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Episode 402 - Multi-Bingo Backglass and 1933 Genco 42nd Street

For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·36m 22s·analyzed·Aug 10, 2017
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Multi-Bingo backglass reveal and detailed mechanical game analysis.

Summary

Nick Baldridge discusses major updates to Multi-Bingo, including the reveal of a hand-illustrated backglass by Ryan Claytor of Elephant Eater Comics featuring Circus Queen-style curtains framing a 32-inch monitor. He details his experience installing translite films from Koos (a Netherlands-based backglass reproduction specialist), troubleshooting excess soap in the installation mixture and wrinkles, and upgrading Multi-Bingo's foot rail with new old stock Golden Gate hardware. The episode concludes with an in-depth analysis of 1933 Genco's 42nd Street, a pure mechanical flipperless game featuring diverter mechanisms and mechanical scoring pockets.

Key Claims

  • Ryan Claytor of Elephant Eater Comics hand-illustrated the Multi-Bingo backglass

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge announcing the backglass reveal on the podcast

  • Multi-Bingo backglass dimensions match Acapulco or Touchtown (the largest bingo pinball backboxes) because of the large moving numbers mechanism inside

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge explaining design rationale for backglass dimensions

  • Multi-Bingo uses a 32-inch TV monitor inside the backbox

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge describing the backglass design requirements

  • Koos (Netherlands-based) now produces backglass reproductions after Chris Dade stopped selling his prints

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge discussing translite sourcing and Koos's market position

  • The soap-to-water ratio for installing Koos's translite films should be nearly none (one drop), just enough to break surface tension

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge reporting Koos's advice after installation issues

  • Nick Baldridge is planning to release the next public version of Multi-Bingo code after the York show in September

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge discussing code development timeline

  • 1933 Genco 42nd Street has no kickers, no electrified bumpers, and no automated scoring—purely mechanical with scoring pockets

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge detailed technical analysis of 42nd Street gameplay

  • 42nd Street uses a stool pigeon tilt mechanism where a ball falls from a cup if nudged too hard

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge explaining the tilt mechanism of the 1933 game

Notable Quotes

  • “The Backglass was hand-illustrated by Ryan Claytor of Elephant Eater Comics. Ryan is a comics artist, and he does fantastic work.”

    Nick Baldridge @ ~00:30 — Introduces the artist behind Multi-Bingo's backglass artwork

  • “The dimensions of the multi-bingo back glass are those of Acapulco or Touchtown. Those are the largest back boxes of any of the bingo pinball machines because the mechanism inside, the moving numbers mechanism, was so very large.”

    Nick Baldridge @ ~01:00 — Explains design constraint and historical context for backglass size

  • “Curtains are a perfect framing device, if you will, in order to present kind of a window into the back box.”

    Nick Baldridge @ ~02:30 — Design philosophy behind curtain framing to balance monitor and original backglass artwork

  • “Well, I get it positioned, and I've got a squeegee. Squeegee out all the water and soap. I'm flying high. Looking good... less than 24 hours later, I go to sleep. And I wake up. And I check it out. And there's like a million tiny bubbles in this thing.”

    Nick Baldridge @ ~08:00 — Humorous recounting of translite installation failure due to excess soap

  • “Kuz said, ooh, that's not good... he said it really takes almost none. You're just trying to break the surface tension of the water.”

    Nick Baldridge (reporting Koos's advice) @ ~09:00 — Technical troubleshooting advice from Koos regarding soap ratio

  • “Kuzu's product is phenomenal. I mean, it's really, really high quality. The color reproduction was not as good as what Koos has done. It's really quite an amazing product.”

    Nick Baldridge @ ~11:00 — Endorsement and comparison of Koos's translite quality vs. competitors

  • “It looks amazing. I'm really pleased. Ryan used the same colors that were used that he had suggested for the cabinet stencil And I have this beautiful mixture of different artwork from different games and this brand new original artwork.”

