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Episode 429 - Multi-Bingo Animations and 1932 Northwest Coin Machine Company Fan-Tan

For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·20m 24s·analyzed·Aug 29, 2018
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.022

TL;DR

Multi-Bingo animations complete; York Show prep underway; detailed Fan-Tan analysis

Summary

Nick Baldridge discusses his completed mechanical backbox animations for Multi-Bingo, detailing the technical implementation of features like magic screens, magic squares, and rotating mechanisms. He updates on upcoming York Show preparations, game sales to fund space for new projects (Multi-Races and RoboFrenzy), and conducts a detailed technical and historical analysis of a 1932 Northwest Coin Machine Company Fan-Tan, a small card-themed gambling game with poker-hand scoring.

Key Claims

  • All mechanical backbox animations for Multi-Bingo are complete and show-ready for York Show (October 12-13, 2018)

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge, host, direct statement about personal project completion

  • After dozens of playtesting games, no bugs were found in Multi-Bingo

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge, personal playtesting report

  • Dennis Dottal's 1962 Silver Sails will be publicly unboxed at York Show and filmed for posterity

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge announcing scheduled event

  • Ticker Tape, Gay Time, and Chicago Coin Twinkie are being sold; space is needed for Multi-Races and RoboFrenzy projects

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge reporting on personal game sales and upcoming builds

  • Fan-Tan (1932, Northwest Coin Machine Company) is a penny-only machine with no visible tilt mechanism and weighs only 18 pounds

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge analyzing game specifications from IPDB and physical examination

  • Fan-Tan's card disc could be swapped for a number disc to hide its gambling nature

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge citing game flyer documentation

Notable Quotes

  • “I have been working like a madman on the mechanical back box animations within the multi-bingo. So they are all done, and they look spectacular.”

    Nick Baldridge @ Early in episode — Marks major project milestone for Multi-Bingo

  • “The hard part is figuring out the timing of when it needs to call the next frame, because that can either happen slowly or quickly or somewhere in between, and it needs to happen at a realistic time frame.”

    Nick Baldridge @ Technical discussion section — Illustrates the complexity of emulating mechanical animations in software

  • “I can play them in the multi, and it is a relatively accurate emulation of the portioning and so forth. So I don't feel terrible about letting those games go.”

    Nick Baldridge @ Game sales discussion — Justification for selling physical games when Multi-Bingo provides functional emulation

  • “This is a very small game. It is only 20 inches long and only 11 3⁄4 inches wide. and only 6 1⁄2 inches tall. It only weighs 18 pounds.”

    Nick Baldridge @ Fan-Tan analysis section — Demonstrates the extreme compactness of 1932 electromechanical pinball machines

  • “There was actually a horseshoe magnet that was built into the coin slide itself... I know I cracked a big smile when I came across that horseshoe magnet inside the game.”

    Nick Baldridge @ Fan-Tan coin mechanism discussion — Technical enthusiasm for slug rejection innovation in early pinball

Entities

Nick BaldridgepersonDennis DottalpersonMulti-BingoproductMulti-RacesproductRoboFrenzyproductYork ShoweventFan-TangameNorthwest Coin Machine CompanycompanyTicker TapegameGay Timegame

Signals

  • ?

    design_innovation: Nick Baldridge has successfully implemented complex mechanical backbox animations (magic screens, magic squares, roto, magic numbers, mystic lines) in software for Multi-Bingo, solving technical challenges around timing, coordinate systems, and realistic motion emulation

    high · Detailed technical explanation of coordinate-based animation logic, sign polarity manipulation, and frame timing calculations

  • ?

    product_launch: Multi-Bingo is substantially complete and show-ready for York Show October 12-13, 2018, pending final audio implementation

    high · Direct statement of completion; bug-free playtesting; remaining work is audio integration pre-show

  • ?

    event_signal: York Show will feature Multi-Bingo public debut, public unboxing of Dennis Dottal's 1962 Silver Sails, and multiple bingo games at Bingo Row

    high · Nick announcing scheduled events and exhibition plans for October 12-13, 2018

  • ?

    historical_signal: 1932 Northwest Coin Machine Company Fan-Tan analyzed as early compact pinball variant with poker-hand scoring, no visible tilt mechanism, and gambling-themed design with convertible card/number disc

    high · Detailed technical and historical breakdown of Fan-Tan specifications, artwork, mechanisms, and design adaptations

