Drop-a-Card WIP

[Friday the Thirteenth]

targets resetting?

Hello Bob,
On the add-a-ball POP-A-CARD targets reset and WOW goes off when the ball drains regardless of whether or not any WOWs are scored but on the replay DROP-A-CARD once targets are knocked down they stay down and SPECIAL stays on for the rest of the game regardless of how many replays are scored. Not to bother having targets reset before the end of the game on my account. Down sizing the flippers to original size in proportion to the rest of the game will get it back to being adequately challenging. I did this on the JPH DAC I downloaded before the version of VP I was using expired and I can do it again.
Fixing the 100 point bumper scoring so it makes the same things alternate as the other 100 point scorers is the only new thing I found that I need help with.

 

[bob]

Fri13th, there is no problem in resizing the flippers, I can't put an image on the flippers. There is a way to use images for flippers and it looks good, but usually sucks for gameplay, but I haven't done that before anyway, as I like to use VP objects.

I will also leave the targets not reset, I thought that was a mistake, but if it's the way it's suppose to be, then I leave it that way

I see no problem having the bumpers rotate the 100 point lights, I haven't really started working on the script yet, I'm not familiar with it and so when I start working on it, hopefully I'll understand it and will be able to adapt my brain around it, but I'll finish up all the graphic stuff before I do the script fixes, that way, when I get to that point, I can keep my brain focused on the logic of the script, if you know what I mean

 

[Popotte]

For me:
- dropping all the right targets lit the right bumper,
- dropping all the left targets lit the left bumper,
- dropping all the up targets lit the two outlanes.

For 3 balls games: making two of the three DT's banks lit the specials (you have to drop the 3 banks in 5 balls game).
You have only one of the two outlanes lit for the special (turn on-off in the same manner than other lights).

DT's (for Drop A Card) are never reset (except, of course, at the start of the game).

 

[bob]

Thanks Popotte and Fri13th...

I added the plunger spring sound AND when there is a ball plunged a ballroll sound. I added and removed some other stuff too, some can be seen, some you need to play to see....

 

[JonPurpleHaze]

Looking good bob!

My memory is a little hazy concerning things that i might have done last year let alone stuff that i might have done over 5 and a half years ago...
I actually started the recreaction in 11/01!

But...,I believe i used the blueprint as a guide to place all Table Objects, including the flippers but i might have changed them at the end so they might be over sized. I do know that when we would first walk into the Arcade we would play Drop-A-Card first so that we could rack up credits and then sell them so we would have cash for other pins and drinks.

The machine that we played was pretty easy to get 's lit.

 

[bob]

Hell, I can't remember what I did yesterday But here's a screenshot of it. I still have a lot of little things to do, but I'm going to try and upload this to my site, so Fri13th and whoever else that would want to test it, can listen to the sounds and hit events I've added and then give me some suggestions.

 

[bob]

Here's the download link if you want to test the table....

I'm interested in the scoring sounds, I have quite a few of them in the sound manager if you know how to listen to them or change them in the script. I'm most interested in Fri13th giving me an opinion on which sounds sound best for what events, since he has the table.

I'm also interested in elasticity settings of the walls, slingshot settings, Hit threshholds, table slope, the size of the flipper (I know it's too big now, but it makes for easier testing) Anything you can suggest with numbers for me to try would be great.

I'm going to try and do some drop wall lights as the vp lights suck on this table and the bumpers don't light up yet as I have to do that with graphics. I'll also try to put some lighting and shadows on the table.

Download it from this link. This is only for testing, not for hosting or sharing....

Link removed

 

[bob]

LOL, the test results are pouring in....

Here's a screenshot with the right bumper on, it looks cheesey, but then there will probably only be 10 people that actually play more than 2 or 3 games on this table. The screenshot also shows the lower right target area lit, the plastic is lit up a little and the table is lit up a little at that spot, this rotates with back and forth between left and right targets.

If you didn't DL the test table, this screenshot also shows the new working plunger (JPSalas) and working lane rollovers (shivaEngine2)

I'm off to a Christmas dinner now and then a little shopping....

 

[bob]

OK, I think I'm finished for now....

Things I didn't do.

Sometimes the match feature works and sometimes it doesn't. I didn't change anything as I don't understand it and I left a printed out match number on the backdrop..... Maybe someone will figure it out.

