I got bored with lockdown, so being a retired programmer......
Posted: Mon May 18, 2020 8:02 pm
Hi guys, been a while, other things have been occupying me.
But I got bored with lock down and had run out of PC projects. I'd been down loading some fruit machine emulations from those nice people at fruit-emu, just to see if my prejudices against modern machines had foundation. They were! That got me to thinking about PC versions of old electro-mechanical machines. Over the years I haven't found many simulations of those and the ones I did find weren't realistic. Basically they all paid out (much) more than 100% and tended to be all about hi scores and the like. So I thought I'd try my hand at doing my own, based on no specific machine, just a general memory.
After a while rooting around the web I located the resources I needed for the project, such as sounds and symbols. The only problem I faced then, apart from coding it(!), was the 3d graphics for rolling the reels. This was a major hurdle as I know nothing about 3d animations and it is a complex subject. Then I remembered one of the "pays too much" simulations had a dodge for that whereby you display 3 symbols above each other with the top and bottom ones being half height, which squashes the symbols so they vaguely look as though they are on a reel. Then to rotate the reels, you simply step through the symbols in each position in turn, but very quickly. It is pretty obvious that the reels are not really rotating, but if you don't look too hard your mind expects rotation so that is what you see!
So, yay, I coded it up and twiddled the payouts until they were reasonable and it now works. The only features I included were the traditional Hold/Nudge Up/Nudge Down.
Those stalwart few of you who downloaded my free efforts regarding Allwin analysers and my Autofruit simulation might (if I'm lucky) be pleased to know that I've now put this project on my web site as Freeware, no ads or anything else.
I can't say it's the most gripping of PC games, but if you want something to do for the odd five minutes that requires little thought whilst you are waiting for something else to happen, than please give it a go! I unimaginatively called it Elec-Mech! It's down at the bottom of my Freeware page. Search for Racing Dog's Kennel to find my site, then hit the Freeware button.
Oh yes, and in the Help text I hid the less than obvious way you can get a display of the reels' structure just to encourage reading the Help text!
Finally, if anybody has a 3D reel spinner that allows user defined reels and a simple user interface, especially if it comes as a Delphi VCL control, then please get in touch as I'd love to do this job properly.
Cheers all and stay safe,
Derek,
aka beromat aka Racing Dog
But I got bored with lock down and had run out of PC projects. I'd been down loading some fruit machine emulations from those nice people at fruit-emu, just to see if my prejudices against modern machines had foundation. They were! That got me to thinking about PC versions of old electro-mechanical machines. Over the years I haven't found many simulations of those and the ones I did find weren't realistic. Basically they all paid out (much) more than 100% and tended to be all about hi scores and the like. So I thought I'd try my hand at doing my own, based on no specific machine, just a general memory.
After a while rooting around the web I located the resources I needed for the project, such as sounds and symbols. The only problem I faced then, apart from coding it(!), was the 3d graphics for rolling the reels. This was a major hurdle as I know nothing about 3d animations and it is a complex subject. Then I remembered one of the "pays too much" simulations had a dodge for that whereby you display 3 symbols above each other with the top and bottom ones being half height, which squashes the symbols so they vaguely look as though they are on a reel. Then to rotate the reels, you simply step through the symbols in each position in turn, but very quickly. It is pretty obvious that the reels are not really rotating, but if you don't look too hard your mind expects rotation so that is what you see!
So, yay, I coded it up and twiddled the payouts until they were reasonable and it now works. The only features I included were the traditional Hold/Nudge Up/Nudge Down.
Those stalwart few of you who downloaded my free efforts regarding Allwin analysers and my Autofruit simulation might (if I'm lucky) be pleased to know that I've now put this project on my web site as Freeware, no ads or anything else.
I can't say it's the most gripping of PC games, but if you want something to do for the odd five minutes that requires little thought whilst you are waiting for something else to happen, than please give it a go! I unimaginatively called it Elec-Mech! It's down at the bottom of my Freeware page. Search for Racing Dog's Kennel to find my site, then hit the Freeware button.
Oh yes, and in the Help text I hid the less than obvious way you can get a display of the reels' structure just to encourage reading the Help text!
Finally, if anybody has a 3D reel spinner that allows user defined reels and a simple user interface, especially if it comes as a Delphi VCL control, then please get in touch as I'd love to do this job properly.
Cheers all and stay safe,
Derek,
aka beromat aka Racing Dog