Has anyone worked with Slot Designer?
January 20th, 2015 at 8:06:38 AM
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Hi everybody,
I am working on online slots games with a friend of mine and so far we are using excel to create the math for a new slot machine and we do not really have possibilities to test a machine before actually building it. Today I read about Slot Designer as a slot machine design tool that makes it easy to create the math for a new slot machine, to add new features and to test sounds, visual design etc.
Has anybody here worked with this tool? Since the information on the website are not really extensive I would like to know about your experiences with the tool, if you would recommend it and maybe some information about the cost. I could not find anything regarding the cost on the internet, so I don't know if it is affordable for us since we are a very small 2-man-company that does not have a lot of experience in the field.
I am looking forward to your replies.
Cheers,
horstcheese
I am working on online slots games with a friend of mine and so far we are using excel to create the math for a new slot machine and we do not really have possibilities to test a machine before actually building it. Today I read about Slot Designer as a slot machine design tool that makes it easy to create the math for a new slot machine, to add new features and to test sounds, visual design etc.
Has anybody here worked with this tool? Since the information on the website are not really extensive I would like to know about your experiences with the tool, if you would recommend it and maybe some information about the cost. I could not find anything regarding the cost on the internet, so I don't know if it is affordable for us since we are a very small 2-man-company that does not have a lot of experience in the field.
I am looking forward to your replies.
Cheers,
horstcheese
January 21st, 2015 at 5:12:55 PM
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Since no one else has replied I'll give it a go. I believe there's some professional math people here, but I don't think anyone has used it.
It's actually my software product, but I'll attempt to be unbiased. I'm also not sure if this is appropriate here, and I expect it will be deleted if its not.
If you're only doing one game and you know how to do it in Excel then stick with Excel.
If you're doing this for fun and not making any money then stick with Excel. Its practically free and you'll learn a lot (possibly more than you want).
Otherwise, you could also hire a consultant to do the math design, and that's a viable approach. It's going to cost real money though, as its skilled work and there's not all that many experienced people doing it. Its easy and you should expect fast and decent quality work, but the potential downside are that's its going to cost more if you do multiple games, you'll lose some learning opportunity, and your overall game design (art/math in particular) is split when ideally it should be closely integrated.
Slot designer also contains some valuable tools to help with game performance and checking code that you'll not get otherwise.
Regardless of how you do the maths you should be building the logic of the game in code anyway, and run code simulations to double check the math design. Regardless of the quality of the math, your software may have bugs.
If you don't have much experience then Slot Designer is definitely easier than Excel. Excel is a general purpose tool and Slot Designer is specifically designed for Slots. You really have to understand what you are doing using Excel and its quite easy to make mistakes, which adds up to spending a more time on it.
Slot Designer is aimed at companies that are making money doing games, and especially where development time and game quality are important. Its not aimed at companies that are paying staff 3rd world rates. There are one and two person companies using Slot Designer (and very large ones also), but they are real businesses making money. The price is in that range where its significant but reasonable compared to the alternatives - there would be no business otherwise. As to how useful it is, probably the easiest way of working that out is to look at the testimonials on the website. Companies are paying, and they wouldn't do that if it wasn't worth it.
There's also mentions of it in the LinkedIn game design groups, from people other than myself.
It's actually my software product, but I'll attempt to be unbiased. I'm also not sure if this is appropriate here, and I expect it will be deleted if its not.
If you're only doing one game and you know how to do it in Excel then stick with Excel.
If you're doing this for fun and not making any money then stick with Excel. Its practically free and you'll learn a lot (possibly more than you want).
Otherwise, you could also hire a consultant to do the math design, and that's a viable approach. It's going to cost real money though, as its skilled work and there's not all that many experienced people doing it. Its easy and you should expect fast and decent quality work, but the potential downside are that's its going to cost more if you do multiple games, you'll lose some learning opportunity, and your overall game design (art/math in particular) is split when ideally it should be closely integrated.
Slot designer also contains some valuable tools to help with game performance and checking code that you'll not get otherwise.
Regardless of how you do the maths you should be building the logic of the game in code anyway, and run code simulations to double check the math design. Regardless of the quality of the math, your software may have bugs.
If you don't have much experience then Slot Designer is definitely easier than Excel. Excel is a general purpose tool and Slot Designer is specifically designed for Slots. You really have to understand what you are doing using Excel and its quite easy to make mistakes, which adds up to spending a more time on it.
Slot Designer is aimed at companies that are making money doing games, and especially where development time and game quality are important. Its not aimed at companies that are paying staff 3rd world rates. There are one and two person companies using Slot Designer (and very large ones also), but they are real businesses making money. The price is in that range where its significant but reasonable compared to the alternatives - there would be no business otherwise. As to how useful it is, probably the easiest way of working that out is to look at the testimonials on the website. Companies are paying, and they wouldn't do that if it wasn't worth it.
There's also mentions of it in the LinkedIn game design groups, from people other than myself.
July 24th, 2015 at 4:54:40 PM
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HI,
I'm interested to know more about Slot Designer. Saw it from www.slotdesigner.com
Do you have an estimated price/cost in licensing this tool?
Also, can the tool export data that we can use for other game engines like Unity, cocos2d-x, etc.?
I'm interested to know more about Slot Designer. Saw it from www.slotdesigner.com
Do you have an estimated price/cost in licensing this tool?
Also, can the tool export data that we can use for other game engines like Unity, cocos2d-x, etc.?
July 24th, 2015 at 7:51:49 PM
permalink
Quote: mdbanaresHI,
I'm interested to know more about Slot Designer. Saw it from www.slotdesigner.com
Do you have an estimated price/cost in licensing this tool?
Also, can the tool export data that we can use for other game engines like Unity, cocos2d-x, etc.?
md,
welcome to the forum. Robert Muir (above your post) only checks in once in a while here; I'd suggest you Private Message him (click on his name in the post above) and make your inquiry. When you PM him, it generates a notice in his email that you've written, and you can take it from there.
If the House lost every hand, they wouldn't deal the game.
