If, like me, you remember sneaking off to a seedy arcade during your lunch hour and spending your dinner money playing fruit machines - this emulator will bring back many memories. (Mostly memories of being skint and hungry). If you don't remember this, then you'll probably find the emulator a lot of fun regardless.

Barcrest has been around for years, and MPU3/4 emulates machines such as Line Up at one end of the timeline, to machines such as Bank Roller at the other. It covers early £3 jackpot, 10p play machines from the mid 80s - right through to £250 jackpot, 30p play club machines from the mid/late 90s. A good number of pub fruit machines from the early to mid 90s are included, these have £8, £10 or £15 jackpots. Price of play ranges from 20p to 30p. There's also a fair crop of £4 jackpot, 10p play machines from the late 80s. These were usually found in arcades, although quite a few of them could be found in pubs prior to the emergence of the £4.80 jackpot 20p play machines in the early 90s.

There are no recent machines implemented in the emulator (the most recent is 3 or 4 years old). Barcrest have been using a newer technology, MPU5, for a few years now. This is not yet emulated, and no ROM images are in circulation.

The development of fruit machines in the UK has followed a different path than elsewhere in the world. Historically, jackpots available on fruit machines in pubs and arcades in the UK have been small, a result of strict gambling laws. In 1990 the maximum jackpot was £2.40 cash, £4.80 tokens. Even today, the jackpot is just £15 for pub and arcade machines. Unable to woo punters with the promise of huge cash prizes, fruit machine designers have had to think of more imaginative ways to entice potential players to part with their cash. This has led to the inclusion of high/low gambles, nudges, holds, bonus numbers, long and involved features and feature trails, sub-games, skill challenges, repeat chances on features and wins, barcodes and little "cheats", to name just a few. In short, machines have to be entertaining as well as offering the opportunity to win a few quid. (Contrast with American casino machines, press start, no win, press start, no win, press start, no win, press start, win, press start, no win etc etc).

Barcrest's fruities tend to be more fun for the average player than those made by their rivals such as JPM, ACE and Maygay (whose machines are quite brutal, and are often targeted by professional players, leaving little in the way of potential profit and entertainment for the casual punter). Many operators and arcade owners in the UK insist on setting their machines to as low a %age as possible, often in the low 70s. When set to such a low %age fruit machines are hard-pushed to give the punter a decent game for their money (not surprising when they need to make as much as £300 profit for every £1000 that's put through them). Barcrest's machines have always been better than most at giving a decent number of wins and attempts at the feature board, even when in a bad mood and on a low %age. However, the only real cure for a machine playing poorly at 70-odd% is to set it to a higher percentage. Barcrest fruities are characterised by great artwork (unfortunately not implemented in the emulator), lively, often humorous sound and music and involving, entertaining features and sub-games.

You'd be hard-pushed to find any of the machines covered by the emulator on-site anywhere in the UK, and if you could, they'd almost certainly be set to a different stake, %age or jackpot. Moreover, the software revisions of the ROMs available for the emulator are early versions, so even if you did "learn" a machine using the emulator, and even if you did find that machine on-site somewhere, you'd almost certainly find that your tactics were of little use on the real thing.

Bearing this in mind, let's hope that Barcrest exercise a degree of common-sense in their attitude towards the distribution of the emulator and ROMs - which effectively amounts to free advertising for them, and not, for example, a threat to the very fabric of society. It's no secret that revenues from fruit machines are falling, fast. Who knows, once someone's had some fun playing games on the emu for a few hours they might be inclined to put a few quid in the real thing next time they're in the pub.

At the end of the day, fruit machines are always going to take their profit from whatever money is put through them, this emulator does not represent any threat to Barcrest's business. Quite the opposite, it is free exposure for their brand name and their machines. It's true to say that Barcrest's fruit machines have always been amongst the most entertaining out there, if someone's first exposure to them is via the emulator, and they then go on to play the real thing, that's good news for Barcrest. If they don't go on to play the real thing, no one's lost a penny.

Enjoy the emulator!

20 July 2001