What's that sound? It's For Amusement Only, the EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. Welcome back to For Amusement Only. This is Nicholas Baldridge. Today's episode is going to be a relatively short one, but I wanted to explain a couple things that are going on with me in particular and a possible show appearance outside of York that I might make this year and then go over a featured game for this episode and then say goodbye for now. So, first of all, nothing's happening to me. I'm not dying or anything. But I have managed to make myself rather too busy. So I'm just trying to balance it all. Nothing's happening to the show, intentionally anyway. But I did just want to say that today's episode, at least, is going to be a little short. So over the past year and a half or somewhere in there, I've really focused more on improving my diet and exercising and all that kind of stuff. There's trade-offs to everything, of course, one of which is there's a lot less pizza and soda in my diet than there was before. I am certainly a lot healthier than I've ever been, I think, in my life. But the tradeoff is that I have a lot of weird health stuff. And anyone who's known me for a long time has known about some of my weird health quirks. But a new one has developed, which is kind of a problem for me. and just thought I'd put that out there in case anybody's expecting my normal throughput for all these projects that I do. The reason why things have slowed a bit is because I have been in a considerable amount of pain. As I've lost weight and, you know, I've lost all the weight I'm going to lose. Now I'm just maintaining what I've got. But as I shrink down a bit, something has happened to my sciatic nerve on my right-hand side. And after working all day, I'm unable to sit down for any period of time. I pretty much have to be hanging out with the heating pad after picking up the kids. and we get to hang out a little bit. As long as I'm standing, I'm okay, but as soon as I sit down, it's excruciating. So I haven't been able to work on the multi. I haven't been able to really work on RoboFrenzy much for the past couple weeks, and I haven't been able to work on the OneBall project either, although that's backburnered until one or the other of these other projects is actually complete. So, just FYI, just complaining. But, yeah, everything's fine. You know, nothing is horribly wrong or anything. It's just I'm physically unable to do the work as quickly as I'd like. I'm hoping this is rather temporary, because it certainly came on suddenly, and it's been a few weeks that it's been going on and I've done some things to alleviate it and it certainly helped, but it hasn't cured the problem. So last night, for example, I was working on the coin flash for Bounty and I have most of the routines written, but I just could not sit down for long enough to decode the wire colors to the rivets and do all the math that's necessary to actually put that into place. So, you know, things are moving at the pace that they're moving, and there's nothing that I can really do to speed that up. Thanks for listening to me complain. All right, so let's dive into where the projects are. RoboFrenzy is in a pretty interesting spot. So my initial concept was to use a Bally 50-step timer unit in order to not only time the game, but also provide certain illumination effects through positions of the timer. Well, once I actually had the timer unit built and I used an 8-step timer from a later game and replaced the gear with a 40-step, But once I had that in place, I could examine the arms of the spider and figure out exactly which arms needed to make contact where in order to provide those illumination effects, as well as pulse coils and do other things that that timer unit had to do. Well, as it turned out, all the things that I had designed into that thing, there was just no way to make it work. there were too many functions wrapped into that one unit. So what I decided to do, after some thought, was to include another couple of banks of relays. So these are trip relays, and these are actuated separately from the actual robot building trip relays. These relays will essentially light the octopus arms. The timer unit will kick each one in series. So the first one will trip at the next step of the timer, the second one will trip, and so on. That should work just fine, but I need some pretty small trip banks. I'm looking for a four-position trip bank or a six-position trip bank. We'll see if there even are 4-position trip bags. I don't think I've ever seen one that's that small. But if they exist, that'd be great. If not, I'll use a couple 6-position. I've got a line on those, more on that later, for the 6-position, I think. But we will see. So the reason that I want to use a 4- or 6-position is just because of space. So the inside of that game is pretty packed, except down on the bottom. So these are going to have to be installed on the floor of the game with large wooden barriers between the coin area and the player area and these trip tanks. Figuring out how to make that serviceable is going to be fun, but I'm sure it's going to be doable. So that's kind of where that's at. but it's kind of on pause until I get those extra units and can wire them in. I could work on lighting, but I really want to have these trip relays in place since they will handle some of the lighting. And I kind of want to do the lighting all in one shot so that I know exactly the layout that I working with So let talk about steppers for a minute These are the first steppers that I completely wired in from scratch I certainly done stepper repairs before and even