    Nick Baldridge — Summary of artistic integration in Multi-Bingo backglass

Entities

Nick BaldridgepersonRyan ClaytorpersonKoospersonChris DadepersonSteve SmithpersonTaylorpersonMulti-BingogameNightclubgameGolden Gate

Signals

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Nick deliberately chose curtain-framed design for Multi-Bingo's backglass to balance the 32-inch monitor display with the translite artwork, preventing the backglass from overpowering the bingo game displays shown on screen. Inspired by Circus Queen's curtain design.

    high · Curtains are a perfect framing device... to present kind of a window into the back box. So curtains are a perfect framing device... that didn't overpower the artwork of the actual bingo back glasses that were being displayed on the monitor

  • ?

    product_concern: Nick encountered bubbling and wrinkling issues when installing Koos's translite films due to excess soap in the water mixture. Required corrective action using hair dryer and X-Acto knife to remove wrinkles and trapped water bubbles.

    high · There's like a million tiny bubbles in this thing and one huge wrinkle... Kuz said... there was too much soap in the mixture... he said it really takes almost none. You're just trying to break the surface tension of the water.

  • ?

    technology_signal: Koos's translite film product represents a quality improvement over previous solutions (Chris Dade's multi-layer prints, generic single-layer translates). Single-layer film decals on glass offer superior color reproduction and ease of installation vs. multi-layer sandwich solutions.

    high · The color reproduction was not as good as what Koos has done. It's really quite an amazing product... The translates that I've've had made were a single layer, but they were not decals or films... The color reproduction was not as good as what Koos has done.

  • ?

    community_signal: Ryan Claytor's hand-illustrated backglass for Multi-Bingo demonstrates continued collaboration between pinball enthusiasts and professional artists in the custom/homebrew space. Claytor balances style emulation (Circus Queen) with original artistic touches.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.109

0:00
What's that sound? It's For Amusement Only, the EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. Welcome back to For Amusement Only. This is Nick Baldrige. Big news. Big news with the multi-bingo. Yesterday, I revealed the Backglass artwork. The Backglass was hand-illustrated by Ryan Claytor of Elephant Eater Comics. Ryan is a comics artist, and he does fantastic work. He's done illustration work for me before for the podcast logo, as well as for the Bingo Row shirts last year. And so I reached out to him again and asked if he would illustrate the Backglass. The Backglass contains elements of some of my favorite games. but scaled differently. So the dimensions of the multi-bingo back glass are those of Acapulco or Touchtown.
1:13
Those are the largest back boxes of any of the bingo pinball machines because the mechanism inside, the moving numbers mechanism, was so very large. chain driven affair multiple chains flying around just needed a lot of room and verticality so there's a lot of room to play with but unfortunately it was something that I couldn't adapt an existing one I needed an illustrator to come in and illustrate a new one so what I told Ryan is that I wanted curtains, and I wanted a frame for the monitor in the back box. The monitor is only 32 inches, so it's a 32-inch TV, basically, inside the back box. And there's quite a bit of wasted space to the left, the right, the bottom, and the top. I have this thing basically kind of close to centered within the back box. So having a back glass is something that I've wanted, but I really wasn't sure where to go with that. So then the idea came to me of having curtains, and I looked around at various bingo back glasses, and one that really struck me was Circus Queen. And Circus Queen has fantastic curtains on the back glass, and in fact on the playfield as well, and I know I've remarked on them on the Circus Queen episode many ages ago now. That's a great game, and I really like the style of curtains, and I figured that it would frame the monitor very well. So one of the goals was to have curtains, because I love curtains on back glasses, but another goal was to make it so that the back glass image, the artwork, didn't overpower the artwork of the actual bingo back glasses that were being displayed on the monitor inside the back box.
@ ~13:00

  • “I was looking at a way to cover up the lock bar having just the plain button guides wasn't doing it for me... the original games that got me into this whole thing were Golden Gate and Bikini that my friend Steve Smith owns, and the Golden Gate and Bikini both have these beautiful footrail plates.”