I didn't add a save credits feature, I don't know how to do it and I don't think it's worth learning at this time.

I did learn that trying to make white objects look like they light up is a pain in the arse when using drop walls. Playfield shadows and highlights would look cool, but I think I saved over one of my main photoshop files, so I'd have to extract the file back out of this table, so I think someone is telling me to forget it.

Last, the flippers..... Fri13th said they were too big, I also felt they were too big, but I took a real photo and superimposed it on my table and I think they are close to the real size. It makes for a fun playing game, IMO anyway, so I'm leaving the flippers at this size.

Screenshot below of superimposed....

 

[bob]

Here's a link to download the table....

http://members.aol.com/bob5453/Drop_A_Card_2007.zip

I can make a table almost as fast as StevOz can place a graphic in the center of his cabinet. LOL :)

 

[JonPurpleHaze]

An early Christmas Present

Thanks for a new version of Drop-A-Card!

I'm having a blast with it and it's a very

machine to me.

Drop-A-Card has been added to IRPinball and Pinball Nirvana. (PN's link goes to the details page.)

 

[Friday the Thirteenth]

"Bug" Report Time

Sorry about not getting back sooner with this. I figured I'd be notified when DROP-A-CARD 2007 was ready to test by a message in my email that a new post was added to this thread like in VP Forum, so I was waiting for it to happen until a few hours ago when I got the idea to visit here and found out it happened about a month ago. Not sure why I didn't get any message. Seems like messages to my email would happen by default like they seemed to happen from VP Forum but they didn't.
It looks real good. I'm impressed.
I only played it about a hundred times and haven't listened to the sounds in the sound manager and will have to play it a few more hundred times to be sure I tested it thoroughly but here's what I noticed in about a hundred plays that needs fixing.:
Walls 11 and 210 are scoring 10 points. They should score 1 point.
The 100 point bell(lowest pitch)rings when 1 point is scored. The 10 point bell(medium pitch) rings when 100 points are scored. The 1 point bell(highest pitch) rings when 10 points are scored. They should be switched around accordingly.
No bell rings when the pop bumpers are hit. 100 point bell should ring when lit pop bumpers are hit. 10 point bell should ring when unlit pop bumpers are hit.
When 500 points when lit rollovers are hit something rings only once. The 10 point bell should ring 5 times when unlit 500 points when lit rollover is hit and the 100 point bell should ring 5 times when lit 500 points when lit rollover is hit. The ringing should be loud enough so the thumping is barely noticeable.
In about a hundred games played, I was awarded a replay for matching when numbers didn't match at least twice, once when reel number was 8 and match number was 0, and once when reel number was 3 and match number was 5. I never got any legitimate match replays.
Two or three times in about a hundred games played, when the scoring was supposed to reset, the ones reel went as far as 7 and stopped and the game started with it still on 7.
I can guess that fixing the match and reset problems that seem to be of an intermittent nature could take a lot of time and might be less difficult if more testing is done and more of a pattern is noticed. So far the pattern with the illegitimate matching seems like it matches two numbers from where it should and the resetting problem seems to be something about the ones reel sticking on 7. Maybe someone is familiar with these glitches and can fix them.
If the sound of the ball rolling on the curved part can't be synchronized so it only happens when the ball is rolling on the curved part it is better off disabled. It sounds pretty strange when it happens when the ball isn't shot hard enough to get to the curved part. The shooter sound is ok the way it is. So are a lot of other things.
If a choice has to be made about having thumping sounds or bells to accompany the scoring, the correct bells are preferable. On a real pin the bells are loud enough so the thumping sounds are not very noticeable.
I would like to thank Bob for his good intentions. The 2007 DROP-A-CARD has some real good potential.

 

[bob]

It looks real good. I'm impressed.

Thanks!

I only played it about a hundred times and haven't listened to the sounds in the sound manager and will have to play it a few more hundred times to be sure I tested it thoroughly but here's what I noticed in about a hundred plays that needs fixing.:

Walls 11 and 210 are scoring 10 points. They should score 1 point.

I looked for wall11 and wall210 and they don't exist, so you'll have to draw me a map to which object you mean.

