Ask Uncle Willy #11: June 7, 1996
Uncle Willy answers your questions about pinball machines. The questions should be of a general-interest nature, and will be answered via an article archived here.
Asking questions of a proprietary nature ("How many of game X were produced?" "What games do you have in the works for this fall?" "What game is designer Y working on?") will not get you very far, as Uncle Willy is constrained from answering them.
If you have questions about fixing, restoring, or purchasing an older game, Uncle Willy would refer you to: Ask Uncle Willy #10
Question: On the local Congo pinball, when the ball rolls down the
"HIPPO" lane, it usually drains between the flippers. Was
the game designed to do this? If not, how should this be
remedied?
Answer: No, the game was not designed to drain the ball between the
flippers when rolling down the HIPPO lane. The first thing
to check is to make sure that the game is level. The ball
trajectory can be further adjusted by slightly bending the
ball guide and/or relocating screw that secures the ball
guide to the playfield.
Question: On the Twilight Zone pinball, can you please explain the logic
on the Lost in the Zone Champion? When does it reset? Can
it be reset manually? My wife set the Grand Champion score
on our machine, but was disappointed that she didn't also
get to enter her initials for LITZ Champ, is this a bug?
Answer: The criteria for achieving Lost in the Zone Champion is to
surpass the number of points attained by the previous LITZ
Champ. Only the points during a single LITZ count toward
this total. (Multiple LITZs during a single game are not
additive.) This point total is displayed at the end of LITZ,
and the check for a new Champ is performed at that time.
Thus it is possible to get a very high score, and still not
be the new LITZ Champ, or to achieve LITZ Champ status with
a relative low score.
The LITZ Champ score resets to its default value (Initials
"TEX" with a score of 300,000,000) under the following
conditions:
- RAM initialization (either due to battery failure or to
updating the ROM revision)
- "FACTORY ADJS." or "FACTORY RESET" in the Utility Menu.
- Resetting the High Score by holding down the "enter"
button on the coin door.
Question: I have a Funhouse pinball, and I can't figure out the logic
on the Sausage Bonus. There is no adjustment for it, but
my game changed the number of Rudy hits necessary for the
Sausage Bonus after I did a "Factory Settings" on it. Can
you explain?
Answer: The logic for the Sausage Bonus is admittedly confusing, and
may have made sense at the time it was developed, but cannot
be argued to be anything but strange in retrospect. Here is
how it works:
- The number of Rudy hits to get a Sausage Bonus starts at
6. This number is reset any time that High Scores are
reset.
- A given player can get a Sausage Bonus only once per
game.
- The first time that a Sausage Bonus is awarded during a
game, the number of Rudy hits necessary for a Sausage
Bonus is incremented. The maximum that this can reach
is 12 Rudy Hits. (This has the interesting result that
in a multiplayer game, the SECOND person to get a Sausage
Bonus must hit Rudy one more time than the FIRST person,
but all remaining players only have to hit Rudy the same
number of times as the second player.)
Note that Roadshow has similar logic with the Cheeseburger
Bonus obtained from hitting Red. The logic has this added
component, just to make it even more convoluted:
- Every 50 games, the Red hit count for Cheeseburger Bonus
is decremented by 1, to a minimum of 6 hits.
As long as we are discussing minutiae here, another tidbit of
info on the Sausage and Cheeseburger bonuses is this: If
Rudy (or Red) is too busy talking when the bonus is to be
awarded, the game will try to wait until the talking ceases.
The game will give up, however, after a few seconds and the
award will not be given. The logic then repeats on the next
Rudy (or Red) hit during that game.
Question: I have noticed that some images of people appearing in several
recent Williams/Bally pinballs bear quite a resemblance to
WMS employees. Am I correct in this observation?
Answer: WMS employees show up in many Williams/Bally/Midway pinballs
and video games. Not only will you find cameo appearances
of them, but many voices in the games are those of WMS
employees. These appearances are to numerous to list.
Question: I note that while the original Firepower pinball had an
optional speech module, my Firepower II does not have a speech
module. Was one available for Firepower II? Could I retrofit
one to Firepower II?
Answer: Firepower II was never designed to have a speech module
installed. It uses the same sound board as the original
Firepower, however, and the same sound ROM. You could try
to install a sound board and speech module from an original
Firepower into your Firepower II. Even if some speech effects
result from this combination, they are not likely to make
very much sense, however. Uncle Willy doubts that Firepower
II was programmed with this configuration in mind.
