Hi guys. I’m proud to announce a project on Pinside that I’ve been working on for some time now over at http://www.pinballcontrollers.com/forum/index.php?board=49.0. It’s a new take on Pinbot that I’m calling “Pinbot 2.0 P-ROC Edition.” Pinbot is one of my favorite games, and after I restored a beater back in September 2014, I just couldn’t help putting a P-ROC in it trying to write a new and improved ruleset.

Hardware Summary:
- Fully-restored Playfield
- Williams MPU removed
- Fitted with P-ROC
- Fitted with Pinsider Snux’s System11 Driver board
- Fitted with Pinsider Applejuice’s System11 Display board
- Original 2-ball trough replaced with F-14’s 4-ball trough (woo-hoo!)
- 7” LCD display in the apron (virtual DMD) in addition to the original glass displays (which will still display score)

Software Summary:
- All new code written in Python 2.6 and (soon) fully open-sourced. It uses MOcean's soon-to-be-released "SkeletonGame" as a base.
- Custom Soundtrack (now) or possibly a custom musical score (future)
- New “double or nothing” skillshot.
- Timed ball save
- Each planet will feature a timed challenge, requiring the player to make certain shots for mode completion.
- A timed “special” after the completion of each mode, for even more points!
- 3 and even 4-ball multiballs!!!!!
- Ability to play Pinmame (stock) version any time you want.

So a little background on this. System 11 (and DataEast) games are my favorite era of pins by far. So while Pinbot is a very fun and complete game and while the ruleset is already very solid, my goal is to add a lot depth to the game. Right now in the stock rules you just make the planets one after the other. In this version making the planets opens up specific timed challenges, which IMO gives you a lot of depth and adds strategy that the stock game never had.

Plus add to that great soundtrack/score, new DMD animations, timed ballsave, etc. etc. etc.

Here is a video of the new skillshot. In this video I make the skillshot on ball 1, settle for the normal vortex shot on ball 2, and miss the skillshot on purpose with ball 3.…

Here is a video of walking through all the modes that are currently coded. Please note these are works in progress. There are 9 planets and the sun, so 10 modes total. All modes now light a timed special on completion. Hit the right standup target to claim this special.

- Pluto - The Dwarf Planet. 30 Seconds to hit 20 pops
- Neptune - Shoot the left ramp and drop into the pops in 30 seconds.
- Uranus - The Blue-Green Giant. 60 Seconds to hit all the chest blue and green cols and blue and green rows (makes a tic-tac-toe with the lights, 90% code done, just need to code the lamps on the chest.)
- Saturn - The Ringed Planent - Make rings (loops) over the left ramp and drop into the inlane. Points for each loop, 3 loops completes the mode.
- Jupiter - Red Eye'd Planet - Escape the red storm by seeking shelter under the ramp. Hit this standup target in 20 seconds to complete the mode.
- Mars - The red planet. Make the left ramp and nudge into the shooter lane. The make the (red) vortex for x10 scoring!
- Earth - The Blue Marble. (tbd video mode)
- Venus (tbd)
- Mercury (tbd)
- The Sun (tbd)

Sorry that the video is a little slow and that there a few bugs that cause me to need to drop the left standup targets multiple times. Working on it...

Also if you want more technical details on converting the game to a 4-ball or you want some specs on the apron DMD, check out these threads.

Trough...
http://www.pinballcontrollers.com/forum/index.php?topic=1377.0

Apron...
http://www.pinballcontrollers.com/forum/index.php?topic=1412.0

So a couple things. My DMD dots are very basic at this time, but that's on purpose. I'm hoping to finish the rules code 100% before I dive into DMD stuff. I did toss in an early pic of what I think the DMD will look like in the future. I'm in no hurry on this. I can still play the old rules via pinmame, so I'm not out anything if this takes 2 years to finish.

The other thing is I want to take a moment to personally thank the guys who have gone before me and paved the way. It's not like I am writing this game from scratch, but rather taking a great deal of code off GitHub and other places and making it work for me. Therefore the ones who've paved the way are essential. Here are a few pinsiders I have to thank whose accomplishments were vital in my success so far (hardware and software).

Gstellenberg
Snux
MOcean
EpTheGeek
KoenHeltzel
TheNoTrashCougar
AppleJuice
Actually several others…

Thanks all. Looking forward to updating this thread with my progress.
Dan

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I don't plan to do a kit, but will open up my code if anybody wants to source all the same parts and their own songs. For now just enjoy the show!!!

In the original rules you could get a planet by either clearing the 3 drop targets or hitting the Advance Planet stand up. I'm going to make a new label for the plastic to change this. I'm going to require you to hit all three drops to light the Advance Planet standup and will let you enter the mode by completing the standup. I had it coded for 10 seconds but a friend came over to play test and was like ... um ... 10 minutes maybe

The P-ROC community is very strong. It's a great bunch of guys helping each other out constantly. In this case pinsider BrianMadden wrote a piece of software that uses OSC technology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Sound_Control, like for midi music) to control a game. What you see in the video is a GUI that pinsider MOcean wrote that allows me to find a jpg of my playfield and map buttons and colored disks over it, so I can press the buttons to send switch hits over a local server on my development machine. I can see my lamps light up as disks via server traffic the other way. It's pretty amazing.