    Nick Baldridge @ ~17:00 — Personal motivation for hardware upgrades and historical inspiration

  • “42nd Street is a pure mechanical game being made in 1933. It has no kickers, no electrified bumpers, no automated scoring. Instead, there are scoring pockets on the playfield, and they are littered all across the playfield, left and right side.”

    Nick Baldridge @ ~22:00 — Technical description of pure mechanical game design from 1933

  • “So there's a big disparity there in points and certainly in the skill that it takes to get you there. Because each time you go down through the center lane, the position of those diverters is going to change.”

    Nick Baldridge @ ~27:00 — Explains skill-based gameplay through diverter positioning dynamics

    • game
    Bikinigame
    Circus Queengame
    Genco 42nd Streetgame
    Acapulcogame
    Touchtowngame
    Bright Lightsgame
    York Fairgroundsevent
    For Amusement Onlyorganization
    Bingo Rowevent
    Elephant Eater Comicsorganization
    This Flippin' Podcastorganization
    Pinsideorganization
    Lit Framesorganization

    high · He put his own touches on it as well. It's quite apparent when you look at it. It's beautiful... Ryan used the same colors that were used that he had suggested for the cabinet stencil And I have this beautiful mixture of different artwork from different games and this brand new original artwork.

  • ?

    code_update: Multi-Bingo received period-specific motor sounds for each game, improved timeout logic with bug fixes, public issue tracker logging, code structure refactoring for efficiency, and graphical tweaks (tested on Bright Lights). Next major release planned after York show.

    high · I did was to program in period specific sounds so appropriate motor noises for each game... I also went in and added timeout logic, appropriate timeout logic. I had a few bugs that were lurking... I've started logging all the issues publicly in the public issue tracker.

  • ?

    product_strategy: Nick intentionally delaying next Multi-Bingo public code release until after York show (September 29-30), suggesting strategic timing around the major bingo pinball community event where the machine will be exhibited.

    high · I probably won't do another public release until after York, but the next release should be pretty good. It's shaping up pretty well.

  • ?

    event_signal: York Fairgrounds show (September 29-30) serves as major annual gathering for bingo pinball community. Nick reports improved-than-expected reception last year; planning to bring Multi-Bingo again with replay giveaways and exclusive game experiences unavailable elsewhere.

    high · I'll be bringing it to the York show, which is this year, September 29th and 30th at the York Fairgrounds in York, Pennsylvania. And last year, the reception was much better than anticipated... there's some games that are available in the multi bingo that you will absolutely never see anywhere else.

  • ?

    historical_signal: 1933 Genco 42nd Street exemplifies early flipperless mechanical game design with diverter mechanisms, scoring pockets, and stool pigeon tilt. Demonstrates pre-electromechanical era reliance on pure mechanical physics and nudge-based skill.

    high · 42nd Street is a pure mechanical game being made in 1933. It has no kickers, no electrified bumpers, no automated scoring... this game uses a stool pigeon tilt this is the tilt mechanism where there's a little ball that sits in a cup.

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Nick sourced new old stock Golden Gate foot rail plate for Multi-Bingo upgrade. Also seeking additional NOS parts (Golden Gate/Bikini/Bounty/Lido underplate). Demonstrates active sourcing of period-correct hardware for restoration/upgrade projects.

    high · I was able to get a new old stock Golden Gate plate... I was also able to get an underplate. However, the person that I got the underplate from would like me to try to find another one.

  • ?

    design_innovation: 42nd Street's three-stage diverter system (rows 1-3) creates cascading decision points and variable skill outcomes. Higher-scoring pockets (3,000 points) positioned in center third row, requiring precise nudge control. Diverter position changes with each pass, adding replayability.

    high · The diverters, depending on their position, will either divert you into one of the scoring pockets... or allow you to fall through to the second set of diverters... each time you go down through the center lane, the position of those diverters is going to change.

  • ?

    collector_signal: Nick's multi-phase restoration of Nightclub (1956) addresses broken backglass via translite film replacement, reducing mechanical noise from broken glass. Project demonstrates long-term commitment to preservation despite transport challenges and parts scarcity.

    high · Nightclub, my beloved Nightclub... has a broken back glass... It should quieten the game down quite a bit. Right now, because of the break in the glass, you can hear all the mechanisms, the motors very clearly.

