Paradise Slots - V1.2, Finally with sound!

[Habhome]

I have had this nagging on my mind for quite some time and finally decided to actually make it since I had some time over. I know there is a Slot machine game already, but I see many things which could be improved.

Enjoyed the game? Then you could consider to


Here's my slot machine, Paradise Slots.

FEATURES:
Version: 1.2
Pair: 1-1-0 or 0-1-1
Triple: 1-1-1
Different pay for objects (See screenshot of in-game paytable)
Highscore
Hold reels - You are given 2 holds at the game start, after that you win holds by winning without having held anything. Your max amount of holds are 10. It takes one hold for each reel you want to hold, and you can't hold a reel twice in a row.
Sound effects (optional)

Future Updates:
Feel free to come with suggestions!

Known issues:
None, tell me if you find any.

Do not forget to back-up your "save" folder if you want to keep your highscore and cash-pile!

LATEST NEWS:

• 13th November '11: Version 1.2 released! Now with sounds!
• 25th May '10: Version 1.1 released! Now with hold feature!
• 9th May '10: Version 1.0 released! New screenshots!!

[CrowdAds]

[blikbier]

Sounds useful -.-
And very original!

[Habhome]

Originally Posted by blikbier

Sounds useful -.-
And very original!

I can really see the sarcasm dripping from that post.
In fact I have had ideas on if I should do one even before you released your's, RobertsAccount can vouch for that.
But it wasn't until I saw what you had made and realized how much could be improved that I decided to make my own some day when I had time, which I had now. All my code is written from scratch, I have not even looked at the code for your game.

I would appreciate if you could keep in mind that we all make applications according to our own capability and interest. It just so happened that it was in my interest to make a slot machine because I felt I could learn something from making it. Otherwise I'd just have let it be and done something else.
I only mentioned that you were first with making one out of courtesy, but I guess that was unnecessary considering your reaction.

Besides, bringing usefulness and originality into it is just stupid.
1. It's a game, it's not supposed to be "useful"
2. In what way was your version "original"? Slots have been around for ages...

[RobertsAccount]

Originally Posted by Habhome

I can really see the sarcasm dripping from that post.
In fact I have had ideas on if I should do one even before you released your's, RobertsAccount can vouch for that.

Blikbier, there really is no need for sarcastic comments like that, this community is a fantastic community, and comments like those are just inappropriate. Please think about what you're saying before you post it. Also, I can back up Habhome here as he has previously told me that he'd like to to do a slot machine app, a while before you released yours. As I've said before with the two Notepad apps, there is nothing wrong with a bit of friendly competition, so play nice!

[blikbier]

But come on there are a few games / apps for the zen, and then you have to make one that there already is! It's just useless.

But success.

[Habhome]

Thanks Rob.

And I have question about game-play.
There of course has to be some way of winning more or less and I have two ideas.

1: Making the different images worth differently (and differently likely to get accordingly) and you have to get at least two or more in a row.

2: The images are just as likely to get but you gain more depending on their position.
0-1-0 < 1-1-0 < 1-1-1

What do you think?

Also ideas of how much a game would cost to play, if I should use a point system or "money" which might be able to be put together with Black Jack at some point. and other things are very welcome.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by blikbier

But come on there are a few games / apps for the zen, and then you have to make one that there already is! It's just useless.

But success.

I don't consider your game finished yet, just saying.

[Brett_val]

I'm not sure how the realworld-slotmachines work, but I would assume that every image is as likely to get because the roll just spins and stops, but as there are less high-point images than low-point images on a roll, it's less likely to get high-point images.
So I would just let the odds to their work.

About the points you can get for the images, I do remember that it only gives points when you have a double (1-1-0) or a triple image, and none when you have a double like this: (0-1-1) or (1-0-1).

I just read on wikipedia that slotmachines are programmed to payout about 95% of what has been put into it.. but for a single-user game that might not be very fun to play, since that way you can never increase your stack

[Habhome]

Originally Posted by Brett_val

I'm not sure how the realworld-slotmachines work, but I would assume that every image is as likely to get because the roll just spins and stops, but as there are less high-point images than low-point images on a roll, it's less likely to get high-point images.
So I would just let the odds to their work.

About the points you can get for the images, I do remember that it only gives points when you have a double (1-1-0) or a triple image, and none when you have a double like this: (0-1-1) or (1-0-1).

I just read on wikipedia that slotmachines are programmed to payout about 95% of what has been put into it.. but for a single-user game that might not be very fun to play, since that way you can never increase your stack

The problem is that my reel sprite I've cut together only contains one of each image as it is (Double of one for smooth animation). But I could simulate a higher/lower probability for some images in the code, and I think it'd take as long to develop than to actually change my sprites and calculate even more places for it to stop at.

