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Episode 469 - Williams Hi-Hand, Yukon, QFG

For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·39m 19s·analyzed·Dec 1, 2020
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Deep dive into rare 1950s Williams card bingo machines and P3 custom pinball game development updates.

Summary

Nick and Ava Baldridge discuss Williams Hi-Hand, a rare card-themed bingo pinball from the 1950s, comparing it to the similar but mechanically more complex Yukon variant also made by Williams. They examine design differences, internal complexity, and the historical context of card bingo machines made for territories where replay mechanisms were illegal. They then transition to updates on P3 pinball projects: fixes to Ranger in the Ruins and ongoing work on Quest for Glory, including new UI improvements, achievement systems, and secret custom playfield modules.

Key Claims

  • There were only four card-themed bingo machines made: two by Bally and two by Williams

    medium confidence · Nick Baldridge discussing Williams Hi-Hand design history

  • Williams Hi-Hand uses stainless steel or nickel-plated light shields instead of plastic for lamp covers

    medium confidence · Nick examining physical Hi-Hand units that came to him for repair

  • Hi-Hand has no replay counter or automatic scoring tally on the back glass or playfield

    high confidence · Nick describing gameplay and internal design of Hi-Hand versus Yukon

  • Card bingo machines were designed for territories where replays were illegal as a workaround to allow gambling

    high confidence · Nick explaining the regulatory context and barkeep payment model

  • Hi-Hand has minimal internal components: only two relays, a transformer, fuse block, and two Jones plugs

    high confidence · Nick showing and describing the interior of Hi-Hand backbox

  • Yukon is mechanically much more complex than Hi-Hand despite having the same playfield layout

    high confidence · Nick comparing internal photos and electrical components of both games

  • Quest for Glory P3 project now includes explicit mode indicators and verbose instructions for non-pinball players

    high confidence · Nick describing production readiness improvements to the game

  • Quest for Glory now has an achievement system and separate scoring for missed shots

    high confidence · Nick explaining new game features added during current development phase

Notable Quotes

  • “It's a card bingo. It's one of the four card themed bingos that were made.”

    Nick Baldridge @ early — Establishes the rarity and category of the Williams Hi-Hand machine

  • “Stainless steel? In place of plastics. That was a fairly common thing for smaller...”

    Nick Baldridge @ early_mid — Discussing unusual construction materials in Hi-Hand, shows careful material analysis

  • “There's two relays, a transformer, a fuse block, and two Jones plugs. That's like the minimal...”

    Nick Baldridge @ mid — Emphasizes the stark simplicity of Hi-Hand's internal design compared to typical bingos

  • “These were made for, I'm assuming, for territories where replays were illegal.”

    Nick Baldridge @ early_mid — Explains the regulatory and business logic behind card bingo design

  • “If you get the Joker, you can press a button to select which card.”

    Nick Baldridge @ mid — Key mechanical difference between Hi-Hand and Yukon variants

  • “I just had to go off of the instruction card which is challenging I would imagine”

    Nick Baldridge @ mid — Shows the research challenges in reverse-engineering card bingo logic for Multi-Bingo

  • “So I've been putting in very verbose instructions that say, all right, you're in walk mode. If you want to talk, then press this button.”

    Nick Baldridge @ late_mid — Describes UX improvements to Quest for Glory for broader accessibility

  • “I've added in achievements, an achievement system, so it will keep track of your accomplishments throughout the game”

    Nick Baldridge @ late — Announces new engagement feature for Quest for Glory P3 project

Entities

Nick BaldridgepersonAva BaldridgepersonWilliams Hi-HandgameWilliams YukongameMulti-BingoproductQuest for Glory P3productRanger in the RuinsgameTwin JokergameVictory Derby

Signals

  • ?

    historical_signal: Card bingo machines represent a distinct design philosophy: minimal internal mechanisms to reduce manufacturing cost and serve as regulatory workaround for territories banning replay machines. Hi-Hand exemplifies cost-optimized design (4 components) versus Yukon's feature-rich approach (full relay logic).

