Force modes or payouts?

[proto8]

I've had my Janken Battle machine for a couple of years but never really took the time to figure out how everything works. I've played it plenty but never paid attention. The problem is I have only gotten fever twice ever from playing it. People who know nothing about pachinko want to see what this is and I try but always fail to get a fever or even another mode, which Janken has a lot of. It just seems so rare and random. I get that's what they want in a parlor but I want this to happen a bit more frequently or on demand.

So my question is, is there any way to control or change chances of fever or force mode changes? Is there any sort of cable link and software that I can use to see statistics or change anything? From what little information I've been able to find out these things leave Japan with a lobotomy. I barely even know how this game function except for what I've come across by luck. I wish these things had full manuals. I just received a one page piece of info that only described the game.

[owennewton]

A member here "Daverob" has done more with the inner workings of these great toys than anyone else. but it took him months of work just to get the info to make the dongle work to get payouts. with all the security and encryption with the software I think it is safe to say that it is imposable to trick or cheat the machine to fever or go into a special mode.

I will play 2 at a time until I go into a high probability mode or have a fever and stop playing that one untill I have 4 or 5 like that when I know people will be coming over so it will not take as long to have action when I am showing them off.

[luckydog]

all you can do is adjust the nails in your favor and shoot a lot of balls

[Moparformances]

took the word riight off my key board

[luckydog]

one member did put clear tape arcoss some of the nails near the start pocket to help guide the balls in

[owennewton]

took the word riight off my key board

must have been while you were typing to me

YouTube - meatloaf-you took the words right out of my mouth

[hanabi]

Welcome to PachiTalk proto8!!

Pachinko is just one of those things that you just need to keep playing and playing and playing, I try not to understand too much about it up front, just go with the flow of the game

Some machines can go for many months without 'Fevering' and others seem to have back to back fevers constantly

I know every time I play Maharaja it will Fever, yet Freddie Vs Jason is the exact opposite, it can be quite frustrating at times, but keeps you wanting to play

[daverob]

I think part of the charm of pachinko is never knowing what the outcome of shooting a ball is going to be, you can adjust nails to improve your chances of hitting a payout or start pocket, but apart from that it's pure luck whether you get a fever or not.

The machines are not exactly lobotomised before they are exported from Japan, you usually get the machine in exactly the same condition as it was played in the parlour. It's just you don't get the 'accessories' that are considered necessary in the parlour, ie the automatic ball handling equipment, pre-paid card reader system, battle counters, lights and strobes that all add to the pachinko parlour experience.

Different machines have different styles of play and different payout odds, some machines fever often but with small payouts, others only rarely fever but the payouts are much larger. When demonstrating machines to new players the smaller payout machines are usually more likely to get them hooked.


As owennewton said, I have a little experience reverse engineering these machines and while I wouldn't say it was impossible to modify the machines to change the odds (I have seen modified cpu boards for sale on Yahoo! Japan which claim to have better probabilities) it doesn't appear to be a simple process.

Warning: The following paragraphs are technical in nature, if you fully understand them you may be considered to be a geek. If you do not wish to be reminded of this fact, please stop reading now.

The way a pachinko machine determines what happens when the start pocket is hit is set by a random number generator. This number is compared against a table of numbers in the cpu and certain numbers are assigned to be fevers and the rest will result in a losing spin, or one of many different reaches.

In more recent machines (last 8 years) the CPU is usually physically seperate from the random number generator (though still on the same circuit board), so you have two methods of modifying the machine. You can either hack the CPU and change the comparison process to force a fever more often, or you can modify the random number generator to be less random and return winning results more often.

I'd like to have a go at the first method, but the main game control CPU is a semi-secure microprocessor, and to read it out you need specialised kit costing several thousand dollars, then after doing this you will need to obtain some blank processors (at ~$50 a throw). So this is only a possibility if you have deep pockets and a good understanding of Z80 assembler (unfortunately I only have the latter).

The second option would be cheaper to hack, but you still have the hurdles of reverse engineering the interface between the pseudo-random number generator chip and the cpu, monitoring it to determine which output numbers are fevers, reaches or losing spins (and there are thousands of numbers to monitor!) and then modifying it or building a replacement PRNG that is biassed towards the numbers you want. This would be a better choice for a cash-poor but time-rich hacker (in this case whilst I definitely qualify for the former, I am severly lacking in the latter). The other problem with this method is it is likely it would only be applicable to the same exact model of machine you are hacking, a different game (or different specification model of the same game) is likely to need a different hack.

[takethecastle57]

I'm a really big fan of RND (random number generator ) in computer software in the 80's modifing the key numbers in a program of course changed if you would win easy or die in a very nasty way . Ahhh my Commodore computer days .

[dishpan]

I've occasionally seen modified chips for sale on YJA that increases a particular games odds.

[TilionMtl]

Hi don't know if it may help in any way, I didn't had the chance to play a lot with my Janken Battle, waiting to finish my cabinet.

It's appear that pushing the chance button located to the left of the frame when it light on, or when something happen in the screen (like certain characters popping out) seem to give a better chance to give a reach.

I'm not totally sure about it, but I also think that it's a no no to push the chance button for certain characters, but I'm not totally sure.

It would be fun to make a thread about what we find (hints) about this nice pachinko.

For Freddy vs Jason, it seem that pushing the chance button when something happen on the screen (like hat flying, footsteps, bicycle, bats, crows, etc) seem to give a reach most of the time.