The 100 point bell(lowest pitch)rings when 1 point is scored. The 10 point bell(medium pitch) rings when 100 points are scored. The 1 point bell(highest pitch) rings when 10 points are scored. They should be switched around accordingly.

I just listened and I think I have the highest pitched bell sounds on the lowest points. They are all in the sound manager and the script is pretty easy to understand for playsound, so maybe you could check script and sound manager at the same time.

No bell rings when the pop bumpers are hit. 100 point bell should ring when lit pop bumpers are hit. 10 point bell should ring when unlit pop bumpers are hit.

I play what I felt was the 100 point bell when the lit bumper is hit and I play the 10 point bell when it's not lit. Check the script and once again you can easily change sounds as I included different bell sounds in the sound manager.

When 500 points when lit rollovers are hit something rings only once. The 10 point bell should ring 5 times when unlit 500 points when lit rollover is hit and the 100 point bell should ring 5 times when lit 500 points when lit rollover is hit. The ringing should be loud enough so the thumping is barely noticeable.

You'll have to plug in one of your machines and record those sounds for me to include them in the table :)

In about a hundred games played, I was awarded a replay for matching when numbers didn't match at least twice, once when reel number was 8 and match number was 0, and once when reel number was 3 and match number was 5. I never got any legitimate match replays.
Two or three times in about a hundred games played, when the scoring was supposed to reset, the ones reel went as far as 7 and stopped and the game started with it still on 7.
I can guess that fixing the match and reset problems that seem to be of an intermittent nature could take a lot of time and might be less difficult if more testing is done and more of a pattern is noticed. So far the pattern with the illegitimate matching seems like it matches two numbers from where it should and the resetting problem seems to be something about the ones reel sticking on 7. Maybe someone is familiar with these glitches and can fix them.

As I mentioned above, I used the previous script and I never touched this, but I'm not really a scripter, so I couldn't fix that without replacing the script with another script template. I could have done this in the beginning, but obviously I'm not redoing the whole script for a working match. If someone could look it over and figure it out, I would be glad to release an update.

If the sound of the ball rolling on the curved part can't be synchronized so it only happens when the ball is rolling on the curved part it is better off disabled. It sounds pretty strange when it happens when the ball isn't shot hard enough to get to the curved part. The shooter sound is ok the way it is. So are a lot of other things.

I could turn off that sound if the ball didn't make it out of the shooter lane and then have the table play a ball roll sound as it returned to the plunger. I did this in my Amazing Spider-man VPM table, but I don't think anyone noticed and it is a helluva lot of work, so I'll leave that for a future update when my enthusiasm returns to work on the table.

If a choice has to be made about having thumping sounds or bells to accompany the scoring, the correct bells are preferable. On a real pin the bells are loud enough so the thumping sounds are not very noticeable.
I would like to thank Bob for his good intentions. The 2007 DROP-A-CARD has some real good potential.

I can't fart those sounds :) I can only use the sounds I have.

Thanks for the great review and try to keep in mind that I don' have that table, I don't think I ever even played that table, all I had was a playfield picture from Popotte.

Work on those sounds for me.... Try to record the correct ones at the correct volume in a .wav format and then maybe the 2008 version of DROP-A-CARD will sound great!!

Awesome review. Thanks for your time. If everyone responded like this, there would be 100's of authors making great tables, but it's hard to invest hundreds of hours into a table when there seems to be little or no interest in it.

 

[shiva]

There's a bug in the orginal se with the matches. It was fixed and replaced with a different routine in se2 and in se3, but the orginal wasn't intended to be a em table type script engine. It's such a old basic script, I don't think we even had reels available when it was written. To be honest, it's so out of date that it shouldn't even be included with VP anymore.

 

[Popotte]

Thanks!



I looked for wall11 and wall210 and they don't exist, so you'll have to draw me a map to which object you mean.

Have a look to walls 12 and 21... They are the two rubbers of the upper right and left plastics.

 

[bob]

Thanks Popotte. I checked those walls and may have found the Match problem also. You can see below in the script where I changed the addscore to add 1 point for wall21, but I didn't change the emreel, it still adds 10 points to the reel scoring display. I usually use Bendigo's templates and with them I only need to change the addscore values as he has a routine that handles the emreels and I don't have to script them. I have to go to the club now to play cards, so I won't be able to test this out until later, but it may fix the Match also since the script score wouldn't be the same as the score displayed on the emreels. I'll have to check all addscores, because I don't remember which one's I changed. Nice job fellows!

