If you've played a fruit machine in a British amusement arcade or cafe in the past 25 years, chances are it was developed by Barcrest. The Manchester-born machine manufacturer has been providing games for decades, and even thought the firm has changed hands once or twice during its lifetime, it still churns out some excellent online slots for the masses. The Sleuthenizer was a limited-time questline that released on August 21, 2019 and was available until September 4, 2019. It was the main questline of Act 3 of the Simpsons Babies 2019 Event, progressing through it unlocked all of the act's personal prizes. 1 Quests 2 Dialogue 2.1 The Sleuthenizer Pt. 1 2.1.1 Start 2.1.2 End 2.2 The Sleuthenizer Pt. 2 2.2.1 Start 2.2.2 End 2.3 The Sleuthenizer.
To enter the feature game you must have 3 'Simpsons Charactors' on the winline, or you can excange from a normal win after gambling once.
Go for the Barcode as much as possible. If you get a red board take a small win (£1 or £2). It will give you a couple more red boards within a few quid (or even more frequently if it wants to pay), keep turning them down and eventually you will get a normal (yellow) board. When this happens keep going to the Super Jackpot - It should repeat at least once! After a streak (£50 to £60) a final barcode will drop in - it is now time to move on.
On the 'Turnabout' feature it is possible to get a jackpot guarenteed every time you collect the feature. How???
Well each time you stop the MoesTavern in the window whilst the wheell is spinning you will advance either 1 or 2 places up the cash ladder depending on whether you stop it on the win line or one position either side. Do this until you get to £6 and then leave the machine to its own devices. It will eventually stop on its own with 'moestavern' in the window. It will then repeat this on its own until it climbs to the super jackpot. Things to note: This only works on £6. It will take around 2 minutes each time to stop on its own so be patient!!!! Finally for speed make sure when on £4 you stop the moestavern on the winline thus climbing 2 places to £6. This way when u leave it to spin itself each time it will climbe 2 places not 1 getting the jackpot with less waiting.
MR BURNSFired - Game Over!
Doh - One or more trails are reset to zero.
Payday - A random number of icons are added to various trails and to the Itchy & Scratchy board.
Hi/Lo Gamble - Get it correct on a 1-12 reel and you get to carry on.
THE FEATURESCooling Tower - These squares are in oppsosite corners of the board. When you land on it the squares around it flash one by one in sequence. Press stop when it is on the square you want(cancel slows this down)! Look out for +3 Cash etc!
100% Profit -
Money Belt -
Follow Those Hounds -
Cheat Death - Alternates between 'cheat' and 'death' on the disply. Hit 'cheat' to climb the cash ladder, hit 'death' and you are given the amount on the cashladder.
Excellent - 3 shot cash climb up the cash tunnel. Always seems to pay at least the current value of the cash tunnel.
Turnabout - The middle reel spins and you have to hit the hold button to get Moe in view - you advance two cash places for getting him on the pay line and 1 place for getting him immediately above or below. Once you miss, you get whatever you have reached - the reel spins a little faster each time.
Fission Surplus -
Burns Hi/Lo Bonanza - Hi/Lo gamble to add to the cash. Can pay big (£15+), other times it may only allow you to get £5 - doh!
Sports bet phone number. Homers Meltdown - Gives you loads of nudges and only a certain time to use them! Dont take it too slow but be carefula and this will be a JACKPOT!
Super Jackpot - Jackpot with a repeat chance. If it does repeat dont be shocked when it repeats another 2 times - giving £60!
MOES TAVERNWhen you get Moes Tavern (The Symbol on the middle reel) you are awarded hidden features. You now need to press the hold buttons in a certain order. These are listed below:
Left Hold Button - The number reel spins really fast. When you stop it the number adds to the Cash, Features and Nudges trails. Select the trail you want to collect.
Middle Hold Button - Follow me for £5. The machine flashes a sequence on the hold buttons. Repeat the sequence correctly for £5.
Right Hold Button - I always press this one! It gives you a win (one of the bars). If you can gamble higher or lower at least once you will be able to exchange for the feature. When you exchange you should find that £10 or the Jackpot is waiting for you on the nudges!
INVINCIBLE MODEThe Invincible mode is shown when the Homers Meltdown logo turns RED. Proceed around the board for the Super Jackpot!
As with the Simpsons and the Great Escape, some players still prefer to turn down the RED mode (collect a low win - £2?), in the hope of forcing the streak.
