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How Does it Work?: Medieval Madness Remake

Cary Hardy·video·10m 49s·analyzed·Jul 4, 2026
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 (batch) · $0.009

TL;DR

Technical teardown of Medieval Medieval Madness (Remake) mechanics and solenoid design.

Summary

Cary Hardy provides a detailed technical breakdown of the Medieval Medieval Madness (Remake) by Chicago Gaming Company, explaining the mechanical and electrical components that power its signature features—the castle, drawbridge, catapult, trolls, and princess diverter. He highlights how a single solenoid creates the illusion of complex castle movement through a chain-reaction mechanism, and praises CGC's design choice of adding a simple ball-retention feature when lifting the playfield.

Key Claims

  • The castle movement that appears complex is actually accomplished by a single solenoid that triggers a chain reaction of plastic plates.

    high confidence · Cary Hardy demonstrated this on camera by manually actuating the coil and showing how one component pushes multiple others.

  • Chicago Gaming Company implemented a simple 20-cent metal swinging piece that prevents balls from falling out when the playfield is lifted, a quality-of-life feature Hardy wishes other manufacturers would adopt.

    high confidence · Cary Hardy showed the part in close-up and discussed its practical benefit during service.

  • Three-lead solenoid coils are designed to have both high-voltage burst and low-voltage hold states, while two-lead coils only provide an initial burst and release.

    high confidence · Cary Hardy explained the technical distinction while showing examples of each coil type.

  • The drawbridge mechanism uses a single motor controlled by two switches that signal when the gate reaches up and down positions.

    high confidence · Cary Hardy identified the motor and switches and explained their function.

  • If either of the drawbridge limit switches fails, the motor will continue rotating without receiving positional feedback, causing gameplay abnormalities.

    high confidence · Cary Hardy stated this as a consequence of switch failure.

Notable Quotes

  • “this castle that has all this movement back here is merely done by one simple solenoid”

    Cary Hardy @ early in video — Core thesis of the video—establishing that complex visual effects result from elegant mechanical simplicity.

  • “Get it together manufacturers. Unless it's patented, that's the only thing I can think of, but that is just an obvious thing to tackle”

    Cary Hardy @ early segment on playfield ball retention — Constructive criticism of industry design standards; Hardy advocates for adoption of a simple, low-cost quality-of-life feature across manufacturers.

  • “One coil is causing a chain reaction to move other components to make it look like more is going on than what it actually is.”

    Cary Hardy @ castle mechanism explanation — Articulates the elegant design principle behind Medieval Madness—visual complexity achieved through mechanical elegance.

  • “Very interesting little assembly right there. One little coil does all that jazz.”

    Cary Hardy @ after demonstrating castle mechanism — Captures Hardy's appreciation for efficient mechanical design.

Entities

Cary HardypersonMedieval Madness RemakegameChicago Gaming CompanycompanyAutomated Servicescompany

Signals

  • ?

    design_innovation: Chicago Gaming Company implemented a simple, low-cost (~20 cents) metal swinging mechanism to prevent ball loss when lifting the playfield, addressing a practical assembly and service pain point. Hardy advocates this should be industry standard.

    high · Cary Hardy identified the part, demonstrated its function, and criticized other manufacturers for not adopting similar solutions.

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Medieval Madness Remake achieves visually complex castle movement effects through a single solenoid triggering a chain-reaction mechanism with plastic plates, exemplifying efficient mechanical design that creates illusion of complexity.

    high · Hardy demonstrated the mechanism by manually actuating the solenoid and showing how one component sequentially triggers movement in others.

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: The video demonstrates that Medieval Madness Remake's signature mechanical features (castle, drawbridge, catapult, trolls) operate using standard solenoid and motor components configured in elegant, understandable ways.

    high · Hardy broke down each major component and explained the electrical/mechanical principles behind its operation.

  • ?

    content_signal: Cary Hardy launched a new 'How Does It Work?' series focused on technical teardowns of pinball machines, using Medieval Madness Remake as the first subject to explain solenoid design, motor control, and chain-reaction mechanics.

    high · Hardy introduced the series concept and committed to highlighting unique mechanical features specific to each machine rather than covering all components.

  • ?