If some enterprising soul were to try this experiment, Uncle
Willy would like to hear about the results.
Question: In Star Trek: the Next Generation pinball, could you explain
the logic behind getting into the Officers' Club and the
Q Continuum?
Answer: The original concept behind the various high score tables in
Star Trek: the Next Generation is as follows:
- Scoring 10 billion or more would qualify a player for the
Q Continuum.
- The "regular" high score tables would be for scores
obtained with one buy-in or less. These tables are Grand
Champion and Honor Roll.
- Otherwise, a player would end up in the Officers' Club.
(The concept being that people who can afford to go to an
Officers' Club can afford to buy-in multiple times.)
There was much discussion about where someone who qualfies
for more than one table should get to enter his/her initials,
and whether those initials should only go into a single table
under this circumstance. After these discussions and some
very bleary-eyed late night programming, here is what ended
up in the game:
IF (buy-ins <= 1) AND (score > grand champ score)
THEN { player is Grand Champion }
ELSE IF (score >= 10 billion)
THEN { IF (score > any Q Continuum)
THEN { player enters Q Continuum } }
ELSE IF (buy-ins > 1) AND (score > any officers' club)
THEN { player enters Officers' Club }
ELSE IF (buy-ins <= 1) AND (score > any honor roll)
THEN { player enters Honor Roll }
Note the consequences of the second test above. If a player
gets 10 billion or more points, but does not make it into
the Q Continuum, he/she does not get to enter initials, even
if he/she would have otherwise qualified to enter either
the Officers' Club or Honor Roll.
Also, consider another odd possibility of this pathology.
Since Grand Champion scores get bumped down into the Honor
Roll table when a new Grand Champion score is entered, it is
possible to have scores greater than 10 billion in the Honor
Roll, even though no one can directly enter initials for that
table with a score greater than 10 billion.
Question: I have been playing Creature from the Black Lagoon pinball
for months and I have never gotten the Hula Hoop or the New
Car from the Snack Bar. Are these awards ever given?
Answer: Sorry, but those items are never awarded. They are shown just
for comedic value and to fill up the screen a bit.
Question: On Theatre of Magic pinball, what is the purpose of the
"Poof" target?
Answer: Originally, the hitting the "Poof" target was labeled "Raise
Magic Post". Hitting it would raise the post between the
flippers for a short time.
"What Magic Post?" you may ask. The Magic Post was removed
from the game early during development. As a result, the
target lost its purpose in life, was renamed from "Raise Magic
Post" to "Poof" and now only scores a few points.
Question: I have heard that High Speed II: the Getaway pinball had
different Supercharger rules on different software versions.
Could you describe the different rules?
Answer: Here is the original rule for the Supercharger:
1) Shooting the Supercharger when lit, scores 3, 5, 7, 9, etc.
million points and unlights the Supercharger.
2) The Supercharger is lit at game start.
3) The Supercharger is relit by shooting the Supercharger ramp
once for the first relight, twice for the second relight,
three times for the third, etc.
The Supercharger rule was rewritten in later versions of the
game software. Here is the new rule:
1) Lighting one of the 1-2-3 standup targets (there are two
banks of these located on either side of the lower portion
of the playfield) adds 1 million points to the Supercharger
value, to a maximum of 10 million.
2) Completing either 1-2-3 target banks lights the
Supercharger if it is not already lit (this also lights the
kickback if it is not already lit).
3) Shooting the Supercharger when lit collects the current
Supercharger value and unlights the Supercharger.
Question: I really like the Williams Arcade Classics CD, but I would
like to experience the total arcade video game experience.
Could you give me some hints on how to hook up a real arcade
video game control panel to my PC joystick port to do this?
Answer: While Uncle Willy assumes that this is possible to do, given
a sufficiently talented and motivated individual, this is
outside of Uncle Willy's expertise. You probably could obtain
control panel by asking for help in
rec.games.video.arcade.collecting Also, you can get buttons
and joysticks through your local distributor or another
secondary source. Check the Pinball Archive or the r.g.v.a.c
FAQ for more information.
Question: I have a bunch of old video game monitors, and would like to
hook one up to my PC. Can you tell me how?
Answer: No.
All text and images © 1996 WMS Electronics Games, Inc.