Pharoah new ac skill slots

This is a review of pharoah skill slots i saw installed at tropicana in ac. Danger arena is also there. Both games are similar enough for a comparison without a separate thread (there are a few on here for danger arena already)

Both games have time limits. :45 seconds for danger arena and a full minute for pharoah so i suppose pharoah is the better deal

Both games have goals to achieve. Pharoah u collect up to 8 treasures. Danger arena u kill up to 10 bots. The more u achieve the more the win

Both games have the same sliding scale for wagers. I believe .50 $1 $2 $3 $4 $5 $10 $15 and $20. The only advantage to higher wagers is an exponentially larger payout for random bonus objects. First they have to appear and then u have to be skillful enough to collect them

Danger arena has an x-box style controller on a movable stalk. Movement is purely cosmetic and has no bearing on the game. To actually move u toggle a left and right joystick with your thumbs. Left side is lateral movement thru a maze. Right side is up and down. Buttons control jumping targeting and shooting. U locate aim and shoot targets. Until u shoot a target u dont know if its even killable. If not move on. U have to kill a minimum of 6 bots to even win any money. More on that in a minute. With 45 seconds to do everything i found myself really unnervved

Pharoah plays like candy crush. It is a touch screen game. Eliminating objects shows lots of scores ala candy crush. None of the scores are relevant - purely eye candy. The only thing that matters is getting treasures that appear to the bottom of the screen so they can be collected

You need 4 treasures at least to win. 4 is half ur bet. 5 is even money. 6 is 2.5x. I believe 7 is 5x or 10x and the 8 maximum is 25x ur bet

My girlfriend plays candy crush all hours of the day so she seemed a natural. I convinced her casinos games are different enough from i-phone games to get her to only wager $1.

She was amazing knocking down rows and rows of items (egyptian symbols instead of candy) nonetheless after playing 8 games she failed once to ever win a single game.

She often had 3 treasures collected within 20 seconds. Then the other 40 seconds she just played with not one treasure becoming available. Nothing on the instructions warned your skill may be useless however on danger arena there was some more clarification. It says each game played has anywhere from 5 to 10 killable bots. How convenient since you need 6 to win any money and at least 8 to make a profit

After she realized this my gf was uninterested in playing. After only 8 bucks she declared it was basically a cheat if once u depressed the spin button it was already predetermined if u could even possibly win

Both machines had no one playing. Skilled players are not going to be happy with this and worse unskilled players will both be daunted by playing and find it even harder to win. All in all that spells a death knell for this iteration of skilled video game slots

Quote: darkoz

Both games have the same sliding scale for wagers. I believe .50 $1 $2 $3 $4 $5 $10 $15 and $20. The only advantage to higher wagers is an exponentially larger payout for random bonus objects. First they have to appear and then u have to be skillful enough to collect them

Those games will never be successful until you charge $100 and put fur on them.

Quote: DRich

Those games will never be successful until you charge $100 and put fur on them.

Bazinga!

I don't think a casino can ever have a skilled game people will like, that fits the wants of a casino. The casino has to pay more than the slots, to get this young adult market they say they want, while not just converting slot players into skilled players. If it's skill, I dont see it belonging in a casino, but somewhere else. I don't think skill games should be regulated by gaming, hence needing a gaming license to operate. Whoever regulates arcades should regulate these.

That's unfortunate if it essentially is a predetermined slot spin for prize eligibility each time. Kind of defeats the purpose of skill based gaming and just makes it slot bonus game that you can actually lose.

Quote: darkoz

My girlfriend plays candy crush all hours of the day so she seemed a natural. I convinced her casinos games are different enough from i-phone games to get her to only wager $1.

She was amazing knocking down rows and rows of items (egyptian symbols instead of candy) nonetheless after playing 8 games she failed once to ever win a single game.

