GB2057738A - Gaming machines - Google Patents

Abstract

A fruit machine is adapted to produce human speech in order to inform a player as to the result of a game, as to the availability of a game feature or as to the current credit available. To this end the machine includes an encoded word memory (26) for storing sounds in digitally encoded form, and optionally also a message memory (24) for addressing the memory location of the encoded word memory (26) to form words or messages. On receipt of a suitable stimulus from the actual game-playing apparatus, a controller (20) addresses the memories (24, 26) so as to cause the required word or message to be read out of these memories in digitally encoded form. The word or message is converted into analogue from by a digital-to-analogue converter (34), is passed through a low pass filter (36) and an amplifier (38), and is finally fed to a loudspeaker (40). The machine may also be adapted to respond to human speech so that all communication between the machine and player is by means of speech. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Gaming machines This invention relates to gaming machines and more particularly, but not exclusively, to those gaming machines known as "fruit machines".

Fruit machines have one or more rotatable chance reels bearing symbols on their peripheries. These symbols generally represent various fruits, although it will be understood that the term "fruit machines" may be applied to machines having reels bearing symbols other than fruit. In using a such a machine the reels are rotated in response to actuation by a player, the reels subsequently stopping in random positions which are indicated by the symbols showing through a viewing window. The random combination of symbols showing through the window may be one of a set of winning combinations or one of a set of combinations which enable the player to avail himself of a special game feature, such as enabling the player to hold one or more of the reels stationary during a subsequent game. The symbols may be represented in other ways, for example by means of a television.

In general, communication between the machine and the player is by means of pictures and writing on the machine which inform the player how to use the machine, and also by means of flashing lights to attract the attention of the user and to guide the user through the operating sequence, which normally consists of pushing buttons in some defined order. Crude sounds such as single tones or melodic sequences of tones are often used in conjunction with lamps to indicate the stopping of each reel, the stopping of all reels, winning combinations and the availability of special game features. The degree of communication between the machine and the player is, however, restricted by the limitations and inflexibility of use of such lamps and simple tones.

According to the present invention a gaming machine is provided with means for producing human and/or animal sounds and/or responsive to the human voice for communication between the machine and a player. In a preferred form of the invention, said means is adapted to produce human speech. The human speech can be deliberately distorted, for example to simulate the voice of a fictional character familiar to the user from television or cinematographic films. The aforesaid means may also be adapted to produce a simulated singing human voice using melody and libretto and possibly having a characteristic inflection or accent.

The foregoing means could be used to inform the player as to the result of a game, for example as to a winning result after the chance reels of a fruit machine have stopped at the end of or during a game, or to inform the player as to the availabiltiy of a game feature or as to the current credit available.

The means may even act as a warning that the machine is being abused, misused or tampered with either by players or non-players, such as machine-servicing personnel. A button or other equivalent means such as a proximity switch may be provided on the machine which, when pressed, causes the machine to inform the user how it can be played, Even when it is not primed with credit to play a game.

The means for producing human and/or animal sounds can be provided in addition to or instead of the conventional means of communication between the machine and a player. Furthermore the machine may be provided with means responsive to the human voice to enable the player to communicate with the machine. Vocal stimulus from the player could, therefore, be used to cause the machine to accept credit, start a game or use a game feature.

Again, the means for producing human and/or animal sounds may include a first memory for storing sounds in digitally encoded form. Methods of digitally encoding sounds are well-known, and the Shannon Sampling method, the Phoneme Approximation method, the Linear Predictive Coding Vocal Tract Model method and the Delta Modulation method are examples of suitable methods which could be used with the machine of the invention. The first memory may be a semiconductor read only memory, a bubble memory or equivalent memory device, or a magnetic tape.

In a practical form of the invention, the first memory is adapted to store a respective coding for a word or part-word or human speech in each of a plurality of sets of memory locations and addressing means are provided for addressing the sets of memory locations in a predetermined sequence to form a message.

