#011: Slots

Release Date: January 29, 1973

Platform: Mainframe

Genre: Casino/Gambling

Developer(s): Fred Mirabelle, Bob Harper

Publisher(s): N/A

So begins 1973, with a game that I won't be spending too much time on, as there's not much game to talk about.

Slots is, as the name implies, a slot machine game - the good ol' One-Armed Bandit. It's the first of many games from this year to feature in David Ahl's 101 BASIC Computer Games series of books.

A very... plain introductory page.

However, simple as the game may be, the timeline for it is not. While MobyGames states its release date to be January 29, 1973, it also states that this game is not the same slot machine game to feature in the original Ahl book, but instead features in the book's microcomputer re-release from 1978. Hmm.

So, where does the January 1973 date come from, then? Fortunately, there's a simple answer for this. The program authors, Bob Harper and Fred Mirabelle left a line in the program's code, stating their authorship, and date of creation as January 29, 1973. I'm very appreciative of this.

The line of code in question is the fourth line, left column.

As for the authors, there is scant information on them. I couldn't find anything on Fred Mirabelle, and Bob Harper... well... this Bob Harper is not to be confused with the Bob Harper who was a trainer on the US version of The Biggest Loser... despite MobyGames treating them as the same person. If it were the case, he must have been a coding genius, as he would've been seven years old when he made this game. What wasted potential.

On the serious side, there's actually a few other Bob (or Robert) Harpers floating around, but none that I can definitively say is the Bob Harper that created this game. There's a computer scientist Bob Harper, who is naturally a likely candidate, but I found nothing to suggest he was the programmer of this game. Once again, the authors will remain a mystery. The one-game-wonders strike again...

The game itself is a very basic (ha) interpretation of a casino slot machine. There's no graphical representation of the slot machine - everything is represented in text. The "machine" itself only has a few different symbols for its reels, six, at my last count. No stereotypical 7s for the jackpot, either, just fruit, bells and bars. Suddenly, I'm reminded of Pac-Man. No idea why.

Your digital "One-Armed Bandit."

You have the choice of betting between $1 and $100 dollars, and, according to the book's description, the odds are in your favour. The book goes into a detailed description of how real slot machine odds work, before stating that the game has an 11% bias towards the player; you win $111 for every $100 you put in. If only the real ones were like that.

My first play of Slots didn't last long. Less than thirty seconds, in fact. I placed my first bet, and then tried to put in another bet when it asked my if I wanted to go again, which ended my game. Turns out you have to input a 'Y' when it asks you this to continue. I think we're getting to the point where this kind of input is becoming unnecessary and intrusive. I could just be allowed to input another bet to continue, or input a zero if I wanted to leave.

I've been kicked out of H&M Casino...

Having learnt this, I tried again, and played for a couple minutes to see what would happen. Here is when I noticed a neat little easter egg: the game introduces itself as "H&M Casino," a reference to the game's authors. As for the game itself, there were the typical swings you get from a glorified RNG simulator, but I ended up finishing with over $3500 of winnings, thanks to hitting the jackpot (called "TOP DOLLAR" by the game) twice. I decided this was enough, and that I didn't need to see anymore. 

Jackpot. If only it were this easy.

Unfortunately, I had to go around again, as I couldn't use that footage for YouTube, as I didn't realise my laptop microphone was on, meaning that there was white noise throughout the recording. I did another playthrough once I fixed this issue, going until I hit the jackpot, which took 3 minutes exactly. Humourously, this doubled my overall playtime with Slots.

I don't have anything more to say here, so let's get into the scores, shall we?

Time Played: 6 minutes

Difficulty: 0/10 (RNG Sim)

Gameplay: 0/20

I think it was pretty clear from the outset that this was getting a zero. There is no gameplay - just another glorified RNG simulator.

Controls: 4/10

I'm knocking this down a point from the standard 5/10 for the annoyance of having to press Y every time I want to bet again. It's also what I say every time I have to press said button.

Visual: 4/10

Also knocking down the visuals score for the sheer plain-ness of the game. Considering how text-based games are now trying to be more creative from a visual standpoint, Slots stands out as being particularly unimaginative.

Functionality: 5/5

Full marks here, as there are no functional issues. Very little can go wrong.

Accessibility: 3/5

A lot of people don't like gambling, and this is an old, text-based, digital version of gambling, so it doesn't really seem all that appealing.

Fun Factor: 0/20

Yeah. What did you expect?

Overall, Slots is currently tied with Galaxy Game as the worst game I've reviewed on the blog thus far, with a measly score of 16/70. However, as this has a Gameplay score of zero, it will sit at the very bottom of the F-tier as the worst game I've played. I didn't really expect much else out of a text-based slot machine simulator. There's not even the interest of a graphical display, watching the reels spin and seeing what symbols they land on. It's just... sad.

Not a good start for 1973... at least this was a nice, easy way for me to get back into the swing of things. Still enjoy it as much as I did before the unplanned 2-month break, so that's good. Also good is that 1973 is very quickly going to get a whole lot more interesting.

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