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Nick reports no negative feedback on Multi-Bingo backglass reveal to date, with strong community engagement on social media (Facebook, Pinside, Instagram, Twitter). Confidence level rising ahead of York show.

    medium · Pictures are available on Facebook or on the Pinside thread or on my Instagram or Twitter. They're everywhere... I haven't heard a negative one yet. So, I'm very, very excited for that reason.

    • 3:25
    So curtains are a perfect framing device, if you will, in order to present kind of a window into the back box. So that was one part. Another part was having the title in there. originally what I was going for was to silkscreen this onto glass a wholly impractical but would have been very cool thing doing silkscreening is not something I'm familiar with at all other than random t-shirt type silkscreening and making small canvas patches You know, those kind of things many, many years ago.
    4:15
    But somebody else had already cut the screens and made them, and, you know, it's just running ink on it, basically, which is no big deal. Anybody can do that. I had a couple friends that had offered to help very generously, to help me with the registration and to get the back glass screened once I had the screens, but I had to get the screens cut.
    4:37
    So that was intimidating, but I was interested in learning it because I knew the appearance would be fantastic.
    4:45
    So I started looking around. I spoke with my friend Taylor from This Flippin' Podcast, and he recommended somebody, and I promptly forgot who he recommended. The job, you know, didn't seem that bad, except there were a total of, I think, seven or eight screens with the number of colors and mirroring that I wanted to add around the letters in the title, multi-bingo.
    5:17
    Then I said, well, let's forget about this. Let's think of another way to do it. So I was thinking of going the Translate route, and I started seeing some images pop up of Kuz's work from the Netherlands. And Kuz has been making bingo backglass reproductions for a while now, since Chris Dade had stopped selling his prints, basically, around that time. so I took a look at his site and really liked what I had seen there. I'd seen that before, but I started seeing some people that had his glasses installed, both full glass and film that had been posting on Pinside. So I liked what I saw there, and I had a friend that picked one up, and I liked what I saw there. and so I decided to give that a shot. So I reached out to Koos and asked him some questions and wanted to see if he would be interested in doing that. And he said sure. So I ended up getting films for Nightclub. My beloved Nightclub, as you may know, has a broken back glass and that's really kind of a sad story. I had located one back glass. The original back glass that came with the game, and that game was partially parted out when I got it. The original back glass that came with it had everything razored off. All the odds, all the features, even the title was razored off and replaced with these yellow post-it notes. It's the oddest thing I've ever seen. But the original back glass, You know, one that I found that was original was far away. And so the person I was talking to was happy to sell it to me, but he didn't want to ship it because glasses break in shipment. And, of course, this is from 1956.
    7:30
    So, you know, it's getting up there. And I didn't blame him, but that didn't stop me from pestering him. so I pestered him and pestered him and finally he relented and shipped it to me and I was thrilled so I opened up the crate and it came in a back glass crate it was cool opened it up and the corner was broken and it was broken pretty well too I mean it was pretty far up you know four or five inches up and then about four inches over so a fairly substantial area was broken off. Now it had broken, uh, very cleanly, you know, very well. Um, so I was on a deadline to bring it to York for the first bingo row. I had, uh, decided I was going to get that game ready and bring it. So I ended up trying all manner of gluing and fusing and, you know, just all kinds of weird techniques to try to, uh, get the glass to adhere together enough that I could take it to York and not worry about, you know, somebody getting sliced up with the back glass. So, uh, luckily it survived York, um, but it did not enjoy being transported that way. Um, so I vowed not to move it again until I found another a replacement So this was my shot So I ordered the films from Coos He shipped them out really quickly He a great guy to deal with And they got here He got an instructional video on how to install the films I got some glass cut. I just got plate glass cut. It's a quarter inch thick. It's very thick. Very strong. I'm not really concerned. The originals are plate too. If somebody puts their arm through it, then, you know, they're going to get hurt. But hey, don't do that. So, I went to go apply it, and I'm looking at it, and what Coos recommends is taking a spray bottle and filling it with water, and then putting a drop or two of soap in it. So, what I did is I got my spray bottle, and I filled it with water, and I put about four drops of soap in it. And, you know, I didn't think much of it because, you know, what's the big difference?
