# Episode 419 - Multi Animations and 1938 Chicago Coin Swing **Source:** For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2018-04-11 **Duration:** 13m 43s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://foramusementonly.libsyn.com/episode-419-multi-animations-and-1938-chicago-coin-swing --- ## Analysis Nicholas Baldrige discusses his ongoing work on animation routines for bingo pinball machines, focusing on multi-game animation implementation and troubleshooting flash pattern consistency across Bally games. He details technical challenges with animation queuing, odds handling, and game-specific bugs, while sharing plans to attend New York pinball events. The episode concludes with a detailed breakdown of the 1938 Chicago Coin Swing flipperless machine's gameplay mechanics and artwork. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Animation routines bring life to flat gameplay even when rules are correct — _Nicholas Baldrige, speaking from personal experience adding animations to bingo games_ - [HIGH] Flash patterns are fairly similar between consecutive games unless there's a major mechanical change — _Nicholas Baldrige, based on porting and animation work across multiple Bally games_ - [HIGH] Odds animation is superseding Replay Brewing stepdown in the current implementation — _Nicholas Baldrige describing a programming bug he encountered_ - [MEDIUM] Ballerina has a non-reproducible crash bug related to the one-to-seven feature — _Nicholas Baldrige reporting intermittent crash on specific game that occurs unpredictably_ - [HIGH] Chicago Coin Swing features mechanical diverters that alternate between 600 and 1000 points — _Nicholas Baldrige analyzing playfield design from recent Pinside post_ ### Notable Quotes > "The thing that makes the whole exercise pretty interesting is that the game has no life before I start on this process. It's very flat. Even though the gameplay is correct, the rules are all there and the game will play and it will score, but there's no life, no solenoid." > — **Nicholas Baldrige**, early > _Explains the importance of animation implementation to authentic game feel_ > "Once I have accurate coin flashing for every game, then the majority of my work with the existing games in the multi will be complete." > — **Nicholas Baldrige**, mid > _Defines a clear milestone for multi-game animation project completion_ > "These past couple weeks it's been bingos, bingos, nothing but bingos." > — **Nicholas Baldrige**, mid > _Demonstrates intense focus on animation work at expense of other EM projects_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Nicholas Baldrige | person | EM/bingo pinball enthusiast and animator; host of 4 For Amusement Only podcast; active in pinball restoration and technical work | | Magic Girl | game | Bally bingo pinball game; one of the games Baldrige is adding animations to; currently in the M section of his animation project | | Ballerina | game | EM pinball game with recurring crash bug related to one-to-seven feature; non-reproducible crash occurs intermittently | | Chicago Coin Swing | game | 1938 flipperless pinball machine; features mechanical diverters, bumpers, and captive ball kicker; artistic theme with women in sports and forest glade imagery | | RoboFrenzy | game | EM project that Baldrige is working on; currently deferred while focusing on multi-game animations | | Bally | company | Pinball manufacturer; Baldrige working through animation routines for Bally bingo games in alphabetical order (currently in M's) | | United | company | Pinball manufacturer; Baldrige plans to circle back and work on United game animations after completing Bally games | | Chicago Coin | company | Manufacturer of 1938 Swing flipperless machine | | Pinside | organization | Online pinball community forum; recent post about someone acquiring Chicago Coin Swing prompted episode discussion | | 4 For Amusement Only | organization | Podcast hosted by Nicholas Baldrige focused on EM and bingo pinball machines | | Pinfest | event | Pinball event; Baldrige uncertain about attendance a couple weeks away from air date | | New York | event | Pinball event in October that Baldrige confirms attendance | | Amara.org | organization | Community timing and subtitles service used for podcast production | ### Topics - **Primary:** Animation implementation for bingo pinball machines, Technical debugging and flash pattern consistency, Flipperless pinball machine design and mechanics, Multi-game pinball animation framework - **Secondary:** EM pinball restoration and preservation, Pinball event attendance planning, Vintage pinball artwork and themes ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.78) — Baldrige expresses enthusiasm for animation work and progress, though acknowledges technical challenges. Tone is constructive and problem-solving oriented. Positive note about health improvement (sciatica). Some frustration with reproducible bugs, but framed as solvable engineering problems. ### Signals - **[design_innovation]** Baldrige developing comprehensive animation system for multi-game bingo pinball platform with focus on flash pattern consistency and solenoid-driven animation queuing (confidence: high) — Detailed discussion of animation routines, flash patterns, and framework implementation across multiple games - **[product_concern]** Animation implementation creating unintended side effects: odds animation superseding Replay Brewing stepdown, triple deck scoring issues with new animation handling (confidence: high) — Baldrige identifies specific bugs: 'the odds animation actually supersedes things like Replay Brewing stepdown', and 'broken these odds for games where there's triple deck scoring' - **[product_concern]** Ballerina game experiencing non-reproducible crash related to one-to-seven feature; occurs intermittently after 12-14 games (confidence: medium) — Baldrige reports: 'I can play a dozen games and it'll be fine, and then that thirteenth game or fourteenth game, it'll decide to crash' - **[design_philosophy]** Baldrige's approach treats animation as essential to game feel and authenticity; correct rules and scoring insufficient without solenoid-driven animation to bring games to life (confidence: high) — Direct statement: 'the game has no life before I start on this process... there's no life, no solenoid... when the animations come on, it's awesome' - **[manufacturing_signal]** Evidence of potential mid-production changes in Chicago Coin Swing: playfield shows both Mystery and 1600 point markings depending on unit, suggesting possible rule modification during production run (confidence: medium) — Baldrige notes discrepancy: 'The first position that I saw on Pinside recently said Mystery. However, the playfield that is shown on Internet Pinball Database shows 1600 quite clearly. So I don't know if that was a mid-production change' - **[restoration_signal]** Chicago Coin Swing playfield scoring rules not fully documented; Baldrige must reverse-engineer captive ball kicker scoring from physical game inspection (confidence: medium) — Baldrige states: 'I have no idea. There are certainly many different ways to accomplish a mystery score. I'm not certain which they used here' - **[event_signal]** Baldrige confirming attendance at New York pinball event in October; uncertain about Pinfest attendance due to proximity (couple weeks from air date) (confidence: high) — Direct statement: 'I will be attending New York this year in October, but I'm just not sure about Pinfest yet' - **[content_signal]** 4 For Amusement Only using Amara.org community for timing and subtitles; working well according to host (confidence: high) — Baldrige reports: 'Timing and Subtitles by the Amara.org community and that has worked pretty well' - **[community_signal]** Active Pinside community member recently acquired Chicago Coin Swing flipperless machine; planning to film gameplay documentation (confidence: medium) — Baldrige notes: 'One of these came up on Pinside recently. Somebody picked it up. Beautiful game... The gentleman on Pinside who picked that up will be filming that when it is rolling' --- ## Transcript What's that sound? It's 4 Amusement Only, the EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. Welcome back to 4 Amusement Only. This is Nicholas Baldridge. A lot going on as usual. My sciatica has actually stopped being as big of a problem, which is awesome. So while I've So while I've been feeling better, I've been really trying to run through as many of the animation routines as possible for the bingos. I'm into the M's for Bally and then I have to circle back and do United, but I'm working on Magic Ring at the moment and there are quite a few games in the M's and I only have about 30 some left. Timing and Subtitles by the Amara.org community And that has worked pretty well, I have to say. So with all the newfound knowledge that I have of doing the flashing routines here, I've found a few things. One is that several of the games in a row will have a very similar flash pattern. It won't be exactly the same, but it'll be similar. This kind of tracks with what I found on the portioning side. The flash pattern is fairly similar between a few games in a row unless there's a major mechanical change like a new feature like say Magic Squares or MagicScreen. So the flash pattern is kind of like that but it can be quite different depending. So as I described it on a Facebook post somewhere, some of the games are sweeping effects especially 물체이나 concluded 저� concur서oty N The thing that makes the whole exercise pretty interesting is that the game has no life before I start on this process. It very flat Even though the gameplay is correct the rules are all there and the game will play and it will score But there no life no soul right So, when the animations come on, it's awesome because the whole game takes on its new life and it really feels like you're playing the real thing or a lot closer to it. So I'm enjoying this process. I am only testing these though on my development machine uh... i'm going to need to test them all within the real machine to make sure that uh... there are no adverse effects once they're in there one thing i have noticed is because these animations uh... i have had to change little bit of the rules uh... the way that i was handling animation previously for the initial coin uh... was i was kind of brute forcing it Uh, meaning it detected if there were no odds and it would do a certain set of things in that instance, one of them being to flash a couple of lights, um, while it was stepping up the odds that first step. Well, unfortunately, when I did away with