Sub Wall21_hit()
AddScore 1
EMReel1.addvalue (10)
CheckScore()
PlaySound "ding1"
End Sub

 

[Friday the Thirteenth]

Back on track

Hello Bob,
I would like to thank Popotte and Shiva for their observations. Seems like back on track. I just opened the 2007 DROP-A-CARD and when I moved around to various places found out why I seemed to be getting erroneous wall numbers. Seems like wall laminations are in use to correctly accomplish the scoring and moving the pointer around I found the right numbers.
I would like to refer you to the Chris Harris Huge Janus 4 SQUARE mod(It seems like an excellent reference for early seventies Gottlieb VPization.) and recommend playing it just in case it helps you get an idea about correct scoring bell sounds (4 Square does not have a 500 pointer but it has 1 pointers, 10 pointers, and 100 pointers and a 50 pointer with the correct bell sounds. A 500 point sound is five 100 point sounds and a 50 point sound is five 10 points sounds, at least in real EM pinballs, and hopefully can be translated the same in VP) and other early seventies Gottlieb details. Isn't there any way in VP to have the 1 point, 10 point, and 100 point sounds activated according to scoring reel activation instead of separate sounds for 50 point scoring and 500 point scoring etc.? If there is it can all be done automatically and accurately and maybe conveniently.
The few more test plays I just did on the 2007 DROP-A-CARD may have given me an idea of what's making it sometimes reset to 0007 instead of 0000 at the start of the game. It did it again. I'm not real computer knowledgeable but am guessing this glitch has something to do with the 2007 that shows up on the reels to signify the year this mod was done.
I would also like to thank Bob for putting up with me. Being computer ignorant and pinball detail critical makes a challenging situation.
Happy New Year,
Friday the Thirteenth

 

[shiva]

That is correct, Most EM's used that method, to play a sound based on a score in the power of ten. Depending on the company, there were either a 4 chime or 5 chime set up. My memory was a bit fuzzy, but they were more than likely wired through the scoring reel, which would have been the easy way.

In fact, shivaEngine3 used that exact method. Bally early Solid states had not just electronic sounds, but also chime sounds were selectable as well. Bally electronic displays also worked like EM displays, in which the number would roll upwards as it counted, and it would behave exactly as the old reel drums behaved. It would count by 1,000's, 100's, 10's etc, and play a sound for each change, so at 500 points, it would increase the 100 reel 5 times, and play the 100 point chime 5 times. Even the electronic games up to 1979 such as Playboy did that.

All the se3 tables did that, it was actually very easy to script, and with a variable change in the script, you could select the chimes instead of the electronic sound. The se3 engine was made to handle just about any EM/early Solid State game, the only tricky part was the scoring overflow portion. The best example for that is Power Play se3, which was chime based. The arcade game was very early Solid State, so it behaved exactly like a EM table, complete with Chimes

 

[Popotte]

A last thing: when you score 50 or 500 points (in fact a multiple score), scoring is activated via a motor and you can't score anything when this motor is running. And, generally, lights of bumpers, score lghts, ... are turned off during the run of the score motor.
As my FP's Drop A Card table was one of my first table, I have to rescript it in order to manage that.
If you want, Bob, I can have a look to your script and make modifications in order to manage score in a proper way...

 

[Friday the Thirteenth]

Scoring overflow on a VP of an EM is of zero importance(more likely negative importance), at most. Using a Shiva engine that enables more realistic scoring bell sounds more conveniently results in no scoring overflow capability. So what? No scoring overflow capability makes for more realism. Early seventies Gottlieb EMs don't show scoring overflow. When the score gets to the top it goes back to 0000 and starts over. Its called a turnover.

