VP9 Stern SS Recreation Iron Maiden (Stern, 1982) VP9 v1.2 [16-9] 2020-01-28

Iron Maiden Gameplay

Before you can start playing, you have to insert a coin Every
coin triggers a nice sound which updates the credit display. If you
insert two or more coins of the same value after each other
without pushing the start button, you get more credits than
normal. Also if you insert a coin during play, the Iron Maiden
triggers all slign shots and I think also the drop-targets somehow.
Nice cheating, or call it bribe!

After pushing the start knob, the ball is given out and the display
of player 1 blinks "00". If you push the button again, the second
player is added, which could be repeated until the game is
selected for 4 Players. If you push the button during play, the
complete session is aborted and a new game starts. So be careful
not to push the switch accidental.

You have three choices to shoot your ball down the start lane:
Giving it a slight hit to enter gate one, giving it a tougher hit to
enter gate two or kicking it off with full power to enter the main
playfield imediately. The gates evacuate the ball to the ball-store,
giving 10.000 pts when the arrow lit or exhausting it to the upper
playfield, counting 5.000 pts when the arrow does not lit. After a
cold start of the machine, the 3-ball-store is still empty, so a new
ball is given to the start lane and you are requested to shoot again
which is optically shown by a flashing orange light on the
playfield and a flashing light at the cabinet. When the ball-store
contains two balls and another ball enters, the first is released to
the main playfield, counting the second part of the 10.000 pts
(5.000 for kicking up the ball, 5.000 for releasing it).

There are two big fingers on the main playfield and two small
ones on the upper playflied which are controlled, acting together,
by a left and a right button. At the upper playfield, which can be
accessed via a right ramp, a left, spinnered one-way ramp and the
two gates, there are three tagrets counting 1.000 pts (letters 'A',
'R' and 'M'), a drop-target (1-2-3-4-5) counting 500 pts. per
number and another 5.000 pts for all targets down and a
slign-shot helping to hit the letters and numbers. If the upper
drop-targts are all hit, there is a chance of getting a multiplicator
on the main playflied. The same for the drop-target on the main
playflield, enabling a multiplicator chance on the upper
playflield. Shooting the targets in ascending order enables Extra
Ball chance on the opposite playfield level, shooting the targets in
descending order enables Special (100.000 pts or one credit [set
by DIP switches in cabinet]).

As mentioned, the lower playfield has like the upper one a
5-drop-target plus a 3 drop-target, giving extra bonus time (up to
90 seconds) which is given after the last regular ball was played.
Extra Balls are executed imediately after the current ball has left
the playflield. I have not tested how much, but multiple Extra
Balls are stored in memory. Back to the bonus time: The faster
you shoot down all three targets of the 3-drop-target aligned on
the left main playflield, the more Bonus Time you get. Also when
executing the Bonus Time (nice sound!!), you can add more
Bonus Time to your decreasing account.

You can lose the ball(s) by letting them out through the middle of
your fingers or by a left and right outlane, giving 10.000 pts and
a nice sound underlineing the count on the display. Near the left
and right outlane, there are two other lanes leading directly to
your left and right finger, including roll-over contacts for the
letters 'I' and 'N', which toggel both 'I' and 'N' on the
playfield-string 'IRON MAIDEN', giving another 1.000 pts. Right
near the 5-drop-target there are the other three missing letter
targets 'O', 'D' and 'E'. If you have completed the string you have
the chance for multiball. To start this, you can direcly drop in the
gate by the upper playfield or exit savely the main playfield,
using a gate at the right outlane, which opens if you hit a target
near the right ramp, counting another 1.000 pts. Now you can
exit through the right outlane, getting 10.000 pts and can savely
shoot up the ball again, entering the gate with the arrow lit and
entering multiball, which releases all 3 balls from its store. With
multiball you can make a lot of points and also have a chance of
an Extra Ball by hitting a special target positioned on the right
main playfield, which also triggers 'SPOT IRON' or 'SPOT
MAIDEN' counting 20.000 pts, and all letters 'IRON' or
'MAIDEN' which changes by the two classicaly positioned
slign-shots near the fingers. The same target must be hit for
SPECIAL (changing on/off by hitting the upper slign shot) which
is given after your multiplicator is at 'x5' which is the maximum.
After this the multiplicator is reset to 'x2'. Multiball ends, when
all balls are lost. When entering multiball during Bonus Time, the
remaining time is unlimited until all balls are lost. When losing all
balls before the time has exceeded, another ball is given and
gameplay ends with end of bonus time. Also to note, that during
Bonus time, some toggling sounds are different and you have as
much balls until time has run out which blocks your fingers and
the ball exits. Also when entering the ball-store during Bonus
Time, three seconds are added for ball-store delay to your Bonus
Time account.

When the ball exits, all points you made by shooting the two
drop-targets are added and multiplied with the multiplicator you
got by shooting all drop-targets and hitting the '3' on the opposite
aligned drop-target. After this the next ball is given. After the
last ball, the random number generator is run and a 'MATCH'
number is shown. If it is equal to the last two digits of your score,
you are given a credit. If you succeed the 3 high-score levels you
get 1, 2 or 3 credits additional. If you do a new all-time high you
get 3 credits for exceeding the three high-score levels plus 3
credits for the all-time high. (This only works if all credits are
below 37 and the DIP switches in the cabinet are set for this.)
Bonus Time: If you have the maximum time reached on your
account, you can still hit the 3-drop-target but time is no longer
decreased and target resetting is done when the a new ball is
executed.

What did I forget to mention? The spinner on the left ramp! Each
turn is rewared by 300 pts. plus another 100 pts. for each letter
lit. You can also make more points by hitting the same target to
open the gate. If 'Spinner value' lits (changing on/off by hitting
the slign shots) and you hit it, a green arrow near the spinner lits
and points per turn are multiplyed by a factor.

Bugs: First of all, the CPU takes very long between a ball exiting
the playfield and the targets resetting and counting the points
(about 3-7 seconds!). The time is longer, if the 3-drop-target was
hit and the Bonus Time you can get is still decreasing. Also the
reset of the 3-drop-target is unnecessary because it is reset every
time a new ball is executed (excluding during Bonus Time).
Another bug I think is, that if you have 'x5' multiplicator and
SPECIAL is lit and you don't get it and your ball gets out, you
have another chance the next ball. But if you switch SPECIAL
off by hitting the upper slign-shot, and then exit, it can't be
activated again the next ball by hitting the upper slign-shot.
Another bug is that remaining bonus time shown on the playfield
does not match with the remaining time shown on the display
when extra time was given for ball-store delay. So the bonus time
lamps on the playfield extinguish to quickly and in reality there
are some seconds left.

Summary: Iron Maiden is a wonderful game, and it does not get
boring. It has a nicely designed playfield (but nothing to do with
the Heavy Metal Band 'Iron Maiden'), and two back-glasses. Nice
sounds and exciting features on gameplay. The only thing missing
is speech, which was implemented the pins before and after Iron
Maiden. No idea why it is missing. If anyone has any information
about this plz. email me about that!!


ÿ Copyright 2000 by Randall Flagg

Click to expand...

ironmaid

Roms

pinballnirvana.com