My day at the fair

[Mr Move It]

I know a few of us are starting to write sagas/accounts, so I thought I'd join in. I spent 2 days at the Nottingham Goose fair. I'm there mainly for the rides as I'm into fairs/parks big time, but of course, there are the arcades too. I counted 4 arcades and these were the machines I played:

The Codfather £5 - The logo by the coin mech says Vivid but the jackpot symbol on the reel art says Barcrest. I would say that it's a Barcrest though because the game style is almost the same as Fort Boyard. Getting it invincible is the same too. Didn't do too badly on this. £5 for a board then jackpot. Get your money back.

Adders and Ladders £5 - I've seen this housed in an AWP cabinet before, but this was in more like a casino / lo-tech cabinet with the rounded top. Same sound effects and game though.

The Italian Job 3 £5 - About half of the lights were missing, so I just played long enough to stumble upon some shots in the lower part of the board and collect the £2.40 or whatever, which rounded up to £3. Most boards were Start > question mark > dead.

The Italian Job 2 £25 - Again loads of lights missing lol. Luckily I got onto the top board where most if its lights were still intact. When I had a flat battery (lost 1 car), I collected 3 cash knockouts and got £10.

Doctors & Nurses £5 - This is an Extreme machine built in the Vivid labs. You can tell because the sound package has Vivid written all over it. This machine was being constantly played by people. Although I quite liked this, I didn't do well but I did get invincible once.

The Walk of Wealth £5 - This was a typical £5-for-a-board-then-jackpot recipe. However, the machine did reset on me a couple of times. Thankfully it only did the resets during the reels play, not during the feature. I've never had a machine reset on me before.

The Walk of Wealth £5 (yes, there were 2 of these) - This one went invincible on me and streaked for £10.

All Fired Up £25 - This was turned off unfortunately.

Bellfruit Monopoly £25 - This was the beginning of a successful line of games (see below for more). Fairly flat profile. £3 in, £3 out affair. Had a couple of superboards, £6 max.

I'm a Celebrity, get me out of here £5 - Derived from the Bellfruit Monopoly game with lower board and Monopoly board but different symbols. Question mark is in the same place etc. I'm not into celebs myself, but this machine was probably my favourite out of all the ones I played at the Goose fair. When it's £5 jp instead of £25, features can become distorted. Get a couple of cash shots on the upper board and it's pretty much jackpot! Thankfully the jackpot repeated on me.

Ant & Dec's Takeaway £25 - Very loosely based on the Bellfruit Monopoly formula and this time the upper board is cash shots. When it's not lit, the cells are covered with mirrors. Quite impressive. In total contrary to I'm a Celeb, this was the least playable machine at Goose fair. I played it on 4 separate occasions and it was always on the suck. One occasion I did get superboard, used 3 'grabs' which accumulated £8 so I called it a day with that.

Then I saw a Pony Express £5 clone that had a devil theme. I didn't do too well on this but it played better than my past Pony Express encounters.

Space Raiders £25 - I thought I knew all of the red/blue trail Barcrests, but this was a new one for me. The symbols on the blue board were rather worn and difficult to see. Reading the red board was fine although I gambled too much, lost the red board and didn't get back to red. Quite interesting how it was made to look like Space Invaders.

Shark Raving Mad - I didn't do too brilliant, again the blue symbols looking worn. The machine is showing its age. Nice sound package though, although Supernova trumps it for me. (Supernova wasn't at Goose though).

Fireball £5 and Dosh n Pecks £5 - These are always excellent machines to play. Fireball I lost out on, regained losses on the latter machine.

Lock & Load £5 - This was a Red Gaming machine that had a board game. Very unusual for them, but nice game play and absolutely crazy sound package. Although I only won the odd quid, boards were frequent and I think that's important for a fruit machine if you're playing for entertainment.

The Addam's Family £25 - I got absolutely shafted by this, not as bad as Ant & Dec though. The trail matrix would normally land on 3 nudges, not offering any win, then losing the turbo gamble so that you were left with 2 nudges, which didn't shuffle to anything meaningful.

Six Shooter £25 - Flat profile. Best win was £5 off the top meter. It was nice to finally play a Vivid though.

Cops & Robbers £5 - This was a video slot machine by Bellfruit with the Bellfruit/Mazooma reel art. I guess you'd call this a lo-tech as you were mainly playing for reel wins. There was one feature that you could get from tic-tac-toe symbols, which cleared the computer screen and takes you to a cops and robbers chase. It would always go to £5 then the cop catches up with you.

All-in-all, I spent about £25 on the fruits but it was good fun checking them all out, and the range of fair rides was excellent too. Hope I haven't bored you with this read :-)

[deano8177]

Thanks for that.