 

[bob]

I would like to refer you to the Chris Harris Huge Janus 4 SQUARE mod(It seems like an excellent reference for early seventies Gottlieb VPization.) and recommend playing it just in case it helps you get an idea about correct scoring bell sounds (4 Square does not have a 500 pointer but it has 1 pointers, 10 pointers, and 100 pointers and a 50 pointer with the correct bell sounds. A 500 point sound is five 100 point sounds and a 50 point sound is five 10 points sounds, at least in real EM pinballs, and hopefully can be translated the same in VP) and other early seventies Gottlieb details. Isn't there any way in VP to have the 1 point, 10 point, and 100 point sounds activated according to scoring reel activation instead of separate sounds for 50 point scoring and 500 point scoring etc.? If there is it can all be done automatically and accurately and maybe conveniently.
The few more test plays I just did on the 2007 DROP-A-CARD may have given me an idea of what's making it sometimes reset to 0007 instead of 0000 at the start of the game. It did it again. I'm not real computer knowledgeable but am guessing this glitch has something to do with the 2007 that shows up on the reels to signify the year this mod was done.
I would also like to thank Bob for putting up with me. Being computer ignorant and pinball detail critical makes a challenging situation.
Happy New Year,
Friday the Thirteenth

I tried Chris Harris Huge Janus 4 SQUARE and it uses 3 sounds for scoring. Those sounds are in my sound manager for drop a Card, they may just be slightly different recordings, not much difference to me.

Yes, you could program VP to use a 10 point sound 5 times for a 50 point sound, but the result wouldn't really be any different than playing a 50 point sound that has been recorded (which is a 10 point sound played 5 times) If you wanted it synchronized to the scoring reel, then the scoring reel can be slowed down or speed-ed up. This is a lot of extra work that I'm not interested in doing. I don't like creating "real" tables in VP for this very reason of trying to make everything as realistic as possible, of course 95% or more of VP tables have 100's of of inaccuracies, but that's another story.

The shiva engine contains zero EM sounds, so it would also only sound as good as the sounds that I would import to the sound manager, so nothing would be gained there.

I think I figured out the problem with your "7" appearing, but I never noticed that problem.... This could have also threw off the Match number. I added a EmReel1.resettozero when you press "1" to start.

I'm not really into a vp creating mood right now, so I don't know when I'll upload a fix, but the fix will just be for bugs as I don't see a need to change the sounds, I checked and I don't see any problems with "when" the 500 point bells ring, at least the script seems to be correct.

Download and Try out this table.... This is what I prefer doing with my VP time :) It's more fun to be creative, then to be recreative. :)

http://members.aol.com/Smurfmom43/TheThreeStoogesSE1.0.zip

 

[bob]

If you want, Bob, I can have a look to your script and make modifications in order to manage score in a proper way...

I think changing the whole score routine, just to keep the table from not scoring hits, is not really worth the effort, even if it is accurate. Thanks for the offer, but I'm sure it's more work than it would be worth.

 

[shiva]

Scoring overflow on a VP of an EM is of zero importance(more likely negative importance), at most. Using a Shiva engine that enables more realistic scoring bell sounds more conveniently results in no scoring overflow capability. So what? No scoring overflow capability makes for more realism. Early seventies Gottlieb EMs don't show scoring overflow. When the score gets to the top it goes back to 0000 and starts over. Its called a turnover.

Guess I used the wrong way to explain it. The scoring overflow feature in se3 emulates what the early SS games did. It is used to hold additional scoring values in memory while the system was counting out a score already. As a example, if a weak ball did a double hit on a wire trigger, it would count the 500 points, and start the count and the chimes. If while it was doing that, with a second trigger hit happened, it would put it in a variable, and then count that afterwards. This would prevent a player from losing any points that he had made because the table was busy counting out a previously made score.

If you play the VPM versions, sometimes, after a drain and there was a lot of trigger hits and activity before you lost the ball, the table would continue to update the scoring for a while until all trigger hits were done, before it started any bonus countdown. That's what I meant by that, more of a cue system.

The orginal se was not made for EM type games, it has a Williams type scoring system, and as I said before, it's a very old script that dates before reels. If someone wants to update a table like Bob just did, and the old se engine is there, people should know that. If you are going to use a fresh script engine, then se3, as it has just about all the features already mentioned here built in, and is far more up to date, would be a better choice.

 

[bob]

I just uploaded Drop A Card version 2008 to IRPinball...

I cleaned up the brown color on the playfield.
I fixed the match....
I added an autoplay feature.... Just press "A" and the table will play itself.
I added a 50 point (5 bells) sound for the outlanes.
I may have done some other stuff.... It's hard to remember. :)

 

[Popotte]

Version 2008 now avalaible at IRPinball, main section...
Enjoy it!!!