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I started a new project for the PE+ platform.  My goal is to create a game similar to the mechanical "Sigma Derby" game.  In that game, players wager on the outcome of a race of 5 horses via a quinella (boxed exacta).

You can move the red arrow via the "Hold 1" button and either insert coins and/or credits to bet on a combination.  Once you are ready to start the race, you press "Deal/Spin" button.

If anyone has any suggestions on gameplay, please leave a comment.  I've only spent a few hours on it so far, but the horses and rail animate etc.  Maybe I'll capture it as video next time I update my progress.

Below is a screenshot of my prototype running in MAME under the PE+ Emulator:

(http://www.stolistic.com/slots/HR1.png)

Looks great - you might consider giving the horses different colors or perhaps colored bibs with a number failing that what about a colored stripe.

You might also want to give the game a title that ties into the denomination like QUARTER derby or Nickle Derby.

Are you not missing some combos like 1,3,5

As a former harness race horse trainer I think that's great.
Maybe you could put a sulky (race bike) with driver behind the horse and make it the first harness racing game.  :72-   
Jay I don't think the casino horse racing games had three horse boxes for quilnellas.

Does anybody know if Windsor Casino still has their horse racing game. Had a lot of fun playing that one. It even had little cameras on the track.  :72-

It looks like you're headed in the right direction.

On your paytable you list the exacta (or is it a quinella) bet using a dash and follow it with a colon and the payout (I assume for one unit bet). However, the use of the colon makes it appear at first glance as if the second and third numbers are part of the odds payout. (Note Jay's confusion about missing combinations when, in fact, none are missing.)

Might I suggest something like "1-2 Pays 1:1" or "1-2 Pays 2 for 1" or "1-2 Pays 2 coins". It might also look better if the odds numbers and the bet amount were right-aligned. If you have room, you could try putting the word "Bet" to the left of the wager and to the right of the odds. I would also use a different color to represent each element of the pay table: the combos (e.g, "1-2"), the odds, the word "Bet", if used, and the amount wagered. In addition, I'd probably use white for a 0 bet and green or yellow for a wager so that the combo's that have been wagered upon stand out.

I agree with Jay's suggestions as well. I'd assign colors the horses and would use a catchy name that defines the game. Perhaps the horses' colors could be coordinated with the color(s) used in the combo listings on the pay table.

Have you considered sound? I would add a bell at the start, horse hooves beating during the race, and perhaps crowd cheers at the end, etc.

Good comments.  I agree the payout screen is a bit confusing.  I think there should be plenty of room for "Pays" instead of the colon etc.

After I solidify the animation etc, I'll probably give the horses either a different color and/or add the horse number inside the body.  I like the idea of having the paytable reflect the colors too.

My goal for sound is to start the race with the traditional bugle music, and some hooves sounds during the race.  I have to work up some type of conversion from the musical scale to work with the hardware correctly.

When you get the sound worked out, Don't forget to add the sound of the starting bell directly followed by the announcer with, "And their Off"

Great, great, great!  This could really shape up into an excellent game.  I will be checking back for progress on this one.  I will also check at Caesars Windsor (the new name) to see if it's there, but was there in January and didn't notice it.

Thanks,
Wayne

I believe it was upstairs on the right side. Been quite awhile since my last visit.

That's pretty awesome Stol!  :131-
I hope your game comes out well! :89-

Wow, looking great!  Fun stuff!   :3-



Stolistic is a genius when it comes to this stuff, but I don't think even he can make the crummy tone generator of a PE+ do speech.  :)

I did some paytable changes and uploaded a video of the animation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IhSct1NOc8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IhSct1NOc8)

I agree with everyone else, this looks excellant.

As you asked for suggestions, could distance markers be added to the rail to indicate how far to go to the finish?

Paul

Well, who won?..... :96-

Again, awesome work Stolistic! :3-

Very clean looking and impressive! You are always "Wowing" us!  :131-

 Dan (tacman)

Great idea.  It now counts down the furlongs as the horses run via distance poles.  The finish line is denoted slightly different than the rest.  Once the finish line is exposed the rail no longer scrolls and the horses dash to end.


Four furlongs remaining and finish line:
(http://www.stolistic.com/slots/HR03.png)

Awesome Jim! It's looking better and better.  :131- :131-
Dotster, suggesting the furlong markers was a good idea.  :71-
I still think that the odds and bet amounts would look better if right justified, but that's just me.. :96-
I handed out some more K+s  :79- :97-


YEA!! Don't leave us hanging like that!  :30- :37-  :72- :72- :72-

Well, I think I have the sound translated correctly now.

The system uses a AY-3-891x chip to produce sound.  My main concern was to come up with a way to convert the standard musical scale into the proper values for this chip.  In order to do that you need to know the clock speed of the chip and the desired frequency of the note.  The clock speed of the PE+ sound chip is the main clock (20 MHz) divided by 12 or approximately 1.666 MHz.  The output frequency of the sound chip is this input frequency further divided by 16 (or approximately 104166.666 Hz).

On a piano, C4 (middle C) has a frequency of 261.626 Hz.  So if you want to output a C4 note, you must pass the sound chip a pitch value of 104166.666 / 261.626 which equal 398.151.  Since the chip does not support fractional values, you must use a value of 398.

Applying this concept up and down the scale gives you a table of values in which you can use to produce melodies.  So with that figured out, I just needed to look up the sheet music for the start of a race and apply the proper delays between notes.

