Newcomer to the coin-op amusement industry Adrenaline Amusements from Canada presented its second title TouchFX on UDC's EAG Expo stand, receiving a great reaction from visitors across the three days.
There are three games available at present including Fruit Ninja, which is proving very popular with female players in particular. Jump Jump Soccer, which has been a huge success on smart phones, is also available and according to the company’s Marc-Antoine Pinard hockey and tennis versions of the game will be introduced at a later stage in the year. The new game is available as a stand-alone terminal or multiplayer format and was due to go on test in the UK through UDC, when InterGame spoke to Pinard at the show. He also hinted that a bar version of the game could be in the pipeline following encouraging test results in the US.
"I’ve been really impressed with the EAG Expo," he said. "We’ve seen lots of different people coming through the doors interested in our product. It is a gaming platform and not just one product, making it a sound investment that can be continuously updated with fresh content."
Also making a first-time appearance on the UDC stand was Wheel of Fortune from Raw Thrills. The distributor is in the process of tailoring the game to suit the UK market, making adjustments to the questions. The game was expected to be ready for testing by spring when InterGame spoke to UDC’s Matt Bland at the show.
Other products heading over from the US for the UK market through UDC included Coast to Coast’s Friction video game kit, which will give any ‘dead wood’ CRT cabinet fresh appeal at an affordable price. On show in an old Time Crisis 2 cabinet at the show, the game uses high-resolution graphics and can work with two monitors using a splitter. Benchmark’s new product range, which includes Monster Drop and Trap Door, was also on show, seen first at the IAAPA Attractions Expo in November, as was Feiloli’s automatic candy floss vending machine.
Ahead of the new 10p coin being introduced in the UK in April, UDC presented its new 10p coin mech at the show, which handles both the new and existing 10p coins, giving operators plenty of time to start to install them and have their machines ready to accept both once they start to filter through.
According to UDC, while some older games use only the physical size of the coin to check if it’s correct, many newer games use coin comparators that house a sample of the coin in question inside, to perform electronic checks. The drawback to this approach is that the comparators only have room for a single coin, preventing players from spending their newer, or if switched over older, coins. The new mech has been thoroughly tested and works extremely quickly so it can be used for fast-paced applications where many coins are inserted in rapid succession, such as a pusher or quick-coin game.
Staying with the cash handling theme, UDC also showed InterGame its new change machine, which is due to go into full production very soon. Featuring a touchscreen, it has a number of different change options available - it can change notes to coins as you would expect and then coins back to notes if needed.