The addressing means may comprise a second memory having a plurality of locations each containing an address of a location in the first memory, and a sequence controller by be provided for causing the addressing means to address the sets of first memory locations, in response to a stimulus from the machine, in a sequence which is determined by the form of the stimulus. The addressing means may also comprise register means for addressing the locations of a set of first memory locations in sequence to form a word or phrase on receipt of the address of the first location of that set from the second memory.Conveniently the register means includes a first register for storing the address of each location in a set in turn and a second register for storing the number of locations in a set still to be addressed, the sequence controller being adapted to increment the first register by one and to decrement the second register by one each time the first memory is addressed by the register means. To this end the first location of each set of the first memory locations is preferably adapted to contain the count of the number of further locations in that set.

When the Shannon Sampling method is used, a digital-to-analogue converter, a low pass filter and an amplifier are preferably coupled to the output of the first memory, the sequence controller advantageously being adapted to automatically control the gain of the amplifier. With other encoding methods the equivalent electronic voicing system is connected between the memory and the amplifier.

In order that the invention may be more fully understood reference will now be^made, by way of example, to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 is a block diagram of a conventional fruit machine known from the prior art, and Figure 2 is a block diagram of means for producing human and/or animal sounds form ing part of a machine in accordance with the invention.

Fig. 1 basically shows the input and output facilities provided on a conventional fruit machine. The actual game-playing apparatus 1 could be a conventional mechanical, electromechanical, electronic or microprocessor controller-based device using an electro-mechanical or stepper-motor-driven reel mechanism 2 or some other type of electronic display for the fruit symbols. The reel mechanism 2 is connected to the remainder of the apparatus by a reel energisation line 2A and optionally also by a position feedback line 28. A start button 3 is provided to enable a player to energise the reel mechanism 2. Three buttons 4 may also be provided each of which enables the player to hold or nudge an associated reel when a respective lamp 9 associated with the button is lit.When a hold button is depressed, the associated reel will remain sta- tionary during a subsequent game, whereas, when a nudge button is depressed, the associated reel will be rotated through a limited angle so that the next symbol on the reel becomes visible though the viewing window.

A 1 Op coin slot 5 is provided for the introduction of 1 Op coins into the machine to enable a game-playing cycle to begin. There is also a 50p coin siot 6. This facility is normally provided simply to enable a player to change a 50p coin into 1 Op coins which may subsequently be inserted into the 1 Op coin slot 5.

A token slot 7 enables a game-playing cycle to be initiated by means of tokens rather than coins. The machine also comprises flashing lamps 8 to indicate a win and generally to attract attention when a game is being played.

A tone amplifier and loudspeaker system 10 may be used in addition to the lamps to produce simple tones which serve the same function. A credit indicator 11 serves to indicate to a player the amount of credit awarded to him and hence the number of games which are still left to be played. A coin payout 1 2 and a token payout 1 3 serve to pay out coins and tokens respectively.

An embodiment of a game-playing machine according to the invention will now be described with reference to Fig. 2. This machine has the same basic arrangement as the machine of Fig. 1 but with the substitution of means for producing human and/or animal sounds, as shown in Fig. 2, for the flashing lamps 8, the hold or nudge lamps 9, the credit indicator 11 and the tone amplifier and loudspeaker system 1 0. This means comprises a stimulus decoder and sequence controller 20, which may be electronic or microprocessor based, by means of which a stimulus provided by the game-playing apparatus 1 may be converted into an address which is loaded into a register 22. The stimulus is supplied to the controller 20 by means of a plurality of inputs. Where the sound to be produced is human speech, each input may be associated with a phrase of the required message.Alternatively the stimulus may be encoded in binary form in which case three inputs may be provided for up to eight phrases, for example. The address stored in the register 22 is used to address a set of locations in an address memory 24 which set contains a series of addresses of locations in an encoded word memory (ECM) 26. Where the sound to be produced is human speech, the memory 26 may be programmed with a number of words or phrases in digitally encoded form and the addresses contained in each set of locations in the memory 24 may correspond to a group of words or phrases which when put together form the required message.For example a set of three locations in the memory 24 may contain the addresses of the first locations of the sets of locations in the memory 26 corresponding to the words "you", "have" and "won" respectively. The set of locations in the memory 26 corresponding to the word "you" may, for example, comprise 200 locations which together serve to store the word "you" in digitised form.