    high · Nick's detailed comparison of Hi-Hand (2 relays, transformer, fuse block, 2 Jones plugs) versus Yukon's extensive internal relay array for poker hand detection

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Nick Baldridge implementing explicit UI guidance and verbose mode instructions in Quest for Glory P3 to make game accessible to non-pinball players at casual venues (bars). Shift toward onboarding and hand-holding versus assumption of player familiarity.

    high · Nick describing new icon infrastructure, explicit mode labels ('you're in walk mode'), instructional text callouts, and flipper-based shot navigation

  • ?

    design_innovation: Quest for Glory P3 now includes achievement system (modeled on PlayStation/Xbox trophies), separate scoring for missed shots with dedicated high score table, and secret achievements. Layered progression and multiple paths to scoring engagement.

    high · Nick explaining achievement tracking, puzzle points system, optional puzzle point scoring, and non-completion pathways to leaderboards

  • ?

    product_concern: 1950s plastics in card bingo machines exhibit severe warping, cracking, and curling ('bacon pieces') after 70 years. All three Hi-Hand units examined had destroyed plastics; Yukon's remained intact despite identical age and construction. Root cause unclear: possible formula difference, light shield design issue, or post-manufacturing modification.

    medium · Nick noting all three Hi-Hand units had smashed plastics matching IPDB listings; contrasting with Yukon units' undamaged state; speculation about heat/light interaction

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.118

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 baldridge and ava baldridge how's it going uh good haven't talked to you in a long time yeah it's been forever i've been uh working real hard at work. That's what's been going on with me. How about you? I am working on an artwork portfolio for high school. Woo! Nice.
0:38
While we've been working on our various projects, we have been doing a little bit of pinball. I've been trying to help folks fix their games like I usually do online. One interesting game came across my desk recently. I wonder what it is. It's a Williams high hand. Have you heard of this, Ava? No. It's a card bingo. It's one of the four card themed bingos that were made. There's only four? There are only four. And they were two of them made by Bally and two of them made by Williams.
1:19
Weird, huh? Yeah. The playfield is different than the standard 25-hole playfield. How many holes does it have? Twenty-five. And we totally didn't have to pause and edit that. I could recount.
1:34
So I do have a card bingo playfield downstairs for the multi-bingo. Have you ever seen it hanging on the wall?
1:43
Is it the... I don't think so, actually. It's the one for Twin Joker, which has an identical layout to High Hand. But Twin Joker was made by Bally and is much more common. So High Hand I've never seen in person before. And the person who just picked up one of these actually picked up three at the same time. Yeah.
game
P3product
IPDBorganization
Sierra's Quest for Glorygame
Ballycompany
Williamscompany
  • ?

    historical_signal: Early pinball evolution shows iterative cat-and-mouse game between manufacturers and cheaters: tilt mechanisms added in 1930s to prevent payout fraud; coin mechanisms became increasingly sophisticated (weight, diameter, slug detection, string-cut protection, automatic rejection). Cheating drove rapid feature development.

    high · Nick discussing early payout games, tilt as anti-fraud protection, and elaborate coin mechanism design to prevent slug/string cheating

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Nick Baldridge reverse-engineered Yukon's poker hand logic for Multi-Bingo without original manual, schematic, or high-resolution internal photos—only instruction card reference. Required inferring complex relay logic from gameplay rules alone. Highlights documentation gaps in vintage game preservation.

    high · Nick stating 'There weren't high-resolution or any resolution pictures of the inside of the game available, and there was no manual or schematic available'

  • ?

    product_launch: Ranger in the Ruins P3 patch addressed offline mode item persistence bug (ghosts/items not appearing in certain conditions) and text rendering issues. Incremental stability improvement post-release.

    high · Nick explaining offline mode data handling failure and visual polish fixes applied in recent patch

  • ?

    product_strategy: Quest for Glory P3 development prioritizes production readiness through explicit UX, followed by extensive bug-testing phase. Custom playfield modules (secret project) in parallel development. Multi-stage approach suggests long development tail.

    high · Nick outlining scene-by-scene production improvements, upcoming bug testing phase, and mention of separate secret playfield module project

