JP2002078862A - Pachinko game machine - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To eliminate the wasteful shooting of pachinko balls by a player up to the settling of the operating quantity of an operation handle 7 in a conventional pachinko game machine. SOLUTION: When the rotating angle of a handle 17 is small, the flying distance of a pachinko ball is also small, and LEDs 29 in areas 27 and 28 emit light with a short length as shown by a thick line in Fig. (a). When the handle 17 is rotated to a maximum angle, the LEDs 29 in the areas 27 and 28 emit light with the longest length as shown in figure (b), and when the handle 17 is rotated to a middle position, the LEDs 2 in the areas 27 and 28 emit light with a middle length as shown in figure (c). The production for clearly showing the flying distance of pachinko ball conformed to the rotating angle of the handle 17 is performed by the emission of each LED 29.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a ball game machine having a pair of rails formed on a game board.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as this kind of ball-and-ball game machine, for example, there is a pachinko machine 1 shown in FIG. The pachinko machine 1 is provided with a game board 2 on which a large number of obstacle nails are planted, and a special symbol variable display device, a winning opening, and the like are provided. Above the game board 2, electric decoration devices such as a frame upper decoration lamp 3 and a board decoration lamp 4 are provided. These illuminating devices are electrically connected to a control circuit that controls the game processing operation of the pachinko machine 1, and are controlled to be turned on according to the game state.

An upper plate 5 and a lower plate 6 for storing pachinko balls are provided below the game board 2, and an operation handle 7 is provided to the right of the lower plate 6. When the operation handle 7 is operated by the player, the pachinko balls stored in the upper plate 5 are repelled. The repelled pachinko ball passes between the inner rail 8 and the outer rail 9 and is driven into the game area. The pachinko ball hit into the game area flows down the board of the game board 2 while being hit by the obstacle nail.

When a pachinko ball wins in a general winning opening while flowing down, the ball is paid out, and an electric decoration device such as a frame decoration lamp 3 and a board decoration lamp 4 is turned on. Also, when a pachinko ball wins at the starting port, a variable display game using a special symbol variable display device is performed. When a jackpot win occurs in the variable display game, these electric decoration devices are turned on in a predetermined pattern, and at the same time, the symbol change of the special symbol variable display device is performed in a predetermined pattern.

[0005] A reach effect that expects a player to generate a big hit prize is also performed by a lighting pattern of an electric decoration device or a symbol change of a special symbol variable display device. With this reach effect, the player is notified of how much a big hit prize can be expected. The reach effect is performed even when there is no expectation of a jackpot winning occurrence, and is performed with a predetermined reliability.

[0006]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional pachinko machine 1, the installation area of the provided illumination device is small and the illumination device is only partially illuminated, so that it lacks gorgeousness and is visually unsatisfactory. was there. Therefore, it was less attractive to the player, and easily bored.

In the conventional pachinko machine 1, the position of the pachinko ball driven into the game area via the rails 8 and 9 changes depending on the operation amount of the operation handle 7, but the pachinko ball is actually placed in the game area. I had no idea in advance where the pachinko ball would be hit unless it was hit. Therefore, conventionally, the player hits a useless pachinko ball into the game area until the operation amount of the operation handle 7 is determined.

In the above-mentioned conventional pachinko machine 1, a reach effect is performed by a symbol change of an electric decoration device or a special symbol variable display device. However, the notification content of the reliability of the jackpot winning expectation by the reach effect is as follows. I couldn't grasp at a glance.

[0009]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, and has been made on a game board surface in which a game area is formed and a game board surface in which a bouncing game ball is guided to the game area. A ball game machine comprising a pair of rails formed, wherein a light source for emitting light from a game board surface sandwiched between the rails is provided.

[0010] According to this configuration, since the light source is provided on the game board surface sandwiched between the rails, the installation area of the illuminating device is increased as compared with the related art.

Further, the present invention is characterized in that the light source is also provided on a game board surface in a game area where game balls are released from the rails.

According to this configuration, the installation area of the illuminating device is further increased than before, and the illuminating of the game board is more gorgeous.

The present invention also provides a handle operated by a player, a resilient means for repelling a game ball to a game area via a rail with a resilience according to an operation amount of the handle, and an operation of the handle. Light emission control means for controlling light emission of the light source in a light emission form according to the amount.

According to this configuration, the light source provided on the game board surface along the rail is controlled to emit light by the light emission control means in a light emission form corresponding to the operation amount of the steering wheel. Therefore, the position of the game ball driven into the game area via the rail,
Even if the game ball is not actually driven into the game area, it is known in advance where the pachinko ball will be driven.