And it only pays out at 1-1-0 and not 0-1-1? That's odd, I thought it'd at least give if you had a pair in any way next to each other.

And yeah, my slot should be a bit nicer considering you're the only player.

[Brett_val]

Maybe you can assign more numbers to the same image, making it more likely to be picked?
Something like this:

reel={
{pic1},
{pic2},
{pic2},
{pic3},
{pic3},
{pic3}
}

I'm don't know if your reel looks anything like this.. but you get the idea.

I could remember that the first symbol of a winning combination must be in the first reel, I tried to look it up and I did found it on this page (in the yellow box at the bottom) but there are so many different types of machines, paylines, also sometimes bonus images that give points even when you only get 1 of them...
I think you should first choose a type of slotmachine and then see how it works, or better check your local bar and recreate that one :P.

[Habhome]

Originally Posted by Brett_val

Maybe you can assign more numbers to the same image, making it more likely to be picked?
Something like this:

reel={
{pic1},
{pic2},
{pic2},
{pic3},
{pic3},
{pic3}
}

I'm don't know if your reel looks anything like this.. but you get the idea.

My reel is not set up like that. It consists of a long reel-stripe with the images in a grid pattern carefully spaced. So I'd have to simulate the behavior instead. It's no problem really, I have an idea for the code in my mind already.

The only question is this:

Originally Posted by Brett_val

I could remember that the first symbol of a winning combination must be in the first reel, I tried to look it up and I did found it on this page (in the yellow box at the bottom) but there are so many different types of machines, paylines, also sometimes bonus images that give points even when you only get 1 of them...
I think you should first choose a type of slotmachine and then see how it works, or better check your local bar and recreate that one :P.

Problem is that I don't play slots at bars xD
I'll check that site though and see what I can find.

[Habhome]

Beta release!
I'd like some feedback of the graphics, UI and ev. bugs.
I'd also like some suggestions of balancing with rewards and such.

[matt_bracken]

Im not normally a slot machine fan but this is actually very adictive. Awesome job on the very smooth running, a lot of apps can be quite jerky but this one runs perfectly. you can find an example of pay tables on the following link (hopefully):

http://images.macworld.com/appguide/...11/043/ss0.jpg

Obviously you'd need to adapt that to the symbols that you have used, but I would imagine to implement that into your app would take an enormous amount of math which could be pretty tedious for you.

If you really wanted to go to town on this app you could try to implement a set of three lines with diagonal (aka a 5 line bandit):
http://www.elversonpuzzle.com/5LineBandit.jpg

and you could add nudges etc, but again I imagine that would be really tough to programme.

Good job dude.

[matt_bracken]

The following web page is probably more useful, it gives you the payouts with more symbols that you have used and a bit of the math behind various payouts.

http://www.casinoman.net/content/slo...athematics.asp#

Might be useful if you wanted to try and implement changes.

[Habhome]

Holy mother of jeebus, that's a lot of numbers xD
I'm glad you like the game and it is definitely not finished yet. Before I release the first sharp version I need to decide on a reasonable paytable using my symbols I have already, and maybe simulate having them several times on the wheel via a random-gen chain.

Thanks a lot for digging up all this information!

Question: Right now I have $1 á game and very little payout. What do people think is a good amount to pay/win to get it balanced up to a similar "level" as my Black Jack game? I might some day implement a version of Black Jack and this into a Casino Game with a shared bank and such.

[Brett_val]

Wow, looks awesome!
Beautiful spinning reels animation, and also the movements of the info-box are gorgeous.

It's just that I have that box popped up all the time because I'd like to keep track of my money... but it looks good in that box, and I don't know where else the current money would look good.

I suppose in a future release, different images will get you different payout? I'd like to see a list of which images give which amount of money (someting like this), and maybe that could also be on a retractable thing? Maybe the same as the info-box, but in a way that you can pull it up one step further to see the listings.

What I'm missing is a hold-button (is useful when you get an image that's worth a lot).
I maybe should have said this earlier but I thought every slotmachine has a hold-button below each reel. When pressed, this reel will not spin in the next spin. Also, you can't use the hold-button twice in a row (so you can't just keep on holding the worthy image).

I see a "$1" sign in the image, so I figured you want to add a possibility to increase the amount of $ paid for one spin? That's quite common for slotmachines, and it also increases the payout. But this is not needed, you can also keep this slotmachine to be a $1 machine.

As expected, I couldn't find any bugs. Only a small one though which maybe isn't even a bug:
If you press "Spin" while the reels are still rolling, it spins again after it's done. So you can press "Spin" 10 times, and then just watch it do 10 spins. For now I find this pretty useful actually, but if a hold-button would be added, then I wouldn't want this.