    10:03
    Well, as it turns out, there's a lot of big difference. So the films are installed using the wet method, if you couldn't tell.
    10:13
    And for those of you who've done cabinet decals, there's a wet method and a dry method. The dry method means that you have to get it absolutely correct immediately. There's no repositioning available. because you're installing this on glass instead of wood the wet method is really the only way to go I think I don't think it would even be possible to do it dry because you would only get one shot at it and of course glass being glass it's a little slippery when you go to install it and that would be a bit of a problem. So, you wet down the glass with this 99% water and 1% soap mixture, and you wet down the front of the decal as you peel it off of the, you know, wax paper type substance that it's adhered to, and that lets you reposition the decal. Well, I get it positioned, and I've got a squeegee.
    11:18
    Squeegee out all the water and soap. I'm flying high. Looking good. I'm really excited. You're supposed to wait 24 hours and then you trim off the excess on the film and Kuz does a great job of getting those prepped. There's really not a lot of excess to trim, which is great because otherwise the excess would stick or, you know, just get in the way.
    11:49
    So, less than 24 hours later, I go to sleep. And I wake up. And I check it out. And there's like a million tiny bubbles in this thing. and one huge wrinkle in the multi-pack glass, and I'm freaking out. I'm like, what? So I email Kuz, and I say, hey, is this normal? Because all this bubbling has me a little concerned, and there's this huge wrinkle, and I'm not really sure what to do.
    12:30
    So Kuz said, ooh, that's not good. And what he suggested is probably there was too much soap in the mixture, and he said it really takes almost none. You're just trying to break the surface tension of the water.
    12:46
    So I felt pretty good about that. And as far as the wrinkle goes, he didn't really have any suggestions for that. He said maybe you can look at how folks with cars do their decal wraps and see what happens when they have a wrinkle and see if you can apply some of those techniques. Well, knowing a little bit, you know, enough to be dangerous, I guess, about decaling a cabinet, I've seen some of the pitfalls of using the wet method and wrinkling and so forth. And so I got out a hair dryer and got my X-Acto knife that I was going to use to trim the edges. It had a fresh blade installed, and I just poked a few areas that were the most egregious and squeegeed out the soap that was trapped inside. And that's exactly what it was. It had bubbled up inside and made this tiny pocket really quite irritating. But I was able to get the wrinkle out completely, and most of the bubbles, the really bad ones. Now, one thing, my game room arcade is really dark, so I haven't really seen this in the daylight. And I'm hoping it looks okay, because it's going to York in about a month. and I really should probably pull it out and take a look at it in the daylight. But in the absolute darkness that's my game room, it looks great. It looks fantastic.
    14:38
    Kuzu's product is phenomenal. I mean, it's really, really high quality. I've done some translights before. I think I've talked about them on the show as well in an earlier episode regarding how they were done. I've also used one of Chris Tade's Translites, that's the two piece solution that has a pretty high level of difficulty you've got to trim the masking area and the front area at the same time or things get kind of out of whack and then installing it is another trick because you have to adhere the layers together and then adhere the layers to whatever glass or thing that you're using without them getting out of shape and without light shining through any of the tape or whatever you're using to adhere them. So that was pretty tricky. The translates that I've had made were a single layer, but they were not decals or films, So you had to sandwich them between glass again, and they were just much lower quality. The color reproduction was not as good as what Koos has done.
    15:59
    It's really quite an amazing product. So, get that all installed. It looks gorgeous. I mean, it looks so great. I am so pleased. Ryan did a phenomenal job. He always does.
    16:13
    He's a fantastic artist. You should check out his work if you haven't. It's at elephanteater.com. He draws these autobiographical comics, which are really cool and quite detailed. I really enjoy those, and he's done a lot of pinball work as well. And he's got all the stuff up on his site that he's done in the past.
    16:39
