New Slot Announcement MENTAL by NoLimit City a gritty theme, brilliantly executed!

[dunover]

2:00 to 8:00 is a new @ChopleyIOM waffle record, the longest over-explanation in his channel's history. Over 6 minutes for an anecdotal analogy. Don't ever become a football commentator, you'll still be describing one goal in the first half when the next one is scored in the second half lol..

It's sepia for a reason, to represent the era and institutions it's themed on. It would hardly be painted red and purple with a rainbow parade marching round the operating table waving light sabres??

It's not 'torture' but treatment! Alas those treatments were all tried including here and in the USA amongst others.

The Dead Patient is simply a multiplier, random, applied to a random patient when getting 2+ DP symbols in view. The large number is obviously the multiplier, the small one is how many occurrences of that symbol it will last for. So say you've got the DP and it's awarded 30x/3 on Patient 1, if that lands just once in view next spin it goes down to 30x/2. Say next spin it lands one of them on reels 1&2 and a double-stacked one the same on reel 3, the single symbols on 1&2 will be overlaid with 30x multipliers and you would be paid the 2x3OAK win plus 60x the symbol's 5OAK value. Then as you've now had all 3 occurrences allowed, the DP will disappear for the next spin.

 

[kou187]

2:00 to 8:00 is a new @ChopleyIOM waffle record, the longest over-explanation in his channel's history. Over 6 minutes for an anecdotal analogy. Don't ever become a football commentator, you'll still be describing one goal in the first half when the next one is scored in the second half lol..

It's sepia for a reason, to represent the era and institutions it's themed on. It would hardly be painted red and purple with a rainbow parade marching round the operating table waving light sabres??

He does love his waffles. But thats why we love him!

 

[ChopleyIOM]

2:00 to 8:00 is a new @ChopleyIOM waffle record, the longest over-explanation in his channel's history. Over 6 minutes for an anecdotal analogy. Don't ever become a football commentator, you'll still be describing one goal in the first half when the next one is scored in the second half lol..

It's sepia for a reason, to represent the era and institutions it's themed on. It would hardly be painted red and purple with a rainbow parade marching round the operating table waving light sabres??

It's not 'torture' but treatment! Alas those treatments were all tried including here and in the USA amongst others.

The Dead Patient is simply a multiplier, random, applied to a random patient when getting 2+ DP symbols in view. The large number is obviously the multiplier, the small one is how many occurrences of that symbol it will last for. So say you've got the DP and it's awarded 30x/3 on Patient 1, if that lands just once in view next spin it goes down to 30x/2. Say next spin it lands one of them on reels 1&2 and a double-stacked one the same on reel 3, the single symbols on 1&2 will be overlaid with 30x multipliers and you would be paid the 2x3OAK win plus 60x the symbol's 5OAK value. Then as you've now had all 3 occurrences allowed, the DP will disappear for the next spin.

1) Waffle.

All my videos are fully timecoded with meaningful descriptions, making it very easy for anyone to skip the bits they don't want to watch.

The thing I've learned is you can't please everyone, for every person who says I waffle too much, someone else says they like the detail I go into or the little extra stories I tell, and TBH since I've started fully timecoding the videos I think the former camp have little to complain about, literally just look down the video description and click on the bit you're interested in. Some sections I even label as 'Pub machine memory waffle' or suchlike.

There was another story I could have used for the section in the Mental video, which I will include here.

It was one of my first forays into 'satire' using the PC the school had, it was brand new and there was one PC in literally the entire school, probably a 286. It had a DTP package on it and it was a year or so after the Hungerford massacres, and the book we were studying was The Plague Dogs, plus there was a bit of moral panic at the time about dangerous dog attacks, so I decided to smoosh them all together in a (ahem) 'satirical commentary' on the hypocrisy of gutter publications like The Sun.

Because time on the PC was precious I would stay after school to work on it, with the full blessing of my amazingly incredible English teacher, Mr Marks.

