Team Play’s new 4-player pirate-themed game, ‘Spins Ahoy!’ made its debut at IAAPA 2018 (see my YouTube Video by clicking HERE) and has quickly proven its seaworthiness based on its high earnings at dozens of test sites. The Spins Ahoy! search for the buried treasure is featured on the March 2019 cover of RePlay Magazine’s Expo Special edition.
“Based on our test results, we’ve got another Fishbowl Frenzy type of earnings or better with Spins Ahoy!,” said company CEO Ed Pellegrini of the new video redemption game that’s expected to start shipping in late April or early May. We just put one out in Ohio last week and the operator already wants to buy it,”
[Fishbowl Frenzy was the winner of the 2014 IAAPA Brass Ring Award for Best New Coin-Op Product. Like that industry ‘workhorse’ game, Spins Ahoy! blends video and skill-based mechanical gameplay. What’s better is that it’s a multiplayer game.]
“One of our limiting factors (with other games) is people have to wait,” reports, Team Play’s development director, Brian Smolik. “With this game, multiple players can come up to the game at any given time and start playing. “It was always going to be a four-player game. The multiplayer aspect was a key factor in bringing the unit to market.”
Spins Ahoy!, comes in two versions – pinball and spinner. While both are very similar skill-based games, each version appeals to a slightly different demographic.
“We tested just the spinner version at Chuck E. Cheese’s in the Chicago area and Texas and it was doing phenomenal,” added Team Play’s COO Ken Fedesna. “The kids were going crazy over it. That version, on the other hand, didn’t do as well at FECs geared toward older children and adults, where the pinball version excelled.”
“The pinball version, we believe, will have more appeal to an older demographic,” Fedesna continued. “But there are a number of older demographic locations that want the spinner version, and we’re more than happy to build whatever the operators feel is best for their locations.”
As reported in RePlay, “The objective of both games is to move your player around a board game-themed video display by using the skill-based pinball or spinner controls. Wherever players land determines the number of tickets [points] they win. Players can also land on one of four special treasure chest corner tiles or a letter tile with a competitive bonus feature where all players work to spell the word “TREASURE.” The player who gets the last letter wins the bonus and starts a special 2X Bonus Mode for all players. The bonus will run for an operator-adjustable amount of time, encouraging more players to join in before time runs out.”
“Operators can set it up so if you land on one of the four corners, you get a set number of tickets,” Smolik said. “Or, the player is presented with five treasure chests and picks what he wants to open.”
[One of the skill factors is getting to those chests, which is different based on the version of the game someone is playing. With the pinball version, players pull back a plunger mirroring classic pinball machines to move their character. How hard the plunger is pulled will determine where a player’s pirate character will end up.
“The ball will go into different areas of the playfield,” explained Jack Haeger, the company’s art director. “There are also two skill shots that automatically take you to one of the corners, which operators can set up to be distinct values.”
[The spinner version plays identically except players use a spinner to control where their character goes on the board game playfield. The slower you spin, the slower the character will go; the faster you spin, the further you’ll go.]
Spins Ahoy! was in development for about a year and a half and was originally going to be a licensed game coinciding with a recent movie release. When the license deal fell through, Team Play came up with the pirate theme and added new features to their original idea.
“The game is one of a few to be utilizing 4K resolution on its 65” LCD monitors,” added animation director Bobby Llereza. “It also features interactive 3D animations and 5.1 stereo sounds.”
Spins Ahoy!, Fishbowl Frenzy, Family Guy Bowling and their selection of Fun Stop Photos photo booths will be at the Amusement Expo. See them on the trade show floor at booth #1113.
Learn more about the company by visiting www.teamplayinc.com.
What this could mean? I love to study numbers and Ship Ahoy! gives me an opportunity to learn more about multi-player games. As I patiently and anxiously await the installation of Spins Ahoy! at one of our test locations, the Alpha Team will have to determine what game or games will need to be removed to make space for this 4-player. Then we will study what percentage of revenue each player position will attain. For example, the latest test reports just came in for the New Crazy Claw 3-player that will be shown at the Amusement Expo by Rocket Amusements. These reports initially show that the 2nd player produces 40% of the total revenue and the 3rd player produces 6%. That means that 54% of the revenue occurs when only 1 player is playing, 40% occurs when 2 players are playing, and 6% occurs when all 3 players are playing. Currently, these statistics are not completely accurate in real time of play as 1 player can be playing for a few seconds and a 2nd player then comes onboard.
Note that Crazy Claw updates and adjustments can be made remotely over the Internet, so as soon as we get a new version set up, we will figure out a way to have the 3rd player contribute a higher percentage of revenue.
The key will be to tweak Spins Ahoy! so that the 3rd and 4th players add significant revenue, as these additional players can join into gameplay at any time and work as a team to help all players get more tickets [points].
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