Slot Machine (video game)
1979 game for Atari 2600 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Slot Machine is a 1979 video game written by David Crane for the Atari VCS (renamed to the Atari 2600 in 1982) and published by Atari, Inc.[2][1] Along with Star Ship and Miniature Golf, it was one of the first Atari VCS games to be discontinued.[3]
Slot Machine | |
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![]() Cover art by John Enright[1] | |
Developer(s) | Atari, Inc. |
Publisher(s) | Atari, Inc. |
Programmer(s) | David Crane |
Platform(s) | |
Release |
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Genre(s) | Slot machine |
Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Gameplay

The game has one-player and two-player modes. Gameplay options include Jackpot and Payoff modes. The game continues until the player runs out of tokens.[4]
Development
The game was written by David Crane, who went on to develop Pitfall!. Crane developed the game for his mother, who was a lover of slot-machine games.[5][6] Programming the game to represent the different symbols of a traditional fruit-machine proved difficult given that the Atari 2600 could only render 8 monochrome pixels for each sprite, so Crane made use of differing shapes that were easily distinguishable, such as cacti.[7]
Reception
In a July 1983 review in Electronic Games magazine, Joyce Worley and Tracie Forman described the graphics as "workman-like if unspectacular".[4]
A December 2000 review of the game in Classic Gamer Magazine written by Leonard Herman was highly critical of the game, including it in a list of games that he "loved to hate" and criticising the lack of tension in the gameplay and the poor graphics.[3]
See also
References
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