So we all know I’m a sucker for marketing. Saw an ad in the airline magazine for the Star Wars slot machine. Big deal. Except that it said – you can choose how you use the force – for good, or for the Dark Side.
Dark Side? I’m listening.
But there was no more being said. The voices in my head trailed off. Still, when I got a message from Candy to play 20 bucks in the Treasure Tunnel (it is her favorite game to play/say. Not mine. Though I don’t mind…) I thought – Treasure Tunnel or Dark Side – who’ll know the difference.
So after days of despair at craps tables and blackjack tables and pai gow poker tables I started hunting for other options. Actually, I did okay at the blackjack switch game over at the Casino Royale…but too little too late. And maybe one or two craps sessions wasn’t a disaster. Craps essay coming soon – now we discuss the Dark Side.
They had a machine over at the Casino Royale, but how could I play there? Downstairs from the Adobe MAX conference was a perfectly fine casino that hopefully didn’t think too much of itself to not stock the new Star Wars game.
Starting off – I was very disappointed. So disappointed that I almost did not play the game. See, they have a couple different machines in the Star Wars bank of machines. Some are good and some are dark. You choose good or the dark side when you sit down…and not while you play. Very disappointing.
I had spent days imagining various slot game scripts – how one would get to bonus levels, having to choose actions – whether souls would be saved or sacrificed. As these choices were made through the game, your force became good or evil, altering the bonus levels/scenes available to one. Sort of like a choose your own adventure game within the slot machine. I imagined myself playing the game over and over again, altering my answers to find out the different ways that using the force plays out in one’s lifetime. Or at least, one’s slot machine imagination.
Instead, I saw a machine with evil people in the reels and a slot machine with good people in the reels. Oh – and some robots and icons (lightsabres and dark side probes) and ships. But that was it basically. Playing on the dark side seemed to only be a reskinning.
Oh well. I’m here. I don’t know where a treasure tunnel is anyway. Let’s drop in a hundred dollar bill and see what’s up. Hmm – this is a penny machine. Kind of interesting. This hundred dollars might take a while.
Wait – one can play 10 units per line. Okay – a dime a line – I’m in – how many lines can I play? 30? Now we’re talking. I don’t even know how there can be 30 lines across this thing, but I’m willing to find out. 3 bucks a spin. Let’s see how this goes.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Hmmm – gotta go look at the payouts. Nothing too special, but did find out that 3 DeathStars will take me to the bonus level. I gotta at least do that. Money management comes into play – so I’m down to 3 cents a line – or 90 cents a pull.
At around 70 bucks left, I get the DeathStar bonus level. Here, you do some strange machinations to get to find out how many bonus spins (in a virtual game – so there is a slot machine within the bonus level of this slot machine) and what the multiplier would be.
I got x1 and 7 spins. My 7 spins netted me 180 units. x1 is 180 units. The bonus round got me $1.80.
Very unimpressed with the game at this point. Back up to 30 lines for a dime a line. Not many spins make back the 300 units – so the bankroll is going down. At around 60 bucks, I get into the bonus round again. I don’t think my heart rate changed at all.
12 spins and x3 – hmm – that’s a bit more interesting. Then on the 2nd spin, I got the “respin bonus” within the game – so now I’ve got 24 spins remaining. And some of those were crazy – lots of lights flashing around – bells going off. But no more “respin bonuses” for me. After 24 spins I had 10000 units (strange how that number came up so round, ain’t it?) and then x3 and so this spin was good for 300 bucks.
Dark Side ain’t so bad after all. Kept playing, figuring I’d cash out at around 300 total. Got another DeathStar bonus, but that again was worth like 5 bucks. So too my 301.25 and cashed out, thinking Candy did okay with her 20 bucks…but wait till I go put this new money through the craps table multiplier!
x0 sucks as a multiplier.