We won “Best Custom Game” at Midwest Gaming Classic, yahoo!

Getting back to work on code, not going as full-bore as last week, still, stuff needs to get done!

• At the request of Steve Ritchie, added more sound / increased warning for the scoop kickout. Increased flasher amount, and added strobing the scoop lights to draw attention (so player can catch the ball)
• A multiball earned and started during War Fort could continue on past end of mode.  Doesn’t break the game, but would allow the player to possibly start other modes with a multiball still active (not supposed to happen)
• Fixed this bug by turning it into a “feature” Normally it takes 3 hits to defeat Army Ghost. If multiball active, you can hit him as many times as you want until you’re down to one ball, in which case final hit ends mode. This would allow for many more jackpots than mode currently provides. Strategic!
• With hellavator up / jackpot lit, Call Button is now disabled until you collect jackpot (makes it easier to collect since you can’t miss and hit Call Button)
• Added a prompt if you hit Call Button when it’s disabled “Collect Jackpot to Enable Call Button” Always tell players WHY they can’t do something / why it doesn’t work.
• Found some states where ball will remain trapped if a Tilt occurs. Planning to debug those out next.

The last day to debug before MGC! We’re heading over Friday morning to get set up, so by the afternoon we can relax. Bring my tabletop Neo Geo mini arcade if anyone wants to buy it.

• Made sure all timed modes award extra points for whatever seconds you had remaining on the shot.
• Added a Super Jumps progressive combo on the right orbit jump shot – 500k advance in Theater Mode, 100k advance with no modes active. Spam that shot! (good luck)
• Fixed glitch where Extra Ball light would be on after a mode ends if you collected it during a mode.
• Added additional shift out for new GI lighting. This affected timing (since it’s always running) so adjusted timed light show on Multiball.
• Added more lightning FX for the animated backbox. Will add more after MGC.
• Fixed a bug where if ball didn’t trap successfully to start Haunted Bar the mode would get messed up. It now does a Dirty Pool detect, and if ball indeed trapped, starts mode. Else, targets go down so you can shoot it again to trap.

We finished our episode project early, so I’ve got more time these last 2 days to code.

• You can open a serial terminal and send commands to the pinHeck system. Improving command parser.
• Felix is working on an Android tablet app that will allow remote debugging via Bluetooth. Will hopefully be able to have a small demo ready for MGC.
• Did Bluetooth test – commands working. Need to make command system more verbose & garbage sensitive but good enough for now.
• Still working on Match animation bug. Running through all animations to make sure it isn’t a file issue (NOTE-IT WAS)
• FINALLY found match animation bug problem! My file system is fairly stripped down, can’t follow cluster chains for instance. Usually not an issue as we copy entire SD card at once. The folder containing the Match animations also has a lot of other stuff in there. As I added files, the total # of files in that folder went past 64. 64 filename @ 32 bytes per entry = 2048 which must be past a cluster limit for FAT32. Thus, my system got lost and couldn’t find files near the end. That was the only DMD folder with over 64 entries so probably why I haven’t run into this before.
• Solution was to create a new folder (_DN) to hold the 10 match animations.
• Added bubble sort to high score entry, so best score is entered first.
• Added very conservative times to allow EEPROM to store high scores (EEPROM writes are slower than reads)
• Improving timing for Prison Ghost mode start
• Added Video Queue Kill on Prison Ghost ball locks to avoid lag video problem
• Added “dead shot” sound when hitting already cleared Prison Ghost targets
• Added more looping video prompts of how to beat Prison Ghost
• Fixed glitch where a combo shot changing before collect would erase Tour Location Lights during modes
• Found issue where multiball starting AND ending during stackable modes could cause wrong music to play.
• Spirit Guide (Random Award) can be collected during some modes. Created “quickie” version of animation/sound for these occasions (mostly for flow, also because award would get cut off by other videos)

Turns out of you have a Windows 8 laptop with touchscreen, you can go back and forward in Chrome by dragging your finger left and right across the screen. That’s kinda cool.

• Minion MB working well.
• Hellavator MB working well. Fixed glitch where Minion Targets were erased on Hellavator MB start.
• Improved end of mode code for Photo Hunt. If I have time, might re-stack it with Ghost Minion Mode.
• When Hell MB is stacked with eligible modes, it needs a way to advance jackpot value. Going to look into it, “nice to have” not a bug…
• Working on code to prevent Pop Bumper videos / number displays from overriding prompts when shooting up center shot (it leads to pops, so that’s the issue)