She often had 3 treasures collected within 20 seconds. Then the other 40 seconds she just played with not one treasure becoming available. Nothing on the instructions warned your skill may be useless however on danger arena there was some more clarification. It says each game played has anywhere from 5 to 10 killable bots. How convenient since you need 6 to win any money and at least 8 to make a profit

After she realized this my gf was uninterested in playing. After only 8 bucks she declared it was basically a cheat if once u depressed the spin button it was already predetermined if u could even possibly win

Both machines had no one playing. Skilled players are not going to be happy with this and worse unskilled players will both be daunted by playing and find it even harder to win. All in all that spells a death knell for this iteration of skilled video game slots

It sounds like the game designers ignored the basic principals of player-manipulation all the modern slots seem to incorporate to keep players at the machine even tho they are losing:

1. provide frequent 'wins' that are less than the amount bet and
2. give the appearance that the player came close to winning something big

I have never been able to understand the appeal of skill based gambling. If I lose at blackjack or slots, well both are -ev. If I lose at a skill based game, it's because I suck ?
How do you design a skill based game that will allow the unskilled or average player to win, yet stop the very skilled player from winning? Anybody care to answer that question ?

Remember the key word is "SKILL"

Poker requires skill, yet in the last decade Vegas has lost over 100 poker tables.

Most gamers are in the 16-22 age range. Casinos have a minimum 21 age to play. Are casinos aiming at the 34 year old gamer living in Mommy's basement ?

Heres my 2 cents for future skill game creators

Reverse the sequence. Right now the game determines if a win is even possible before the person plays. It needs to be flipped. Let the skill of the person determine how lucky he will be

Example. Danger arena. Let the gamer kill as many bots as he can. The morr bots the more wilds he earns. Once the time limit is up he gets to spin at normal -ev a regular old fashioned spin but with wilds added based on his skill level

As danger arena and pharoah stand now no one is gonna be playing

After trying it out here are my thoughts:

-The touch screens are not up to snuff. You have to to do a swiping motion and some swipes it was off by an entire block. Example: you want to swap from columns 2 and 3 and it does 1 and 2 instead. Besides wasting time in a time limited game you could possibly do an unintended match ruining your game.
-The game was not good enough that I felt it worth it to dump money into it to develop any kind of strategy. If the game is as involved this, there should be a software demo available to play on web browser or smart phone.
-As to how fair the skill to chance ratio is I can't say. It has different game mechanics based on the number of gems you match and there are also various powerups. Based on these choices and your spatial decisions on which area of the board you want to move / clear I would not easily dismiss the skill component influence.

For future games: if it is turn based / not real time touch screen is ok. For real time games physical buttons are a must.

Quote: whitejack

I have never been able to understand the appeal of skill based gambling. If I lose at blackjack or slots, well both are -ev. If I lose at a skill based game, it's because I suck ?
How do you design a skill based game that will allow the unskilled or average player to win, yet stop the very skilled player from winning? Anybody care to answer that question ?

Remember the key word is "SKILL"

Poker requires skill, yet in the last decade Vegas has lost over 100 poker tables.

Most gamers are in the 16-22 age range. Casinos have a minimum 21 age to play. Are casinos aiming at the 34 year old gamer living in Mommy's basement ?

IMO Ahigh solved this problem. A player with no skill could do well. As far as I'm concerned his pinball was the best skill game idea around. The ajustable betting and custom wins was a good idea, the graphics and game play was great.
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I think I read somewhere Space Invaders will be hitting the strip soon.

Until the law requiring attempts to be independent (nearly universal n the usa) is removed, skill based gambling not based on real life things will always suck.

Because of how the laws work skill only gives an extra chance to lose, which increases the hold percentage of the machine. this is fine for video poker, because it is a model of real life. same with video blackjack. The entire point of skill based gaming is to provide a +ev with skill. video poker with decent pay tables is good example, requiring a high degree of skill. counting cards at blackjack is also skill.

The UK did skill based gaming properly. When unskilled players take the machine below percentage, then a skilled player can swoop in and take advantage, playing th game at a profit until the percentage goes back up.

The game is terrible and suffers the same fate as danger arena. Terrible input hardware.

Quote: gamerfreak

The game is terrible and suffers the same fate as danger arena. Terrible input hardware.

If a company wants a good skill game they need to hire Ahigh. His Pinball was the best thing I have seen yet.