[0015] The present invention also provides a jackpot winning lottery means for drawing a jackpot when a game ball wins a starting port;
Reach effect means for notifying the player of the expectation of the occurrence of a jackpot prize by the jackpot prize lottery means with a predetermined reliability in a reach effect mode, and a light emitting mode corresponding to the reliability of the expected notification of the jackpot prize occurrence by the reach effect means And light emission control means for controlling light emission of the light source.

According to this configuration, the light source provided on the game board surface along the rails emits light according to the reliability of the expectation notification of the occurrence of the jackpot winning by the reach effect means, for example,
If the reliability is high, the light emission is controlled to a light emission mode in which the light emission area along the rail becomes longer, so that the notification content of the reliability of the jackpot winning expectation by the reach effect can be grasped at a glance.

[0017]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Next, an embodiment in which the ball game machine according to the present invention is applied to a pachinko machine will be described.

FIG. 2 shows a pachinko machine 11 according to this embodiment.
FIG. A game board 14 is housed behind a front glass 13 fitted in the front door 12. An upper plate 15 and a lower plate 16 are provided below the game board 14, and a handle 17 is disposed to the right of the lower plate 16. Board decoration lamps 18 and 19 are attached to the upper left and upper right of the game board 14, respectively, and a frame upper decoration lamp 20 is provided immediately above the game board 14. The board decoration lamps 18 and 19 and the frame upper decoration lamp 20 constitute an electric decoration device.

At the center of the game board 14, a variable display device 21 composed of a liquid crystal display screen is provided. The variable display device 21 is not limited to a liquid crystal display screen, and may be, for example, a display device such as a CRT, a plasma display, or electroluminescence, or a reel-type display device. The variable display device 21 includes “1” to
The symbol "15" is variably displayed in three horizontal rows.
Five ceiling nails, which are obstacle nails, are planted on the upper board of the variable display device 21, and a number of other obstacle nails (not shown) are planted on each part of the board. Variable display device 21
A winning winning opening 22 is provided on the lower surface of the board, and a large winning opening 23 which is a variable winning device is provided further below the starting winning opening 22. These starting winning openings 2
2. Lamps and the like constituting the illuminating device are also provided on the back and periphery of the special winning opening 23, the windmill 24, and the like.

On the left side of the game board 14, a handle 1
An inner rail 25 and an outer rail 26 are provided to guide the pachinko balls hit by the operation 7 to the game area. 3 and 4 show a hatched arcuate area 27 of the game board 14 sandwiched between the pair of rails 25 and 26 and a hatched game area 28 where the pachinko balls are released from the rails 25 and 26. As shown in (1), LEDs (light emitting diodes) 29 are continuously buried at regular intervals. These LEDs 29 also constitute an illumination device of the game board 14.

The LED 29 is shown in FIGS.
In any one of the modes (a) to (c), the game board 14 is provided on the back side of the areas 27 and 28 of the game board 14. FIG.
(A) is a partially cutaway cross-sectional view when the LED 29 is provided on the back side of the game board 14 which is composed of a transparent resin plate 14a and a transparent or translucent sheet 14b called a cell attached to the surface thereof. . Usually, a picture such as a character is drawn on the surface of the cell 14b. FIG. 2B shows a game board 14 in a case where the thickness of the transparent resin plate 14a to be irradiated when the LED 29 emits light is reduced, and the LED 29 is provided so that the tip is embedded in the thinned portion. It is a partially broken sectional view of FIG.

FIG. 4A shows a game board in which a through hole 30 is provided in a portion of the resin plate or plywood 14a to be irradiated by the LED 29, and the LED 29 is embedded in the through hole 30 and a cell 14b is adhered to the surface. 14 is a partially cutaway sectional view of FIG. FIG. 2B shows a cell 14b in FIG.
Game board 14 in which a cap 31 made of a transparent resin having the same diameter as this through-hole 30 is fitted into the through-hole 30 before sticking.
It is a partially broken sectional view of FIG. FIG. 2C shows a game board 14 in the case where a through hole 30 is provided after the cell 14b is attached in FIG. 2A and a cap 32 made of a transparent resin having the same diameter as the through hole 30 is fitted. It is a partially broken sectional view. The planar shape of the caps 31 and 32 is
The shape does not necessarily have to be circular in order to correspond to the shapes of 7, 28.

FIG. 5 is a front view of the ball launching device 61 installed inside the main body behind the upper plate 15. FIG. 6A shows a state before the ball launching device 61 launches a ball, and FIG. 5B shows a state after the ball launching. In the state shown in FIG. 9A, the firing solenoid 62 is not excited, and the shooting ball detection switch 63 detects that the pachinko ball is set at the firing position.