While playing this I can't really figure out which images are less likely to get. I think cherries, bar or bananas. But anyway the randomisation works well I think, I went from $10 to 30, -30, 0, -20, then I hovered a while between -10 and 5, and now I'm suddenly at 40, and going down again . So never really off scale, which is really good. Have been playing this for about half an hour, it's a joy playing because this is really eye candy

edit: It just froze on me.. money was 43, last win 3, I just won by bar-pear-pear.. It could have froze because the whole time I've been pressing "spin" a lot of times and then letting it run, and maybe this last time I pressed it too many times and the player got really tired, since the os.sleep(10) is under else, and therefore it didn't get any sleep while executing my presses.

[Habhome]

Originally Posted by Brett_val

Wow, looks awesome!
Beautiful spinning reels animation, and also the movements of the info-box are gorgeous.

It's just that I have that box popped up all the time because I'd like to keep track of my money... but it looks good in that box, and I don't know where else the current money would look good.

Thanks. It took me a little time to get it matched up well with the device's processor speed since the sim is useless for this. But I believe I managed quite well, I used my knowledge of the eye to create a smooth movement with as few iterations as possible to up the speed. And I focused a lot on only drawing the parts of the screen which was absolutely necessary.

Originally Posted by Brett_val

I suppose in a future release, different images will get you different payout? I'd like to see a list of which images give which amount of money (someting like this), and maybe that could also be on a retractable thing? Maybe the same as the info-box, but in a way that you can pull it up one step further to see the listings.

Yes, they will be worth differently, and I can put it in a retractable box. The question is if you want it to go up from the current one, if that's enough space in. Or if I should make another one, maybe coming in from the left side?

Originally Posted by Brett_val

What I'm missing is a hold-button (is useful when you get an image that's worth a lot).
I maybe should have said this earlier but I thought every slotmachine has a hold-button below each reel. When pressed, this reel will not spin in the next spin. Also, you can't use the hold-button twice in a row (so you can't just keep on holding the worthy image).

Ah, yes. Everyone I've shown it to have asked about the hold functionality. This is a very easy thing to implement really, I've got the code figured out in my mind. All I need to do is decide a good way to visually mark it and handle the screen drawing together with what I currently have.

Originally Posted by Brett_val

I see a "$1" sign in the image, so I figured you want to add a possibility to increase the amount of $ paid for one spin? That's quite common for slotmachines, and it also increases the payout. But this is not needed, you can also keep this slotmachine to be a $1 machine.

No, I planned to keep it a simple $1 machine. Just like those simple one-armed bandits where you put a coin in and pull the lever.

Originally Posted by Brett_val

As expected, I couldn't find any bugs. Only a small one though which maybe isn't even a bug:
If you press "Spin" while the reels are still rolling, it spins again after it's done. So you can press "Spin" 10 times, and then just watch it do 10 spins. For now I find this pretty useful actually, but if a hold-button would be added, then I wouldn't want this.

I've noticed this too, and it is due to the event que as you probably know. I could insert some kind of function to clear a number of events in the que after each read, I don't want to slow the player down with looping thorough it too much though. Didn't you have some very simple que-clearing function by calling control.read in a for loop?

Originally Posted by Brett_val

While playing this I can't really figure out which images are less likely to get. I think cherries, bar or bananas. But anyway the randomisation works well I think, I went from $10 to 30, -30, 0, -20, then I hovered a while between -10 and 5, and now I'm suddenly at 40, and going down again . So never really off scale, which is really good. Have been playing this for about half an hour, it's a joy playing because this is really eye candy

As it is now no image should be easier to get than the other. There is a random function for how many switches the reel will do and it always start from it's current position and go around the images in a specified order and then stops after the randomized number of switches.

Originally Posted by Brett_val

edit: It just froze on me.. money was 43, last win 3, I just won by bar-pear-pear.. It could have froze because the whole time I've been pressing "spin" a lot of times and then letting it run, and maybe this last time I pressed it too many times and the player got really tired, since the os.sleep(10) is under else, and therefore it didn't get any sleep while executing my presses.

That is probably due to the event que piling up, I haven't had this problem though and I've been up at $89 and won in many different ways, as the code is laid out there should be absolutely no difference between what images you win with. Though I did try piling it up by tapping like crazy but it just spun a lot of times and eventually stopped. Then I could continue playing. Do you have any idea how much you pressed on it? Like maybe clicking like crazy (5+ taps a second) for 30 seconds or something.

