Election Fever

The amount of people talking about politics right now in Singapore is extraordinary, the amount of people attending the rallies of the worker's party are insane! Averaging 20,000 people at each of them! Comparatively the Peoples Action Party's Rallies are considerably mild with only 2,000 - 3,000 people attending. Being from the hottest contested spot in Singapore right now, Aljunied GRC, its really hard to guess the outcome of it all...

This evening after we were done shopping for groceries, she spotted an abandoned trolley at the side of the road while we were driving out of the carpark and immediately called to stop, she checked it and saw that the dollar was still in it and so she pushed it all the way back while I drove around to pick her up. So a dollar to her count.

A little after we went to the east coast park arcade to see if we could finish up the remainder of our Toami-Gyo tokens but there was just too many people at the machine to play at a good pace so we decided to leave it to another day, we did check with the arcade attendant about the token exchange again and he clarified that only winning amounts of over 500 will be converted into 50% tickets and 50% tokens.

Started with $134.85

Ended with $135.85
$1.00 from her

Wish me Luck
M$Penguin

Paradox.. Toami-Gyo@ECP

Went back to play our remanding 100 tokens today, had really good fun. Spent an unexpected 4 hours there with that 100 tokens, she got a 1000 token jackpot and lasted all the 4 hours.
I on the other hand lost my 50 tokens in about an hour after going all the way up to 200. Joined her in her game and swapped with her because she got tired after like 2 hours.. we ended up sharing the job of shooting and aiming, she shot and i aimed.
And for the next 2 hours we tried to either get the jackpot again or to lose it all because from what we knew we couldn't cash out to tokens anymore so we just went with it... and after the 2 hours we finally got another gem to get the 500 jackpot.....
I don't think I'm supposed to say this but the guy actually changed put 1/2 our stake of 900 credits back to tokens! So i guess they loop-holed it? So now we have 450 in tokens and 450 in tickets to exchange for prizes...
Hope this doesn't get them into trouble...

Wish me Luck
M$Penguin

Toami-Gyo No More Tokens!

Its confirmed.. right now every arcade in Singapore is not allowed to issue tokens as a cash out option and from now on are only able to issue tickets for exchange of prizes.

No luck in searching for cash... Metal rabbit really starting to bug me.. keeps attracting the coins away.. zzzz

Wish me Luck
M$Penguin

Local Police Notice on Toami-Gyo / Fishing Season

Been to a few amusement centers recently and to my horror have seen the bigger places starting to put up notices from the Singapore Police Force about the Toami-Gyo , Fishing Season type of games that dish out tokens.

Now with the notice from the SPF, all token payout machines will have to be converted to ticket payouts. This mainly means that they will not be able to reuse the tokens to play for bigger prizes but will have to cash out in the form of tickets to exchange for prizes like stuffed toys and stuff at the redemption counters.

I suppose this is to discourage the sense of gambling that the public will no doubt associate with these type of machines.

I guess this step by the SPF will no doubt discourage the few that wish to make a profit by playing these games but from what I've seen today while going window shopping in my neighborhood shopping mall is that it hasn't really dampened the level of enthusiasm that the people playing still exude.

But really...when it comes down to it, people just want something fun to play, be it a token driven fishing game or otherwise. If people like it, they'll play it.

Hope this measure helps to reduce the incidents of gambling through gaming but just make it a purely entertaining game that you'll be able to exchange for simple prizes at the end to just make the trip to the amusement center that little bit sweeter.

I'm inclined to side with our police force on this measure because after seeing the number of little kids that spend hundreds of dollars a month gambling it away at these machines its about time something was done to curb the gamblers and leave those who truly just enjoy the game for what it is, a game, to play on and YES! get that little extra sweetener at the end.

Wish me Luck
M$Penguin

Reap what you sow...

Its been a crappy day, kinda lost all our tokens at the arcade today.... left with only 100 tokens.. and to add to that I kinda went a little nuts and spent $35 trying to get an iPhone 4 from the poking machine...

O and she found another token so it goes into the fund.

I guess its because its been really depressing with work the past few days with the added rubbish my agents are throwing my way...

Sigh..

Wish me Luck... kinda need it now...
M$Penguin

Toami-Gyo Ocean Spirit Jackpot!

Today we went again to Marine Cove's Prize Station arcade to play Toami-Gyo again and this time I exchanged $100 for 1000 tokens and got 50 tokens more instead of the stuffed toy, you've gotta ask the staff there for the extra tokens instead of the stuffed toy because their actually not supposed to give you more but be nice and ask and they'll give it to you, you'll need to get a card too to store the tokens and that typically costs $3 but again ASK for it and if you're nice about it they'll give it to you too!

