A Day at the Races
by Kassadee Marie, HSM team writer
There’s a new casino style game coming to Home on Wednesday and it’s going to be an absolute blast. We love our virtual casino-style games and we’re always looking forward to something new, aren’t we? You won’t find this new game at the Sportswalk or in any of the public spaces of Home though. That’s because it’s a coin-operated racing table like the ones that can be see at casinos such as the magnificent MGM Grand in Las Vegas. This new game is from the geniuses at Game Mechanics and the details, features, and rewards from it are terrific.
The game play particulars are that five miniature jockeys wearing colorful silks of yellow, purple, red blue and green. They are mounted on ponies that race on an oval track built into a large game table. The players bet on the two horses that they think (hope and pray) will come in first and second. The order doesn’t matter, as long as both horses win or place. Up to twenty coins can be bet by each player on any race on any combination of these horses. Everyone can bet on the same horses, if they choose to do so. The odds – in case you were wondering – go from two for one (2:1) to 200 for one (200:1) and are established from the beginning of each race. Incredibly – almost unbelievably – up to twelve players can play on one game machine at the same time. There’s even an owner’s reward for doing so.
The owner can set up the game in their personal space or their club to play with friends. Those who buy the game table will receive 300 coins when the game is first purchased, and twenty coins every day they “check in” with the game. This is truly a great feature, but as an additional and unusual bonus, their friends who play this game, even if they don’t own a game table, receive twenty coins the first time that they play and five per day after that for checking in with the game. “Owners get a better deal because ownership has its privileges.” Additional coins are available for purchase in the store for those who run out and would like to continue playing.
Another interesting feature is that once anyone has played the game, whether a game machine owner or not, they can then go to another space or clubhouse and play the game on a different machine, retaining all their coins and personal statistics. They can even start a “streak” toward an achievement on one game machine and complete it on another game machine owned by a different friend or one placed in a clubhouse to which they have membership.
It’s really hard to believe that all of these features are packed into a game that only uses fourteen furniture slots, but that’s exactly what the guys at Game Mechanics managed to do. When you think of it, this would allow for up to seven of these game machines to be placed in a clubhouse, if no other furniture was added. Because of this, I foresee clubhouses becoming very popular places in the near future, filled with people having a lot of fun together, laughing, talking and playing for hours.
There are eight rewards included with this game that owners and their friends can earn by completing achievements, such as winning three races in a row betting three or more coins on the winning horses or picking three long shots, betting three or more coins. Five of the rewards are different and great looking trophies and the other rewards are items such as wall units and furniture. Two additional rewards have been reserved for those who buy the game, as a special owners treat.
You might expect a game like this to cost $5.00 or more, but it simply doesn’t. Pick up yours for only $2.49. It’s a good thing these are virtual items or they might have been sold out before everyone who wants one had a chance to pick theirs up.
June 5th, 2013 by Kassadee Marie | 2 comments
Home is endlessly entertaining to this California girl. Kassadee has been in Home for about four years, and loves almost everything about it (with a few notable exceptions). She spends way too much money there, and perhaps too much time... Someday she will travel the world and write about the people she meets and the places she sees.
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This reminds in part me of a small board game with about 6 horses with names like Citation and a spinner to indicate how many spaces a horse could move. It was a lot of fun to play whether with friends or by one’s self.
Some have said they’d like to see a racing game for horses on the order of Hudson Dolphin Races but this ain’t it. Still, it could be fun.
I am really looking forward to this game. Getting it the minute I get into Home!