Fruit Machine Chat

i'm surprised to see frogger appearing on the front screen of some paragons. and with the track & field game imminent, i spent an idle moment thinking about other retro games which could translate well and maybe add something to a genre which is rather stuck on awarding points for correct answers before reaching a winning post.

so here is my wicked idea for a playable SWP game which lasts long enough but not forever, has nostalgia value and which can defend itself subtly: lemmings.

when he has paid his 50p/£1 the player is shown a (relatively simple) level of lemmings with the target requirements and prize potential.

maingame has the normal choice of three categories available, each of which awards a number of lemmings and/or skills (digger/ parachutist/blocker/kamikaze/etc.)*
the player has to correctly answer the question(s) and wins some lemmings for their crew in the endgame (which plays the same as the original game). keep going until you think you have enough resources to finish the level of lemmings and claim the prize.

the player can choose while inside a question he doesn't know to 'let's go' with however many lemmings he has already collected.

also the original game had exceptional production values; many of which would translate seamlessly; the music soundtrack was upbeat, familiar and seemed relevant to the game, there is also ample opportunity for easter eggs which i think are generally enjoyed: the original tipped its hat to other games with backgrounds and themes lifted from back catalogue games (the copyrights for which are presumably already owned).


i have no knowledge of licensing issues or coding but i'm sure a modern terminal like paragon can cope with the gameplay. if it was pitched right i can see a lemmings SWP game appealing to the pubgoing/SWP demographic as well as geeky sorts who go in for problem-solving. imo it would still be playable and achieve throughput even if it needed to recoup for a period without alienating casual players with unfair spoilers and it can protect itself with some degree of elegance.**

* given that up to 100 lemmings were in the original game it could be modelled on 100vs1 but could afford to be more generous when skills are factored in to the rewards for answering questions.

** traditional spoiler questions, withholding essential lemming skills in the pre-game, tricky levels, unfair time limits, dwindling prizes, incremental difficulty of level.

there is a £4000 awp 'leaping lemmings' in casinos

It's a nice idea - although one potential stumbling block could be that the original lemmings required pinpoint accuracy - something that would be hard to achieve with fat fingers prodding the screen.

Good idea Istenem. My only worry is that the graphics were quite small and difficult to make out on the original, which could be a problem. But the original was a cracking game, for sure.

I remember playing the original Frogger way back in 19** as a 12 year old.. Wouldn't mind a Space Invaders game !!!!

All Time Highscores Score
1 harry2 299,990
2 harry 3 100,280
3 gambogaz1 25,170
4 mr lugsy 22,280
5 bigv038 10,350
6 machine doctor 9,550
7 Fruiter 8,330
8 Cardinal Sin 7,660
9 dangerous 6,310
10 jaffacat 5,340
11 INVINCIBLE 4,140

harry ,surely you are old enough to remember the space invaders swp.
you had one life and a time limit to gain enough points to take some cash,it was around 1987-8 ish iirc.

btw ,when i get time ,sometime in the next decade, i'll have a proper go at at that invaders game in the games section,not saying i'll get anywhere near your all day session scores harry though ,i kind of got irked with it consistantly placing you directly in the line of fire with milliseconds to avoid a bullet after you've lost a life

mr lugsy wrote:harry ,surely you are old enough to remember the space invaders swp.
you had one life and a time limit to gain enough points to take some cash,it was around 1987-8 ish iirc.

I remember the Space Invaders game, the Space Invaders Pinball machine and the single of the music that was released !!!!!

mr lugsy wrote:harry ,surely you are old enough to remember the space invaders swp.
you had one life and a time limit to gain enough points to take some cash,it was around 1987-8 ish iirc.

It came out c. 1991 - they were in lots of service stations in early 1992. Leicester Forest E, Newport Pagnell, Corley, Keele, etc.. Never got to grips with it myself, but I did know someone who made a lot of money on them.

cp999 wrote:

mr lugsy wrote:harry ,surely you are old enough to remember the space invaders swp.
you had one life and a time limit to gain enough points to take some cash,it was around 1987-8 ish iirc.

It came out c. 1991 - they were in lots of service stations in early 1992. Leicester Forest E, Newport Pagnell, Corley, Keele, etc.. Never got to grips with it myself, but I did know someone who made a lot of money on them.

cheers for that,it's soooooooooooooooooooooooo long ago lol, i got confused.

Lugsy, Frogger was 1978

Seems to a lot of interest in retro games which makes me think that the regular posters on this forum are of an age when the these games first appeared. I myself am from that era but cannot see why developers would want to go down this road, i see a lot of young people in pubs and places where these machines are and cannot for one minute believe that they would be attracted to something so old looking.

nostalgia is always going to be big, it is just a question of where you aim the scattergun. take wedding music: nobody actually likes dancing queen or grease but everybody knows the words and feels comforted by the familiarity. a few years ago there was an alarming upsurge of bagpuss memorabilia and he was just a saggy old cloth cat, but emily loved him.

when i was growing up i remember being faintly bewildered by my father's nostalgia for hancock's half hour. i dare say that when teletubbies come round again, there will be pub debates about why yoho ahoy was better than the tweenies meanwhile, i'll be the wizened soak grumbling that his pint costs over a fiver. and i will remember the good old days then. life goes on, but never the same as before.

harry2 wrote:Lugsy, Frogger was 1978

so you saw us win the world cup then harry(h2 edit was ten months old then),blimey that is old says the guy who was there for the moon landing EDIT(not long off the nipple though)