LightStop

Light stop play is most often seen as a type of RedemptionGame.

They typical arrangement is a set of lights. At any given time, only one light will be lit, and which lamp is lit will be traveling in some predictable pattern, such as a circle or back and forth. When the player presses a button, the light stops for a few seconds to show which light it stopped on, and then continues on. Attempting to stop the light in the desired position makes for a kind of Dexterity? game.

While redemption isn't a requirement, two fairly common features are:

• The ability to get a reward based on the light which was stopped.
• The presence of a Jackpot on one of the lights.

Variation of light values is an AsymmetricalDistribution. Most light stop games put the light values a clear ramp with the best value on one end, and the worst values on the other. The Jackpot, if present, is of course the center of attention. The ramp, especially the jackpot, provides a ClearShortTermGoal. The odds of hitting the jackpot light, however, are almost universally 'fixed' to control the game's payout. Other 'light bumping' or hit window restrictions are also frequently employed.

Some redemption games:

• Cyclone? was one of the first.
• Titanic?.
• Big_Top_Bop? provides a lesson the importance of the value ramp. On test it earned fairly well when the lights next to the jackpot wer fairly high. These lights are hit very often while trying to hit the jackpot, and when the game cheats the light off of the jackpot. When the game went to production, however, the nearby lights were made very low in order to try and bring down the payout ratio. The earnings dropped with them.
• Many video redemption tack on a kind of light stop game. The web pages for Mouse_Attack? and Frantic_Fred? both advertise this feature. (Dino_Dash? has a random bonus for the winner, but since the value changes are random and the value paid is determined by the moment of crossing the finish line, it does not participate in the illusion of skill (ApplicationOfAbility?) that light stop games are founded on.)