Match-N-Spin Demo (patent pending... finally :)

My partner and I finally got the provisional patent in, so I guess I can talk about our game now :) When I first signed up here 2.5 years ago, I had an idea for a game for a skill based game based on the popular Match-3 Mechanic (like Bejeweled or Candy Crush Saga). I shelved the idea for a while, and about a year ago, it hit me to add a slot-like spin when you made the match. After a few starts and stops, we have something to show

The demo I have up loads slow, so give it half a minute or so. Sorry, I made a bad decision in the rush to get something done. I'll probably be making some changes over the next few days, which may include a tradeoff to get things loading faster.

I think it's pretty self explanatory. You play a match-3 game, swapping tiles on a 6x6 board and when you make a match, you win a spin. The scoring is shown at the bottom. Just below the main board is a breakdown of the game tree for that board.

At present, the demo allows you to select from 1000 boards which, if chosen randomly, and played optimally, produce a break even result.

There's also an autoplay button which makes it a bit more like mindless slots for those who prefer.

It just occurred to me that I haven't tested it on Internet Explorer. If anyone is still using IE, please let me know if it plays reasonable well. (unless it's a really old IE version which no one tries to support anymore)

http://frozen-gorge-8975.herokuapp.com/jtswebapps/matchnspin

Obviously, the rate of play is likely to be slower here than on a regular slot machine, but I'm hoping the potential for attracting a new audience through the popular game type is compelling enough that it will gain traction.

I think we're planning on filing an online submission form with IGT. Anyone have any other suggestions wrt marketing?

Thanks,
John

I need a Thesaurus to find a good word to describe just how painfully slow it was running.

Then again, I was trying it on my iPhone 3.

I'll try it again tonight, on my MacBook.

Is that slow after loading, or are you saying it's loading slowly?

Actually, I'm not sure why it would work at all on an iphone. I'm not accepting any touch events. I'm no javascript expert, but I thought I had to explicitly tell it to do that if I wanted it to work on touch screens.

Slow after loading.

Don't get me wrong. Loading was about as slow as you described.

It would not play, but it did auto-play. I'd say the simple swap was about 10 frames, which took about a second or so per frame. Then the cascade etc also was about a second per frame.

Just painfully slow. But I didn't think you intended it to be used on an iPhone, so I tried it more for laughs than to give you real feedback.

Right, I think phones are probably out for multiple reasons.

I'll add touch events to my todo list for tablets.

This is the first game concept I have seen on here that I thought was interesting and has potential. Normally I take one look at a game and then block the thread.... unless I think the game has some AP value.

I love the fact that this is interactive. Games like Bejeweled get VERY boring after the novelty wears off. Candy Crush, as seen on Bovada would be better if the bonus points you earned were some kind of an accumulated bonus instead of just adding a different candy feature. CC has some nice graphics and is very cool, but it lacks interesting and big pay bonus rounds. It also makes you think as if you are building up to something, like multipliers or a big bonus round once you realize this is not the case, the game is a let down.

I don't like the design graphics on your game at all, I hope that is something that is getting drastically changed. Perhaps you could have a menu with different themes to choose from that would fit a players personal taste.


I only took about 90 seconds to play this so I don't understand how everything/ most of it works. When i moved a symbol, It seemed to just move back in place. Then I noticed that the symbols above dropped down and things disappeared. Not sure what is going on with that. Also it almost looks like a complicated bingo set up.

You say with perfect play each board has a potential of %100 payback. I would have a problem with someone making that claim if it was not really achievable due to a nearly impossible complex strategy.

I think with a great theme and some tinkering this could have nice potential and be a hit.

Quote: AxelWolf

This is the first game concept I have seen on here that I thought was interesting and has potential. Normally I take one look at a game and then block the thread.... unless I think the game has some AP value.
...
I don't like the design graphics on your game at all, I hope that is something that is getting drastically changed. Perhaps you could have a menu with different themes to choose from that would fit a players personal taste.

I only took about 90 seconds to play this so I don't understand how everything/ most of it works. When i moved a symbol, It seemed to just move back in place. Then I noticed that the symbols above dropped down and things disappeared. Not sure what is going on with that. Also it almost looks like a complicated bingo set up.

You say with perfect play each board has a potential of %100 payback. I would have a problem with someone making that claim if it was not really achievable due to a nearly impossible complex strategy.

I think with a great theme and some tinkering this could have nice potential and be a hit.

Thanks for the encouraging feedback.