So the headline on the front page of my newspaper was:

HUNGERFORD PLAGUE DOGS MASSACRE

And the picture was a load of clipart dogs wielding shotguns gunning down women and children in the street, with accompanying text trying to juxtapose the terrible shock of it all with 'TURN TO PAGE 4 FOR MORE PICTURES OF DEAD BODIES AND DON'T FORGET THE TEENAGER'S TITS ON PAGE 3'.

The story's point would have been, 'My excuse is I was a child, what's Nolimit City's excuse?'

2) Sepia.

Yes I understand why it's sepia, my point is that like the rest of theme of the slot, it totally falls on its arse as far as I'm concerned. There are other slots that use B&W themes or similar, but they juxtapose that with some colour at certain points, like Starstruck at 3Dice or Charlie Chance In Hell To Pay by PnG.

This slot isn't Schindler's List, so let's not get too carried away about its artistic pretensions.

3) Lobotomies.

You can argue that they were 'treatment' (or at least intended as such), but the context of the slot given its graphics (man tied to a gurney with a ballgag, anyone?) is clearly that of torture, and with the 'Autopsy Free Spins' round we're not left in any doubt as to how the patients end up. (And indeed death was a common result of actual lobotomies.) And lest we forget they were still being performed not that long ago, although rarer, they were still performed in some countries as late at the 1970s and even early 1980s.

There are many things to choose to theme slots on, for my money this isn't a good choice.

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4) Slot mechanics.

Cheers, that makes more sense now. (But also feeds into my point that the slot is often a confusing mess to look at.)

My conclusion remains that this is a poor slot wrapped up in a crap theme.

 

[bamberfishcake]

Credit for your tenacity and dedication.

You could have just said 'I don't like horrors'

As far as production goes, it's pretty much up there among the best and Nolmit literally nailed the theme.

The sepia and notebook effect is typical of mental hospital horror movies, just watch a few opening credits.

The ballgag was so patients didn't bite their tongue, not torture, at least that's what they thought at the time.

I'm not going to watch the vid again but I think you moaned about a patient being 14, she is 19 and funnily enough, or not, as the case may be, mental patients do keep teddy bears and child toys are often used in horror films because of the emotional effect they have.

I could go on.

The video was more about your personal opinion on the subject matter than a review of the slot.

The composition and colours are that way for emotional effect and it's a specific theme, but it's horror, and that's it - not to be compared to what you have.

They produced a horror-themed slot, what did you expect? rainbow colours and unicorns?

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Credit for your tenacity and dedication.

You could have just said 'I don't like horrors'

As far as production goes, it's pretty much up there among the best and Nolmit literally nailed the theme.

The sepia and notebook effect is typical of mental hospital horror movies, just watch a few opening credits.

The ballgag was so patients didn't bite their tongue, not torture, at least that's what they thought at the time.

I'm not going to watch the vid again but I think you moaned about a patient being 14, she is 19 and funnily enough, or not, as the case may be, mental patients do keep teddy bears and child toys are often used in horror films because of the emotional effect they have.

I could go on.

The video was more about your personal opinion on the subject matter than a review of the slot.

The composition and colours are that way for emotional effect and it's a specific theme, but it's horror, and that's it - not to be compared to what you have.

They produced a horror-themed slot, what did you expect? rainbow colours and unicorns?

I said she was 19, not 14.

I can't find anything to support your assertion that lobotomy 'patients' were gagged, they were often done under an anaesthetic so I'm not sure why one would even be required.

I've already said I understand why they chose the sepia theme, and I explained why I didn't like it.

The video is 45 minutes long, I spend about 10 minutes discussing the theme, the rest is focused on reviewing the slot as a slot. In fact I actually say, right upfront, that I'll get my thoughts on the theme out of the way so I can focus on the slot itself.

I'm a big fan of the horror genre when it comes to books, games, and films, and a horror slot can be done effectively (Slotnomicron at 3Dice for example), it's not that I 'don't like horrors', but I don't like it when it's done in a shock value fashion free of any context as has been done with Mental.