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Quest for Glory P3 encourages experimentation and emergent play through multiple solution paths, character-class-dependent mechanics, and optional achievement discovery. Design supports both guided and exploratory playstyles.

    high · Nick discussing multiple puzzle solutions, character class dependencies, secret achievements, and intentional mystery mechanics

  • ?

    community_signal: Nick Baldridge teaching Ava basic programming on VIC-20 (1980s home computer); focus on text adventure game mechanics and creative output (drawing hearts). Intergenerational knowledge transfer in retro gaming/pinball community.

    medium · Ava discussing learning BASIC programming, text adventure commands, and creative capabilities on VIC-20

    • 2:06
    So they're in different conditions. had obviously been placed somewhere where they had direct sun exposure. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, I mean... So the paintball's got sunburned. Yes, exactly. What that does is it fades the colors in the back glass most noticeably. Does it fade the playfield at all? On the playfield or the plastics.
    2:34
    One interesting thing about this game is that they used stainless steel pieces... Stainless steel? In place of plastics. That was a fairly common thing for smaller... Let me show you a picture here. It's worth a thousand words, they say. So, see these narrow pieces here? Yeah. Or these things down where the slingshots would be? Well, they're stainless steel, yeah.
    3:00
    Wow. Are they stainless steel? I've never... Now you're making me doubt myself. I've never seen a stainless steel... What are they called? Guiders? maybe maybe they're nickel plated well i've never seen anything other than plastic um things i don't know what they're called i don't remember um so yeah these aren't ball guides these are these are actually light shields so they they cover the lamps i don't have rubber around yeah so the interesting thing is that there are metal ones underneath each of these narrow strips on that person. Then how does the light shine through? That is an excellent question, right? Like, it must be something where it has to throw across the play field, but they didn't want it to shine through the plastics. And I don't know if that was an operator modification or what, but each of the three games that this guy has have that same modification, but they were all operated by the same person. And they're all owned by the same person. Right, so it's quite possible that just the operator did that. But if you notice on this listing on IPDB, the plastics are all cracked and warped and destroyed. Yeah, that's nice. The guy who picked up those games, all of his plastics are smashed up like that. Really? Yeah. Weird. I can't explain that. This was made in the 50s when plastics were still, they were kind of figuring it out still. so the formulas that were used to make the the playfield plastics are not the same as they are today and they don't have the longevity that plastics do today i mean i would expect that right since it was 70 years ago and then they they kind of curl up and turn into little bacon pieces that's nice like a like a godly flipper game but i've uh just hear it sizzling yeah exactly um anytime you turn the lights on so uh i don't know if that's what happened or if there's some kind of issue with the post setup and how the light shields themselves are structured. But at any rate, I just thought that was kind of interesting. Yeah. So do you know about the gameplay for this game?
    5:18
    I'm guessing. So on the back glass, it looks like there are four by six cards in all, which means there are 24 cards, plus a wild card, which means there are 25 cards. So that... One for each hole. Yes. So on the playfield, there are obviously the rows of holes, and under each hole is a picture of a card, and that card matches up with a card on the back glass. And I'm assuming that once you drop it in that card's hole, that it'll light up on the back glass, and you're trying to get a certain amount in a row. So that's a safe assumption, and that's how a bingo would normally work. But what makes this different, and what makes a lot of these card-themed bingo style pinballs different, is that you don't get any replays. What? Yeah, I know.
    6:14
    So these were made for, I'm assuming, for territories where replays were illegal. And there was still a desire to play a bingo-type game. but they didn't want to have replays and the replays were the thing that would make them illegal so what they did is they made it so there were no replays um so what do you do if you win see there's the trick um now an enterprising person uh would probably go up to the bar and say barkeep. Check it out. I got four of a kind or something like that. And the bartender would then pay you either with drinks or cigarettes or they would actually give you money. So in effect, it's the same thing as having the replays because you would take the replays and sell them off, right? Well, it's the fear of gambling. But the thing is, if somebody wants to gamble on something they're gonna do it they can do it either way yeah so uh at any rate one of the cool things about this game is that it was way cheaper to buy for an operator than a traditional bingo because uh inside there's almost nothing what i'll show you some images there's almost nothing let me show you the inside of the back box and you tell me if this looks like a bingo to you What in the... Most bingos have like five different things of rows and all sorts of steppers and Jones plugs and coils and everything. This is literally like four things.