Symbol's should only move back into place if there isn't a match made. Is that what's it's doing? If there is a match made, you should then see spinning symbols and then, dropping tiles. There is a bug if you try to make another match while things are still spinning and dropping, and I'm working on that now.

I'm not attached to the graphics. Hopefully we can find someone with an interest in the concept who has a better idea/license. A theme menu is an idea. I'll consider it. I'm thinking I want to allow potential buyers to roll their own set of boards to their specifications (EV and variance-wise) and that's going to be a job in itself.

The 100% payback claim isn't for every board individually, but the average if they are chosen at random. It would be tough to obtain. I'm not sure how it would compare in difficulty to, say, poker machines, since I don't play those, but I hear those strategies are often non-intuitive. I think I'll just offer that up and whoever picks up the idea can decide if they want to use it. They may decide to use a different set of boards that doesn't have a 100% payback or has a tighter range so you can't lose as much if you play badly.

Not working on my internet explorer - I have windows 8.1

A top screen with symbols loaded, two blank screens below and two buttons on top that say play-board 100 and autoplay but those buttons cant be accessed.

Quote: darkoz

Not working on my internet explorer - I have windows 8.1

A top screen with symbols loaded, two blank screens below and two buttons on top that say play-board 100 and autoplay but those buttons cant be accessed.

Have exactly the same experience. Windows Vista running IE10. A 3rd line above the symbols that says "$1000". Large white space below the symbols, then some description starting with the title.

My partner confirmed the IE problems. We're looking at it. I'm probably too quick to assume that everyone has 3 browsers that aren't IE on hand...

I fixed a few problems including speeding up the load time a little bit.

Am I supposed to get the same board over and over again?

I mean, it happened to be one I can play profitably, so if this is how it works in the casino, I'm good with that.

In the demo, you can actually chose the board at the top. But no, this isn't the plan for the casino.

I guess I should set up an option to chose at random like at an actual casino so no one gets the wrong idea.

edit: there should be a drop down menu. To play a different board, select from the menu and hit "Play"

I think the idea is good, but I would be hesitant to play seriously since I am not a candy crush addict and currently strategy looks more difficult than VP or blackjack. But it could be that I just am an inexperienced idiot in this game.

Quote: tringlomane

I think the idea is good, but I would be hesitant to play seriously since I am not a candy crush addict and currently strategy looks more difficult than VP or blackjack. But it could be that I just am an inexperienced idiot in this game.

Thanks, but yes, I don't think you're our target audience, unless some company wants to try a 100+% payback version. I guess, there may be some other play with comps or something.

I had a situation a few moves in on board 2 where, after the spin, I ended up with five clovers arranged in a "+" shape (3 horizontal intersecting 3 vertical). I think it should have eliminated all 5 of them, but it only eliminated the horizontal ones. Was this the intended behavior?

There's also a situation on board 2 in the lower right where a single swap creates two vertical columns (3 diamonds and 3 apples). After the diamonds spin and change to a different symbol, they change back to diamonds before the apples spin. Then whatever the apples changed to, they too are changed back to apples before they disappear.

Quote: JB

I had a situation a few moves in on board 2 where, after the spin, I ended up with five clovers arranged in a "+" shape (3 horizontal intersecting 3 vertical). I think it should have eliminated all 5 of them, but it only eliminated the horizontal ones. Was this the intended behavior?

There's also a situation on board 2 in the lower right where a single swap creates two vertical columns (3 diamonds and 3 apples). After the diamonds spin and change to a different symbol, they change back to diamonds before the apples spin. Then whatever the apples changed to, they too are changed back to apples before they disappear.

Only the tiles that actually spin are scored and removed, so if they land on a symbol that happens to be the same as adjacent symbols, it's still only the tiles that were spinning which are removed. Is this what was happening?

I see the extra change on board 2. I'm not sure what's happening there. I'll take a look. Thanks.

ok, when multiple matches are made the tiles now disappear rather than revert back to the match tile.

IE still doing nothing much. Boards not loading.

Chrome doing a bit more but still not very functional. Board options are loading; below that is a color key grid that seems to pre-plot the available plays. Below that is a partial payout chart by symbol, with multipliers for longer than 3. However, no win of longer than 3 symbols is registering. When there are no more moves, a script overlays the center of the grid, one line repeated, and the board freezes. No cursor indication that anything is hot under it; remains a text symbol even when clicking on something that reacts.

You might look at LED gaming; there seems to be at least a superficial resemblence between this and wild tiles, and wild cleopatra tiles, though those just drop without any manipulation possible.

