Prize Space Invaders

Prize Space Invaders was an SWP (Skill with Prizes) machine released in 1990/1991 by BWB.

In the early 1990s, these machines were commonly found in UK public houses.

Unfortunately, due to older games being re-used and converted into newer games, these machines are now quite rare, with very few in existing in original form today.

Machine Styles

Prize Space Invaders was made available in 3 different style cabinets.

Firstly there is the tall thin upright. This seems to be the more common form.

Secondly there is the short wider machine, which is similar in style to "Crystal Maze".

Lastly there is a more generic style machine, which was intended from the outset to be converted to different games easily.

The taller machine has plastic scoring and instruction cards inserted behind the main glass panel, the shorter machine has a plastic panel for the instructions, but the scoring is printed onto the upper glass panel, so could be said to be more aesthetically pleasing.

Technical

All machines use Barcrest MPU 4 motherboards, which is a commonly used system in UK fruit machines of the era.

The MPU4 motherboard contains a cartridge to run the Prize Space Invaders game, which is linked via a ribbon cable to an MPU4 video board (this is used in MPU4 based quiz machines) The MPU4 video board also contains a cartridge specific to the game.

All styles of machine use black and white monitors with colour overlay strips (just as the original 1979 Space Invaders)

The taller machine uses a 14" monitor and the shorter machine uses a 20" monitor.

All machines use high quality leaf buttons for left and right movement and for the fire button.

Variations

There are different versions of software for the different jackpot payouts. There is a £20 jackpot, a £12 jackpot and there may be other values.

The £12 jackpot machine will try to pay out regular small prizes as well as saving up to pay out the £12 prize.

The £20 jackpot machine will pay out less small prizes as it has more work to do in trying to save up to pay out the £20 prize.

Gameplay

There are 2 different modes of play.

1. For 30p per go, you can play a non-prize game, this plays similar to the original Space Invaders. In this mode, you can select whether you want to start at level 1,2,3 or 4. The biggest difference is that you must never miss hitting the "mystery ship" otherwise your score will be reset to zero. You get 3 lives in this style game. There is also a timer that counts down, which awards you bonus points once you clear the screen. Once you loose all your lives, if you scored well enough, you will be able to enter you name into the highscore table.

2. For 50p per go, you can play the prize version of the game. Again this plays similar to original Space Invaders, however in this mode the computer can vary the difficulty hugely in several ways. The computer can pick which pattern of invaders you will start with, it can control the number of invaders you have on screen, it can control the speed of the invaders and can also make the invaders so that they split into 2 or 3 to make it harder for you to complete the level. The computer has to do this otherwise people who were very good at space invaders would be queuing up to play this machine and just keep on winning the jackpot over and over again, however if you are a good space invaders player, you should be able to do quite well on this machine, unless it has given you an invaders pattern which is set as the absolute hardest difficulty. In prize mode, you get only one life, once you die it is game over. If you die, then you loose all points and any prize you have been previously awarded.

Like in the non-prize mode, you must always hit the mystery ships, otherwise your score is reset to zero. If your score is reset to zero then you loose any prize you previously have been awarded, unless you can get your score back up to the score required for the next available prize.

When you start the prize game, a score and prize will be displayed to you (for example "£0.20 at 136 points") so once you reach 136 points, you will have a £0.20 prize available to you, the game will then show another prize and score for you to try and reach (e.g. £0.50 at 210 points) If the machine has gone for some time without paying out, then sometimes when you start a level, you will hear a bleeping noise and the machine will offer a "PRIZE BOOST" When it is doing a prize boost, I have seen it offer as much as £3.60 for 96 points (which would be very easy to obtain)

In order to claim any cash prize that has been awarded to you, you must make it to the end of the current level you are playing. Once you have cleared the screen, you will be asked whether you would like to claim your prize or whether you would like to gamble for more money. If you claim your prize, then the amount awarded is added to the bank and you can then you basically have 3 options. You can collect any money from the bank, or you can use the money towards playing either another prize game, or starting a non-prize game. A good player could keep aiming to claim small prizes, adding them to the bank, and then re-using them to play another prize game, in the hope that the machine will offer you a good prize boost sometime soon. As soon as you get the prize boost you want, you can then aim to complete the current level you are on and then claim the more substantial prize (After a good prize boost, you can have as much as £5 at the end of level 1)

If you die during a prize game, sometimes afterwards, the machine will give you the chance to continue your last game for an additional 50p. If you continue the last game, then basically you go back to where you left off with the same prize/points award and the same number of invaders left to kill. If the game decides to offer a continue, then the Continue button will be lit to let you know (as well as telling you on screen that you have the option to continue your game)

References

*"Space Invaders." "Retro Gamer." Imagine Publishing. August 2007

External links

* [http://www.arcadeuk.com ArcadeUK]