  • ?

    collector_signal: Nick Baldridge strategically liquidating physical games (Ticker Tape, Gay Time, Chicago Coin Twinkie) to free space for new custom builds, using Multi-Bingo as functional emulation substitute

    high · Direct statement of sales strategy; justification that Multi-Bingo provides accurate game emulation

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.061

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.
0:16
Well, it's been a couple of weeks, and I have been working like a madman on the mechanical back box animations within the multi-bingo. So they are all done, and they look spectacular. I am so excited to share these with you all. And that includes things like the magic screen movements, magic squares, the roto, magic numbers, the oddball galaxy movement, looks kind of like a millipede crawling around in there, and the mystic lines. this also includes Magic Lines both coil driven and motorized and yeah, I'm just really excited it really brings these games to life to see that animation rather than having the numbers jump into the next position as they were doing before I had a playtesting party and had some friends over the other day and I am pleased to report that after dozens of games There was nary a bug to be found. Very exciting, and I think that makes it pretty close to show ready for the York Show, which is October 12th and 13th, 2018.
1:33
And aside from the multi-bingo, we are, of course, having the public unboxing of Dennis Dottal's 1962 Silver Sails.
1:44
Dennis is going to unbox that beauty in public. and we're going to film it for posterity and hopefully have the game set up for free play shortly thereafter.
1:58
We've been chatting about that and think it is probably doable assuming that the game is actually in the box and complete and all that good stuff. But we'll see. Never know.
United Caravan
game
Chicago Coin Twinkiegame
Silver Sailsgame
For Amusement Onlyorganization
IPDBorganization
Bingo Rowevent/venue
  • ?

    community_signal: Nick Baldridge has paused interview/content production due to competing project demands but maintains commitment to podcast and plans to resume when bandwidth allows

    medium · Statement that interviews are in pipeline but research and recording have been deprioritized; acknowledgment of time constraints

  • ?

    operational_signal: Nick conducting light service work on location machines while managing heavy custom build and podcast responsibilities

    medium · Mention of service calls around town; acknowledgment of limited capacity due to ongoing projects

  • ?

    technology_signal: Multi-Bingo requires game-specific audio sampling and integration due to variations in original machine sounds; audio must be synced to specific interval cues rather than universally applied

    high · Technical explanation of per-game audio recording and the complexity of sample-to-interval synchronization

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Nick Baldridge prioritizes realistic animation and audio authenticity in Multi-Bingo emulation to enhance player immersion and accuracy compared to static digital versions

    high · Statements about animations bringing games to life and audio completion making games feel extremely real

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Nick documents slug rejection innovations in early pinball machines, including horseshoe magnet coin slide mechanisms used in 1932-era games like Fan-Tan

    high · Technical observation and enthusiasm for period-appropriate anti-slugging hardware in coin mechanisms