    7:59
    There's two relays, a transformer, a fuse block, and two Jones plugs. That's like the minimal... Oh my gosh. Yeah. So all that is, the Jones plugs are carrying the data from the switches up to the lamps.
    8:18
    And that's it. It doesn't have to do anything else. That's, wow. So I'm surprised. I was looking at this, and I didn't crack open the IPDB to see what the inside of it looked like. I programmed this for the multi-bingo, and I just knew that there was no replay indication on the back glass. What about in the play field? Is there any... And there's no indication there. It is. So the deal is the Joker can be used as a substitute for any other card. Oh, so how do you pick the card? Do you just... You don't. What? This is a really simple game. Really, really simple. All it is is you drop the ball in the hole and it lights it up. That's it. And then try to get four in a row or... Well, you try to get the best hand of cards, like if you're playing poker. Okay. So you want to get a royal flush or a straight, or you want to get a, you know, three, four of a kind pairs, those kind of things. So it plays like poker, but without any of the action. Can you also get, like, in a row?
    9:28
    No, because there's no, I mean, unless that was the rule at the bar or wherever you were playing. Weird. But you know what I'm saying? I mean, there's no mechanics in the game, so it doesn't know what you're doing.
    9:43
    Okay interesting So one of the images on IPVP I assuming the play field is very simple inside Yes There are no pictures of that but yeah see it shows you what you get
    9:58
    The rank of hands. So this instruction card says the rank of hands, and then tells you how many points you get. But the points are not tallied in any way on the back glass or on the play field, so you just have to uh you would then walk up to somebody and say hey look i got five of a kind yeah you know with the wild card you can only get it's interesting it has a lot of options for winning for what it is yeah but it's it's weird that there's no to me it's weird that there's no automatic tallying of winners so williams the only other card themed game that they made was called Yukon, and that one is of great interest to me. Have I ever shown you that one? I don't think so. Okay. Take a look at this.
    10:51
    All right, here's Yukon, and this is the back glass. It looks very, very similar. So as you can see, yeah, the card layout on the back glass is the same. The only difference is that you can, if you get the Joker, you can press a button to select which card. so this one is a little more complex yes and if you notice what's that it's a tally score a replay counter yeah so um looking at the play field though you might it looks exactly the same it's the same what the heck and check this out the plastics are fine so why is this happening i don't know it's exactly like there's no difference but there is a huge difference and that is the scorecard that it gives you replays and replays so looking at um the inside of the game whoa yeah this one has this is like the normal amount of stuff that i would expect for a game of this age right yeah it's not um it has a lot a lot of replays relays i mean relays. Since the last time I've been here, they've added a lot of new pictures. This is pretty great. But if you notice the light board, very similar. It looks very similar. The only difference is that replay counter and the extra lights for the cards that you select. But other than that, it looks almost exactly the same. Yeah, the play field is inside of it is just, this is what I expected from the high end too. It's just a single bunch of wires going up to each of the individual holes to control the lights. And then there's a shutter motor.
    12:40
    Yeah. Why is it spray painted yellow on the underside? So that is a thing that they would do when they were laying down the paint for the top I think.
    12:58
    Oh, interesting. So it was painted black, and then they would go through with a layer of yellow. To know where... If you notice, all the holes are yellow. Yeah.
    13:08
    So to know where to paint yellow and stuff. I think they just did it real quick, like... They made a template and covered over everything on the play field. Oh, okay. Yeah. That's my guess. Now, normally it's screened, but the thing is, with those holes, they're beveled. Yeah. So I don't know. Or maybe they painted it like that so that they would have a template for where the holes are supposed to go. That could be. I'm really not sure. But without the holes there, I wouldn't think it would go to the underside. Yeah. At any rate. Interesting.