fixed a couple of cold solder joints on the spaghetti side of the wiper plates. But I've never done something quite this extensive and I will say this is a total brain teaser for me. I am okay, you know, at most math, I would say. But this, for some reason, it's some kind of spatial, geometrical conundrum for me. I mean, I really had a hard time visualizing how exactly this was going to work in each position. Repair, I don't have a problem with. It's something with the design of these that is really throwing me for a loop, and I don't know why that is, but it is what it is. So the other stepper that I have wired in is the player unit, and that's all wired and should be doing the right thing once I actually apply power to it. I am documenting the steppers, and I'm going to make probably a schematic addendum for the steppers just so that I can keep it straight when the time comes to repair or if I need to replace at some point in the distant future, hopefully. So that's RoboFrenzy. Moving on to the multi, I have lots of news there. When RoboFrenzy got put on pause, I decided to switch back to programming the coin flash animations for each of the games in the multi. I had left off somewhere in the bees, and I discovered that the final game that I did was Bonus 7, which is one of the most complex as far as the light show goes. So a couple nights ago I started in on Border Beauty, which was the first 20-hole game, and got that one finished. And now I'm working on Bounty. I have, I believe, 89 more left to do, including Bounty. So I've got quite a ways left to go. I'm doing them in alphabetical order, and this includes United games as well. So because United games have three different kind of mechanical eras, I'm almost considering whether I should leave the Uniteds for last, because each one has a completely different style of lamp show until they switch to the near identical bally components in the later United games. I'm wondering if I should come back to those or not. I probably won't, just so that I can keep going through and do them all alphabetically, but boy, some of those are going to be a little challenging. The way that the Uniteds are constructed is actually pretty cool. they use these carousel motors to handle a lot of things similar to a godly flipper game so when for example you put in a coin these carousel motors will revolve around and they have just tons of switches mounted on them and as they revolve of course your lamps will light on and off and the game makes this crazy sound i mean it is really spectacular the first time i experienced that was a couple years ago at York when Bingo Butch and his son Mike brought the United Showtime, which is their only six-card game. Really a very interesting game. But boy, that animation is something else. If you've heard the intro to the show, you're hearing all these different units step. It's kind of similar to that, but you're getting this really crazy coin flash animation at the same time. And the sound is actually because of those carousel motors, because they're so small, they make a big racket. It's pretty neat. There's nothing really like it that I've ever seen. And a good chunk of United's games use that type of coin flash. So I'm looking forward to getting that implemented, and then I'll have to swing back around and do a sound pass on them once that's done. But all things in time. So anyway, that's my conundrum right now is that I would love to do these. I'd love to knock them out at least one a night. It takes a considerable amount of time and effort to actually knock one out because each game is slightly different. For example, Border Beauty that I just finished had one wiper in one position different than another 20-hole game, which had very similar features. So we're talking about that level of detail as far as where I'm going with it. So I made a post on Facebook that was really talking about it, but as I mentioned on here before, I'm going wire for wire and really matching everything. We're attempting to, trying to make it as accurate as possible. And I think it's pretty neat. The end result is really pleasing when one of them comes together and I can test it out. It's pretty cool, you know, to see this thing come to life. So I'm looking forward to getting Bounty, hopefully tonight. All I have to do is plug in a whole bunch of values and then test it out and hope I didn't break something. and then I'll move on to Brazil. United's Brazil would be next, but that all depends on if I chicken out and decide to go Valley only first and then move on to the United's after that. So that's the multi, and then as far as other multi news, this is both for the multi bingo and the multi horse race game. Made an internet handshake deal last night with someone who has the final playfields and playfield parts that I need for each of the multi-bingo playfields. That's the Galaxy Underside playfield, Tahiti playfield. I had previously had a handshake deal with someone on a Tahiti playfield, but this person will actually bring it to me, which is even better. The other person, we were still trying to sync up schedules, and they didn't want to ship. So that was going to be probably a long while. So rather than that, just knock it out in one shot and get everything taken care of. The other thing is Hi-Fi. So Hi-Fi has the bump feature. It's the only bingo with a flipper button from the factory. You push that button and the entire play field shoots back and shimmies back forward The effect during play is mind I mean it is really odd to see this thing in action And I had people attempt to describe it that have been on the show I've really been trying