Hi,
we are going to program a slot machine that will actually be put into some bars. we probably code everything in java with some c++ to comunicate with the devices (for the coins, lights, ...) and we'll take LWJGL to create some nice 3d light and texture effects.
Unfortunately we cant (and wont like to) use Windows because we would have to pay for a license each time we sell the slot machine. So we thought of linux but we only find these >600MB instalations and we probably need something really small (because we may not use a harddisk and will put everything in flash-discs).
Anybody have suggestions for a freeware or cheap operating system that executes java (and lwjgl) and supports x86?
thanks a lot,
chris
Plain old Linux will be perfect. You can really shrink it down super small if you know what you're doing.
I talked to a slot machine vendor for pubs a while back about doing some games for them. They had an interesting concept of downloading new games directly over broadband which was a nice idea. Unfortunately the user interface was... a touchscreen. Which rules out a whole load of great games :(
Care to spill the beans on who it is? We'd love to help. A JNI API for their coin hoppers etc. could easily be generic.
Cas :)
well, i can't tell you the name of the company because they wouldn't like anybody to know that they are making a slot "videogame" machine.
here in spain it is still forbidden to publish slot machines that don't use mechanic rolls. everybody expects that law changes soon but until then companies keep everything quite secret. (we already had problems like that with another company and they even send us their advocate just because we published their name in a web page... :( strange people...)
tomorrow we will meet with the guys from the company and hope to convince them about our technical concept (pc-like hardware, linux, java, opengl).
we already created an online casino in flash (that was pretty straight forward - especially working with the designers) but for this project i prefer java because i dont think flash is any good in comunicating with the hardware/drivers, coins, lights, etc.
thanx for the tip using "plain old linux". what distribution would you advise?
if you are interested in this project i will keep you informed - and of course we would apreciate any help (the java-part isnt worrying me - but i havent really touched linux so far... :roll: i hope it wont be too bad :lol: )
thanx,
chris
I would advise Debian. Rock solid stability.
i found debian.org
what version should i install? :?
thanx,
chris
Debian stable. Some of the packages are pretty old. But for a casio machine you don't want any problems. I think debian can be a little hard to install though :(
ok. had the meeting today. everything was pretty smooth. they liked the technical details and everything. on monday we are going to present the contract. :D
we are not really sure what price to put in the contract.
maybe someone here knows...
we are going to program all the software part of the slot machine.
this includes:
- the normal game (3 wheels) in 3d
- bonus game (that we still dont know ... :D )
- win calculations
- security issues
- communication with serial or parallel port for coin hopper, buttons, ...
- designing all the graphics
- creating all the sounds/music
we thought 5000 â,¬ would be a fair price but we are not really sure because they had an offer from another company and they wanted ten times more :shock:
maybe someone has an idea for what price we should ask.
btw: if everything works out fine we might need another programmer - they asked us already about creating more games in the future :D
I'd say 5000£ is far too little (esp. considering the competion's price). I don't know if you've done so, but if you sit down and figure out how much development time you'll need to develop the system, you'd get a much better estimate (and probably > 5000£). Be sure to put in a lot of time for problems, now that you haven't got much experience with linux and the interaction with the hardware.
- elias
For the system you have described I would not quote less than £50,000; and if it's fixed price with no time & materials clause then I'd double that. The specification is a crucial aspect of the deliverable as well. I suggest you really get someone who is very clued up about software development contracts to work something out with you or you'll be raped and fail miserably.
<edit>...and don't forget if you quote outrageously low compared to the competition you will be politely told to go away and not come back, as it will be very clear that you are hopelessly inexperienced and unrealistic!
