How old is everyone?!
That's the whole point - while I wouldn't personally have ever put £75 through one, Beat the Clock WAS worth playing at some point in its cycle and the 'worth playing' mode would return after a predictable length of time - based on how busy the location was and if anyone else in the area knew how to win big on it.QuizMaster wrote:Or let's face it, a choice of 20 Beat the Clocks in the town centre to choose from?
There might well be 20 or more games on an ItBox but of those say 16 are never worth playing (based on profitability not enjoyment), 2 might be worth playing once but are killed for good once someone has won on them and 2 are worth playing in theory but in practice even those ones can be hard to find in a good mood.
I don't want to muddy the waters with discussions of Suri and the like, because if they are as good as has been claimed (I have to trust this as I've never encountered someone at that level) they could have won just the same on the old standalones.
For the next level down, which I'd count myself in as well as you QM and several others on here (again trusting people's word), surely we'd all prefer a smaller set of games that offered decent prizes on a realistic cycle to the current situation of a huge amount of choice but almost all that choice being a complete waste of our time?
Right, back in my box...
ok qm here's my beat the clock story.
obviously given a choice of machines you would tend to only play the ones that you recognised were worth chasing and the day of this little 'experiment' that's exactly what i did.
i remember getting on pretty well and had made a couple of hundred quid after playing about 10 machines.
then i went into ross' bar in the city centre,bought a pint (i would normally buy the cheapest soft drink available!) and put my money in.
the machine was totally having none of it.
however through a combination of drunken euphoria,well half a pint,plenty of cash in pocket,sheer stubborness and profesional interest i just wanted to see how much cash had to go through the machine to get back to a jackpottable level.
i didn't do this to deliberately make the machine unplayable for others i just wanted to see what it would take.you can imagine this venture turned out to be very useful for subsequent playing as i could accurately assess if the machine was worth taking on or not.
the bottom line is i don't think there's one game out there that you could approach in the same manner any more.it's particularly a shame as the machine company was still making its cash(admittedly not as high a % as now) the only losers were the average punters who would rarely see a pound.
additionally this wasn't a game that was flawed as such as the machine couldn't be emptied unlike crystal mazes,cluedo,trivial pursuit or foxy.
if anyone's feeling rich and would like to force a jackpot off any game today i'd be delighted to hear the results - come on cardinal just how much will an itbox take before giving you a mousetrap jp.my guess is that you'd probably have to flog off your palais in versailles and you'd still be struggling!
obviously given a choice of machines you would tend to only play the ones that you recognised were worth chasing and the day of this little 'experiment' that's exactly what i did.
i remember getting on pretty well and had made a couple of hundred quid after playing about 10 machines.
then i went into ross' bar in the city centre,bought a pint (i would normally buy the cheapest soft drink available!) and put my money in.
the machine was totally having none of it.
however through a combination of drunken euphoria,well half a pint,plenty of cash in pocket,sheer stubborness and profesional interest i just wanted to see how much cash had to go through the machine to get back to a jackpottable level.
i didn't do this to deliberately make the machine unplayable for others i just wanted to see what it would take.you can imagine this venture turned out to be very useful for subsequent playing as i could accurately assess if the machine was worth taking on or not.
the bottom line is i don't think there's one game out there that you could approach in the same manner any more.it's particularly a shame as the machine company was still making its cash(admittedly not as high a % as now) the only losers were the average punters who would rarely see a pound.
additionally this wasn't a game that was flawed as such as the machine couldn't be emptied unlike crystal mazes,cluedo,trivial pursuit or foxy.
if anyone's feeling rich and would like to force a jackpot off any game today i'd be delighted to hear the results - come on cardinal just how much will an itbox take before giving you a mousetrap jp.my guess is that you'd probably have to flog off your palais in versailles and you'd still be struggling!
Could Cluedo really be emptied? I played it a lot and never found a way. Struck me as the classic type of game that couldn't be emptied - if it didn't want to give you rooms, you wouldn't win a prize. Which Trivial Pursuit are you talking about as well?foxy wrote:the machine couldn't be emptied unlike crystal mazes,cluedo,trivial pursuit or foxy.
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Cardinal Sin
- Senior Member
- Posts: 4166
- Joined: Wed Jul 20, 2005 3:33 pm
Given that the jackpot is only a measly £10, I don't think I'll be selling any properties from my portfolio just yet! Having said that, it is largely progessive, and having played it at various stages of readiness, I would say that from normal (where you can win £2 usually), it would take at least £20 before it offered you a chance at the Top Prize.foxy wrote: come on cardinal just how much will an itbox take before giving you a mousetrap jp.my guess is that you'd probably have to flog off your palais in versailles and you'd still be struggling!
I can't actually remember the last time I played one of these. AFAIC, these were every bit as good as Bullseye for getting a couple of quid easily.
will go into this in more detail later but cluedo could be emptied as the first game of the day was generally rev green with the revolver in the conservatory.now if you could switch the machine off then technically it could become the first game of the day every game!
before rosskeen gets too excited there's a bit more to it than that but that's the general idea.
as for trivial pursuit i think it may be the original one with a £40 jackpot.anyway it was the one where you could fill in the the sections to win £1/2 depending on stake via a variety of puzzles.let's just say there was a little programming fault in this one!!
before rosskeen gets too excited there's a bit more to it than that but that's the general idea.
as for trivial pursuit i think it may be the original one with a £40 jackpot.anyway it was the one where you could fill in the the sections to win £1/2 depending on stake via a variety of puzzles.let's just say there was a little programming fault in this one!!
One of my quizzing highlights was on the old single-game Cluedo machine.
Playing one afternoon it just kept coming up with Murder Unsolved at the start of the next game so it took about 3 goes to pinpoint the person, weapon and room and win £10. Then, after that it still kept saying Murder Unsolved and as soon as we went in the first room we won another jackpot.
After 8 jackpots, we collected £72 which was all it had in it, drank our drinks and made a swift exit!
Those were the days (who said nostalgia was a thing of the past!!)
Playing one afternoon it just kept coming up with Murder Unsolved at the start of the next game so it took about 3 goes to pinpoint the person, weapon and room and win £10. Then, after that it still kept saying Murder Unsolved and as soon as we went in the first room we won another jackpot.
After 8 jackpots, we collected £72 which was all it had in it, drank our drinks and made a swift exit!
Those were the days (who said nostalgia was a thing of the past!!)