Gaming sidekick

Abstract

Electronic games of chance are growing increasingly more complex, with each successive generation of games adding a wealth of new features and bonus schemes to enhance the player's gaming experience. Created in part to help players better enjoy this new, more complex brand of gaming, the present Gaming Sidekick may include an animated onscreen character who is able to help the player navigate his or her way through game play and to provide a number of exciting services that have never before been offered within a game of chance. The Gaming Sidekick may serve as a friend and ally to the player by providing tips on basic game strategy as well as gifts and encouragement. Gaming Sidekicks may be fully customizable, giving the player the capability to shape the image and behavior of his or her Gaming Sidekick or to use no Gaming Sidekick at all. Gaming Sidekicks may function across a whole suite of games, with a player's Gaming Sidekick preferences stored on his or her player loyalty card or other player identification device, mechanism or method.

Description

[0001] This application claims the benefit of priority under 35 U.S.C. §1.19(e), to provisional application Ser. No. 60 / 750,158, filed Dec. 13, 2005, which application is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Copyright Notice / Permission [0002] A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. The following notice applies to the software and data as described below and in the drawings referred to herein: Copyright 2005, Cyberscan Technology, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Field of the Invention [0003] This invention relates generally to the field of pay computer-controlled games, either games of skills or games of chance. Descriptio...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0005] Embodiments of the present invention include animated onscreen characters that provide a number of exciting services that have never before been offered within a game of chance. The Gaming Sidekick may serve as a friend and ally to the player by providing timely tips on basic game strategy, instructions on game play, as well as gifts and encouragement, during game play. Gaming Sidekicks according to embodiments of the present invention may be fully customizable, giving the player the capability to shape the image and behavior of his or her Gaming Sidekick or to use no Gaming Sidekick at all. Gaming Sidekicks may function across a whole suite of games, with a player's Sidekick preferences stored on his or her player loyalty card or other player identification device or mechanism.

[0006] According to one embodiment thereof, the present invention is a method for offering enhanced game play within an electronic game of chance, comprising the steps of monitoring game play on the electronic game of chance for an occurrence of one or more of a plurality of predefined events during game play; responsive to the occurrence of one of the plurality of predefined events during the game play, displaying an onscreen character; causing the displayed onscreen character to deliver, to a player of the electronic game of chance, situation-specific information or game play alternatives related to the predefined event that caused the onscreen character to be displayed, and enabling the player to take one of a predetermined plurality of actions that affect an outcome of the electronic game of chance responsive to the onscreen character providing the situation-specific information or game play alternatives.

[0010] Another embodiment of the present invention is a regulated gaming machine programmed to carry out steps of monitoring game play on the electronic game of chance for an occurrence of at least one of a plurality of predefined events during game play; responsive to the occurrence of one of the plurality of predefined events during the game play, displaying an onscreen character; causing the displayed onscreen character to deliver, to a player of the electronic game of chance, situation-specific information or game play alternatives related to the predefined event that caused the onscreen character to be displayed, and enabling the player to take one of a predetermined plurality of actions that affect an outcome of the electronic game of chance responsive to the onscreen character providing the situation-specific information or game play alternatives.

Problems solved by technology

Electronic games of chance are becoming increasingly more complex, with each successive generation of games adding a wealth of new features and bonus schemes to enhance the player's gaming experience.

One major drawback to this system is that navigating through the multiple help screens is time-consuming and thus lowers each machine's “coin in.” A further drawback is that players cannot get quality “on the fly” help by touching or pointing to key onscreen features.

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