Reel Strips and symbol alignments...

[MikeCamp]

Not sure what the correct forum for this is but... Does anyone know much about the symbols on a typical IGT reel strip.  Are there a set amount of positions and the symbols will always be in those positions or do the symbols float around.  I've just been thinking a great deal about reel strips lately and this is one question that came to mind.


Mike

[rickhunter]

On all 3 reel payline games there are 22 physical positions en each reel.  Typically they start out with a blank, then it interleaves between a symbol and blank, leaving you with 11 blanks and 11 symbols.  In multi-line 3 reel games, there are instances where you may have move than 2 consecutive physical blank spaces.  On most 5 reel games, there are no physical blanks between reel positions, in a few games there are.

The slot then maps each physical position into a virtual position.  There's a video that joey posted that explains this really well. But basically the more virtual positions assigned to a physical position, the more likely it is to stop there.  Also increasing the virtual stop from say 64 stops to say 256 stops allows the machine to have a higher top award because the odds of hitting the top prize go up astronomically.

The symbols do not float around.  The program is such that consecutive virtual stops are assigned to each physical stop.  The RNG (Random Number Generator) determines which virtual stop each spin will use for each reel, basically 3 numbers for 3 reels.  Then the program looks up the physical reel position assigned to that stop and move the stepper motor accordingly so that the correct symbol or blank stops on the payline.

[MikeCamp]

Thank you, that is a great definition of how these things work, clears up some of it for me.  So with a single line pay there will be 22 locations on the strip with the first one being a blank, then symbol, then blank etc...  So if a template were to be built that even divided the strip into 22 locations then it would just be a matter of dragging the correct symbol to the location on the strip and everything should line right up?


Hope I'm reading and stating that correctly.


Mike

[rickhunter]

Yes, I'm assuming you are talking about creating your own strips?  If that is the case, the spacing is always the same, unless you go to a 3 reel multi-line game, then you can get some variance on that, especially on the 3rd reel.