When the register 22 addresses the memory 24 the first address of the addressed set of locations will be loaded into a register 28 under the control of a load signal from the controller 20. The register 28 then addresses the first location of a set of locations corresponding to a particular word or phrase within the memory 26. The first location of this set contains a count of the number of further locations which are required to form the whole word or phrase. This number is loaded into the register 30. The register 28 is then indexed and the contents of the next location in the memory 26 are latched into a register 32 under control of a load signal from the controller 20.The digital data from the register 32 is subsequently converted into analogue form by a digital-to-analogue converter 34, the output of which is passed through a low pass filter 36 to remove the digitisation noise and then through a gain controlled amplifier 38 to a loudspeader 40. The gain of the amplifier 38 may be controlled by the controller 20 so as to change the volume of individual messages depending on their context and the background noise.

The content of the register 28 is then incremented and the content of the register 30 is decremented under the control of the controller 20. The next location within the memory 26 is then addressed by the register 28 and the encoded part word stored in this location converted into audible form by means of components 32, 34, 36, 38 and 40. Again the register 28 is incremented and the register 30 decremented prior to addressing the next location in the memory 26. This sequence of events is repeated until the register 30 becomes zero at which time the whole of the contents of the memory 26 representing the word or phrase corresponding to the first address within the indexed set of locations in the memory will have been converted to audible form at a speed determined by the controller 20. The register 22 is then indexed to address the next location in the memory 24.

The address within this location is then loaded into the register 28 and this register is used to address the memory 26. Again the contents of the first addressed location are loaded into the register 30 and the contents of each subsequent location are sequentially produced in audible form until the complete word or phrase has been produced. This cycle is repeated with each word or phrase in the message until the complete message has been produced. The location in the memory 24 which contains the address of the final word of the message is provided with a special indicator which is used to inform the controller 20 that the message is complete.

Several methods are available for encoding words and/or phrases in digital form for programming the memory 26 using separate encoding equipment. In the Shannon sampling method the sound is digitised by sampling it at at least twice the frequency of the highest frequency it contains. The resulting analogue samples are then digitised as 8-bit digital values which can then be stored in the memory 26, one value to each location. The system shown in Fig. 2 is based on this method. Another method is the Delta Modulation method in which a straight line approximation to the sound wave form is constructed and the description of the straight line segments are stored in a memory. A Delta demodulator reconstructs the sound from the stored approximation. This method usually requires far less memory capacity than the Shannon Sampling method for digitisation of the same sound.

A further method is the Phoneme Approximation method in which stored codes represent the basic utterances which make up speech, those codes being used to activate a set of electronic sound generators to produce a simulation of the basic utterances and hence speech. The Linear Predictive Coding Vocal Tract Model method, which is a further possible method, produces speech by simulating the vocal tract by means of programmable digital electronic filter. The excitation code for the filter and its progammable parameters are stored in the memory and, when they are applied to the filter, simulated speech is produced.

It is quite conceivable that an admixture of these techniques of speech encoding and synthesis may be used advantageously to produce the memory capacity required to store the encoded version of the speech.

The encoded word memory 26 could be either a parallel semiconductor read only memory (ROM) as shown in Fig. 2 or a serial memory such as a digital magnetic bubble memory or an analogue or digitally based magnetic tape memory. If a serial memory is used the register 32 would have to be a serial-in/parallel-out design in order to provide an interface between the memory 26 and the digital-to-analogue converter 34. If an encoding method other than the Shannon Sampling method were used the digital-toanalogue converter would have to be replaced by a suitable decoding and voicing system.

Encoding of the messages in digital form is advantageous from the point of view of sound quality, low cost and flexibility of application.

However, if some degradation of sound quality with use is acceptable, the messages may be prerecorded on magnetic tape or on a record.