    13:45
    So yeah, there's more stuff in here. And the thing that fascinates me about this is that you can win as if you're playing poker. So there's all these different combinations for winning. and thinking about how I would design that using steppers and relays and so forth. That would be a lot of different ways. It would be. So when I did this, there weren't high-resolution or any resolution pictures of the inside of the game available, and there was no manual or schematic available that I used. Yeah, that's just the door flipped open there. Oh, that's a coin door. Yeah, that's a coin door. That is a lot for a coin door. It's just mounted differently. So this is mounted like a bally. You got your coin lockout coil. Your coin mechanism goes there. See like that one? Yeah. And then you got your coin switch and your coin lockout. The coin mechanism looks very complicated. Although I'm assuming it's simpler. Well, the thing is that it had to be able to allow a coin to pass through, but only the kind of coin that you wanted. It had to be able to cut a string if somebody drilled a hole in a quarter, for example, and then tied a string to it. Oh, to try and... To try and pull it back out after hitting the switch.
    15:07
    Huh. People would do that. It had to be able to detect if it was an actual coin or if it was a slug. A slug is a fake coin that someone makes. Oh. Like if you took a washer that was the same size as a quarter. Yeah. And the same thickness. and put it in a machine if your machine didn't have an intelligent coin mechanism. So it's actually a lot more complex. It's more complicated than you think. And it has to be able to open up if a coin gets trapped and automatically dump it into the coin reject slot. Wow. Yeah. So there are quite a few pieces to it and components. the main component over here is like a lever that moves with the weight of the coin, but only the weight of that coin will make it move in the way that you want it to. So it has to be the exact same weight, the exact same size, the exact same diameter. It's almost like it has to be standardized from the government, yeah, or wherever, from the Mint, in order to make it work. So, at any rate, yes, that's a little more complicated. also because there are two coin mechanisms in this as opposed to the single that you normally see in a Bally bingo. Wait, where's the second one?
    16:24
    It's been removed here for the photo. Oh. So there's one here and then there would be one here. But it's been removed. Okay. Yeah.
    16:33
    At any rate, when I did this for the multi bingo, I designed it as if it were a Bally because I didn't know what the mechanics were inside this. because they hadn't posted anything any pictures yeah and there was no manual and I think I don't think I had a schematic either I just had to go off of the instruction card whoa which is challenging I would imagine so the way I built it everything was handled through motors but that's not how they have it handled it's all handled through relays are actually a simpler way to handle it because if you had everything motorized it would have to make a pass around before it could actually start counting anyway all that is some stuff that's going on so I'm trying to help a person with high hand and high hand is a lot simpler of a creature than most of these other ones. But I was impressed that there are three or four relays in it. There are? Yeah.
    17:51
    You know how there's a ball gate up at the top of the shooter lane? So you shoot the ball, and it goes through this little flap. Yeah, to make sure it doesn't go back in the lane. Exactly. It's called a one-way gate, right?
    18:04
    Well, in bingos, there's actually a switch there that's mounted underneath a little metal piece. Interesting. Yeah, and that metal piece, or rather that switch, will tell the game that the ball has exited the shooter lane, and so it can cue up the next ball if there's an automatic lifter, that kind of thing. This game doesn't have an automatic lifter. Is it manual? It's manual. So it's got a pushrod. Those things are fun. Yes, I agree. but what is very interesting to me is that this is obviously a really cut down game like there's not a lot in it oh not a lot at all right there's some beautiful artwork but nothing inside basically but basically nothing inside yeah hollow with artwork on top I feel like you could stack five or ten of them under each arm and just walk around with them yeah yeah just try them around town no big deal For shopping.
    19:06
    But, uh... Presents for them. In this case, there is a shutter motor. I have that Victory Derby that I converted to multi-races. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Do you remember when I first got it, it had this belly bar. It had this weird little push rod.
    19:22
