Considering Designing a Slot Machine.

As a graduate student in design, my thesis must be in the form of a final project, instead of a paper. Since my course of study is geared towards art, animation, and interactive design, the range of possibilities for the thesis is very broad. Most students make a short film, but I am considering making a prototype for a slot machine.

I will be spending well over a year working on the thesis, so the end product would be very polished. And, just as students are expected to submit their short films to festivals, etc, I would not want to create the prototype unless the end product would be enough for companies to consider turning the idea into an actual slot machine.

I'm curious if anyone knows exactly what companies want to see when considering outside design ideas. What I CAN do is create an animation that clearly shows the screen, how things would look while the machine is playing, and also animated ideas for bonus rounds within the game. What I CAN'T do is calculate payouts, odds, or any sort of computer programming. To keep it simpler, the prototype would make no use of copyrighted material.

I have no illusions about how difficult it is to sell a concept to gaming companies, but there is very little at stake, despite the time I would put into the project. It has to be done to graduate, and I hope to go on to be a professor, not a game designer.

You're not very likely to succeed commercially. There would be many patents in play.

If he is just describing designing video slot game content I don't think he would have to worry about too many patent infringements.

Good luck with your project and remember that if selling the idea is important to you you will need to consider the different screen resolutions, reel sizes, bonuses, free spins, etc. that different manufacturers use.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with and I would consider putting it into one of our machines if the concept looks fun and unique.

From what I know fields like design is very different than any field I'm good at (math, science etc) in the way that good and bad are not absolute. From that, what ends up happening is it's too dependent on the person and not enough on the material. It often comes down to what are you rather than what is your project.

Countless psychological experiments have done to demonstrate this. Take the exact same design, tell the audience 2 different creators and observe their action.

Hence, I don't think anyone here can really answer for you what ideas you should be considering. The same idea in the hands of different names has different effect in people.

This is why I prefer to stay away from fields like design.

Jimmer, feel free to contact me directly and I'm glad to have a conversation with you via telephone. I am traveling right now, so give it a few days. Click on "teliot" & look at the bottom for my name. Use Google for contact info., I don't do PMs.

I appreciate the responses. I am still in the early stages of this project, but if I decide to pursue the slot machine idea further, I will definitely contact the users that have offered insight. Thanks again!

I'm going to resurrect this old thread to once again thank everyone who offered their guidance, and to see if they are still posting here. Choosing a subject and getting started on this final project has taken longer than I was expecting, but I was wondering if you guys were still open to answering a few questions?