Battle Plan

Mikohn's "Battleship" brings a popular board game to life

Familiarity with a game may get you in front of a slot, but regardless of how well-known the theme, it's up to the game developer to keep you there.

Williams learned this with "Monopoly," plugging multiple features from the legendary board game into the slot's bonus rounds, and regularly introducing new versions.

Mikohn Gaming Corporation picked up on this concept last year with "Yahtzee," a great video slot based on the popular dice game.

"Battleship," this year's follow-up to Yahtzee, is even better, revealing Mikohn's mastery of the multiline video format.

Slot games like Monopoly have achieved phenomenal success by faithfully recreating the play experience of the actual board game. Battleship takes the basics of the famous board game of the same name and enhances them. Where the board game is strategy-based and can be almost chess-like in its pace, the Battleship slot takes the idea on which the strategy is based, and makes it come to life.

Battleship, the board game, was introduced by the former Milton-Bradley Company (now a division of Hasbro, Inc.) in 1972. It's a simple, plastic setup-each player has a pegboard. A partition with holes that match the pegs separates the players. Each player has a "fleet" of ships-four battle vessels of various sizes, each with a different number of slots that fit onto the board. The player arranges his four vessels around his pegboard. Players take turns "shooting" at their opponents by inserting a peg into the partition and calling out the location. If it matches one of the pegs on which an opposing vessel sits, it's a "hit." You "sink" an opponent's ship by matching all the pegs on which it sits. The first player to eliminate the opposing player's entire fleet wins the game.

Mikohn's Battleship slot is a multiline video game with a bonus round that takes this relatively simple board game and presents it with all the flair that computerized graphics, color and sound can muster.

Hard Act to Follow

When Yahtzee was introduced last year, the first versions were reel-spinners, and initial sales were unremarkable. But when Mikohn introduced the multiline video version of the game, it officially put the company on the map as a slot manufacturer.

Video Yahtzee, introduced in several versions, was an immediate success-players love the graphics and the animation in the bonus round (dice characters roll themselves around a field in a funny sequence). It was Mikohn's first big hit as a slot manufacturer, and presented the company with its first challenge to come up with a successful follow-up to a winner.

According to Mike Caloiaro, product manager-games for Mikohn, player research involving the Yahtzee game helped to choose the follow-up theme. "We knew we needed a game that is well-recognized, with a strong nostalgia factor," he says. "If you can retain the critical elements of a game that people remember, you improve your chance for a hit game."

This time, Mikohn opted for multiline video in the initial launch. "We also knew from research that to succeed in the big markets, the game should be available for the nickel, multiline video player," says Caloiaro. "For these players, $20 should last for two hours [of play]."

The initial version of Battleship is called "All Aboard." For the base slot, Mikohn has maintained its alliance with manufacturer Sigma Game, which produces the primary games for the Yahtzee series. For Battleship, Sigma provided a nine-line game, which is being introduced in a 90-coin, nickel version-players have the option to bet from one to 10 coins per line ($4.50 for a max-coin bet).

Reel symbols include tropical icons such as palm trees and pineapples, marine-life symbols such as sharks, and three separate sailor characters. There are two wild symbols-an "Any Sailor" icon substitutes for any of the three sailors in line pays, and the "Battleship" logo substitutes for all symbols except the bonus-trigger symbols.

There are three separate bonus games. The main bonus event, triggered by Octopus symbols on the first three reels of an active payline, is a two-tiered bonus round. The secondary event is triggered through a separate reel combination. Also, it's possible in this event to reveal a symbol that sends the player into the main bonus game. In other words, you can play all three bonus games in a single progression.

The simple pegboard concept of the board game is presented in a primary bonus screen with incredible color and depth. The player is treated to the view from a battleship control room: The bottom half of the screen is a grid of 36 squares (6x6). The top half is a 3-D image of a tropical sea just after dusk, with a corresponding grid of squares marking the general location of the enemy's fleet.

The player goes into the bonus game knowing the measurements of each ship in the enemy's fleet-the carrier occupies five squares; the battleship occupies four squares; the destroyer and submarine each occupy three squares. They are randomly arranged on the grid-some vertically, some horizontally. The player has eight "shots" in which to try to sink the entire fleet (the shots remaining are indicated by missile icons to the side of the screen).

An "entry bonus" of 20 coins is awarded at the start of the round. To "shoot," the player touches one of the squares on the grid. An indicator light beneath the screen says "FIRE" as the upper screen shows a missile sailing on its way to the target. If it lands on a grid square occupied by any part of one of the enemy's ships, it is a "hit"-the formerly invisible ship appears, its hull exploding in flames.

Every sunken ship adds an amount of 20 times the line bet to the accumulating bonus total. Each square of the target grid occupied by the ship lights up red with the word "HIT," and remains lit to eliminate those squares from future picks. And each miss lights the empty square.

The player can employ strategy by envisioning where the remaining ships are likely to be located-you eliminate the squares that have been revealed through hits or misses, and count vertical lines of remaining squares to locate the grids that can or cannot hold the remaining ships.

You'll find that your skill in locating ships improves with each bonus round. You get better and better at counting off squares and locating enemy ships through the process of elimination. It's great fun-particularly if you're familiar with the original Battleship board game. You get to use the same strategy, but with 3-D animation and sound effects showing the results of your "shots." (Guys love this!)

If the player does not sink the enemy's fleet within eight shots, he is awarded the bonus accumulated from his "hits," if any, plus the entry bonus. If he succeeds in sinking the fleet (according to Caloiaro, players succeed around 40 percent of the time, on average) the bonus is awarded according to the number of shots expended in the effort:

Sink the fleet in four shots, the bonus is 300 to 450 times the line bet; in five shots, 100-140X; six, 80-100X, seven, 55-75X; eight, 30-50X.

If the player succeeds in sinking the fleet, an announcer says, "You've been promoted!" and the "Medal Bonus" round begins. The screen displays three medals; the player picks one for an additional random bonus amount.

Seahorse symbols on the third, fourth and fifth reels of an active payline in the primary game trigger the "Flag Bonus Game." The screen depicts five flags, four of which hide multipliers ranging from 25X to 100X. One conceals the Battleship logo. The player picks a flag, and if a number is revealed, it's multiplied by the line bet for the bonus. If the logo is picked, it triggers the main bonus round-and, if successful, the Medal Bonus round.

Caloiaro says initial player reaction to the game has been great. The company first showed the game to player focus groups in six sessions held at Sunset Station in Las Vegas. "Players love the strategy element of the game," says Dr. Olaf Vancura, Mikohn's director of gaming products. "This element not only encourages repeat play; it adds to the longevity of each game." He adds that even without the strategy factor, players have a 50/50 chance of sinking three or more of the enemy's ships. "It's hard to miss them all," he says.

According to Vancura, the research showed the game to be popular with both locals and tourists, and with all age groups. He credits this not only to the bonus game itself, but to a 50-percent hit frequency (a hit of some kind every other spin, on average), and frequent bonus rounds (one or the other bonus game every 40 spins on average).

Final regulatory approval of the slot in Nevada was pending at press time, but the game was expected to be in the casinos by the end of September.