Here is a link to a sample of the sound here:
http://www.stolistic.com/slots/horse.wav (http://www.stolistic.com/slots/horse.wav)

So very cool. Much better than Tick Tick Tick as it deals cards or the Beep Beep Beep as I select cards to hold.
It would be neat if you could digitize "And their off....."

I agree, that is awesome. Everytime I read your posts Stolistic, I shake my head in amazement.

 Dan (tacman)

Very cool :3- :3-

Thanks for all the info, keep up the great work,K+ to you :89-

What words are needed.

 :131- :131- :131- :131- :131-

I am impressed enought with the sounds, but the explaination of how you got to the end result actually made sense to me. Superb. Thank you.

And can we buy this when it's finished?

Ha!  I love it!  Great stuff.

How cool is that?!?! AWESOME! :D

Here is some interesting tidbits on Exactas and how to calculate the fair odds for any given horse combination:

Let's take the following race as an example:

Horse #	Odds	Chance of First Place
1	5:1	1 in 6 (1/6)
2	3:1	1 in 4 (1/4)
3	1:1	1 in 2 (1/2)
4	8:1	1 in 9 (1/9)
5	20:1	1 in 21 (1/21)

This example assumes the odds also reflect the actual chance of finishing in first place.
In a real horse race, hunches and emotions can skew the odds greatly from their actual chances.

Starting with the first possible combination, with horse #1 coming in first and horse #2 coming in second or denoted 1-2, we do the following:

The chance of horse #1 coming is first is 1/6.
The chance of horse #2 coming in second, is basically the chance of him coming in first against the remaining field.
Chance of horse #2 coming in first against the remaining field = chance of horse #2 / (1 - chance of horse #1)
(1/4) / (1 - (1/6)) = 0.3

Chance of both horses finishing correctly = chance of horse #1 * chance of horse #2 coming in first against the remaining field
(1/6) * 0.3 = 0.05

To express in Odds, divide into 1
1 / 0.05 = 20

So the exacta 1-2 would pay $20 on a $1 wager.

Now let's do that in reverse.  Having horse #2 come in first, and horse #1 come in second.
(1/6) / (1 - (1/4)) = 0.2222
(1/4) * 0.2222 = .05555
1 / .05555 = 18

Meaning the exacta 2-1 would pay $18 on a $1 wager.  A lower payout makes sense.  The second exacta has a better horse finishing first.

In the Sigma Derby, you can only bet on a boxed exacta, meaning either 1-2 or 2-1 at the same time.

So we will need to take the average of the two payouts to determine the correct amount.  (20 + 18) / 2 = $19.

On the site Wizard of Odds (http://wizardofodds.com/derby (http://wizardofodds.com/derby)) they list an example race with payouts.
Using the above formulas and some educated guesses at the starting odds for the horse, I compared their system with my calculations.
Remember the lowest payout will be 2 and the maximum will be 200.

Horse	Estimated Odds
1	6.5 (13/2)
2	.25 (1/4)
3	5.1 (5 1/10)
4	28.2 (28 1/5)
5	2.25 (2 1/4)

Combo	Game Pays	Calculated Average
1-2	5	5
1-3	39	38.95 (39)
1-4	200	200.65 (200)
1-5	19	19
2-3	4	3.95 (4)
2-4	20	21.275 (21)
2-5	2	1.8125 (2)
3-4	160	160.47 (160)
3-5	15	15.15 (15)
4-5	79	78.675 (79)

As you can see, only one value (2-4 combo) was different from the real game and it was off by only 1.

So now I have a method to generate realistic payouts based on the horses odds.

It's also interesting to know that Sigma used the standard method of calculating these payouts. Is the house edge then built into the single odds used for each individual horse winning the race?

That would be my guess too or they adjust the odds in a mini parimutuel pool as the players place wagers.  But I don't remember this being the case when playing.  I'm pretty sure the payouts remained fixed during the betting process.

It would be a good networked game where you would have 5 terminals, one screen and the bets on each horse impacted the paytable.

That is correct -- the odds did not change on the Sigma Derby game once they were posted prior to the race.

Confirmed. I was enough of a sucker to play uh -- enjoyed playing :5- -- these in Reno a long time ago, and the odds never changed during the betting period.
It was the only game that I recall that could take so many coins for one play at that time. If you went crazy, you could bet 20 coins on every single outcome of a race, or 200 coins, on a single outcome, and that was before bill acceptors. Not that anyone would be foolish enough to bet that much, but it caught my eye at the time as being a way for casinos to get a lot more of a player's money a lot faster than with a slot machine of the day.

By chance, today's Las Vegas Advisor (http://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/) Question of the Day (http://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/qod.cfm) is about Sigma Derby!


The Wizard of Odds (http://wizardofodds.com/derby) also did an evaluation of the paytables on Sigma Derby games around Las Vegas (when they still existed).

Hi Stolistic, did you get to finish this?

I wish i was smart enuff to do this kind of thing.

I am quite famillier with the Sega version of these casino mechanical-electronic track horse games

The Sega version was called Royal Ascot, fiber optic to all stations and horses could cross and zig zag each other...

They were IR remote controlled robots with a large magnets to keep each articulated horse attached to its IR remote controlled robot running under the track...through the track on top.

Quite reliable for many years if you take into account how we operated this 24h day...robots needed the occasional overhaul, tire and brush replacements...horses would wear out on pivot points and wheels...

IIRC the whole Sega division in Japan that built-designed those games (also blackjack...Bingo with a huge 6 foot dia bingo capsule...and others) was sold when Sega was in trouble in the...mid 90s?