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Thread: British Fruit Machines - Differences to Pachislo - How people played

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    Sandwich Shooter PekoJPF's Avatar
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    Default British Fruit Machines - Differences to Pachislo - How people played

    So in this thread I will cover a few differences between pachislo and British fruit machines. British fruits are probably the most daunting of all the slots, with complicated looking feature boards annd all sorts of different prizes and things to collect. Some of them could even be manipulated to pay bigger prizes and especially back in the day, a good bit of thinking would be very beneficial.

    The basic concept is: Spin and hold the reels until you get a win. You can gamble the win or exchange onto a feature board. Think of this as playing a board game, with different prizes on offer. You spin a number reel to move around the board. You can build up your prize pots (cash, feature, nudges usually) but have to be careful of landing on a Mystery, or a Game Over position. If you do, you lose everything and go back to the reels. Collect at any time, and the money goes into the bank. Other machines award prizes by having the player correctly guess Higher or Lower on the number reel. Guess correctly to build the pots up, but guess incorrectly and it's Game Over.

    British fruit machines are compensated. Not only this but they also have a much shorter pay cycle than pachislo. If you constantly played a British fruit machine all day, you would win a lot of Jackpots, but probably end up down overall. The pachislos have much longer cycles and there is more of a random element to them, especially with giving wins and awarding kakuhen/stock modes etc.

    British machines are very controlled, and you will often find yourself at "Block" points on the feature board, where the machine is very reluctant to progress further. There is a lot of pseudo skill which makes you think you just have ill fortune, but no. This is all pre-planned by the machine. Let's imagine the machine is blocking at 5 pounds. The board situation will be as such: cash Maximum of 5 pounds offered. Feature games: Maximum pay from the feature collected = 5 pounds. Nudges: Maximum win allowed with nudges = 5 pounds. If a 10 pound win is available in 4 nudges, you will only be allowed 3. If you are gambling on the Higher or Lower type machines, and want to get to 6 pounds, the gamble will always be incorrect, and you will lose. Higher than a 2? 1. Guaranteed. This made machines very very predictable and despite the many flashing lights, the whole concept became very simple. There was a scandal a good few years back now (FairPlay Campaign) which resulted in the machines having a new sticker requirement. The sticker read: "This machine may at times offer the player a choice where there is little/no chance of success."

    British machines tend to have one main percentage pot, this being the amount it wants to pay from boards. If you play through enough 5 pound "blocks", it will start offering higher prizes fairly quickly. Eventually after time and effort, it will have saved enough % to award a Jackpot. Some machines progress very slowly, but it will be possible to get a number of repeats on a Jackpot. Machines generally had two separate pots: The main pot, and also a "Cycled" pot. This "Cycled" pot saved a little bit of the % from each game, and it would then drop a guaranteed Jackpot on the player out of the blue.

    How do you know if it's worth playing? Well, you will have to play it first and try to read the signs. How much is it advancing the pots? What's it offering? How many True Skill offers do you get? Every machine is different, but people usually had to check them out by playing one or two feature boards. After that, they calculated if it was worth sticking on, or leaving it. Some older machines would drop numbers in on the number reel to show if it was happy enough! EG you are spinning as usual, and it spins a 12. That was a good sign believe it or not...!

    Off for a walk now, but I will think of good examples of how a bit of thinking and skill meant money could be won quite well on these machines. I do paint a bad picture of them now, but this is the more modern era. The machines in the 90s and 2000s, even some early 2010s were phenomenal. Will update later.
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    Eye Shooter cait001's Avatar
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    WANTED: 10¥ games, pre-1950s machines, スマートボール (Smart Ball), payazzo/kronespill, Pickwick-style (~1905)
    if you have any of these in North America, let's talk.

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    Tokie Owens Yakkers's Avatar
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    Default Re: British Fruit Machines - Differences to Pachislo - How people played

    I've never seen anything like these, I never really thought about the UK having different types of machines than the US.
    I guess I don't know much about American slots either, but I don't think they really have the whole gamey element like this and they're typically just basic video slots but with a million lines and reels trying to be as complicated as possible.

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    Default Re: British Fruit Machines - Differences to Pachislo - How people played

    I wish we had the Sonic Fruit Machine in the USA. That one seems like a lot of fun.

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