[Brett_val]

Originally Posted by Habhome

Thanks. It took me a little time to get it matched up well with the device's processor speed since the sim is useless for this. But I believe I managed quite well, I used my knowledge of the eye to create a smooth movement with as few iterations as possible to up the speed. And I focused a lot on only drawing the parts of the screen which was absolutely necessary.

Hmm that might be useful for my racing game as well..I'll check it out.

Originally Posted by Habhome

Yes, they will be worth differently, and I can put it in a retractable box. The question is if you want it to go up from the current one, if that's enough space in. Or if I should make another one, maybe coming in from the left side?

Another box on the left would maybe look better, because else you'd have to put another image inside the current box to indicate that you can pull it up one step further.

Originally Posted by Habhome

I've noticed this too, and it is due to the event que as you probably know. I could insert some kind of function to clear a number of events in the que after each read, I don't want to slow the player down with looping thorough it too much though. Didn't you have some very simple que-clearing function by calling control.read in a for loop?

Aah it's the que again.. I could have smelled that...
I played around with it, and I think the code is too fast .

If I just put a control.read() loop after function check(), then there are still touch.events coming through. You can see this in the simulator when you add this after "check()" at line 198:

while (control.read()==1) do 
	print(control.isTouch(),touch.event())
end

It will only show number 2 events (which is touch.down), and after that it still receives a 4 because the reels will spin a second time.

But if you add a wait(50) like this:

wait(50)
while (control.read()==1) do 
	print(control.isTouch(),touch.event())
end

Then it shows pairs of events 2 and 4, and the reels won't spin again.. So the wait is needed to catch the click.. Not sure why, but after adding this it worked. Oh the player will ofcourse ignore prints, so add this to the code for in the player:

line199	os.wait(50)
	while (control.read()==1) do 
		control.isTouch()
	end

Originally Posted by Habhome

Do you have any idea how much you pressed on it? Like maybe clicking like crazy (5+ taps a second) for 30 seconds or something.

No, I also couldn't recreate it.. I was pressing it alot though. I think I can't recreate it because you can't control what the player does in the background. I think it was a combination of no sleep and the player trying to do too much at the same time.

Also, I found it weird that when I close the app, my player returns to it's home menu instead of the app menu.
It look me an hour, but I found it!!! You have an image called button! (And you don't even use it ! ) And therefore the app just crashes at if button.click() when you press the home button down and the player receives the click.
Pfoeh. Easy fix though: just rename "button" to "Button".

[Habhome]

Originally Posted by Brett_val

Another box on the left would maybe look better, because else you'd have to put another image inside the current box to indicate that you can pull it up one step further.

Then I'll do it like that

Originally Posted by Brett_val

Aah it's the que again.. I could have smelled that...
I played around with it, and I think the code is too fast .

If I just put a control.read() loop after function check(), then there are still touch.events coming through. You can see this in the simulator when you add this after "check()" at line 198:

while (control.read()==1) do 
	print(control.isTouch(),touch.event())
end

It will only show number 2 events (which is touch.down), and after that it still receives a 4 because the reels will spin a second time.

But if you add a wait(50) like this:

wait(50)
while (control.read()==1) do 
	print(control.isTouch(),touch.event())
end

Then it shows pairs of events 2 and 4, and the reels won't spin again.. So the wait is needed to catch the click.. Not sure why, but after adding this it worked. Oh the player will ofcourse ignore prints, so add this to the code for in the player:

line199	os.wait(50)
	while (control.read()==1) do 
		control.isTouch()
	end

Ah, thanks. I'll throw that in there.

Originally Posted by Brett_val

Also, I found it weird that when I close the app, my player returns to it's home menu instead of the app menu.
It look me an hour, but I found it!!! You have an image called button! (And you don't even use it ! ) And therefore the app just crashes at if button.click() when you press the home button down and the player receives the click.
Pfoeh. Easy fix though: just rename "button" to "Button".

I noticed that too but haven't had time to look at it anymore since BETA release, been busy with other work =P
Thanks for hunting that bug down for me, I have to be more careful with what I name my variables and functions to xD
That image should actually be called "highlight" as it is now, that is how I intended to use it mostly, but it is designed just like the spin button and in the midst of it all I named it button before even adding anything which require more buttons =P xD

Thanks again for your help, it's really useful now since I have limited time with my graduation coming up.

[matt_bracken]

Ive noticed that if the left and rght symbols are the same it still comes up with a no win, it might just be intentional in that in order to win $3 the two symbols need to be next to eachother.

[Habhome]

Originally Posted by matt_bracken

Ive noticed that if the left and rght symbols are the same it still comes up with a no win, it might just be intentional in that in order to win $3 the two symbols need to be next to eachother.

Yes, that is intentional and they have to be next to each other.