Quote: beachbumbabs

Have exactly the same experience. Windows Vista running IE10. A 3rd line above the symbols that says "$1000". Large white space below the symbols, then some description starting with the title.

-10

. . Vista

Quote: AxelWolf

-10

. . Vista

Lol...yeah, I have another computer here with 8.1, but I haven't finished moving all the stuff off of the Vista computer, so I keep coming back to it.

Try it again on IE. I just fixed one big source of problems, and it appears to be working on my mom's laptop which doesn't like running anything. Except, for some reason, the instruction graphics aren't showing.

edit: I'm pretty sure this laptop is running vista even

Quote: socks

I fixed a few problems including speeding up the load time a little bit.

I highly suggest you or someone include a bonus round, possibly while the line match is spinning you could have a special symbol that appears. Or a special symbol you try to capture somehow. Even better, have it when you make a large line match with x number of matching symbols or more.

Bonus rounds are what saved slots and keep people interested. The more bonus rounds the better the more interesting the bonus rounds are the better.

I love when I see +EV slot situations, its way more fun then VP to me. I do like fun slots, Me and my GF will put a $20 in occasionally for entertainment, (to me its no difference then paying for a game of pool or video game) I'm always interested in being able to see each bonus round.. On a machine that has no bonus rounds people will often leave is the machine is not paying. I think most people will keep playing a bonus round machine until they at least see a bonus round win or lose, the more bonus rounds available the more they will want to see.

Quote: beachbumbabs

...Chrome doing a bit more but still not very functional. Board options are loading; below that is a color key grid that seems to pre-plot the available plays. Below that is a partial payout chart by symbol, with multipliers for longer than 3. However, no win of longer than 3 symbols is registering. When there are no more moves, a script overlays the center of the grid, one line repeated, and the board freezes. No cursor indication that anything is hot under it; remains a text symbol even when clicking on something that reacts.

The color key grid is the game tree for a given board.

"Board Clear" is the text you see when there are no more moves. To play again, you have to hit the "Play - $100" button which should, at present, be the area just below the board if, for some reason the text isn't showing.

As for performance, I could tell a noticeable difference on my mom's 5 yr old, mid-grade laptop, and my 4yr old top quality MacBook Air. Not sure how much of that is the computer and how much is the OS and/or browser, but I imagine the canvas animation is using up a fair amount of resources. I didn't go out of my way to optimize it. It's my first real HTML5/canvas project.

Quote: beachbumbabs

You might look at LED gaming; there seems to be at least a superficial resemblence between this and wild tiles, and wild cleopatra tiles, though those just drop without any manipulation possible.

I'm aware of Gem Wild Tiles. The similarities are only superficial as you're not selecting tile to swap in that game, just pressing play, like a generic slot machine, and watching things fall into place.

Quote: AxelWolf

I highly suggest you or someone include a bonus round...

Bonus rounds are what saved slots and keep people interested. The more bonus rounds the better the more interesting the bonus rounds are the better.

I love when I see +EV slot situations, its way more fun then VP to me. I do like fun slots, Me and my GF will put a $20 in occasionally for entertainment, (to me its no difference then paying for a game of pool or video game) I'm always interested in being able to see each bonus round.. On a machine that has no bonus rounds people will often leave is the machine is not paying. I think most people will keep playing a bonus round machine until they at least see a bonus round win or lose, the more bonus rounds available the more they will want to see.

So, are you saying that you see +EV situations in the bonus round? Or were these 2 unrelated comments?

I'm not a slot player. It's my impression, from a distance, that slot makers tried to add some skill elements in the form of bonus rounds, maybe because they weren't sure how to tightly integrate skill elements into the main game. Or do these bonus round skill elements no effect payout at all and just exist for (non-gambling) entertainment?

Another note: I realized the boards are listed in order from best scoring potential to worst, so if the game feels too easy, that's the reason. I'll shuffle them up at some point.

Quote: socks

So, are you saying that you see +EV situations in the bonus round? Or were these 2 unrelated comments?

I'm not a slot player. It's my impression, from a distance, that slot makers tried to add some skill elements in the form of bonus rounds, maybe because they weren't sure how to tightly integrate skill elements into the main game. Or do these bonus round skill elements no effect payout at all and just exist for (non-gambling) entertainment?

No I was talking in general, I like bonus slots when they have a positive EV situation. Not the old reel slots they get very boring. I'm talking about something like Family Guy Slot machine.