In this state, a ball launcher driving circuit 5 described later
When a control signal is output from 1 to the firing solenoid 62 and the firing solenoid 62 is excited, a pachinko ball is repelled as shown in FIG. After the hit pachinko ball is detected by the shooting ball sensor 64, it flies in the direction indicated by the arrow A, is guided along the path formed by the inner and outer rails 25 and 26, and is driven into the game area. The pachinko ball that did not reach the inside of the game area and returned on the rails 25 and 26 because of its low resilience fell in the direction of arrow B, and the lower plate 16
Is discharged.

Further, the resilience of the pachinko ball by the ball launching device 61 changes according to the charging voltage applied to the launching solenoid 62. The charging voltage is generated by supplying a charging current to a capacitor (not shown) by a firing voltage generated according to the rotation angle of the handle 17. For this reason, the resilience of the pachinko ball is determined by the rotation angle of the handle 17 by the player.

FIG. 6 shows a pachinko machine 11 according to this embodiment.
It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the electronic circuit which is a control means which processes the game operation of FIG. This electronic circuit is formed on a main board provided on the back of the game board 14, and the main board has C
Electronic components such as a PU 41, a ROM 42, and a RAM 43 are mounted.

The CPU 41 outputs a drive signal to the variable display device driving circuit 44 to cause the liquid crystal screen of the variable display device 21 to variably display a special symbol. Also, the ball launcher driving circuit 51
And a ball launching device 61 causes the ball launching device 61 to launch a pachinko ball into the game area. LED drive circuit 5
2 to output a drive signal to control the light emission of the LED 29. Here, the CPU 41 and the LED drive circuit 52 constitute light emission control means for controlling the light emission of the LED 29 in a light emission form corresponding to the operation amount of the handle 17. In addition, the CPU 41
A drive signal is output to the special winning opening drive circuit 53 including an opening / closing motor, and the opening and closing of the door of the special winning opening 23 is controlled.

A program for processing and controlling the game operation of the pachinko machine 11 is stored in the ROM 42, and the variable display device 21 is variably displayed by the processing control of the CPU 41 according to this program. The ROM 42 also stores a jackpot occurrence probability table, a reach effect mode lottery table, and the like.

When the start winning ball sensor 65 detects that a pachinko ball has won the starting winning port 22, the CPU 41 detects that the pachinko ball has won.
Outputs a signal to the random number generator 45 to generate a random number.
The sampling circuit 46 samples one random number from the random numbers. Whether the jackpot winning mode occurs or not is determined by referring to the jackpot occurrence probability table with the random number sampled by the sampling circuit 46.

Here, CPU 41, ROM 42, RAM
43, a random number generator 45 and a sampling circuit 46
A jackpot winning lottery means for drawing a jackpot when the pachinko ball wins in the starting winning port 22 is constituted. The probability of occurrence of the jackpot winning can be variably set, for example, in three stages by operating the setting operation unit 47. C
The PU 41 inputs the setting state of the setting operation section 47 and causes the setting display section 49 to display the setting state input by the setting display section driving circuit 48.

The pachinko machine 1 according to the present embodiment as described above.
In 1, a game board is provided on an illumination device comprising board surface decoration lamps 18 and 19, a frame upper decoration lamp 20, a start winning opening 22, a large winning opening 23, and a lamp provided on the back and periphery of a windmill 24 and the like. Since an illumination device including LEDs 29 provided in the fourteen board areas 27 and 28 is added,
The installation area of the illuminator increases more than before. For this reason,
The illumination of the game board 14 becomes more gorgeous and supplements the conventional visual deficiencies. Therefore, the appeal to the player is increased, and the player is less likely to get bored.

In this embodiment, the handle 17
CPU 4 corresponding to the firing voltage generated according to the rotation angle of
1 outputs a control signal to the LED drive circuit 52 to turn the LED 29 in the areas 27 and 28 of the game board 14 into the handle 17.
The light emission is controlled to the light emission mode according to the operation amount of the.

For example, when the rotation angle of the handle 17 is small, the launching distance of the pachinko ball is also small, and the LEDs 29 in the regions 27 and 28 emit light with a short length as shown by the bold lines in FIG. When the handle 17 is rotated to the maximum angle, as shown in FIG.
When the handle 17 is rotated to the intermediate position, the LED 29 in the region 27, 28 emits light with the intermediate length as shown in FIG. In this way, the effect of clearly indicating the launch distance of the pachinko ball corresponding to the rotation angle of the handle 17 is performed by the light emission of each LED 29.

When the light emission of the LED 29 is controlled as described above,
The position of the pachinko ball hit into the game area via the rails 25 and 26 can be known in advance at which position the pachinko ball is hit even if the pachinko ball is not actually hit into the game area. For this reason, the useless pachinko ball is not hit into the game area until the operation amount of the handle 17 is determined as in the related art.