    • 2:15
    So, talking about these animations The magic screens were relatively easy in that they only move horizontally. So you only have to move on the x-axis. And when you move them, you basically take the number of pixels between position 1 and position 2, and you then have your number of frames in order to make the animation complete
    2:44
    between position A and position B, or 1 and 2, right? the hard part is telling it, okay, this is your X coordinate to start, and these are the number of times that you need to redraw yourself. Okay, that part's easy. The hard part is figuring out the timing of when it needs to call the next frame, because that can either happen slowly or quickly or somewhere in between, and it needs to happen at a realistic time frame. similar to what the actual game is. So that took a lot of experimentation, a little bit of math to figure out, and my method is relatively simple. I have one method that handles screen movement, and in forward or backward, it just changes the sign on the front of the number, be it negative or positive.
    3:40
    So the magic screens were easy, so let's talk about some of the more difficult ones. And I've been asked by several people how exactly I managed to get the rotation working and things of that nature. So I apologize if this is a little dry here, but it is kind of interesting to think about, since I don't have the actual mechanical units in there making the movements. For the magic squares, you have an arrangement typically of four numbers that physically are riveted to a circle. And as the circle rotates, these riveted numbers maintain their position, their readable position to the player as they move from position to position around in a circle. In order to emulate that, I took each number and, starting with the upper left,
    4:47
    made it so that it pushed over to the upper right. The upper right pushes down to the lower right. The lower right pushes left to the bottom left. And then the bottom left pushes up to the upper left And the cycle starts again That sounds pretty simple when I say it like that but it is more difficult than it seems because you have to tweak the movement direction by switching the polarity, basically, by switching the sign in the front of the number. So, say you want to move up the screen, then you'd use a negative number, and down the screen you'd use a positive number.
    5:38
    This requires you to think backwards a little bit, which can be a little tricky, but you get the hang of it eventually. At any rate, aside from that, there are also extra things that happen at the beginning of the animation. each of my animations, so each of the positions that were rotating would jump a little bit they would move over to the left, to the right, or up or down wherever I didn't want them to go, basically they would jump, so I would have to go through and tweak the starting position by a few extra digits Some of the other movements are a little simpler.
    6:27
    The roto is a little more complicated. You have eight different numbers that are moving around in sequence. And on Stardust, you have 16 numbers that are rotating. Things like the magic numbers, where they are chain-driven, the movements are different still. so the way things work has to be tweaked per game and it took quite a long time, a lot of work to get that done but I think it really added that extra bit of life to the game I'm really excited by the game now not that I wasn't before but now I'm even more excited than I was so the next thing that I've done is record audio from several different games and I had a contributor record from one of their games and I've got another video that I'm going to isolate some of the audio from another friend so I should be in good shape to put the accurate audio in for each game before the York show but time runs short and the way that I need to do this is not something that can be done universally it has to be done on a game by game basis and I'm going to have to split out some of the generic audio cues that I've made previously and it's not as simple as just replacing the sound files because I need to ensure that the samples are played at specific intervals so it's going to be tricky but it should be doable.
    8:13
    I'm looking forward to the challenge and we'll see what I can get done before York. But all that said, I think the game is shaping up nicely and I have a feeling that once the audio is in place the games are going to feel extremely real to me.
    8:31
    So, getting back to other things going on I've done a few service calls around town again very lightly dipping my toe back into that because I've got a lot going on and still have a lot going on. I have many exciting interviews in the pipeline but I have not had a chance to conduct any of them or even sit down and fully do my research for some of them so I need to get back on that and really focus a bit before I can get those out into the world. And the other thing is I'm selling off some games. So at least three are going to be leaving here or have already left. Ticker Tape was sold to a local collector here. Nice guy.
    9:25
    And it was his first bingo. Cut him a good deal, and he was excited to take it home. He said he had a friend over and the friend got a five and a line on card number six One of his first times playing it, which is just unheard of So another one that's sold is Gay Time is the perennial favorite at the York Show This year I'll be bringing United Caravan in its place And Gay Time will be heading to its new home all the way across the country, actually.
    10:03
    I'm doing a small repair on it, and then it going to be packed up and shipped This is the first game that I shipped using a commercial freighting company so hopefully that all goes very well I expect it will, and we'll see what happens there.
    10:21
    And then finally, the Chicago coin Twinkie that I've had for a long time is probably leaving as well.
    10:33
    So a couple of bingos are leaving, and a flipper game is leaving. and what I will get in return is space. Lovely space.
    10:42
    I am in desperate need of space, and much more important for me to have space than it is to have games at the moment, especially, say, Ticker Tape and Caravan, Gay Time.
    10:59
    The art packages are beautiful. The games themselves are awesome. However, I can play them in the multi, and it is a relatively accurate emulation of the portioning and so forth. So I don't feel terrible about letting those games go, especially to new collectors or to collectors that will definitely appreciate them.