    I think so. And that actually acted as the shutter. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah so it was coil and spring driven and it would shoot the shutter back after you shoved in this thing So the player was in control of it instead of the game And you know if I was really looking to Isn that kind of like Kind of like What was the other game that we had that did that?
    19:49
    That's the only one I've ever seen. Really? Yeah, that has that. So, I'm not sure. Maybe it's a little confusing because I took that one and converted it.
    20:01
    No, there isn't. I feel like there is another one. But okay. There were two that Valley made That did that Victory Derby and Victory Special Both have victory They're the same game One is replays And one is payout Oh Yeah Interesting Anyway So it's basically the same exact game Except for the money difference Yes When Valley was making the horse race games They would produce two different models One would be payout So it would pay you directly Yeah And then the other was replays That you would turn in for money Interesting. Interesting. And then the payout became, you know, a bad thing. Yeah. So they ended up switching to replays only. And then they had to do all this, like, shuffling to make it so that they could continue to manufacture these replay games.
    20:53
    Interesting. Very interesting. So there's a relay under here which will close the shutter. And it's activated by the gate. Okay.
    21:05
    The shutter doesn't know where in the game you are, because I don't think there's any trough switches.
    21:15
    From the looks of the Yukon, I don't think there would be. Yeah. So, if the game doesn't know which ball you're on, then it doesn't know necessarily how many balls are on the playfield, right? How many balls do you get in this game? Five. Five, okay. so if it doesn't know how many balls are waiting to be shot and the shutter opens you can shoot more than one at once you can shoot the balls while the shutter is in the process of opening and closing if there wasn't some mechanism to tell it would be like the hardest thing to do like one after the other it would but it could happen like here here's a here's a for example you shoot your first couple balls and you do really badly um so badly that you tilt the game Okay.
    22:02
    Out of anger. Seems like something I would do. The shutter, in that case, is closed, and it's keeping two balls on the play field, but you have three ready to shoot. Okay. So you drop in a coin, start a new game, and you have another ball in the shooter lane already, so you shoot it. The ball manages to land in a hole as the shutter is still open but about to close, and it wedges it closed and then blows a fuse.
    22:33
    Wow. So that's why the ball gate is involved. Okay. It's to prevent jams like that. Okay. At least that's my guess. Okay. But other than that, you know, there's not really a need for other relays. There's a relay for tilt and there's a relay for... Oh, yeah. I never even considered tilt as it. So, when did they first start adding tilt? In the 30s. Okay. Very early. Very, very early. Okay. Because it seems like something they would add later. Well, the thing is, even in the early games, you would pay for money.
    23:13
    You would pay for money? Yeah, that makes no sense. You would play for money. There we go. Sensible words, Colin. So, if you're playing for money, actual cash dollars, right? Payout, yeah. Or pennies or nickels.
    23:28
    Or a quarter of a penny. Anyway, if you're playing for actual money, then you want to make sure that you're not paying out money incorrectly. Yeah. Initial games, not much protection against somebody who's trying to cheat. But very quickly, they realized, oh, people are going to cheat. Like crazy. We need to figure something out. So it was pretty interesting to watch. if you look at different early games, you can kind of trace the cat and mouse game of, okay, somebody tried this thing, so we came up with a way to prevent them from doing it. And then they came up with a different thing. Yeah, exactly.
    24:11
    So it's pretty neat. Man, you have to have a lot of protection. Just don't cheat people. It's apparently too much to ask. Yeah. So sad. anyway that's high hand and I just thought it would be interesting to show you since you've got some bingo familiarity and it's bingo bingo so here's my question to you do you think this is a bingo I would consider it a bingo however because of the insides it makes me question it because a lot of the times bingos will have a huge amount like it will not be hollow at all like it will be there's no one stuffed to it like with when we were repairing turf king that's not really bingo i know people don't get mad at me anyways but when we were repairing that there was a whole um it was like on a platform that you would have to take out and there was just like Rows of steppers and everything else, relays. Huge motorized unit. It was a lot. Yeah. And this has none of that. Absolutely nothing. The thing that makes me think it's a flipperless game and not a bingo per se is that there's no bingo card on the back glass. Which means? well like you know uh when you play actual bingo not bingo pinball but actual bingo oh yeah you've got a card with numbers on it why wouldn't they just put a bingo like why don't they just like attach the sides and then draw a line make a secondary game i don't know um although i guess they couldn't really i mean they could draw a box on it but they couldn't really draw lines like doing it to the thing because they would have too many different no because you You couldn't just draw up, then side, then down, then diagonal, because that would be too complicated. So I guess that's why they didn't do it. I don't know. Yeah.