Clearly the use of a memory 24 containing lists of the addresses of words in the memory 26 used to form particular messages is advantageous since it saves memory space, only one set of locations having to be provided in the memory 26 for each word or phrase regardless of the number of times which this word or phrase occurs in the various messages which the machine is capable of producing. Thus the two messages "you have won" and "you have lost" require only four sets of memory locations in the memory 26.

Various types of information could be given to the player by the machine in this way. For example the machine may advertise itself when it is not being played, may acknowledge credit entered by the player, may announce the availability of a feature such as "hold now" or "nudge now", or may inform the player of a win or of the size of a win prize.

Rather than having the memory 26 contain encoded words and phrases, this memory may contain encoded words and utterances (part words) which are assembled into phrases and words as required, e.g. B + UDGE gives BUDGE and N + UDGE gives NUDGE. This gives higher coding density and means that a single method of addressing can be used in the controller.

The memory 26 could be resident in either the 'speaking' part of the fruit machine or it could be a part of the main fruit machine programme, which would provide a more flexible use of a standard speech facility in a range of slightly different fruit machines. The memory 24 can be dispensed with in certain applications.

It is also possible for the machine to employ a means of voice and/or word recognition in place of, or in addition to, the start button 3 and the hold or nudge buttons 4 to accept information from the user. Such means may be in the form of a microphone connected to a set of filters and a pattern recognition system which could interpret the particular and appropriate voice responses from a player and provide the appropriate stimulus for the gameplaying apparatus.

Claims (16)

1. A gaming machine provided with means for producing human and/or animal sounds and/or responsiveito the human voice for communication between the machine and a player.

2. A machine according to claim 1 being a mechanical, electro-mechanical, electronic or microprocessor-based fruit machine.

3. A machine according to claim 1 or 2, wherein said means is adapted to produce human speech.

4. A machine according to claim 3, wherein said means is adapted to produce deliberately distorted human speech.

5. A machine according to any preceding claim, wherein said means is adapted to inform the player as to the result of a game.

6. A machine according to any preceding claim, wherein said means is adapted to inform the player as to the availability of a game feature.

7. A machine according to any preceding claim, wherein said means includes a first memory for storing sounds in digitally encoded form.

8. A machine according to claim 7, wherein the first memory is programmed with sounds encoded according to the Shannon Sampling method, the Delta Modulation method, the Phoneme Approximation method or the Linear Predictive Coding Vocal Tract Model method, or a combination of these methods.

9. A machine according to claim 7 or 8, wherein the first memory is a semiconductor read only memory.

10. A machine according to claim 7, 8 or 9, wherein the first memory is adapted to store a respective word or part word of human speech in each of a plurality of sets of memory locations and addressing means are provided for addressing the sets of memory locations in a predetermined sequence to form a message.

11. A machine according to claim 10, wherein the addressing means comprises a second memory having a plurality of locations each containing an address of location in the first memory.

1 2. A machine according to claim 11, wherein the addressing means further comprises register means for addressing the locations of a set of first memory locations in sequence to form a word or phrase on receipt of the address of the first location of that set from the second memory.

1 3. A machine according to claim 10, 11 or 12, wherein a sequence controller is provided for causing the addressing means to address the sets of first memory locations, in response to a stimulus from the machine, in a sequence which is determined by the form of the stimulus.

14. A machine according to claim 1 3 when appended to claim 12, wherein the register means includes a first register for storing the address of each location in a set in turn and a second register for storing the number of locations in a set still to addressed, the sequence controller being adapted to increment the first register by one and to decrement the second register by one each time the first memory is addressed by the register means.

1 5. A machine according to any one of claims 10 to 14, wherein the first location of each set of first memory locations is adapted to contain the count of the number of further locations in that set.

16. A machine according to any one of claims 7 to 15, wherein a digital-to-analogue converter, a low pass filter and an amplifier are coupled to the output of the first memory.

1 7. A machine according to claim 1 6 when appended to claim 13, wherein the sequence controller is adapted to automatically control the gain of the amplifier.

1 8. A machine according to any preceding claim, wherein a sequence controller or game processor is adapted to vary the pitch of the sounds emitted.

1 9. A gaming machine substantially as herein before described with reference to Fig.

2 of the accompanying drawings.