Further, in this embodiment, when the expectation of the occurrence of the big hit prize is notified to the player with a predetermined reliability in the reach effect mode, the LEDs 29 in the areas 27 and 28 are used.
This reach effect can be performed according to the light emission mode. Here, the CPU 41, the LED drive circuit 52, and the LED 29 constitute a reach effecting means, and emit light control means for controlling the light emission of the LED 29 to a light emitting mode corresponding to the reliability of the expected notification of the occurrence of the big hit prize by the reach effecting means. Is configured.

For example, a notification effect in which the LED 29 emits light, such as a level meter, is performed in accordance with the degree of expectation of the hit. In other words, when a reach having an expected degree of jackpot winning occurrence of 100% appears, the LEDs 29 are sequentially turned on like the level meter along the areas 27 and 28, and finally, as shown in FIG. Regions 27 and 28
All lights. And, as the expectation of the jackpot winning occurrence becomes lower, for example, 90%, 75%, 50%, 30%,
The extension of the level meter by the LEDs 29 in the regions 27 and 28 is shortened as shown in FIGS. 6 (b), (c), (d) and (e). Then, when the degree of expectation of the jackpot winning occurrence is zero, the extension of the level meter is minimized as shown in FIG.

According to such a configuration, the rails 25,
If the LED 29 provided on the game board surface along 26 is controlled to emit light in such a manner that the light emitting area along the areas 27 and 28 becomes longer if the reliability is high as described above, a big hit prize expected by the reach effect is expected. The content of the notification of the reliability can be grasped at a glance.

[0038]

As described above, according to the present invention, the light source is provided on the game board surface sandwiched between the rails, so that the installation area of the illuminating device is larger than before. For this reason, the illumination of the game board becomes more gorgeous, and the conventional visual deficiencies are supplemented. Therefore, the appeal to the player is increased, and the player is less likely to get bored.

When the light source is also provided on the game board surface in the game area where the game balls are released from the rails, the installation area of the illuminating device is further increased, and the power of the game board is increased. The decoration is even more gorgeous.

When the light source provided on the game board surface along the rail is controlled to emit light by a light emission control means in a light emission form corresponding to the operation amount of the handle, a game driven into the game area via the rail is provided. As for the position of the ball, it is known in advance where the pachinko ball is to be driven even if the game ball is not actually driven into the game area. For this reason, unlike the related art, useless game balls are not hit into the game area until the operation amount of the handle is determined.

If the light source provided on the game board surface along the rail is controlled to emit light in accordance with the reliability of expectation notification of occurrence of a jackpot winning by the reach effect means, the jackpot win by the reach effect is provided. The notification content of the reliability of the expectation can be grasped at a glance.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a front view of a conventional ball game machine.

FIG. 2 is a front view of a ball game machine according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a partially cutaway sectional view showing an example of an LED laying configuration on a game board of a ball game machine according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a partially cutaway sectional view showing another example of an LED laying configuration on a game board of a ball game machine according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a front view of a ball launching device provided in the ball game machine according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an electronic circuit for processing and controlling a game operation of the ball game machine according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of an effect of clearly indicating a trajectory drawn by a ball in a ball game machine according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example of a representation of a jackpot expectation degree performed when a reach appears in the ball game machine according to one embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 11 ... Pachinko machine 12 ... Front door 13 ... Front glass 14 ... Game board 15 ... Upper plate 16 ... Lower plate 17 ... Handle 18, 19 ... Board decoration lamp 20 ... Frame decoration lamp 21 ... Variable display device 22 ... Starting winning opening Reference numeral 23: Big winning opening 24 ... Windmill 25 ... Inner rail 26 ... Outer rail 27, 28 ... Area of the game board 14 provided with the LED 29

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A ball game machine comprising a game board surface on which a game area is formed, and a pair of rails formed on the game board surface for guiding a flipped game ball to the game area, A ball game machine comprising a light source for emitting light from the game board surface sandwiched between the rails. 2. The ball game machine according to claim 1, wherein the light source is also provided on the game board surface in a game area where game balls are emitted from the rail. 3. A handle operated by a player,
Resilient means for repelling a game ball to the game area via the rail with a resilient force according to the operation amount of the handle; and light emission control for controlling the light source to emit light in a light emission form according to the operation amount of the handle. The ball game machine according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising means. 4. A jackpot prize lottery means for drawing a jackpot prize when a game ball lands in a starting port, and a player is notified of the expectation of a jackpot prize occurrence by the jackpot prize lottery means with a predetermined reliability in a reach effect manner. 3. A light emitting device comprising: a reach effecting means; and a light emission control means for controlling light emission of the light source in a light emitting mode according to reliability of expectation notification of a jackpot winning occurrence by the reach effecting means. The ball-and-ball game machine described in 1.