Fruit Machine Chat

Had genuinely never seen one of these in the wild before.

Train home after work on Friday and the cafe in the train station had replaced its 5p fruity with one.

Two games of nuts. Copped out with £2 on first game and decided to see how far I could get in the second game with covers of £1, £1, £4 and £4 on offer.

Got down to one square left on every cover without any questions (or exits). Had to answer 3 in a row - no spoilers at all - then hit £4, £4 before I crapped out with my £8.

Guessing nobody had done any (significant) damage before I played it.

There's quite a lot of low hanging fruit on a new one of these, even when they've not bothered updating the games package. That said, they don't seem to be proliferating very rapidly, do they? I found two when they first came out, and at the present date I only know of four in the whole of London, at least two of which have not been updated for months. I suspect that they are finding the ItBox / Paragon / GamesNet oligopoly a tough one to crack...

Found one of these tucked away in a corner at local pub, and have to say the range of games is astonishing. Can't say I was blown away by the graphics on "A Night on the Town" - where the idea is to buy enough beers to get to a nightclub. Fun endgame, though. On the other hand, this particular machine had plenty of money to be won. The game range blows away many other quiz machines I've played - anyone know how to see the full range of games? I could only access Word Soup after playing Boggle, when it showed me "similar games" at the bottom. Can you access a full game listing?

Trying to find out what games are actually available on the box is part of "fun" of OPEN's. The semi-invisible games are hardly going to take much money though. And where did that parallel universe version of Bullseye come from LOL.

And I assume the green ones are a different licensing model to the blue ones similar to the Fatboxes.

I don't believe you can access a full range of games. You have to be offered them as 'similar games', so you sometimes have to play one particular game in order to access the one you want - I had this problem in finding Take It Or Leave It once.

The game where you have to get 'battered' before going to the club to win money is poor, but strangely compulsive. Interestingly, I've seen a version of it on a Gamesnet where you had to drink coffee instead of beer - other than that it was identical. Presume Gamesnet refused to be idenitified with the binge drinking element.

They are quite prone to crashing, sadly.

xyz

Hi

I just got an OPEN for my pub today - installed it around 1pm and the locals not been off it since.

Been looking for one for months and months - could not find one for the right price - AA offered me an old paragon for 2 grand - another company delivered me one last week but the lock was drilled and the metal around the cash box was bent so I obviously refused that one!

So I went direct to Fatspanner themselves who were cheaper than either of the previous suppliers and the machine is brand spanking new !!

I know the newness will wear off but it seems to have a good selection of games - approx 100 I think and the least popular ones change from the front screen every saturday.

Its updated 3 times a year (minimum) with new games and questions.

Hopefully it should perform well - I will keep you updated.

Dave

Good stuff Dave - let me know where the pub is and I'll gladly come and give it a play-test for you. I'd be interested to hear how it's updated - is that done remotely by telephone connection or is it the case, as I've heard suggested, that you'll get sent a CD with the new product which you then have to upload to the machine itself? I've noticed that the few Opens in central London that I know of have really been very poorly updated since being installed.

grecian wrote:I'd be interested to hear how it's updated - is that done remotely by telephone connection or is it the case, as I've heard suggested, that you'll get sent a CD with the new product which you then have to upload to the machine itself? I've noticed that the few Opens in central London that I know of have really been very poorly updated since being installed.

Taken directly from fatspanner's website:

O&#8729]3 Update DVDs are released every year FREE to O∙P∙E∙N users ensuring that content is always kept fresh and up to date. [/b]

Hi

Yep thats what happens - you get a cd and I think its as easy as placing it in the cd rom thats inside the machine.

It boots up into a Windows XP screen before the games menu so it should be easy enough to do.

I cashed it up last night and it had taken £97 in its first day - but to be honest it was never left alone - that amount of interest is not attainable but its a good indication. I have not included the £70 float.

Some games were being played a lot more than others - eg Deal Or No Deal, Goldenballs was very popular, Fantasy Football (how blinking hectic is this!!) and one player loves Battleships!

There was a game where you had to get a round of drinks in then you have to have a toilet break - not too sure of the name but it raised a few giggles.

Didn't see an Ant n Dec game on there - is there one?

The menus a bit confusing trying to find your games as they are not all displayed at once to choose from - I think the way forward is to try and teach people to set up a user name and pin - that way I think as long as you have saved a game its instantly accessible..........though not too sure.

I e-mailed fat spanner primarily about the confusing menu on this machine but didnt get a reply- that is whats holding it back and there are just too many games.Indego is cutting edge and I was surpised that fatbox lite never took off.

I would be surprised that over the long term this machine will make a lot of profit. If they were any good there would be a lot more of them around.

xyz

if a punter wants to play a particular game (a) its often not obviously there so not attracted to machine
(b) only a pro will play one game to find another (c)can save as favourite game but most people wont be bothered to do this

be interested to know what costs to rent open or indego.opens got more games but indego trounces open on anything else.