Cas :)
first of all a big THANK YOU for taking so much time in reading and answering all these questions in this forum. i really apreciate that there are guys who like to share their experience and knowledge with others. :D
we were thinking about your considerations and I think we can't go near 50,000 â,¬ because thats exactly why they refused the competers offer without a thought.
consider that here in spain wages are a lot lower than in the uk and the prices as well - if you've spend here your holidays you'll know what I mean...
the average salery here is 800 â,¬ / month :cry: but hey, we have good weather here :wink:
we were already programming this flash online casino we did once and we got 3,000 â,¬ for every casino game.
we were calculating that we probably wont need more than 2 months working 2 people (maybe a little more) so i think we'll offer them 8,000 â,¬ + 5 â,¬ for every slot machine sold.
i think we can't go a lot further because we already talked about prices before and I notice that they won't/can't invest a lot more. this first game will be something like the proof of our ability and they probably pay us more the second game.
i hope i can post some more questions & reports the future... :roll:
thanks a lot guys!
chris
Hey, the average salary might be 800 euros but consider this:
1. Programmers are not average people. You are likely in the top 5% intellect in the world. They can't recruit monkeys to do the job; you're rare and valuable. And this means you should not be on an average salary. You only have to hop over to the UK and the "average" programmer is making 3500 euros a month.
2. You are not salaried employees; you are a business executing a contract. Not only does this mean you are assuming a huge deal more risk compared to a salaried employee, it also means you have a business to run, which means profits and reinvestment and growth.
3. A software project is guaranteed to take twice as long as you estimate, and that's before the client decides to make all sorts of unscheduled changes.
Factor 1, 2, and 3 together: your programmers are way above average people, and they're worth 1500 euros a month. You reckon it'll take two programmers two months, so thats 6000 euros. I reckon it'll take you twice as long, so thats 12,000 euros. Then you have to factor your risk and business growth and profit in, so you want to double that at least to 24,000 euros. Then you want to consider that the client might just dick you around and cause you immense grief. So let's add 50% again to cover them extending the scope of the requirements unexpectedly and cover your risks of having to turn down something else because they overextended the project. 36,000 euros.
And that's just based on the hopelessly inadequate salaries of 1500 euros a month. The reality is anywhere else in Europe and it'd be 3000 euros a month and a 70k contract. Don't let them shaft you. If you're not going to become well off and grow the business you might as well sell beer behind a bar in Barcelona!
...but seeing as this is your first contract you could consider it a loss-leader and do it at 50% of your normal rate. Just make sure that they understand it's at half rate this time round.
Cas :)
Hey Cas,
how much is an average salary over there? :shock:
I was really thinking about coming to the UK someday with my girlfriend (we're both computer scientists) :D
I could say that here in Italy the average salary is something like 900 â,¬ (and the worst fact is that we are treated so bad...they consider us common workers).
That's a bitch in "latin" countries... :x
Your typical programmer's salary is between £25-35k per annum. Depending on your particular skillset and experience it might be twice that. At one point I was earning £136k a year but that was the glory days of the dotcom bubble :)
<edit> Expect to be treated like shit by any employer, in any job. That's what employment is all about.
Cas :)
Oh well...the problem is not about treatment...I know that.
Can you imagine how funny is it to be a PhD student in an italian university? :(
That's a nightmare, even if we've got a lot of nice things here :)
The main point is that even if we can be treated bad, we need to be paid in the right way (and this doesn't happen here because computer scientist are not kept in the right consideration).
You're worth whatever you're willing to work for. Plain and simple :twisted:
Cas :)
Right :D
But you know...money, that damn money, is needed sometimes :)
Anyway you are absolutely right: Even if I don't make stacks of euros I'm very satisified with my job and the projects I'm involved into.