[2 down for the melons]

Surprised u had never seen a space raiders tho, they were everywhere by me, few yr back! Not one of my favorite hotstuff clones, still used to play them though, i found they blocked a bit more.

[Captain.Tattybojangles]

Always nice to read a good report! Glad you had a good time on the machines and at the fair, which reminds me...Hull Fair is about and I'm heading up there Thursday for some rides

[harry2]

Last fair I went to the machines were dusty, half the lights were out and one of the machines paid 10ps instead of £1 coins. Managed a small loss, but most machines appeared to be on minimum percentages.

If you like fairs my friends late father started Carters Steam Fair where the bandits take pre decimal pennies (10 for a pound)



http://www.carterssteamfair.co.uk/index.html

[ma71lda]

Space Raiders wasn't a clone of Hot Stuff at all.

[Mr Move It]

Hi Cpt'n Tatty - it's nice to know a couple of us likes the fairs :-) You have a good 'un at Hull. The line-up looks pretty good this year. Make sure you get a ride on Bomber Mark 2 if you like heights.

Ah Matilda, I know Space Raiders isn't a direct clone of the original Hot Stuff, but it is still a red/blue trail game. In chronological order, I know Hot Stuff, Hellraiser, Vamp It Up, Shark Raving Mad, All Fired Up and Supernova. Space Raiders was the new one for me. The spaceship shooter in the middle would be equivalent to to the top shots in Vamp/Supernova.

[ma71lda]

No Mr Move It that wasn't aimed at you lol...I was correcting 2 down lol.

As for the chronological business nice one - I can never remember orders of release. You missed out Weird Wolf which was a failed test machine and I very much doubt you got to play it. Another was the Superhero themed clone which name fails me (anyone?). This sits between AFU and Supernova, or possibly last place.

Supernova's were few and far between in my neck of the woods and slightly different too, mainly Nearest Win being the 4th feature on the stack and there only being the 'Supernova' streak. Great series of machines though.

[Mr Move It]

My bad Matilda - reading fail on my part :-)

Indeed, I didn't get to see Weird Wolf or the superhero one. That would potentially have made it a series of 9 machines, but I agree, it was a great machine series. Likewise with Supernova, I only ever saw that in one place, in an arcade just off Birmingham New Street in May 2005. All of the others I saw more than once, with Vamp being by far the most common.

[Captain.Tattybojangles]

Weird Wolf was a clone of Vamp it Up, they kept with the tranny theme as well. Maybe it wasw a bit close to the bone with the theme so they ledt it?

Superhero one was called Flash Cash, again a clone of Vamp it Up. However it used inner and outer boards rather than blue-red.
Another example of this is Cash Blast by Voodoo. That is a clone of the Crest series!

[Mr Move It]

I have played that Cash Blast machine in my local arcade about a year back. I totally failed to spot it as part of this series, but I know exactly what you mean now! I recall that a full white trail awards the feature on the 1st board, then fill the trail again in red to get onto the inner board. Then there were super shots in the middle, staying analogous to Supernova etc.

[2 down for the melons]

Ah Matilda, I know Space Raiders isn't a direct clone of the original Hot Stuff, but it is still a red/blue trail game. In chronological order, I know Hot Stuff, Hellraiser, Vamp It Up, Shark Raving Mad, All Fired Up and Supernova. Space Raiders was the new one for me. The spaceship shooter in the middle would be equivalent to to the top shots in Vamp/Supernova.

Ah, many thanks Mr Move it, saved me explaining!!

[Captain.Tattybojangles]

I have played that Cash Blast machine in my local arcade about a year back. I totally failed to spot it as part of this series, but I know exactly what you mean now! I recall that a full white trail awards the feature on the 1st board, then fill the trail again in red to get onto the inner board. Then there were super shots in the middle, staying analogous to Supernova etc.

Ive seen one or two but never played em.
Voodoo were quick to leave the gaming industry weren't they. Then again I think they all played quite badly, they ripped a few fruits, Hip Hippy Snake was a rip of Crazy Cobra or another similar Red, Cash Blast being a Crest blue-red bad game.

[ma71lda]

Cash Blast by Voodoo was, shall we say, gash. These days you'll see it on Corrie, I'd hate to have the RR as my local - it's been in there for ages!!!

Mr Move It. I saw more of Hellraiser than any of the others and I thought Vamp It Up was for arcades and Bookies at first as it took ages for me to see one in a pub!!! Luckily enough I still have a Hot Stuff 10 minutes from where I live which is good for a few sheckles and nostalgia each week.

2001 it was released.....where do the years go????

[harry13.50]

Max Power .Another red/bluey.

First machine i ever saw in the bubble cab i think.