I don't know how many different ways I can arrange these words to convey the point, it's all there in the video and in my posts, NLC are entirely free to make a slot that is themed around torturing ill people to death if they want to (and don't even try to pretend that isn't the prevailing theme of the slot when one of the symbols and bonuses is literally called 'DEAD PATIENT'), and as a reviewer it's my prerogative to call it out as childish bullshit if that's how I feel about it.

 

[mack341]

It doesn't look like my cup of tea, but I suppose it is impactful, either possibly frightening or to make someone reflect on what used to go on. Chop's frequent use of a certain word had me gulping but it would be equally surprising if many didn't share his opinion of it, a misstep by nlc and in bad taste. But we do need some slot makers able to think outside the box as well, otherwise themes could get a bit bland and samey.

 

[bamberfishcake]

My mistake, I thought you said 14.

You are entitled to your opinion, absolutely, 110%.

Didn't feel to me that you let up on moaning about the theme all the way through. I heard you say after 10 minutes that you had said your piece but 30 minutes later it felt like every opportunity to bring it up again was grabbed, and that's just my opinion.

Let's agree to differ, I mean no offence, just have a very different opinion of how the slot has been produced. But that is all in the eye of the beholder, eh

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Here are three DVDs I've just got from my shelves, (have a Google on them.....), so suggesting 'I don't like horrors' is a bit of a non-starter I'm afraid

However, you know what all of them have? Stories, and characters, and motivations, and a point to them. Effective horror is an art form, NLC have produced a pastiche of horror, something that might look like horror on the surface, but turns out to be no deeper than a puddle.

EDIT - Oh yes I forgot Frontiers, I went through a bit of a new wave French horror phase a few years back.

 

[bamberfishcake]

What do you think they could have done to improve the brief? Animated cut-scenes? Background intro story? As a horror fan, as soon as anybody mentions old school psychiatric treatment I think 'Lobotomy'.

I think they decided on a theme and got a lot in there without stifling the game. They were limited by the lengthy spins also to a degree - a self-inflicted boundary, but I think much more would have messed with the tempo.

They won't be complaining about the publicity that's for sure

 

[bamberfishcake]

p.s. changed my laugh to a like, the old horrors are the best and are better at storytelling. I get what you mean about the shock aspect but the 20 and 30 somethings will lap this up i reckon.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Or for example, here's one of the most impactful videogames I've ever played, I wouldn't say I 'liked' it as such, but holy crap this is an effective survival horror game unlike any other and whilst I'm not sure I'd ever want to play through it again, I'm glad I did so once.

Honestly bamber, I'm a big fan of the horror genre, and I think that's why I'm probably as harsh as I am about Mental, because for my money it's a really shit example of the genre!

And I'm not saying horror has to be high art to be enjoyable or worthwhile, but it has to have something beyond shock value tactics to make it worth spending time with - and Mental doesn't have that.

I noticed that Romero's 1978 Dawn Of The Dead turned up on Prime so I rewatched that a couple of nights ago, exploding heads and endless gore ahoy, but again, that's a well crafted piece of horror made by someone who knows what he's doing.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

What do you think they could have done to improve the brief? Animated cut-scenes? Background intro story? As a horror fan, as soon as anybody mentions old school psychiatric treatment I think 'Lobotomy'.

I think they decided on a theme and got a lot in there without stifling the game. They were limited by the lengthy spins also to a degree - a self-inflicted boundary, but I think much more would have messed with the tempo.

They won't be complaining about the publicity that's for sure

I'm not sure there's much you can do within the confines of a slot with a theme like this, which is why I'm of the opinion it was probably just a bad idea full stop.

However off the top of my head I'd maybe put in some sort of 'escape' bonus round where the patients are able to turn on their captors and break out of the facility, to at least give the tale an arc of some description, rather than just 'five people get tortured to death'.

The entire theme is five powerless people having horrible stuff done to them, with no context or explanation, and no hope of redemption or escape. Maybe its ceaseless nihilism is the 'point', but if so, what point actually is that?