    It is worth a look. I think his style is fantastic, and it complements the game very well. And even though I asked him, you know, to emulate the style of this Circus Queen glass, he put his own touches on it as well. It's quite apparent when you look at it.
    16:58
    It's beautiful. Have I said that before? It's beautiful. But I turned on the game. It looks even better. I'm really excited. But then I noticed that there's kind of a polarization happening behind the back glass.
    17:16
    when the game is on and the light from the monitor is reacting poorly with the clear part of the film. So the area where the screen is is actually clear, and that made the decal very easy to apply. Unfortunately, because of the weird reaction with the screen, I ended up having to take the glass out and exacto out the clear part of the film and then clean off the adhesive from the center of the glass and reinstall it. It's not as bad as it sounds. I did it freehand. It looks great. I did flub one little piece.
    17:56
    No one will ever know, except now that I've told everyone. But it looks amazing. I'm really pleased. Ryan used the same colors that were used that he had suggested for the cabinet stencil And I have this beautiful mixture of different artwork from different games and this brand new original artwork.
    18:25
    It just looks great. So thank you, Ryan. Your work is phenomenal. and I could not be more pleased and thank you Kooz, your work is also phenomenal I could not be more pleased there either so again, word of caution if anyone else gets one of Kooz's glasses just make sure that you use one drop of soap that's really all that you need unless your container is very large so live and learn, I learned my lesson unfortunately I learned it too late but I have not yet installed the nightclub glass I have to actually pull the game out in order to get the original glass out because it's an older game the game that it's sitting next to is a little taller and I've got to jack it up a little bit to get the old glass to clear the game that's beside it and same with the new glass actually I've got to have it jacked up in order to install the new glass but I'm excited to get that in there. It should quieten the game down quite a bit. Right now, because of the break in the glass, you can hear all the mechanisms, the motors very clearly, you know, all the steppers, all the relays and everything. It sounds like you're inside the machine when you're playing it. So I'll be excited, especially because my game room really kind of amplifies sounds like that because it's got a very high ceiling. it'll be nice to have that quietened down.
    20:06
    So, that's the big bingo news. And pictures are available on Facebook or on the Pinside thread or on my Instagram or Twitter. They're everywhere.
    20:22
    But I encourage you to check them out because I think it looks great. And I would love to hear your opinions as well. I haven't heard a negative one yet. So, I'm very, very excited for that reason and for another. Another thing that I did was to install a new old stock foot rail plate on Golden Gate. Not on Golden Gate, on the MultiBingo, but it's a Golden Gate plate. The Golden Gate plate is similar to most of the other Magic Screen plates, except that it has instructions which are specific to the Golden Game. namely that you hold the R button down to start the red letter game or to start the golden game and I was looking at a way to cover up the lock bar having just the plain button guides wasn't doing it for me you know I've never really liked that look and I think that partially has to do with the fact that the original games that got me into this whole thing were Golden Gate and Bikini that my friend Steve Smith owns, and the Golden Gate and Bikini both have these beautiful footrail plates that give you extra instructions on how to play. And I thought that was a classy touch. It, you know, hides the wood. It gives you a really interesting and unique surface while you're playing and holding the lock bar.
    21:52
    And I just like it. So I reached out and was able to get a new old stock Golden Gate plate. It's beautiful. I mean, it's new, so it looks great. And then I was also able to get an underplate. However, the person that I got the underplate from would like me to try to find another one. So, if anybody has the underplate for a Golden Gate, a Bikini, a Bounty, a Lido, any of those, please let me know. I would be very interested in buying it from you.
    22:32
    But I get this installed. It's got shiny twist nails. It's got shiny button collars. Along with the nickel entry plate that I had installed previously. And it just looks beautiful. I mean, this thing looks factory new. It's great. I'm so excited to get people playing it. And, of course, I think I mentioned earlier in the show, I'll be bringing it to the York show, which is this year, September 29th and 30th at the York Fairgrounds in York, Pennsylvania. And last year, the reception was much better than anticipated, and this year I hope it's the same.