    11:27
    So that's those. And then Twinkie, I think it's just time for it to find a new home. That is my wife's favorite game, but even she agrees that I need the space pretty badly.
    11:44
    What do I need the space for? And really it's to build new games. I have plans to make a new multi. This is the multi-races, multi-one-ball horse race game. And I need a lot of space to be able to walk around that game. build it from scratch, you know, all that kind of stuff that I did with the multi-bingo.
    12:07
    It's going to be quite a problem if I'm having to lift things up and shift them around and crawl under and back behind and etc. So this is going to be wonderful, not just for the multi-races, but also for RoboFrenzy. RoboFrenzy I've had to build basically in the middle of the game room, and not being able to walk all the way around the game makes it very challenging indeed to wire it up.
    12:43
    So I'm looking forward to having the space to do that. And yeah, all these things are going to lead to even more things. I have another project that I've committed to that I'll announce at some point in the future, and I need space for that too.
    13:02
    So I'm probably not done with selling off games. I've probably got more that need to be moved along,
    13:10
    and at that point I'll be able to make some more cool new stuff. So come on out to the York Show, play the game, come say hello, and play all the other games at Bingo Row and watch the historic unboxing. And with that, let's talk about today's game. It's 1932's Fantan, made by Northwest Coin Machine Company. Fantan takes its name from a Chinese gambling game dating back at least 2,000 years, according to the IPDB. But the similarity ends there, it says. So this is a card-themed game where you are shooting five balls onto a roulette-style playfield. The balls will become trapped in one of the holes in the roulette wheel, and you are trying to put together the best hand that you can. We'll go over the scoring here towards the end But the layout of the holes is such that At the top center you have a joker And going to the right you have an ace, a king, a queen, a jack, a ten And then it switches to another suit And you have ten, jack, queen, king, ace And then again, ace, king, queen, jack, ten and again 10 Jack, Queen, King, Ace, back up to the Joker.
    14:44
    So all four suits are represented, and you can make a number of different combinations that can win. So if you get a flush, you get a 3,000-point score.
    15:04
    A four of a kind gives you 2,100 points, and it's called excellent. A straight is 1 points and that marked good Three of a kind is 1 points that marked fair and 600 points for just a single pair and that named poor
    15:24
    The scoring card also says lodge balls do not score, so apparently it's possible for balls not to settle in a particular hole.
    15:34
    That would be kind of irritating if you're playing this and you don't get credit for one of the balls.
    15:46
    The game's artwork is relatively detailed on the playfield. You have what are really nice images of the cards themselves, very detailed in a very small area. This is a very small game.
    16:03
    It is only 20 inches long and only 11 3⁄4 inches wide. and only 6 1⁄2 inches tall. It only weighs 18 pounds. There is no visible tilt mechanism, stool, pigeon, or otherwise, so it's kind of an honor system thing.
    16:25
    Someone would have to be watching the people playing this, because, of course, there would be payouts based on the hands that you put together. One of the interesting notes on the flyer is that the card disc could be swapped out for one that just showed numbers, hiding some of its gambling nature, which I think is kind of a cool thing. The playfield itself is pot metal, cast metal, and it is very attractive with these raised areas, which are green. and then the playfield itself is the silvery metal with the beautiful screened artwork of the playing cards. Very small, very detailed artwork. Very impressive.
    17:16
    The sides of the cabinet, according to the flyer, have a small image of a fan centered on either side. However, the example that is shown on the IPDB has what appears to be a repainted cabinet with a little stencil that says Fantan on it.
    17:39
    I believe this to be repainted because of the areas where you'd put your hands are black, as well as the areas in the back of the game. It looks like a stylistic choice rather than where.
    17:56
    But I don't know for sure. So this has one of the funky shooter rods, which functions as a combination shooter and loader, loading mechanism. And the ball has to climb a very steep ascent in order to get up onto the playfield.
    18:17
    This is a very cool game. It is not as refined as something like United's ABC, where you have a pop bumper in the center that will prevent dead balls.
    18:31
    The layout is also less steep, so the balls have more of an opportunity to just kind of come to a stop, rather than settling into one of the scoring pockets. But I think this is a pretty neat game. And being so small, it's hard not to be a fan, especially when I'm talking about space all the time.
    18:53
    But yeah, the game is a penny only. The denomination could not be changed, at least from the factory.
    19:02
    You could retrofit a different coin slide if you wanted to. I just worked on a game that looks like it uses the exact same coin slide, according to the flyer. and that had an interesting little slug rejection mechanism.
    19:18
    There was actually a horseshoe magnet that was built into the coin slide itself and it looks like the same piece of hardware, so that's pretty cool. I know I cracked a big smile when I came across that horseshoe magnet inside the game. I thought that was cool. but at any rate that is 1932's Fantan and that's all for tonight thank you very much for listening my name again is Nick Baldrige you can reach me at 4amusementonlypodcast 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 Casts VRSS on Facebook on Google Play Music on Twitter at bingopodcast. You can follow me on Instagram, also at bingopodcast. Or you can listen to me on my website, which is foramusementonly.libson.com. Thank you very much for listening, and I'll talk to you next time.