In this post, I’m going to attempt to deconstruct the game that was made for Project 1 Studio: Slot Charmer. Highlighting what the game is, and how it can be improved on.

What is the game

Slot Charmer is an arcade game, in an almost traditional sense. You cash in, pick up the balls, and drop them. Slot Charmer functions like the analogue ‘Disk Drop Game’ with additional mechanics to make the interactions different and interesting.

The difference between Disk Drop and Slot Charmer is in the ‘Fondness’ of the machine towards you. The Machine starts off neutral, and getting combinations of three hearts will make the machine like you more. Lose games, or get spades, and it will dislike you.

Fondness Effects

When the machine dislikes you, it will shuffle the game symbols in an attempt to thwart any attempt at getting a combination.When the machine likes you however, it will drastically help you by giving you chances for double payouts and chances to get payouts with two symbols instead of three.

In hindsight, this is a poor design decision to allow this level of snowballing. What ends up happening when players reaches either end of fondness, it becomes very difficult to leave those extremities. A player with good standing will stay in good standing, while a player in bad standing will stay that way.  This either leads to boredom or with anger, resulting in unsatisfactory gameplay experiences.

Conclusion

While the core mechanic and interaction of Slot Charmer has potential to be an interesting game, the fact that player agency is limited in terms of control and in terms of the mechanics provided means that the game leaves much to be desired.