So far I could find just two websites providing some information about the original (dutch) fruitmachine Jokers Wild built by Bell-Fruit Manufacturing Co. Ltd. The machine was built on their System'85 CPU-platform and was released in December 1986. The first time I saw this machine was in the summer of 1987 (hey, that rings another bell). Spend many hours playing this machine during that summer and have somehow always kept fond memories of it.
The first thing I discovered was this forum on web emulators that has a rom emulation of the BFM machine. Even more useful is the (dutch) website Gokkasten Archief that aims to provide a reference to (old) slotmachines. Bits of information, some artwork and some low quality photos found on these two websites were used to start on the artwork for my tribute machine.
I’m a techie rather than an artist, so I do not own professional drawing tools like Adobe Illustrator and the like, nor do I have the skills to work with them. During a good day of drawing in an (now defunct) app called Intaglio I created the vector artwork to be used on the reels:
The feature game of Jokers Wild is based on a deck of playing cards, and apart from the obvious Joker figure, the Jack, Queen and King are repeatedly shown on the original artwork. Using the scarce and low quality images found on the web as a reference; I have drawn an impression of this three characters too. Overall I’m pretty happy with the outcome, specially since I do not aim to create a perfect replica. The resulting images do provide me with “the feel” of the actual machine as I remember it, and will come of good use on the reels and displays.