that, uh, it's now somewhat broken these odds for games where there's triple deck scoring. So I'm going to go back through each game and figure out some alternative fix for that. It should be pretty quick to do that. The other problem that I have is the odds animation actually supersedes things like replay stepdown. The way it's written, that shouldn't be the case, I don't think, but that's what's happening. So, the way that I have it programmed, everything goes into a queue and the queue should process in order that things are put into the queue based on timings. That's just kind of how the framework does its thing. Well, unfortunately, it's doing great. It's doing all of the things that need to happen with the animation, Supporting news for the And finally, the timing involved. So we'll, we'll see if that works. I'll figure out some kind of solution for that. Aside from that I have bugs which are filed for certain different games like at York I noticed again that ballerina was crashing. That's I've noticed that problem before but But, uh, it's not something that's easy to replicate. You know, I can play a dozen games and it'll be fine, and then that thirteenth game or fourteenth game, it'll decide to crash. So um it just figuring out exactly what the problem is is tricky And it has something to do with the feature on that particular game the one to seven seven to one But again just working my way through it So I going to come up with a library most likely that will handle the initial odd step initial coining for games with pick a play and triple deck scoring I heard you can sabes three years ago in the Son I'm going to see if I can do it at least for a day. If I do go, I will bring the multi and give everyone a shot on it. But I may not be able to make it. If that's the case, I'll just use the extra time to put some more polish on it. I will be attending New York this year in October, but I'm just not sure about Pinfest yet. And it only being a couple weeks away, I really should nail that down, but I haven't been able to yet. So these past couple weeks it's been bingos, bingos, nothing but bingos. I really haven't had a chance to look at any other EM projects or RoboFrenzy, so it's time for me to get back on those as well, but all things in time. Right now, because I'm making such excellent progress on the Multi, I want to keep that up. Once I have accurate coin flashing for every game, then the majority of my work with the existing games in the Multi will be complete. And at that point I can move on to the one ball multi as well as making new games for the multi which is something that I want to do. So I'll be starting on all that kind of simultaneously just like everything else. So short episode today let's get into the year of flipperless. Today's game is 1938's Chicago Coin Swing. One of these came up on Pinside recently. Somebody pickedup. Beautiful game. So, let's talk about the gameplay. It's a flipperless game, of course. Each of the passive bumpers scores 100 points and there are a few different rollover switches which score a different set of points. There's a mechanical diverter at the top which scores either 600 points or 1000. With each Atomic ball through the diverter it will switch to the other lane AtomicSINGINGalternating ball thru the diverter it will switch to the other lane Down in the center there is a rollover that marked 1600 Gula holders at Sp contributors Mixed from the The first position that I saw on Pinside recently said Mystery. However, the playfield that is shown on IPDB shows 1600 quite clearly. So I don't know if that was a mid-production change or if it was a modification to the original game to score a mystery award versus a flat 1600. If I had to wager a guess, I would say that a thousand points was scored by hitting that rollover and then there are three switches in that captive ball kicker area and each one scored 200 points. That said, I have no idea. There are certainly many different ways to accomplish a mystery score The I'm not certain which they used here, but That's a cool feature that captive ball because the kicker provides some extra animation while you're playing Pretty neat feature especially given the time Further down there's another mechanical diverter again 600 or a thousand points and There are rollovers That's good stuff. If for some reason, your spin makes a lot of noise, this gameplay Classicsоб故, The gentleman on pin side who picked that up will be filming that when it is rolling. So let's talk about the artwork. The artwork is women in various poses. The back glass has several women dancing in the forest glade with the word swing above them. In the trees there are the hundred point values and down below are the The following are the main points of the game. On the playfield, there are women competing in a variety of sports. There's tennis player, baseball, a golfer, a cyclist, and the women from the meadow are shown again on the bottom of the playfield. Beautiful game. Again, would love to see one in action. Well, that's all for tonight. Thank you very much for joining me. My name again is Nick Baldrige. You can reach me at 4amusementonlypodcast.com. Thank you very much for listening and I'll talk to you next time. _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: caf9c5a3-89e6-4bcb-b319-5c3268f9a161*