without me (can hardly blame them!!).

Unlike the mess about I had with Smash Martians at the beginning of the thread - it wasn't like I was knocking back jackpots or owt, it just didn't seem willing to go past a fiver or so despite me being a good £100 in at some point I'm sure.

But, swings and roundabouts, despite swearing off that machine and it's clones, I did later put £5 into a Big Cheese in a pub, and it gave back to back IMs and I think it paid £75. So I guess that's what they saved for.

Still maintain they were shit though  

High Flyer was good on £5 jackpot. Play for the Win Series feature which could go for a lot more than the £5 jackpot.

[thealteredemu]

I’m pretty sure early 10p The Big Cheese could be emptied as it would always cost less to get to the Win Series.  Not sure what rom revision but likely older than what we have.

I don’t know for sure but I met a couple of guys that asked if I knew locations for 10p play version.  They mentioned the the win series.  I only knew one in the skegg Butlins.  They said they were barred lol.

I imagine that was painfully slow :).

J

[pbb]

On 03/12/2025 at 13:31, thealteredemu said:

Yeah those games with the action nudges that are saved were literally shark machines.  I grew up on these machines, they aren’t great but by no means the worst machines.

One of my favourites from back in the day was Barcrest Top the Lot, with the 1.50 repeat chance.  Think it was called top the lot.  That could repeat a fair few times.

J

Top the Lot and Top Take, I was convinced that holding down the start and tapping it would guarantee the repeat, how wrong was I haha.

[pbb]

On 03/12/2025 at 11:17, Cavey said:

The very first one - "All Cash Advance" I think (when on initial release chip at least) - was a great game. The alpha even said "you have a fair chance to go all the way" [to the tenner in cash after the maximum allowed 4 repeats], and it usually repeated at least once or twice. This was also the first time "action nudges" made their appearance IIRC, but these weren't quite the number taunting shitbags as per the later games.

Barcrest obviously realised they were onto a winner with this mechanic, which among other things enabled them to (legitimately) plaster images of £5 and £10 notes all over the glasses of their machines (in stark contrast to what Bacta permitted previous to that AFAIK/IIRC), and also hooked players into the "sunken cost fallacy" of Action Nudges - no one (mistakenly in many cases) left a machine with any nudges lit for the next player.

The later machines were REALLY brutal. Did anyone (apart from pluggers) ever make a bean on them, ever? Tight as a duck's arse, and awful forced-collect small wins gameplay so typical of Barcrests of the era. Real spawn of the devil type stuff.

These must've made operators a bloody fortune back in the day. Wouldn't be surprised if the twats never made RTP, neither. Brrr.

All cash advance didn't have action nudges, but an action cash button, It would regularly Give the £2 or £1.50 with 3 attempts to get a repeat, great game at the time. ! 1st game with action nudges was Action Bank, you could get the £2 repeater with 2 or above nudges which was sometimes very easy with holds, however later action nudge machines, you would need to fill the nudges to get the £2.

[Cavey]

Many thanks pbb. My memory fails me again lol.  

[Boulderdash]

On 06/12/2025 at 23:15, pbb said:

All cash advance didn't have action nudges, but an action cash button, It would regularly Give the £2 or £1.50 with 3 attempts to get a repeat, great game at the time. ! 1st game with action nudges was Action Bank, you could get the £2 repeater with 2 or above nudges which was sometimes very easy with holds, however later action nudge machines, you would need to fill the nudges to get the £2.

The original £2/£4 Top Tenner had action cash. It always felt like it deliberately showed the jackpot when the symbol didn't land, then went back to 30p when it did, but having played it a lot lately I guess it's just random.