 

[bamberfishcake]

Or for example, here's one of the most impactful videogames I've ever played, I wouldn't say I 'liked' it as such, but holy crap this is an effective survival horror game unlike any other and whilst I'm not sure I'd ever want to play through it again, I'm glad I did so once.

Honestly bamber, I'm a big fan of the horror genre, and I think that's why I'm probably as harsh as I am about Mental, because for my money it's a really shit example of the genre!

And I'm not saying horror has to be high art to be enjoyable or worthwhile, but it has to have something beyond shock value tactics to make it worth spending time with - and Mental doesn't have that.

I noticed that Romero's 1978 Dawn Of The Dead turned up on Prime so I rewatched that a couple of nights ago, exploding heads and endless gore ahoy, but again, that's a well crafted piece of horror made by someone who knows what he's doing.

View attachment 158180

I must admit, I heard a whisper the game was going to be based on this and thought it would have been in bad taste because of the terrible incident associated with it.

But then again, when things are close to home they change your opinion.

Had to look up nihilism (not going to lie) you learn something new every day.

The escape to freedom is not a bad idea but not sure how it would fit. Don't think many of them did.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

I must admit, I heard a whisper the game was going to be based on this and thought it would have been in bad taste because of the terrible incident associated with it.

But then again, when things are close to home they change your opinion.

It should be noted for the record that the alleged link between Manhunt and the murder of Stefan Pakeerah was completely debunked by the police themselves.

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[bamberfishcake]

Oh wow, I didn't know that, just knew of the association.

 

[Deeplay]

1) Waffle.

All my videos are fully timecoded with meaningful descriptions, making it very easy for anyone to skip the bits they don't want to watch.

The thing I've learned is you can't please everyone, for every person who says I waffle too much, someone else says they like the detail I go into or the little extra stories I tell, and TBH since I've started fully timecoding the videos I think the former camp have little to complain about, literally just look down the video description and click on the bit you're interested in. Some sections I even label as 'Pub machine memory waffle' or suchlike.

.....

Well I for one enjoy very much the "waffle" in your vids - without the waffle it would not be a Choppers special would it !
So no need to change nowt in the way you do your stuff. And much more enjoyable watching your streams than affiliates doing the 1million plus feature buys

As for the new NL slot its a mess and it would give me a headache even to play it. Good review you gave cheers

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Just crystallising my final thoughts on this one.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

I've just had a look at the 'high score table' for Mental and the max prize of 66,666x stake has already been hit several times (from feature buys, naturally), but look at the dreadful way this one does it.

It does it on the second spin of the Lobotomy Free Spins round, and with this real configuration, yes, that tiny little 100x patient symbol is doing all the heavy lifting here, aided by the two 15x symbols to make 1.8m ways, and this single spin hits the cap.

Talk about an anticlimactic way to hit the top prize.



And you are, ahem, 'rewarded' for hitting the top prize with an animation of one of the patients restrained in a chair and getting his hand cut off by a bone saw.

Lovely.

 

[X-Raided]

And you are, ahem, 'rewarded' for hitting the top prize with an animation of one of the patients restrained in a chair and getting his hand cut off by a bone saw.

Lovely.

View attachment 158254

I just laughed my ass off Chopley. Well done.

I couldn't believe it either.

As soon as I saw this while viewing a max win replay, I said, "what the actual f*^&?"

 

[satchnz]

…Mental and the max prize of 66,666x stake has already been hit several times (from feature buys, naturally)…

So no hope for those of us in the UK then ☹️

 

[dunover]

Do feature buys on this then you should end up as the 6th. patient there.

The next one will be far more to your liking, as you try and find the Red Devil's Gold in your U-Boat for a 55,200x max pay.

Das xBoot

 

[geordiecolin]

1) Waffle.

All my videos are fully timecoded with meaningful descriptions, making it very easy for anyone to skip the bits they don't want to watch.

The thing I've learned is you can't please everyone, for every person who says I waffle too much, someone else says they like the detail I go into or the little extra stories I tell, and TBH since I've started fully timecoding the videos I think the former camp have little to complain about, literally just look down the video description and click on the bit you're interested in. Some sections I even label as 'Pub machine memory waffle' or suchlike.