Remember, ASK and you will usually receive. We sometimes take things for granted and assume that we will just get things because we've paid for it and deserve it, but they don't understand that we just need to respect others and be nice to them to get that little extra stuff.

After playing for a good 2 1/2 hours I finally hit a bonus and a jackpot! And while there she found 2 tokens too but we used them instantly instead of keeping them because we were constantly playing and it didn't make sense to just keep the 2 tokens there. But the next time we're there I'll make sure to keep the found tokens.

For this version, after collecting 5 gems you get a spin at the wheel and the bonuses are 300, 500, 800 and the super jackpot where you get to kill the skeleton fishes and a skeleton shark and the payoff is at 1,000 , 2,000 and the maximum 5,000!

The significant difference between this version and the normal Toami-Gyo is at the jackpot stage, EVERYONE playing at the time can earn a bonus by killing the skeleton fishes! And at the time of my jackpot there were 4 other people playing so they all got bonuses too! And there is no time limit and unlimited ammo!

The skeleton shark can only be hit by the one that triggered the jackpot and ends when you kill it, so the trick is to have a partner playing at the same time too and shoot the skeleton fishes to gain additional bonuses, sadly she wasn't playing at that time because we've been playing for over 2 hours and she was really tired and hungry.

Sadly the bonus and jackpot that I hit were both the minimum.. so I got a 300 bonus and a 1,000 jackpot. I spent a really long time and a lot of tokens to hit the jackpot, so the end result is that I got back what I've spent on the game plus 200 more. She enjoyed the game too when she was able to sustain and kill faster by using the double cannons. It was really unfortunate that she wasn't able to hit any jackpot but the important thing is that we had fun playing the game.

Now with the card loaded, the question will be when do we return? :)

Wish me Luck
M$Penguin

Return to Toami-Gyo @Marine Cove

Its been a long time since the urge to shoot fish has struck, so when it did it really did to the both of us.

As Timezone will only be having their dollar for dollar promotion on 2 dates, the 6th and 13th of Feb 2011, we decided against playing there and headed for Marine Cove's Prize Station instead.

The Prize Station there had a better promotion but only if you are willing to part with $100 or $200, then you'd be able to get each token at $0.10 instead of $0.20 and an added big soft toy or a mp3 player respectively.

This offer really pinched at me but my cooler headed other half said NO, so we ended up just changing $20 to start but I added another $20 after losing all my share... she even had to cash out her 200+ tokens so that I could take some... I sux at this...

But anyway we played on the new double screen machine and what I can say is that for this machine, you gotta aim for the big fish! That being said, you will kinda need to load up before hand for it, recommend to put in at least 100 tokens so you can take advantage of the double shot which in my opinion is the better weapon for taking out dolphins and sharks.

I managed to kill around 8-10 biggies there and got over 10 jackpot spins but no matter how I tried, the final gem eluded me and I was stuck sitting there with just 4 gems... I guess that's how they get you, they lure you in by giving you the first 4 then hold out the final gem.... But I may just be eating sour grapes because while we were there 2 other people got to the final gem and hit their jackpot for 300 tokens each.

One thing about this machine is that you can't cash out directly for some reason.. had to call the attendant to credit your tokens every time you wanna cash out, that kinda slows things down for the player because you can't do the usual cash out and restart with a lower number of tokens by yourself thereby making the process more tedious and less appealing to the player, I suppose it could be a ploy so you'll just keep playing and not care about cashing out.

But the best tactic is still to do so! I must remember that myself and cash out while I'm ahead so as to not dwindle down again... I know I am flawed that way so gotta change..
MUST CASH OUT WHEN I GET OVER 150 TOKENS!
150 is a good number because you'll be able to pocket 50 and play with the 100 again.

ho hum. For this session, Arcade centre $40 - Players Nil.

Wish me Luck
M$Penguin

Good day with pickings everywhere!

Took an early day from work to spend some time with her after her class ended. Work was crappy because of a stupid audit that I didn't fair very well at. She wanted to go cycling but the weather wasn't cooperating again...

Went to Tampines for a walk instead and found $0.20 in a vending machine at Tampines Mall, while we were visiting the arcade, TimeZone, she found $0.10 in front of the cashier and met her good friend's parents, they must be wondering what we were doing in the arcade at that time.. anyway we walked through the arcade because we were looking to see what movie was available, sadly no good movies were showing.

Disappointed we proceeded back down the mall and headed to the other mall next door, Century Square. Again we headed upstairs to the cinema level and still nothing good, so the next best thing was to take a look at the arcade there too.

