What Makes For Good Animation In Slots?
I often read online reviews on slots on sites, and there’s one thing I couldn’t help but notice. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m probably the only person who has noticed, all things considered, but I have noticed nonetheless! A few of the reviews I’ve read talk about the slot’s “animation”… But I have never really seen anyone actually explain what they mean. “This slot has very good animation” isn’t exactly a very self-explanatory sentence, after all! I mean, what are they talking about? It’s not something that’s easy to understand, like “This movie has good acting”, or “This song has good rhythm” – I mean, animation can mean a whole lot of things! It’s like someone saying “This game has good gameplay”… Like, what the hell are you even talking about?
As I continued to play slots, some things became clearer to me. I began to gradually understand exactly what made animation in slots good – maybe even better than the reviewers themselves! By now, I’ve got a more concrete idea of what exactly it means for a slot to have “good animation”, and it’s not just one thing. In order to make it clearer for everyone reading this, I decided to separate this into three different parts which encompass several elements of what makes good animation and then explain each in simple terms so that everyone can understand. Remember – I’m NOT going to be talking about the graphics, just the animation! With that out of the way, let’s dive right into it!
1. Smoothness of the Reels
First and foremost, “good animation” means that the reels of the slot are moving smoothly. I’m not sure how many of you have actually played or at least seen a physical video slot (I haven’t played them, though I’ve seen videos), but they always move flawlessly, without even a single skipped frame. It’s literally like they’re actual reels located behind the screen – it’s beautiful! I could literally watch them spin for hours on end! Hell, if my YouTube history is any indication, I probably have! But sadly, even in the modern day in which our phones are more powerful than the computer that sent people to the Moon in the 60s, I haven’t seen too many slots that offer the same smoothness. Sure, they show up here and there, and they’re always a treat, but honestly, they’re so rare that right now I can’t even think of one.
Most online slots feel kind of choppy, wouldn’t you say? They don’t really move smoothly – they have low framerates and often look like they were meant to run on a much older computer. It’s like they’re struggling to spin those reels! Hell, even those slots that are spinning relatively smoothly don’t come anywhere NEAR the smoothness and clarity of their physical counterparts, which is a real shame, because I’m absolutely certain that my computer can handle it. I mean, sure, I get that slots are made for the lowest common denominator – while I personally have a gaming laptop, most people who play slots have pretty old machines, and the developers want to make sure that everyone can run the slot. But to that, I say… Why not have quality toggles? Allow me to play the game as smoothly as possible, emulating a physical slot, with no cap on the frames per second, and at the same time give the option to other people to reduce the quality if they’re having issues running the slot properly. That would solve a lot of problems and make certain online slots even more desirable!
2. Spectacle
I struggled a lot with how exactly to name this, but I think “spectacle” is about a s good of a name as any, so here we go! What I’m referring to is what happens when you win. In most slots, whenever you line up multiple symbols they’ll often move about. In Mega Moolah, the animals move their eyes, ears and/or heads, in The Avengers the frames around the superheroes zoom out to reveal their bodies as they do a cool pose, in Terminator 2 they play relevant clips from the movie, etc. It’s all about making it painfully obvious that you’ve won (even if it’s just 1/5th of your bet, which means that you technically lost), and making you feel good about it. Of course, most of these animations tend to be pretty primitive. A good chunk of video slots only have blinking and/or sparkling icons to indicate that you’ve won, while even more have animations that can be created by a first year college student on After Affects… In other words, they’re not particularly impressive. Still, the few slots that do manage to put a lot of effort into their spectacle and use good animation to its full advantage always make a good impression.
But moving symbols aren’t the only things that indicate that you’ve won. Some slots, such as Gonzo’s Quest, have a character on the side of the screen who gets overly excited whenever you win. And pretty much all of them throw coins or confetti at you whenever you win some pretty big money. There are plenty of ways to make the player feel good about their winning, and most, if not all of them, involve animation, hence why it’s so important for it to be done well. Seeing a well-made shower of money run across the screen is way, WAY more satisfying than a bunch of blinking letters saying “Congratulations, you won”, isn’t it?
3. Bonus Games/Special Features
Last, but not least, the animation of the bonus games and/or special features is also evaluated. These special features (often, but not always, activated with the collection of 3 Scatter symbols) are extremely rare, and as such the player must feel good about having activated one. A lot of slots do that flawlessly – the aforementioned The Avengers, for instance, has completely different music and visuals for each of its 4 bonus games, and slots such as Avalon II have put a whole lot of effort into their games in order to ensure that their games are varied and interesting. But the games themselves aren’t enough to catch the player’s attention – you need to let them know that they’ve stumbled onto something very special, and that they’re about to make a whole lot of money. How do you do that? Animation, my friends!
A very good example of this comes from the slot Thunderstruck II, when the Wildstorm feature happens and the Norse god Thor comes flying in, swinging his hammer and summoning lightning bolts which turn two or more columns into gigantic Wild symbols. That has happened only once to me, but it was one of the most awesome experiences I’ve ever had. While the animation wasn’t exactly Disney, it was still pretty satisfying to see it all unfold – definitely much more than if a few rows suddenly turned into Wilds after a text message or something. Another slot with awesome animation is Pink Panther, which also manages to liven up its bonus games with small cartoons featuring the famous character, alongside an absolutely brilliant intro that explains the slot’s mechanics in animation form.
Hopefully that has made the idea of “good animation” in slots a bit more clear to anyone who, like me, was a bit confused about it. With that said, go and enjoy some slots with great animation! And don’t forget to drop a message and let me know which one’s your favorite, or if you have any questions for me!
Animation is one of the oldest forms of cinema. The first movies with a clear narrative (meaning not just test footage, but actual plot, albeit a very primitive one that often had to be narrated by a live performer in order to become clear) appeared in the last few years in the 19th century, around 1897. The first animated short, a propaganda piece for the Boer War, came out in 1899. Over the last 116 years, animation has gradually grown more and more sophisticated, to the point where animated shorts (such as those featuring Mickey Mouse) were commonly played before feature films, a spot that used to be occupied by live-action shorts such as “Flash Gordon”. When “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” came out in 1937, for the first time the world saw the true potential of animation as a medium (and not just a genre, as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts seems to think), and the genre hasn’t slowed down ever since, continuously improving all the way to the present. While in 2015 we’re enjoying a lot less animated features and series than we did 20 or 30 years ago, the quality of animation has increased dramatically, with two of the top 10 highest grossing films of all time being animated and with more critically-acclaimed cartoons than ever before (such as “Gravity Falls”, “Steven Universe”, “Adventure Time”, “Avatar” and many others). Animation is blooming, and it’s everywhere around us – on TV, in the cinema, on billboards, on our phones… And yes, even in casinos!