to get to the bottom of Hi-Fi for a long time, and I was lucky enough to play one with Bingo Butch right after last year's York show, and it did not function at all like I assumed that it did. So I believe I've talked about it on the show before, and the idea is that there are these two very powerful coils that pull the playfield down and then spring it back up. That's not the case. The coils are mounted in the back of the head and they pull on this cage and the entire playfield kind of shuffles back and then forward. They're 120-volt coils. It's really quite interesting and you can get some really interesting rebounds. The part that is extremely confusing to a player, especially a medium-term bingo player like myself, is that you're not used to this extra button, right? And it throws off how you nudge the game because your hands don't want to leave the button area because you have a split second of timing where you can hit that button and actually have it matter. Now, Butch was able to use that to his advantage, of course. That's one of his favorite games, and he can use that feature no problem. But boy, for me, there's no way. So I managed to accidentally bounce a ball into exactly the number that I didn't want it to bounce into, that kind of thing. But it's neat, because as the ball rockets toward a post, you can hit that button and really change the trajectory of that ball. for the better. And I thought that was kind of neat. The other thing you can do is because the entire playfield surface moves under the ball, it takes out some of the momentum. So if the ball is sliding towards somewhere that you don't want it to, a well-timed nudge along with the bump can make it so that the ball will safely go past a row of holes or all the way to the ball return. So it's really something that's kind of fascinating from a play perspective. However, also from a play perspective, it's really tough, you know, if you're used to these flipperless games where you're nudging only. Having the machine nudge for you, I understand what others have said about that. And, you know, I agree to some extent, but I think, taken on its own merits, that game is very interesting. So I am interested to play more, and having it built into the multi will be pretty neat. Now, as far as actually building it in, the part that I don't understand is exactly how that cage is mounted. I may have to drill or cut into the head that I have in order to fit it. That will be very interesting and challenging if that needs to happen, but we'll see. And the same person that I've made a deal with for these also happens to have a spare Turf King. Now, Turf King, I have one that's never leaving. and that's one that Ava restored with me. It's got a lot of sentimental value for both of us, but what I would like to do is build a multi-horse race game in the same vein as the multi-bingo. And I have a couple options. I have a play field here, which is really nice, that I can put into a Turf King that's trashed. And doing so would allow me to utilize some of the hardware that is in that turf cane. I would like to do that because I have a lot of ideas of how the game will sound, how it will play, and how it would be different from the multi-pingo. However, in order to do that, I've got to have an entire cabinet. Space always a premium here, so that's a concern too. But I think I'll be able to make this work, and I'm really looking forward to getting that done. so that's kind of what's been going on with me as I mentioned I'm in a lot of pain I'm sitting down to record this right now in the afternoon and I am not in pain yet pain typically manifests around 4 or 5 o'clock lucky me so as soon as someone pulls that bird's tail and I slide down the dinosaur that's really when it starts to hurt I've thought about just using the door, but for now the dinosaur is great. Gets me in the car faster. All right, enough of that. Time for the Year of Flipperless. Today's game is 1939's Exhibit Avalon. This game has a very interesting set of features and very interesting artwork and bumper design. So let's dive in here. The first thing that you'll notice when you look at a picture of the playfield is the really interesting bumper design. Each of the bumpers is shaped on the top like a flower. This looks like an extremely fragile design, but there is a large bumper skirt, which appears to be the contact area. According to the flyer, there's a handful of interesting features. First of all, the Wonderstar bumpers. Alive with color and dazzling brilliance, stand out with jewel-like beauty and compelling constant play. Two of the bumpers in the center of the playfield, one near the top and one near the bottom, are marked Special Winlet. Hit those Winlet and the player will get two free plays immediately. Now, the free plays are actually racked up with a projection unit that's mounted underneath the arch in the upper left. I love seeing games with that particular design. There's something interesting about being able to see the number of replays you have while you're playing without having to look up at the back glass, and something that would either encourage or discourage you from your play. Next is the rambling thousand light. Every time the ball hits this rambling light, it piles up plenty of extra thousands. Now what that one means, I'm not really sure. Looking at the picture of the play field, there's one bumper that's lit, and it's a special bumper. There are no other pictures of this game on the IPDB aside from the flyer, so it's hard to gauge exactly what's up, and the play field doesn't actually spell it out for you. So that feature either means that each bumper hit