Especially since I've been starting to use LWJGL :wink:
In the US, Memphis, TN (where Elvis is from, a cheap city to live in):
As a beginning programmer, I made $32,000/year, as a government contractor (private industry, i'd probably start closer to $35k/year). I turned down a promotion to $41k/year because I realized I hated programming for a living (I put on 30 f*cking pounds in a year and I was f*cking miserable.. I have to have variety in my job.. my newest job, however, provides plenty of that, plus lots of free time afterwards to do stuff like open up Eclipse to learn LWJGL coding while I browse the web. I don't get much done.. :( ). Cas is right, though, it's worth whatever you're willing to get paid. Personally, I'd never take another full-time programming job ever again for any amount of money unless it was guaranteed short-term, and something I was vaguely interested in. Of course, I harbor a fantasy of finally releasing my own game and starting my own game company, but that's not "work", that's doing something you enjoy. :)
Actually, I've found I enjoy growing plants in a garden more than I like programming, sooo..
Oh, and programmers *are* common labor these days, didn't you hear? Computer Scientists aren't necessarily "programmers", you know. Any monkey it seems can churn out the bland, lifeless "corporate" backend code that one qualified "engineer" specs out. And that seems to be most programming jobs: writing uninteresting, simplistic grunt code.
well, actually we also thought of moving to the uk :D
we also like italy but i it seems the situation is similar to spain :cry:
when i started working here as computer science teacher four years ago everything went fine and i worked in several schools teaching java and c++.
for one year now business doesnt really work well here. they closed several schools and i am not working as a teacher anymore. i did some web pages, hosting, flash games trying to start some sort of freelance career.
i dont want to end up as an employee here because the salery is just horrible and i dont want to put on 30 pounds :wink: so i prefer working freelance and trying to make money with what i like although it might be little in the beginning.
and i always wanted to program a little game in java and improve my opengl skills :D , so i find the slot machine a good oportunity.
chris
Quote from: "princec"Plain old Linux will be perfect. You can really shrink it down super small if you know what you're doing.
I talked to a slot machine vendor for pubs a while back about doing some games for them. They had an interesting concept of downloading new games directly over broadband which was a nice idea. Unfortunately the user interface was... a touchscreen. Which rules out a whole load of great games :(
[...]
Oh man. A touchscreen! :D
I would really
love(*) doing games for such a machine. Seriously.
Sure - it rules out a whole load of games, but at the same time it allows other games, which even reach a bigger audience (tapping with you finger onto something is something which
everyone can do very well and very fast).
(* If there is Java, OpenGL and support libraries for the native stuff - handling coins, dip switches and the like)
Java would be a good choice for those machines. You can develop on any platform and the machine itself can run a totally trimmed down linux. Hmm... well have to finish this game first anyways ;)
I still haven't actually ruled out developing a game for the touchscreen pub market. It'd be kinda fun.
And here's a funny thing... Charlotte's been surfing the web for the last two weeks looking at houses in Italy to move to...
Cas :)
Oh well...if you actually need some help I can give you some, especially if you should come here in Southern Italy (I indeed live in a nice villa located 200 mt. from the seaside in Bari) :D
Anyway...would you like to come here for vacations or what?
We could meet and talk a bit and experiment some italian food (I'm a very good cook) :D :D :D
I dunno why, but when I read "touchscreen" game I thought of an old Commodore 64 "adult" game that had a guy doing a girl and you had to move the joystick back and forth to get the proper rhythm to "win". Tapping on a screen...
Quote from: "princec"I still haven't actually ruled out developing a game for the touchscreen pub market. It'd be kinda fun.
Hmm... well if something comes up it would be nice if can you drop me a line :)
Sure on the one hand getting additional "competition" might sound like silly idea, but y'know on the other hand it might be the only way to get that concept rolling.
The whole thing is incredible appealing from my pov, because the next two games (which I'd planned since ages) would work like a charm with a touchscreen, too :D
Hey, I'd still really like people to write games under the Borg^H^H^H^HPuppygames "collective".
Cas :)
Heh. Guess for that slot machine stuff (if it ever happens) it would be a quite good option. I think you would punch out better contracts (so it's clearly win/win) and I really can't be arsed to fiddle around with that dirty native stuff :D
Hm... eventually there are some nice tax stunts... ah well, first I need to get this game out anyways ;)