Good for you I suppose?

I guess I see it differently. If you are willing to throw an obscene amount of money at something, eventually you will get it. If you had gotten a sweet deal on it, then I could see the lottery aspect.

Whatever, dude. You can scoff at it all you want. I'll be enjoying my new game regardless of your approval. Don't know why you feel the need to harp on my purchase, but you do you, pal.

If this matters at all,
I Have number 3537 M Fanum , USA

were the skulls "stock" for the production playfield? I don't have them - just the colored "condoms" on the bulbs

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Don't get discouraged. It's always good to see a new owner who's enthusiastic about this title like I am. I've had mine for over 10 years now and it's still one of my all-time favorite pins.

Not stock. That was just a pic of a modded MC that I found online years ago and used as an example.

Sure, what the heck... Added!

3406 robert cheek, usa (proto art)
3407 steve schmidt, usa (proto art)
3410 timmy vierboom, belgium (proto art)
3414 pinball perfection, usa (proto art)
3416 brian stahl, usa (proto art)
3418 tom altenbach, ger (proto art)
3421 toddi, ger
3424 anthony capo, usa
3454 mario van cleave, usa
3461 todd, usa
3463 dan loosen, usa
3477 rick burnham, usa
3479 basil leblanc, usa
3486 ipp, usa
3493 scott kenny, aus
3495 arthur, holland
3521 gregor, ger
3526 matt elder, usa
3537 m. fanum, usa
3540 fred pika, ger
3550 jess askey, usa
3572 anon, usa
3583 dan loosen, usa
3592 unknown, usa
3594 robertmee, usa, made for Italian market
3601 maurizio, italy, made for Italian market
3603 mike, usa, made for Austrian market

No worries, not discouraged at all! I'm absolutely tickled pink I have the lowest known serial number with the error artwork. Nobody is taking that excitement away from me lol

It arrives on Friday and I am beyond excited!

I like your excitement about the game. That's what it's all about. It is too bad that most prototypes end up in the landfill, but a lot of cool stuff is out there.

I have prototypes of a few unreleased Alvin G games (Slam-N-Jam, Dual-Pool, and Slapshot), and feel very fortunate to have them. They're neat pieces of history. There are only 2 other unreleased Alvin G games out there, (A-Maze-Ing Baseball, and another unnamed one) and the protos do still exist. I know where they are, and hopefully someday I will bring them home to the museum.

So on mine I took I think a late 90s bw link and ground it down. The holes line up, but the alvin g is much thinner. Has worked for years without issue.

Hey guys, my Mystery Castle just arrived! Unfortunately, I still have some minor issues with it. Neither slingshot fires and neither does the knocker. Also, neither outlane light comes on.

As it turns out, all 3 of those solenoids are linked to the same fuse, so I suspect it's just blown or something.

If I put in a new fuse and it immediately blows when I turn it on, what do I do? For the record, it's fuse F15.

Lift the playfield and examine the coils of each of those assemblies. Do any of the coil wrappers show any sign of discoloration or overheating? Does each assembly move freely by hand without binding?

Yes, the coils are fine. It's actually remarkably clean! Here's what I'm working on so far, all minor issues:

1. I'm getting random "Please Wait" messages at random times during both attract mode and gameplay. I even got one message during gameplay saying that one of the lamp matrices was shorted or something? It was extremely brief and went away before I could grab a picture. I haven't seen that error since.

2. A decent number of flashers seem to be out, too. When I test the bad ones in diagnostics, I can hear the relay click but nothing flashes. And, speaking of flashers, every time I lose the ball, the game seems to pause and strobe the right ramp flasher for a couple seconds before doing the bonus count. Is that normal?

3. The speakers also seem to have some interference going on. Lots of random noises and low volume hisses and whines every so often, but nothing disruptive.

4. Both outlane lights (Boulder Bonus and Chopping Block lights specifically) are out. Could be bulbs, but the fact that both lights that are connected to the same feature are out at the same time makes me think this might be a deeper issue.