    26:23
    That was the thing that surprised me with Yukon I mentioned earlier, is there's so many different ways to win that if you were to map it out like this, it would be utterly impossible, which is what you were just saying. So, let's talk about the P3 It's been a little while And I am still working on P3 games Ranger in the Ruins had a patch Guess what it fixed?
    26:52
    Everything? Oh, no Everything? What? I'm kidding You did great, Dad I made a dumb mistake, though What? For one of the items? No No, items are perfect in every way.
    27:07
    Even the boots? Yes, the boots are fantastic. And the lighter? Yes. Wonderful. Wait, so it wasn't the items. Was it a physical thing or a lecture? It was a data thing. So in offline mode, if you don't have your P3 connected to the Internet... It wouldn't store information. I made a mistake, and in certain circumstances, items would never appear. The ghosts would never show up. It's weird.
    27:38
    You'll just be running and running and running. That's pretty rough. Unless you drop the ball, there's basically no way to die. Yep. Interesting.
    27:49
    I pushed out a patch that corrected that error and also a couple of issues with text rendering over top of the graphics and over top of other text. so everything looks a little bit nicer so that's Ranger in the Ruins but the main thing I've been working on is guess what, it's back people, Clash for Glory that's right so I learned an awful lot about making a production game with Ranger in the Ruins yes and i wanted to apply those ideas to quest for glory also he broke it and i broke it um but it's fine he's fixing it so it's it's playable right now like kind of but it's mostly playable except he has like seven scenes left i think about yes yes so i'm going through scene by scene and what I'm doing as part of a production readiness type thing is to be a lot more explicit to the player about what they need to do. So I dropped you in the game and previously, if you were familiar with the original game... And if someone told you how to play it, then... Well, even if they didn't tell you how to play it, you could probably figure it out. Like... Probably. Hopefully. And if If you're familiar with pinball. If you're familiar with pinball, too. Yeah, that's the thing. So but if you talking about a game that somebody could step up to at a bar But hasn played Pinball before Hasn played Pinball Or hasn played Quest for Glory Or hasn't, like, or has played Pinball, but like briefly or something. Then they need some instruction guide. So this is what he has been doing. So I've been putting in very verbose instructions that say, all right, you're in walk mode. If you want to talk, then press this button. Then move over here, yeah.
    29:58
    So now I've retained that icon infrastructure that I had before that showed you which mode you were in, but now it very explicitly tells you, okay, now you're in look mode, or now you're in talk mode, or whatever. Or in walking mode. Yes. You should make, like, a victory dance. That would be hilarious. I've made a variety of other changes, too. for example um now i'm working it's not fixed yet uh i uh also changed the artwork the the different shots that you make so if previously if you went into say look mode in a given scene it would flash all of the shots that were available to look at yeah in that scene so it's like in walk mode it automatically does this in walk mode like he already had programmed it last time. So this time he made it so all the modes go like that. And so what it does is that instead of all the shots being thrown at your face, like go here, go here, go here, he made it so there's only one shot on the screen when you look at it, but you can move one of the flipper buttons to make the shots go around the screen to see what different things you can do. and in every mode it goes from left to right. So theoretically, players won't be confused by what's going on. And it pops up text and it'll say, all right, hit the indicated target to ask about waffles or whatever. If you have that target selected but you don't hit it, I've also added a separate score that tallies. and behind the scenes it's calculating every missed shot that you make. Wow, that makes me feel better.
    31:57
    Anyway, they feed into a separate high score table. Wow, it's so nice. You can get on the high score table without having to finish the game, though.
    32:09