    23:16
    Not that I'm building up my hopes to be shattered here, but I'm really, really thrilled with how the game has been turning out, and I certainly hope that you all will be as well. Definitely come say hi if you go to the show. let me know that you've heard about it and are interested in trying it and I'll be happy to show you some cool stuff there's some games that are available in the multi bingo that you will absolutely never see anywhere else and I think it's cool to be able to share this with the public so come wail on the machine and win some large numbers of replays so as normal I'll be bringing a giveaway for 4 or 5 in a line make sure that you bring that to my attention if you make a 4 or 5 in a line of course I'll be hanging out at bingo row so I'll be keeping an eye out for anybody who's doing well but if you do there's something special for you and I'm very excited about that as well and more on that at a later date as far as the rest of the game what I've been working on is additional code stuff so one of the things I did was to program in period specific sounds so appropriate motor noises for each game this is something that I hadn't done before I was just using generic six card motor noises and I put in the regular motor sounds and my gosh, you know, this feels like you're playing the real thing.
    25:01
    I also went in and added timeout logic, appropriate timeout logic. I had a few bugs that were lurking with the timeouts, so I corrected that. I've started logging all the issues publicly in the public issue tracker, even though I'm fixing them in my private repository, and that way folks can see some of what's going on before the next release.
    25:29
    I probably won't do another public release until after York, but the next release should be pretty good. It's shaping up pretty well. So aside from the audio and the timeout tweaks that I mentioned, there's tons of bugs related to just minor things like portioning. I've also been through and tweaked some of the structure of the code,
    25:58
    just ways that I laid out certain aspects of the portioning I wasn't really happy with. I had just done it quickly in order to do it quickly, but unfortunately it wasn't the most efficient way to do it.
    26:11
    So I've gone back in and tweaked that to make it much more readable and efficient. And finally, I'm working on a way to handle all the graphical tweaks that I need in order to get this thing looking beautiful. I'm practicing on bright lights, which was the first Bally Bingo.
    26:37
    And so far, it's working very well. I have some kinks to iron out, but I've got to say it's looking great.
    26:47
    So I'm hoping that I can have more of that done by York. I can't guarantee that I'll have any more than bright lights done by then because I don't know exactly how long the bug fixing phase of this will go. But I've knocked out almost all of the other bugs. I have a weird scoring bug in one of the 20 hole games and that the most major bug that I have and the most major bug that I ran into So uh I think that says something right there Uh there really nothing that I run into where I said oh my gosh this doesn make any sense. Why in the world did I write it that way? Uh, so I'm pretty pleased about that. Um, and again, I'm not, you know, a programmer. I'm not the world's, uh, best programmer or anything. I'm just a guy who wanted to do this as a cool hobby project And I have, so I'm pretty excited I think people are really going to like it But I definitely would love to hear your feedback So if you play it and think that it stinks for some reason, let me know I'll take your feedback into consideration Do it kindly, of course But yeah So, that brings us to the year of Flipperless. Tonight's game is 1933's Genco, 42nd Street.
    28:20
    42nd Street is a pure mechanical game being made in 1933. It has no kickers, no electrified bumpers, no automated scoring. Instead, there are scoring pockets on the playfield, and they are littered all across the playfield, left and right side.
    28:40
    There's a three-dimensional component to the artwork, which I find very interesting and appealing, and we'll get into that momentarily.
    28:51
    But if you'll recall from last episode, I was talking about these diverter mechanisms that were present on this board game, Avalanche, and also on last episode's Year of Flipperless game, this game uses them to better effect, I think.
    29:13