What's going on here? I'll obviously replace the fuse and see if that fixes the solenoid problems and see if replacing the bulbs brings the lights back.

Just some thoughts...

The lighting simulates lightening strikes when the bonus counts. If most of your flashers are out, I am guessing you are just seeing part of that display. I would start with the simplest solution first and check the bulbs that are out.

"Please Wait" should only be on the display for a few seconds when you first boot the game. Your game may be resetting.

Are these out in test too? I'm pretty sure these aren't normally lit until you progress in the game.

I'll check the flashers. Yes, the two bulbs don't light up in test. I'm gonna guess bad bulbs or dirty sockets.

As for the Please Wait messages, I guess the display is just rebooting randomly? Would that be a loose connector or a power supply issue? Or something else?

Just speculation, but the power supply board in the lower left of the backbox is a common failure point on this game. It can cause all sorts of strange issues. Clive at CoinOp Cauldron can refurb these at a reasonable price.

Fenix, with all due respect, this is not the thread for technical questions. Glad you're happy with your game, and I am glad this thread has had more life lately, but enough with the hijacking please. Theres plenty of other resources here where you can get help with your issues besides this thread.

Thanks for saying this. I was about to do the same. And it's not just Fenix.....others have kind of helped lose the original intent of the thread. Let's keep the tech help stuff elsewhere, please.

There's plenty of miscellaneous Alvin G tech threads in the archive, so I would suggest looking to see if any of those are of the same subject that you're looking for, and resurrect them. If none apply, then yes, please start a new one. Thanks.

Matt, why did all of the prototypes end up destroyed? All the other manufacturers seemed to just sell off their prototype machines along with the production run.
Is there a particular reason that Alvin G. & Co didn’t want prototypes going out?

Actually, true surviving prototypes from any company are more the exception than the rule. I'm referring to whitewood games in rag-tag cabinets, handmade parts, etc. The majority of these from any company were typically pitched in the dumpster or disassembled and the generic parts used for future prototypes. They held very little value and weren't worth doing anything with.

Check out on the IPDB just how many of John Trudeau's prototypes got destroyed at Gottlieb. Or other cool games like DE's Total Recall. Most prototypes met the same fate.

And yes, we do see B/W games every now and then with the red prototype boards and maybe some playfield differences, but these are usually games in real cabinets, with playfield art, etc. I would call these sample games more than protoypes.

Another thing to consider is how small of a company Alvin G & Co. was. There would have been a very small number of prototype games built (probably a couple of any given production title at most I would guess, and some of the unreleased games of theirs only had 1 a piece built for sure), so that right there cuts down the chances of much surviving.

Mystery Castle #3602 is en route to me

Great !
A new number for the list !

Brian Bushey just picked up 3511 and it’s for sale if anyone’s interested.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/for-sale-mystery-castle-5

Thanks. Will add it to the list.

Got in today! Super exited about it, it’s beautiful shape. Since 3601 and 3603 were made for the foreign market, I figured this one would be, but it was made for the USA.

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Very nice, expect the LED stuff. I can not understand what people like on LED in old machines.
Maybe I am an old boring man ....

But ... welcome to the club.

EDIT: MC were all made for USA as far as I know.

Congrats! I would have expected that one to be an export too.

I prefer leds in my alvin g's. If nothing else it keeps the gi traces from burning off the board (have had two games where that happened)

I like the LEDs but never a huge fan of stadium lights. Makes getting the Playfield up and down kind of a pain, but since this already had them installed by a previous owner, will probably leave them. They look pretty decent on this title.

One quick question, where should the left kick out feed? Left flipper or right? Any tips for fine tuning it a bit? Mine seems to want to hit the top of the sling. Isn’t terrible as it usually feeds one or the other flipper still and not SDTM, but want to dial it in a little.

I have to hold my left flipper up or else that lower kick out goes SDTM.
As far as lighting goes, imho, Mystery Castle looks fantastic with the stadium lights. I use it all the time.
I've attached a few pics (please disregard the puke blue LED abstraction)
I used just standard white LED's for the stadium lights

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IMG_1724 (resized).JPG

Somewhere in the vastness of the big HIT SHED, I have a whole box full to the top with Alvin G. Ramps.