    I'll be getting lots of those. the other thing that I've done is I've added an achievement system so are you familiar with achievements on like playstation or xbox or something normally it's like a trophy a little trophy that pops up oh yes um on the playstation there's a little when you get an achievement there's a tiny little virtual trophy that it gives you and it says what you've accomplished like you won the crown you got markers. I don't know.
    32:44
    Exactly. I've added in achievements, an achievement system, so it will keep track of your accomplishments throughout the game, and every time you earn puzzle points, those will automatically give you an achievement. So you've added puzzle points, too? The puzzle points were the original score. Oh, okay. There was a maximum score of 500 that you could accomplish, and each time that you get puzzle points it'll increment that score by a certain amount okay it depends on what you do and how you do it do you get points for like talking or in some instances or hitting i mean not hitting and fighting no like i know you get points for fighting but not in all cases in most cases depends on your character class okay shush in my case yes when i usually play as thief by the way thief is best class because you can do i'm finishing up that uh adding in achievements i'm going to go through and add some secret add some oh so they won't like pop up unless you meet whatever the goal is that's not fair What if I don't know what to do? You gotta play around The game encourages You know, experimentation So you can Choose to approach puzzles Any way that you choose In some cases there are multiple solutions In some cases there's only one And usually that's limited by Character class, if there's only one But in some cases, just generally There's only one solution And part of that is Didn't you finish? Because I'm doing this all by myself. But I've also been working on something else. And you've had the opportunity. It is a secret. You've had the opportunity to test drive it. Yes, it is very fun.
    34:45
    They made a custom, it's for the P3, so they made a custom module. I don't know what it's called the little play field but it's the part that you can take out it's a play field module there we go I can learn things but they made a custom one of those that is really fun but also there's one thing on it that is so hard to get I cannot get it ever so hard so look forward to hearing more details about that in the future It's a secret. But it is a secret for now.
    35:27
    Hopefully I'll have something to share relatively soon. I'm going to finish up this kind of behind-the-scenes work on Quest for Glory, and then we'll start the long and laborious process of bug testing. Of the secret. No, bug testing Quest for Glory. I just wanted to say secret.
    35:50
    With all the different combinations and things. And I posted a photo to Instagram today showing some of the options that you have in combat. And depending on your character class, these different buttons do different things. Also, his programming is the most complicated thing ever. Like, if you make a single, a single typo, it will mess up the whole thing forever. I'm just kidding. Not forever. Unless you don't find it, then forever. you've done a little programming here recently too yes he actually taught me some programming on the VIC-20 most of you probably won't know what that is it is a very old game console where it is a home computer yes but it's also a game console because it is basically an old keyboard that it's one of the really clunky not clunky but noisy um mechanical yes mechanical um keyboards and what you do is you have a big cartridge and you plug it into the keyboard and then you can play that game by uh typing like you can say walk to the right or talk to the dragon or fight the night Text adventure games. But you did some actual basic programming. Yes, you can do programming on the VIC-20.
    37:26
    There was one really cool thing where if you type a word, and then you say, what was it? What was the thing that made it go diagonally? Yeah, it's just changing the way that it outputs. Yeah, that was really cool. also you know how to make a heart in it too yes a very important skill it is otherwise you won't be able to say I love you I'm looking forward to teaching you what I know and then retiring okay I'll just go to work for you wear a tie or some fancy shoes bike I'm there dropping out of middle school I think this was a good conversation here. Thanks for joining me, as always.
    38:21
    Co-host. Next time, Madam Co-host, we shall discuss more B3 stuff. And hopefully by then, Quest Folklore will be completely done. Yeah.
    38:36
    I mean, although you're probably never going to stop working on it. Never. Just don't mess it up again. What? If you'd like to get in touch, you can reach me at 4amusementonlypodcast at gmail.com You can listen to us on iTunes, Stitcher, Pocketcast, VRSS, on Facebook, on Twitter, at bingopodcast. Anywhere that you listen to podcasts. On Instagram at bingopodcast. Or you can listen to us on the website, which is 4amusementonlybingo almost.
    39:09
    4amusementonly.libsyn.com Oh, dang it. That was so easy. Thank you very much for listening, and I'll talk to you next time. Bye.