Last week we looked into the slot machine in the NES version of Super Mario Bros. 2, but today we're seeing what was changed in the Super Mario All-Stars version.
Clearly the biggest change is that it looks much nice with its updating graphics. But they also added an extra icon--the lucky number seven. So let's see how that changes the odds of getting each of the bonuses.
Each slot still only has 8 icons, so one icon was removed from each slot to make room for the seven.
A snifit was removed from the first two slots, and a star was removed from the third slot. Additionally, a veggie from the first slot was replaced with a second cherry.
Given that they also restored one of the cherries, it seems like some proper balancing was done to make the slot machine more enjoyable to play. The number of expected wins was reduced in the port from Doki-Doki Panic, and it's possible the developers decided maybe it was too much of a nerf.
The payouts for each of the wins was also modified. Getting one or two cherries was still worth one and two lives respectively, but getting all three cherries was now only worth three lives. However, matching any other icon like the snifits, stars, and veggies got you two lives instead of one. I think that makes up for it! Also, getting triple sevens netted you a whopping ten lives (why not seven??).
So here's the updated expected payout table:
| Result | Payout | Calculation | Odds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Cherry | 1 | 2×7×8 | 112/512 | 21.9% |
| 2 Cherry | 2 | 2×1×7 | 14/512 | 2.73% |
| All Cherries | 3 | 2×1×1 | 2/512 | 0.391% |
| All Snifits | 2 | 1×2×2 | 4/512 | 0.781% |
| All Stars | 2 | 2×2×2 | 8/512 | 1.56% |
| All Veggies | 2 | 2×2×2 | 8/512 | 1.56% |
| All Sevens | 10 | 1×1×1 | 1/512 | 0.195% |
| Fail | 0 | 363/512 | 70.9% | |
This makes the expected value of lives gained per spin 0.38. Remember, this used to be 0.49 for Doki-Doki Panic, and 0.22 for NES Super Mario Bros. 2. So this is a pretty happy medium. It also just decreased the number of fails in general, which is good for player morale.
There was another thing added to the All-Stars release that seems to always catch people by surprise. If you get the exact combination of cherry-seven-seven, you get an extra three spins on the slots!
This is the only combination to offer this prize. And of course you get the extra life for the cherry too!
You can only get this to occur once per level intermission, so you can't use it to get infinite coins.
The mechanics of the slot machine didn't really change too much behind the scenes. The major difference here is that the icons actually move as if they were on spinning reels, and now slowly come to a stop. Additionally, their speed was cut in half! So now each icon has an 8-frame window to be selected instead of a 4-frame window like before. However, there's no funny business going on like in Super Mario Bros. 3, each slot will always react to a button press right away. Sometimes a slot may take a slightly longer time to stop, but only for the sole reason to make sure the icon lines up perfectly in the little window.
Oh yeah, in case you are curious, the perfect time to press the button to stop the reel is when the icon you want to hit disappears out the bottom of the window. Since the frame window is much larger (8 frames, or 0.13 seconds), and you can actually see the icons slide across the screen, it's actually much much easier to get what you want than before.
This is the ideal frame to get the third seven. It is below the star on the reel.
The code that checks for the winning combinations was updated with the addition of the seven icon, but I'll save that for next week since it's actually kind of a hack, and I'd like to go pretty in depth with that analysis.
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