A few months ago when this didn't exist I was using Visual Pinball to basically do the same kind of thing, but it's tough to test when you have to make the shots in a specific order.

Dan

I do not expect a C&D for a couple of reasons. First of all, P-ROC is a blank slate. I connect it to my pinball and start with nothing at all and have to code everything. The reading of every switch hit, the pulsing every coil, etc. has to be coded by hand. As I mentioned before, others before me have paved the way and provided sandboxes for me to work in, and I am leveraging their work wherever possible. I'm not trying to make it sound like I personally coded it all by hand, but to be sure none of my code is Williams code, even in a derivative form.

Same with sounds. I'm not going to use any Williams sounds. I'm going to pick every sound myself, make it "just so" in Audacity, put it in the game. For instance I'll use many robot voices but they will be generated from here... http://codewelt.com/proj/speak?lang=en-us and put through a filter in Audacity to sound awesome.

Same with music. Some of the songs I use will be IP of others, but in that case I will be using them for personal use (not sharing) and will be fine. In any case, it won't be a Williams thing at all.

As far as the DMD is concerned, Pinbot didn't have one, so it will all be original. Nothing to steal, so to speak. I am purposefully not spending a ton of time on the DMD for now, but eventually I will likely use animated gifs that I get from NASA or create myself using Celestia or some other free program. For personal use there won't be an issue.

Hope that helps! Glad to have you all aboard. Going to be a fun ride!

Dan

Hi again fellas. I decided to post a video of the multiball code, which I am getting closer to completing. I took this video by putting my 22" monitor face-up on the apron and using a tripod. Crazy, I know, but I've been getting disappointing results with handheld videos, so hoping this one doesn't make everybody motion sick like some of the others.

What you see here is I start a game and miss the skillshot on purpose. Then I begin filling out the chest. This is the same as the stock rules and opens the visor as in the stock rules. Next I lock an eye to get ball 2. Again, the same as stock rules.

Next I lock ball 2 in the other eye. Still same as stock, but in stock rules making ball 2 starts the multiball since Pinbot is now all out of balls. You will recall, though, I have a 4-ball trough. So in my rules making ball 2 kicks out ball 3!!!

You now have 30 seconds or so to lock the single eject. If you can lock this single eject before the time limit you then earn the 4th ball for a whopping FOUR BAAAAAAAALLLLLL MULTIBAAAAAALLLLLLL....

WOOT!

For the Jackpot, I have it now that the right standup enables the jackpot, followed by a ramp shot. This is a little tribute to DESW where you make the death star and follow with a ramp shot to get the jackpot. Open to suggestions on a better jackpot shot.

One thing to keep in mind is that I'm trying to put as little effort into the DMD and sounds as possible for now, plus I haven't lit a single flasher. Once sounds and flashers are added, it all becomes much more dramatic, but I learned from past experience to try not to get distracted on frosting before you have a cake.

Thanks all for watching and the many kind and encouraging comments. Please also know that I value criticism and suggestions. I'm feeling like that right "advance planet" standup target plays a little too heavy in my rules, given that it's such a dangerous shot. Would love to hear suggestions from others. Also have a couple modes I'm undecided about and would welcome feedback.

Thanks!
Dan

Ooooooo, I like that a lot thanks! I don't plan to go with the fire effect for any length of time, just haven't made the effort to remove it from MOcean's T2 sample that I was using as my base.

Actually I recently mocked up what I will want to do with my display based on the sample you showed me a while ago, and I very much like your idea of putting ball number in the first vacant spot or in current player for a 4-player game. Unfortunately I still have no idea who to actually make such a thing so, and I haven't dug into it at any length either.

Dan

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Thanks, I will hit you up for sure!

I'm 50/50 right now. This weekend I'm going to try my hand at CAD and will try to render and 3D print the standoffs for my display. I'm thinking once I see the display installed and mounted in the apron I'll kind of know what the right thing to do is. I'm on the fence because the grid look is retro and retro is awesome. But I've got really neat animated gifs of all the planets from NASA, and NASA is awesome...

Hello. So what I'm doing requires you to start with what is basically a blank slate, not just a blank slate of sounds, but a blank slate for the whole thing. You start with nothing and have to code for every mode, every switch hit, every bleep, every bloop, every song.

If you're just wanting to change out the music then I'd venture a guess to say P-ROC is way too much of an investment. Yes, it could do what you want to do, but you'd have to code all the existing rules back in, just to change out a couple songs.

As far as just changing out songs, there are a couple ways to do this. There is a new board called Pinsound. It doesn't list System11A games like Pinbot, but does list System11C games onward. For $339 it does what you want. I've got one on order for my Roadshow, but haven't gotten it yet.