This one was run by Star Factory, the thing I don't understand is why they choose to purchase the ugly looking china knock offs of Toami-Gyo / Fishing Season, but amazingly the machines, all 3 of them, were almost fully occupied. While there she found a token hidden behind a racing machine that was not near the "Toami-Gyo" machines and decided to risk that token on a double or nothing shot. Needless to say, she got nothing back.

We started to feel hungry and thus left to look for some good tasting fish soup, on our way back to the car-park, she found $0.05 and I found $0.10.

Not bad a day I thought, a total of $0.45 between us today and even before we had dinner.

But the surprising thing is that during dinner, just as she asked "so see any coins?" I replied "actually..." and then went to the table next to us and picked up a $0.20 coin.
After we had dinner, while buying bread for the next day, she found our last coin of the day at the bakery, a $0.05 coin.

So our total for the day was a not so shabby $0.70.

Started with $31.34

Ended with $32.04
$0.20 From her
$0.50 From him

Wish me Luck
M$Penguin

Toami-Gyo / Fishing Season New Discovery @Marine Cove

Just as I was thinking that the version of Toami-Gyo / Fishing Season couldn't get anymore interesting... And yes this post will be all about the arcade game.

While we were taking a walk along east coast park after work today, we couldn't help it but just pop in to take a look at what prizes were available and if we were able to chance upon any tokens or even better still $1 coins that were left behind, but it seems that we were there too early as there was hardly anyone at the arcade at Marine Cove at around 6 there was only this family there playing the Mario jackpot coin feeder. Looked around to no avail for coins and tokens but saw that they have imported a new china version of the game Toami-Gyo / Fishing Season.
It was a huge machine as it combined 2 normal machines side by side into 1 so a total of 10 people could be playing at the same time, the screens were also connected so if you shot 1 bullet from 1 end it would travel all the way through to the other screen, making for a more worth while shot if you span the 2 screens because you'd more than likely hit something and not waste a shot.
This new machine was a rip off from the original Toami-Gyo in that the graphics were the same but the instructions were in chinese and they added a few new species of shark and dolphin so as to not infringe on copyright outright I suppose... It looked alot better than the original knock-offs of Toami-Gyo but only because they used the same graphics, another feature they changed and in my opinion made better was the increase in power animations. The original had a slower traveling cannon when you increased the firepower upwards from 2 to 5, this only was able to increase the cannon till 3 but the 2 coin shot looked a lot cooler because they made it into a double cannon instead of a single and the 3 coin shot's animation was a sort of explosion and was faster than the original. This I gotta give kudos to the chinese as it was one thing I didn't really like in the original was the speed at which the more expensive shots traveled, and they made an improvement not just rip off the original wholesale.

They also added a "fish racing" feature during the change of location, in which you could choose between the 6 fish who was gonna win and put a bet on them, kinda like horse racing but in this case with the fishes from game. It would most certainly be rigged to the advantage of the game but hey its an interesting idea and since it was now 2 screens instead of the 1 they had more space to be creative. Leave it to the chinese to make it a betting thing huh...
We can bet on anything!

Anyway after our walk we returned to the arcade to take a 2nd look and there were people playing the new machine, it seems that they've changed the bonus stage system and reduced the amount of gems you'd need to reach it to just 5 gems but in order to get a gem you'd have to hit a mini jackpot which had a prize ranging from the gem to 0-50 coins in multiples of 10, and yes you can actually not win anything at this mini jackpot... you get a :( emocon face instead.

So after you've got the 5 gems and get to the bonus stage, which has also been changed to just a jackpot style spinning of a wheel,instead of the cool boss shark, while the game continues.

To me this kinda kills it because you end up just constantly shooting without a clear goal, like the original of reaching the boss shark, but I guess they needed to make it this way because imagine if all 10 spots had people playing and someone got to the bonus stage, the other 9 would just have to wait while you cleared the boss shark.... that would really put a lot of people off.... anyway while we were there someone hit the bonus and it ranges from 200-1000 coins.

Really got my hands itchy watching this new version, but because the rates at Marine Cove are really expensive and we both kinda stopped each other from playing so maybe some other time... Or till they get this machine at Marina Square :P Much prefer this than the horrible graphics of the knock 0ffs...

Wish me Luck
M$Penguin

Happy New Year! Toami-Gyo Revisited Again

To one and all a very happy new year!

This evening was fun, we had dinner at Asia Grand and proceeded to play Toami-Gyo at the arcade in Marina Square.

It seems that the machines there have been modified and are cheaper to play, at $0.10 per shot they have raised the reward for killing bigger prey too like the turtle,puffer fish and other bigger fish previously higher than 3 coins.

Now the big jelly fish are 10 coins each! The turtles are 50 from the previous 20, that's a huge difference!

It seems that the kill rate for them is still the same so it really is more profitable.