There was another story I could have used for the section in the Mental video, which I will include here.

It was one of my first forays into 'satire' using the PC the school had, it was brand new and there was one PC in literally the entire school, probably a 286. It had a DTP package on it and it was a year or so after the Hungerford massacres, and the book we were studying was The Plague Dogs, plus there was a bit of moral panic at the time about dangerous dog attacks, so I decided to smoosh them all together in a (ahem) 'satirical commentary' on the hypocrisy of gutter publications like The Sun.

Because time on the PC was precious I would stay after school to work on it, with the full blessing of my amazingly incredible English teacher, Mr Marks.

So the headline on the front page of my newspaper was:

HUNGERFORD PLAGUE DOGS MASSACRE

And the picture was a load of clipart dogs wielding shotguns gunning down women and children in the street, with accompanying text trying to juxtapose the terrible shock of it all with 'TURN TO PAGE 4 FOR MORE PICTURES OF DEAD BODIES AND DON'T FORGET THE TEENAGER'S TITS ON PAGE 3'.

The story's point would have been, 'My excuse is I was a child, what's Nolimit City's excuse?'

2) Sepia.

Yes I understand why it's sepia, my point is that like the rest of theme of the slot, it totally falls on its arse as far as I'm concerned. There are other slots that use B&W themes or similar, but they juxtapose that with some colour at certain points, like Starstruck at 3Dice or Charlie Chance In Hell To Pay by PnG.

This slot isn't Schindler's List, so let's not get too carried away about its artistic pretensions.

3) Lobotomies.

You can argue that they were 'treatment' (or at least intended as such), but the context of the slot given its graphics (man tied to a gurney with a ballgag, anyone?) is clearly that of torture, and with the 'Autopsy Free Spins' round we're not left in any doubt as to how the patients end up. (And indeed death was a common result of actual lobotomies.) And lest we forget they were still being performed not that long ago, although rarer, they were still performed in some countries as late at the 1970s and even early 1980s.

There are many things to choose to theme slots on, for my money this isn't a good choice.

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4) Slot mechanics.

Cheers, that makes more sense now. (But also feeds into my point that the slot is often a confusing mess to look at.)

My conclusion remains that this is a poor slot wrapped up in a crap theme.

I've been reliably informed that NLC's next release will be Brexit based so you can stop hyperventilating

 

[dunover]

I've been reliably informed that NLC's next release will be Brexit based so you can stop hyperventilating

That's actually good idea, the Farage Free Spins, Whining Sturgeon Wilds, a Brexit Bus Bonus trail like in South Park 2 slot where EU flag bearing protesters are in the road and you collect cash for each one you flatten. You could have some good animations like Boris injecting Merkel and Macron's asses with the AZ Covid vaccine and if hitting the capped maximum pay of 230616x bet, a sequence of sobbing remoaners sitting in the wet outside Parliament while the leavers have a Christmas dinner with little Union flags by each place and tucking into pigs-in-blankets under lashings of hot gravy. I will contact @NolimitCity - Pelle

 

[Jono777]

One thing I love about NLC is that of all the warped slot ideas and concepts I have had over the years, these guys would actually consider turning my ideas into reality........maybe....

 

[neon claws]

I just gave this slot a try and I must admit I found it to be *snicker* torturous... Eh eh?

Seriously though I thought it sucked for the same reason I don't enjoy most later NLC stuff, the "potential" sapping the regular gameplay of any enjoyment. I put a decent chunk of change through and it became obvious early on that it's trying to disguise the abysmal pays with the flashy game mechanics.
The first dozen times you think "oh, that'll be a good pay" and it ends up being 0.8x bet, after that it's impossible to get excited about it, for me.
Highlight was two $46 feature buys in a row paying a cumulative total of $0.57.
Don't think a single feature buy paid more than bet and couldn't see myself grinding to get them naturally.
No thanks.