While being in my local Yatess I spotted something magnificent out of the corner of my eye. There was a fruit machine themed with a cartoon, yellow family named; The Winsons. I found this obnoxious rip off so amusing that it has inspired me to write this article.
In the Netflix series; The Unbreakable Kimmy Schidt, one of the characters comes into contact with a gentleman selling character outfits which resemble famous characters such as Iron Man, yet aren’t. On the basis that the man is guilty of copyright infirngement on various studio’s intellectual property, everyone is able to return their knock off suits for a refund.
The Winsons is blatant copyright infringement. Let’s have a closer look at some of the aspects that make up The Winsons.
Paytm money making games. Firstly we have, who I can only assume is Madge Winson or similar. While the face differs from the Marge Simpson character, she has the trademark tall hair. Coupled with the yellow skin, necklace (which is different to Marge’s pearl necklace) and the Winson name. It’s quite clear that they have based some of the features on Marge, but change enough for them to say it is a different character. This character looks a bit like a cheap hooker with a PVC dress on, the tattoos are an odd addition as well.
The Simpsons Fruit Machine Jackpot
Also on the same photo notice the many donut references. There is a round called Donut Dash, as well as Donuts appearing on the game board. Homer Simpson is famously a huge donut fan. Typically The Simpsons animation shows donuts in this manner:
Which looks pretty much the same as the pink, iced donut with sprinkles which appears on the Winsons game. There are however, no images of the father character eating the donuts so who is to say that the wife isn’t a fan? Which would again, detract from the likeness (who am I kidding?) slightly.
The father character does however clearly enjoy beer, like Homer. We can see the character here on the bottom left hand corner of the machine, pointing at some cans of beer. Again, these cans look similar to Duff beer but without a brand name, surely saying that 2 male characters liking beer is copyright infringement is ludicrous?
The Winson’s only have one child, a boy who looks a little like Bart Simpson and seems to be quite attached to his sling shot (hang on, didn’t Bart have one of them?). Both are sporting the same red t shirt as well, coincidence?
As well as all of this, the Winsons appear to live in a place called Springford (really? They may as well have called it Springfield). The font used on this machine is also awfully close to the Simpsons font.
A cat and mouse character also appear on the game. The animals look distinctly like Itchy & Scratchy. There is nothing other than a few faces relating to these characters, so you could argue that it’s just a cat and mouse, The Simpsons didn’t come up with that idea.
As well as this, we see various Saxaphones and references to sax bonuses. We don’t have a fake Lisa character in the Winsons so it could be argued that this is irrelevant when arguing copyright infringement as we don’t know what the sax is in relation to. If the father character was a huge jazz fan, then it could be argued that it’s actually different.
There is also a bonus round called Sideshow Robbed, which may just be me but sounds like Sideshow Bob. The difference in wording makes them 2 separate things but I can’t help but feel that someone was just being lazy here. There is also a Grandpa’s Gold round. It would be silly to argue that the Sinpsons have intellectual copyright on a Grandpa character so they have thrown this in.
When doing a Google search for “the Winsons fruit machine”, Google suggests “the Wilsons fruit machine”. I’m sure you could imagine my disappointment when Google web and image searches didn’t bring me an even worse knock off. A search of “the Winsons” wasn’t overly successful. I did find a forum post about the machine where someone says the sound FX are disturbingly close to The Simpsons. The machine is available to buy from AMG, for anyone wanting to add some original gaming to their establishment. I wasn’t able to find any other information such as who was responsible for this, and if Fox had picked up on it at all, so I emailed 20th Century Fox. I asked them if they were aware of the Winsons, if any action had been taken and their thoughts.
Wether or not Fox could take legal action would depend on what design rights are in place for The Simpsons. I imagine that Fox have heavily copyrighted as much as they possibly can of The Simpsons. The show has been airing for almost 27 years and has seen worldwide popularity. I recall a Simpsons episode where Homer’s likeness has been stolen to create the logo for a Japanese product.
While I can find no info on any lawsuits which Fox has taken out on anyone as a result of copyright infringement. Fox were sued by Goodfella’s creator Frank Sivero. Sivero claims that the Simpsons character Louie was stolen from Sivero’s Goodfella’s character; Frankie.
The Simpsons Fruit Machine For Sale
As The Winsons are still in circulation, there probably isn’t any impending legal action and the makers are probably laughing at Fox. I-gaming companies continue to use popular TV themes for their games as to attract more niche audiences. For example, this Downton Abby one I found hilarious. I think it’s best for games designers to get the consent of companies to use their images rather than create cheap, rip offs such as The Winsons.