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.007

0:00
What's up guys and welcome back to the channel. I have Medieval Madness Remake in the garage and that's obviously where we're at but we're going to be diving into what makes this thing tick. Why and how does it do what it does? And this is why I'm going to call this series How Does It Work? Now honestly this game for being built when it was has quite a lot in it but you would be surprised although it looks very packed it doesn't really take a lot to make it do what it does. You're going to come to find out that this castle that has all this movement back here is merely done by one simple solenoid. Now I'm not going to show you every single component on this playfield because a lot of it is shared among other games. I'm merely going to highlight some things that are unique with this machine. So we're going to be tackling the catapult, the castle, the drawbridge, this diverter that's up here for getting your princesses, and of course the trolls that are down below. How does it all work? Let's get started. First things first, let's get this play filled up and out of here. And I noticed something about CGC games that I really wish a lot of other manufacturers would implement. I do not see it being such a big giant cost savings or anything by eliminating this piece of metal right here, but I'll show you right now. This is literally 20 cents. That's like a 20 cent part. And you're like, okay, what does that do? Well, it's when you lift your play field up, guys. Well, let me get it locked back in. That keeps the balls from just falling out. But yeah, definitely very nice being able to just lift up the play field and not have to worry about forgetting to take out the balls because they're not going anywhere in the type of simple little swinging piece of metal that they've got in place right there. Get it together manufacturers. Unless it's patented, that's the only thing I can think of, but that is just an obvious thing to tackle across the manufacturing, you know, the whole debacle of assembly and making these games just more, you know, quality of life changes in my opinion. And that is definitely a big one. So let's talk about some of the things that you're going to need to know about to get a better understanding of how this machine as well as many other pinball machines are going to work. This is what you call a solenoid. And this is going to basically allow power to flow through this copper coil windings and allow it to generate a magnetic field which pulls this rod up So when you have a coil that got three leads like this and it got three different wires going to it then we know that this coil is designed to, one, have an initial burst with the possibility of going down to low voltage to hold it in place. When you have a coil with just two leads, I've got one right here with just two leads. This one is designed to do an initial burst and then go back down.

operational_signal: Explanation of two-switch drawbridge limit system reveals that switch failure in redundant positioning systems leads to motor stalling and gameplay abnormalities, highlighting the importance of proper switch maintenance.

high · Hardy explicitly stated that if either drawbridge switch fails, the motor will keep rotating without feedback and cause 'really weird abnormalities in play.'

3:22
So any coil that you see three leads on, it's designed to have high voltage as well as low voltage. And I say voltage, it's allowing more or less current to flow through type of thing. Because if we had it to where this was being held up at full power like it's going to have, it would burn this coil out. Whereas on this one, it would do the initial high voltage going up, high amount of current, and then it would switch to the low, allowing it to sit there in that position without causing the coil to overheat. Now this is important to understand for a variety of reasons and one of those is because you have mechs like these in the pinball machines and this is the one for the trolls, the ones that you see coming out of the playfield.
4:11
Now this is going to look like it's getting stuck because I have it in the horizontal resting position. This spring is just powerful enough to allow it to continuously pull down when in the correct playfield position. So what we're seeing here, like I said, with the three different wires, you've got two different copper coils in here, windings, and you're going to get the initial boom burst of energy whenever the troll first pops up. Once the switch up here has been detected as being hit, let me get the camera over there. So once we get the initial burst, this pops all the way up. This hits this switch right there. Boom. So now the game knows that this is in a fully up position. At that point it's going to switch to the different winding on this coil right here allowing it to stay in this position. So back down to this one this is the coil that actuates the gate of the castle. So in resting position the gate is going to be down or closed. And whenever you first allow the drawbridge to come down then this is the next obstacle to get through Then you bash this a few times and then this will actuate up causing the gate to go up to allow you into the castle And again, since you have three different leads, it switches to the low power to allow this coil not to overheat. This coil is the catapult. This is what the ball would rest on right here and then this coil would actuate once again just two leads so it's just going to fire once and then release. This is what projects the ball up across that wire form. This pulls on this rod real quick allowing the ball to launch up the playfield. Now what have I told you that one of the biggest moments in this game is all done by this little bitty coil right here. This little bitty thing right here is what makes the castle look like it's completely moving. This one little solenoid does a bunch of other stuff. So we're going to see what that looks like on the other side of the playfield. All right, so now we are on the top of the playfield and we're going to show you how this castle. Remember how I said it's just one coil that does that? So let me manually actuate this coil down below the playfield. I'm slowly going to push it up. And this is me just repeatedly hitting it like you see in the game.
6:58
So what it's ultimately doing is pushing up on this one. And then we've got these basically plates. I don't want to use plates because they're all plastic, but are allowing other portions to be pushed up. One coil is causing a chain reaction to move other components to make it look like more is going on than what it actually is. But it's just one single coil that is allowing us to do this. Let me get a better angle. I'm pushing up and it's moving the middle one right there up, which is pushing this one up, that one up, and when that one goes up, On the other side over here, it pushes up on that one, allowing three out of the four to look, or four out of the five rather, to look like they're getting damaged.
8:01
Very interesting little assembly right there One little coil does all that jazz There only one motor in this game and it right here But this is what allows the drawbridge to go up and down So you've got two switches here. One right there that it just hit and one right up here that it hits. This lets the computer know that, hey, this gate has reached said position kind of thing. Oh, now the position is up. Now the position is down. This is what these two switches are there for. If one of these switches was to go out, this motor would just keep rotating and never receive the signal that it's up or down. Causing the machine to also give you some really weird, you know, abnormalities in play. But there you go. That is how that works for the drawbridge. And this is the solenoid for accessing the princesses in the tower. This will actuate causing the diverger to move downward and your ball to make safe passage.
9:27
And there you have Medieval Madness Remake by Chicago Gaming Company. If this is a game that interests you, then by all means reach out to Automated Services. This is where I got the game from. And if you learned something, by all means, I would like to know that as well. Let me know in the comments section. Special thanks to Automated Services and my Patreon supporters. And until next time, guys, later.
9:57
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