I think they were for the left side of Garage Band.

They were sitting there on the pack up day at the PinBerk Expo, and to save them going the crusher, I grabbed them.

Let me know if anyone has a need for one of these. I might be able to put on some climbing shoes and get back there.....

If there’s any chance they are for Mystery Castle, I’m definitely in.

Id be all over mystery castle ramps. Als doesnt seem to break ramps. I have a nos pp ramp just in case i get pistol again.

Likewise, would definitely be in for MC ramps. Mine are in good shape, but I'm sweating it haha. Would be nice to have peace of mind with an extra set. Any chance anyone would ever run a new PETG set? I know the decal scans are out there.

Doubt it. No reason to do low production games when there are titles that can potentially sell a thousand plus.

Unfortunately, neither of those things will ever be repro'd. Not nearly enough games made to warrant the investment in making them.

I talked with a guy like 8 years ago maybe when he had asked to borrow my NOS plastics for scans, and the prices he was quoted were super high, so the project never got off the ground.

Hopefully your ramps will be okay. There are a few NOS ones floating around though. I sold a few years ago, as did some others. At the big IPB sale back in '09 there were 2 big boxes full of NOS MC ramps, both Catwalk and Bridge ramps (and PP ramps as well)....for only $25 a piece * Edit: The more I think about it, I believe the Catwalk ramps were $25 and the Bridge ramp and PP ramps were $35*.

Anyway, as easily as they can break, I wish I had bought more of them. Shoulda, coulda, woulda.

At least I still have 1 spare of each for emergency purposes.

Especially with that game being mostly ramps! I had a great example of MC, but the ramps were a bit rough. I sold it, and regret it now.

Mine is number 3540 and now lives in the UK but looks like it was originally destined for France

IMG_20210402_131342 (resized).jpg

What about JodyG ? He’s been running tons of ramps that nobody else would make

I just bought Forceflow’s box of Alvin G boards, so hopefully one will come my way sooner or later! Now I’ve got enough spare boards in case a gutted project comes my way

Interesting. This machine was previously owned by a collector in Germany.

I recently got an AG Soccer so joined the club. I posted a technical question in the thread in this space but read the posts above and made a new post in the technical section. Are there any groups or dedicated resources to troubleshoot Alvin G games? Maybe that can be pinned at the start of the thread. Cheers

I read that there were 500 Alvin G Soccer produced. Here is the serial number tag from mine. I think it is # 502. The playfield is #57 though produced in 92 which is odd. It has a PCA-019A power supply in it. There are some capacitors on it that are not called out in the schematics on IPDB. The schematics for Punchy the Clown are more accurate to what I have. The main board PCA-009 is from 92 and is serial number 10635. I noticed that the CAD drawings from Punchy in 93 were of a different quality than earlier - like they changed CAD software.

Also in troubleshooting the power supply, I only get 15.5VDC measuring with a multimeter from the "20VDC" circuit (with nothing connected downstream). Is it supposed to be 20VDC or ~15.5?

IMG_5309 (resized).JPG

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Please start a tech thread. This intent of this thread is to celebrate the company and its games, not troubleshoot problems. Thanks.

I copy that. I posted another topic two weeks ago and got no response. I thought it was notable having #502 of 500 produced and learn some history of the boards made. Cheers.

Given that ag soccerball and ag football had 500 each made, use all the same parts minus the exterior artwork they most likely share serial numbers.

Two NOS Alvin G ramps just showed up. The collector had no idea what they were for so perhaps he’s willing to sell?
I know these things are getting harder and harder to find so I figured I’d share

One is Mystery Castle, other is unknown.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/unknown-nos-ramps#post-6370712

Cleaned

Please start a tech thread and I will be happy to help you there. The intent of this thread is to celebrate the company and its games, not troubleshoot issues or find parts. Thank you.