will give you a random amount of score, but because the backbox shows 500 illuminated on that one picture on the IPDB I suspect that that not the case and only one bumper is going to be randomly lit for potentially thousands I'd be interested to know how exactly it handled that back in 39. It was either with a motor or without. Again, I'd just be interested to see exactly how they handled that feature. next new mystery high score feature automatically spots a player one two three or four extra thousands at the start of each game now this is something that sure sounds like a malfunction doesn't it the game automatically awards you somewhere between one and four thousand points just to start you off um that i'm not sure how i feel about that one actually i am sure how i feel about that one. I think that's a silly feature. It almost sounds like they were trying to engineer around a problem that they had, but they almost certainly weren't, because I'm sure it works the same way every single time. There's a pattern to it, and once you knew it, you'd be good to go. Next, new style rapid fire bumper creates the liveliest, fastest ball action ever used on a high score game. So the bumper design, and again, from the one picture in color on the IPDB, it's a little tough to tell exactly what that bumper design is and how it's rapid fire. I would be curious to know if it's a spring-loaded bumper underneath that pulls the plate down when the ball strikes it, or if it's something else entirely. But take a glance at that photo and see what you think. I'd love to hear your thoughts, or if you've played this game or have this game, I'd love to know. Some of the other highlights on the Flyer, adjustable control, backboard animation, mechanical perfection, long profit life, always a come-close score, always a last-ball suspense, jump-scoring meter system, and always a full cash box. So, looking at the artwork and the design, first of all the design, right as you exit the plunger lane, you've got a descending chevron of bumpers. Below that, there is the first special bumper, and then below that are two inverted triangles, one on the left and one on the right, with small bumper posts in between. and arrayed down near the bottom are a set of four bumpers, and directly above the center of those four bottom bumpers is the final special wind-lit bumper. Now, a couple things about the layout here. The first is that bumper design. It looks extremely fragile. it's very cool looking and I bet it looks great all lit up the flowers themselves have a blue center it's like a cobalt blue and then a deep deep red for the rest of the bumper unfortunately with balls floating around in there I have a feeling that the tines of the flower get broken very frequently that's why I suspect the skirt of that bumper is actually the contact area, and it's actually floating a little bit above the play field to prevent the ball from actually striking those little fronds of that flower, but I don't know for sure. The other thing that's interesting is the special bumper designs. The top one looks like you can make it. You can bank off of these two posts, diamond posts, which are on either side, or you can bank off diamond posts which are up near the rebound rubber. But the bottom bumper has two small posts beside it underneath, so you can't bank off of easily any of the bumpers arrayed below. there are however some small posts with the single rubber that you could bank up onto those small posts that are beside that special bumper. I think that would be quite the feat though. And then up above both special bumpers there's no way to hit them directly from above because there is what is essentially a bingo spring, a lamp shield spring, that is coiled up above and will prevent the ball from actually going underneath of it. So you can get a little bit of air time from those springs, depending on how your ball strikes them, and perhaps you could hit some of the other bumpers. But you're never going to hit the special bumper that way. Looks really tough. Now part of the other problem is I don't really know what the goal is of this game. I assume there's a sequence. I assume that what you want to do is unlight all the bumpers. But I don't know that for sure. So again, if anybody has any idea, I'd love to know. Looking at the playfield artwork, it's this art deco type design with fish, which are arrayed down near the bottom bumpers. And then this beautiful diamond pattern, which continues up the center of the playfield, up to palm trees near the top under that chevron that I mentioned. The back glass is gorgeous. It is a coastal cityscape, and you can see the piers. And in the foreground, you have what appears to be several women who are just going for a hike. and there are palm trees and some other foliage there, but the colors of this back glass are absolutely gorgeous. Reds, greens, blues, and a muted greenish-yellow. Just looks wonderful. I'll link the photo in the show notes, and that's all for tonight. Thank you very much for listening. My name again is Nick Baldrige. Thank you for joining me for episode 418 of the For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. If you'd like to reach me, you can contact me at foramusementonlypodcast at 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 Cast, Google Play Music, on Stitcher, Spotify, I think. and probably others. You can listen to me on Facebook, on Twitter, at Bingo Podcast. You can also follow me on Instagram. I'm also at Bingo Podcast there. Or you can listen to me on my website, which is foramusementonly.libsyn.com. Thank you very much for listening, and I'll talk to you next time.