What Gives Digital Slot Machines That 'Instant' Feeling?

Do we live in a world of instantaneousness? A lot of people would say yes. In a matter of seconds, we can answer almost any question we could ever ask, simply by pulling out a smartphone (87% of AmericanThere are occasions when we here at ReadyBetGo want to bring you interesting facts about the gambling industry  When something catches our eye, we will publish it for your enjoyment. 
  adult internet users say the internet has improved their ability to learn new things). In under a minute, we can make transactions and transfers. In an instant, we can connect with people anywhere in the world. The internet and digitization have made things happen with almost no discernable pause.

But what about in the world of games? If you think back to the arcades of a few decades ago, they were very much about immediacy – buy tokens, win tickets, exchange for prizes (or a similar setup, depending on where you went). How has the internet managed to embrace that without losing any of the texture it offered?

Fast-Spinning Slots

If you open slot games online today, you’ll soon see that when developers created these titles, they kept speed at their core. Cash slots online may be packed with imaginative designs and innovative features, but they still live and die on moving fast. You can open any of the games on the list, and you’ll find that they play at the very least in a way that would be described as “snappy.”

Sure, some slots move at a slightly slower pace. Some are more laidback. Even among these, though, you’ll find that most play a round in under a couple of minutes, with the reels spinning quickly – after all, the whole point is that they get your adrenaline pumping – and the count of symbols happening almost immediately once the spin stops. You’ll know whether you have won or not in a few seconds, and that’s the kind of immediacy most modern players are looking for when they game.

Indeed, it’s hard to imagine casino slots performing at a noticeably slower rate. The spin of the reels might not need to be lightning fast to be pleasing (after all, we want to actually see those symbols, not just a blur of color or an instant end), but it does need to keep up the pace enough that you feel yourself leaning in, unable to tear your eyes away from the screen.

You might notice that some slots slow down over the last few seconds, though, letting the reels “tick” into place, rather than stopping abruptly. Why? Well, that same feeling that we mentioned earlier: anticipation. Slots have always blended thrill and suspense in very clever ways, and this is another element of that.

But their snappy play isn’t the only way that slots have managed to remain “instant” in a world that seems to be moving faster with every passing day. Savvy developers have bumped up the feeling of speed in other ways too, without adjusting the reel spin one iota.

Additional Features

It might seem that additional features would make a slot feel slower, not faster. That’s not the case. Instead, incorporating new features has changed the way the game feels. It may, in some cases, have extended the gameplay a bit, but not in a way that makes things feel slower!

Let’s take an example. A mechanic like cascading reels may sometimes result in a round lasting longer. After all, it’s going to take time for the machine to log which symbols are winning ones (and for the player’s eyes to register that), remove the other symbols, and bring in new ones, sometimes multiple times. Designers need to make sure that animations move slowly enough for players to actually register what’s going on; just having non-winning symbols vanish and new ones immediately appear in their place isn’t good gameplay. Animating this in a way that ensures a player has time to absorb it does take time.

But does that create a slower feeling? No! In fact, often the opposite. Adding different mechanics can make a game feel faster because there’s more going on, and there’s more potential for stuff to happen, even if it’s not happening right at that second. While animations do have to allow time for the player to follow events, we’re often talking a few milliseconds, and the increased activity bumps up the sense of speed.

That’s true even if developers choose to incorporate whole new bonus rounds, which might play totally differently from the base game. These remain fast for two reasons: one, they are still very quick-paced, and two, they are treated almost as an individual part of the game. At no point does it feel like things are slowing down, no matter whether the gameplay has a more complex sensation to it or not.

And of course, there are also bonus giveaways and things on social media, which add their own kind of pacing. In most cases, you’ll need to respond within a short window, meaning that you’ll be kept on your toes in a totally different kind of way too.

All of these different elements combine to ensure that slots feel... well, to put it simply, instant. You hit “spin,” sit back, and see a result in no time at all. In a world where we expect everything to happen straight away, that is certainly to their benefit!