    40 Second Street, basically you plunge the ball up to the top, and with skill, you nudge it or make it fall down the center, which has essentially a rollover lane. Of course, there's no switches. This is pure mechanical. So it's a rollover lane with no rollover switch. It's a lane. So you go down the lane and you hit your first set of diverters. The diverters, depending on their position, will either divert you into one of the scoring pockets on the left or right side, or allow you to fall through to the second set of diverters again, which can divert you to the left or right side, or down to the third row of diverter there, and there's only one in this third row, and it'll steer you left or right. Of course, the highest scoring pocket is in that third row. So the first row, either the left or right side, you score 500 points. Second row, 1,000 points, left or right side. And then in that third center area, it's either 1,000 points on the right or 3,000 points on the left. So there's a big disparity there in points and certainly in the skill that it takes to get you there.
    30:37
    Because each time you go down through the center lane, the position of those diverters is going to change. so you really have one good shot in this game with 7 to 10 total shots so that is a pretty compelling area of the play field there as far as how you set up the shots and you make it and collect on the left and right side if you miss that entirely if you just whiff right on past it on the left side there's a 500 point pocket on the right there's 400 points as you go down you're funneled down through between that three dimensional part of the artwork that I mentioned and pins which are in the play field down to the second row of holes on the left side again your scores are higher 400 and 600 points on the right side it's 400 and 300. The next row has 300 points on either side, and a rollover down in the center area that scores 600. Below that, and arrayed around that 600-point pocket, you have 500, 300, and 400. So again, your highest score is on the left. And then you have two rollovers at the bottom left and the bottom right, both worth 200. And then at the very bottom center, you have 300 points. Well, it's not quite the center. It's a little off-centered, which is kind of interesting and unusual in and of itself. And I'm not sure if that's because, you know, this is an older game. If the picture I'm looking at, the cabinet is out of square and the playfield's not centered, something like that. or if it's just the way that it's cut. I'm leaning more towards that's the way that it's cut because the picture gives me no evidence to the contrary, but I don't know for sure.
    32:43
    And down below that, if you manage to miss all of that, there's a pocket labeled out, as in most of these pure mechanical games. So if you happen to have the lack of luck or skill to actually nudge the ball into the appropriate hole, then you get nothing. so this game uses a stool pigeon tilt this is the tilt mechanism where there's a little ball that sits in a cup and when you start up the game it pushes up this little platform which holds the ball the ball centers in the bottom of this cup and if you nudge it too hard then the ball falls off of the stool and you've tilted your game. And despite being able to continue to play through the entire game, because it's purely mechanical, there's no way for it to stop you, your scores don't count. So if this was a game that paid off in a bar somewhere, then you wouldn't get paid off if you're tilted. And if you're playing against a buddy, then you say, look at my score, it's, you know, 5,000. And your buddy looks and says, yeah, but you tilted.
    33:59
    Then they collect on the bet there. Not that I'm saying gambling is involved at all, because one of the surviving bits of paper on this game says, a game of skill for amusement only.
    34:11
    So, as we all know, there's no better way to stop gambling than to put for amusement only on a little piece of paper. Um, so, this game looks really cool. I mean, these pure mechanical games, uh, you're really working mostly with bare wood, very little artwork. The artwork that they have, uh, is typically functional artwork. Uh, so, the diverters, you could say, are, uh, an addition to the art package. The title of the game up at the top is painted on. and then you have this three-dimensional setup that I was talking about that makes up the lanes and what it is is several pieces that appear to be painted and then these blue pieces of painted wood which are cut in triangular shapes and nailed down to the playfield these are arrayed in such a that they form these rollover lanes. And it's really cool. I mean, the effect is really neat when you're looking at it from above.
    35:24
    So I would imagine that this game was pretty eye-catching back in 1933, but you never know. I certainly don't, anyway.
    35:35
    Was it popular or not? But it's really quite cool, and I would love to see one of these one day and play it. that said that's all for tonight thank you very much for joining me my name again is Nick Baldridge you can reach me at 4amusementonlypodcast.gmail.com or you can call me on the bingos line that's 724-BINGOS1 724-246-4671 you can listen to me on iTunes Stitcher, Pocket Casts, via RSS on Facebook on Twitter at bingopodcast you can follow me on Instagram also at bingopodcast or you can listen to me on my website which is for amusement only dot libsyn dot com. Thank you very much for listening and I'll talk to you next time.