But we didn't end up winning as there was this couple playing there for the entire day and they were really monopolizing the game by spraying shots all over the screen....

Anyway while we were at the arcade, she found 1 token and I found a token.

She half joked that we could actually just start collecting the tokens so we could play a free game of Toami-Gyo with like 40 found tokens.

Hehe I guess that is possible as we've been able to find something everytime we've visited these big league arcades...

O well after that while we were walking around, she found $0.05 when we took a detour into HMV at citylink because the floors were carpeted. She had learned this trick from me and managed to find the $0.05 coin near the cashier counter.

So its a good start for the year, may 2011 be at least 50% better than 2010 and that everyone be safe and healthy.

Started with $31.29

Ended with $31.34
$0.05 From her

Wishing Everyone A Happy New Year, still awaiting my cheque for the USD100... hope it comes soon the USD seems to be taking a beating recently...

Wish me Luck
M$Penguin

Step Update / Toami-Gyo Fishing Season Revisited / Voucher values revised

Found a Dollar today at the arcade today, it was in the coin return slot and no one had noticed it was there, this time we went to the "big league" arcades at east coast park to try our hands at the Toami-gyo/Fishing Season machines there. Didn't get to use the 3 tokens we found earlier because they were from another place.

Its was amazing watching the "pros" there because there was this Uncle that kept killing the sharks that came out; each shark is worth 100 coins; to the point that we got to see a special shark that transformed into a gold shark after it was killed the 1st time. Sadly I doubt he managed to recoup his investment because the boss shark he killed was only worth 500 coins, the other "pro" couple that was there too had won 1000 coins off the boss shark earlier.

Its more expensive than the normal kiddie arcade because each shot costs $0.20! That's double the amount! They do have a promotion where you get an extra 150 coins if you change $50 and another 500 coins if you change $100, which would bring down the cost of each shot to around $0.10. But I guess because the prizes that you can exchange are better, the likes of Sony Playstation 3, Apple's Iphone4, asus eee PC, basically the good stuff.

O well spent like $60 there with her.... but ended with nothing, sigh.... anyway while we were there some other lucky and persistent folks got their hands on an Apple Iphone4 and what looks like an Iphone4 but I suspect is not... mainly because the box it was in was one of those China knock-offs...

She was tempted by the Iphone 4s that were there in the machines for the winning and thus tried her hand at it with $3, which needless to say ended with nothing in return. Its a variation of the those "ufo" claw machines but instead of catching the item, you have to position the pressure sensitive probe to poke at the many holes that hold the prizes. So if you manage to get the probe through a hole, you'll be able to push the prize down and win it.

I've been keeping logs of how much we've spent so far for the whole arcade thing and its right now at $212! I can't believe that at my age, I'm still spending that kind of money playing games at the arcades...

And I am going to change the value of the vouchers that I got and any future vouchers I receive for the surveys to a value of 1.5:1.0

This would ensure that I am not paying exactly for the vouchers that I am buying from the fund but at a discounted rate. This is partially to reward myself for slogging at those surveys and to ensure that I do not get disgruntled with the fact that I'm just putting money into the fund by buying the vouchers outright.

So I shall revise the amount I have now in the fund.

Started with revised amount of $27.89

Ended with $28.89
$1.00 From him

Wish me Luck
M$Penguin

Arcade Game Fishing Season / Toami Gyo

Did the most unthinkable today, went to the arcade with her to play 'Fishing Season', considering that it was my 2nd visit to the arcade to play this game, I did pretty well.

We have those 1 for 1 vouchers so I changed $5 to get another $5 worth. Managed to only use $3.60 for the entire 2 hours that we were there and managed to get slightly over 500 tickets to redeem for stuff, I actually got a lot more like 700 tickets because I got to the bonus stage with the shark that is worth 500 but because I didn't cash out when I was at my peak, I dropped back to 500, so I essentially wasted my shark...

I'll be able to get my hands on another 1 for 1 voucher so I'll most probably try to sharpen my skills for what is the big leagues of this arcade game.

Right now the tickets that I got can only be exchanged for simple toys like coin-banks, board games and other small stuff, the big leagues are the arcades that you can redeem stuff like Apple iPods, iPads, even the iPhone 4, Sony's PlayStation 3, Nitendo's Wii etc, the High End Stuff.

And those 3 tokens that she found on Sunday are for those Big League Arcades.

Well I guess this will be counted as putting work into the endeavour so I'll see what I can get with those 3 tokens. Won't be using the fund to buy tokens because well to be honest this is kinda like gambling, with stuff instead of money but if I'm able to grow the 3 tokens then it'll be counted.

Wish me Luck
M$Penguin