Pinsider Betelgeuse also re-themed a game to be a Ghostbusters theme (https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/ghostbusters-custom-pinball-inside-look), and he put extra switches in the game and used an MP3 trigger (or 3) to trigger these sounds. So in theory you could indeed change out the songs this way, but in this case you'd have to remove your sound board and replace it with the trigger(s), which would require you to do all sounds, not just a song or two.

Anyway, I've been working on my music and sounds quite a bit this weekend and will soon post an update. I've decided to go with Space Disco and Italo Disco as the soundtrack of my game. That era is actually a bit before Pinbot (the game was released in '87 and space disco was more a thing in 1977). But it actually works really well and sounds amazing. I'll be posting a youtube very soon of the results.

Dan

Heya Fellas. I spent quite a lot of time over the weekend working on music and sounds. As I mentioned before, I chose "space disco" as my theme/soundtrack.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_disco
Space disco is the fusion of disco music with futuristic themes, sounds and visuals, a genre that became popular in the late 1970s. The main idea behind the genre is that of an exploration of the wonders of outer space by humans...

At this point I listened to probably 200 songs, and I've chosen 20 that I think work in my game. I won't use them all, but I have them mixed and ready to choose from.

I worked on my "Robot Voice" a bit, although I'm not terribly happy with my result. It will do for now. I have many sounds that I still need to nail down, but I feel like things are starting to take shape.

For the main music on ball one I'm using the song "Space Disco" by Universal Robot Band (1977). This is the song that the game will come back to after any mode is complete. To avoid a repetitive feeling I've got 3 different entry points for the song and randomly use them.

Balls two and three will have their own songs and a similar variation on them, but they are still TBD.

+++++
SONGS
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Countdown Special After Making Mode: "Countdown" by Digital Mind (1985).

Modes:
Pluto - "Tong Poo" by Yellow Magic Orchestra (1979)
Neptune - "Hey Hey Guy" by Ken Laszlo (1984)
Uranus - "Robbots" by Space (1980)
Saturn - "Saturn" by Ganymed (1978)
Jupiter - "Space Rock" by Rockets (1977)
Mars - "Israel Connection" by Laurent Vaguener (1979)

Multiball Mode (not featured in this video): "Droid" by Automat (1978)

Video here...

I think it's sounding pretty good!
Dan

Thanks for the feedback and the video!

I think you're talking about "Saturn" by Ganymed (1978). Yes, I see what you mean and agree with you. I think I was swayed too heavily by the fact that the song was actually *called* "Saturn." I'll swap that one out for one of the other mega awesome ones I have in my back pocket.

Dan

EDIT: Adding annotations to the vid so it's easier to get feedback from those willing to give it.

The voice you hear is not the final voice. It's just the best I could do this weekend. I did this by using
http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/tts_example.php (Dave - US) then adding a few effects in Audacity that I found on a free tutorial. I was surprised how hard it is to get a voice that can be understood but that still sounds good.

I do have a lead on a VST effect from another pinsider but haven't figured out how to apply it yet. I did some radio stuff and some speech stuff in college and may end up recording my own voice, but kind of undecided at this point.

I'm just realizing what a massive project something like this is. Sheesh, could take me years to wrap it all up, but help from Pinsiders like you certainly eases the burden.

Thanks again,
Dan

Hi Guys. Thanks so much for the all the kind words and support. A number of you even watched my previous videos and provided song advice and critiques, which I'm extremely grateful for. I think at this point I've got my songs chosen, at least for now.

These videos (while not super exciting) show me starting up a game and walking through all 9 modes. I let the modes time out on each one so you can get an idea of the mode goals, length, and how the game sounds.

I should also mention that pinsider MOcean got me a fresh copy of his SkeletonGame framework, and I've been able to make great process the past couple weeks to make the game look and play better.

+++

Video 1 shows Attract Mode and Starting a Game. I then miss the skillshot and enter the first planet mode (Pluto). I then let the mode timer count down to 1 second and make the mode. Next I let the special timer count down to 1 and make that.

Music:
Ball 1 Music - "Space Disco" by Universal Robot Band (1977)
Pluto Mode - "Tong Poo" by Yellow Magic Orchestra (1979)
Special Lit - "Countdown" by Digital Mind (1985).

+++

Video 2 shows starting Neptune Mode and timing down to 3 seconds before making the mode. Then I make the special right away and go back into the main ball 1 music (Space Disco).

Next I go into the Uranus mode, which wants you to make a tic-tac-toe out of the blue and green targets. This is a longer mode. Sorry this one kind of drags on but it will take some time to hit all these targets, especially the rows which are tricky.

Music:
Neptune Mode - "Hey Hey Guy" by Ken Laszlo (1984)
Uranus Mode- "Robbots" by Space (1980)

+++

Video 3
This video shows me draining ball 1 and shows the ball 2 music. As with all ball music, I start with the studio version but on returning from a mode I cut back into this song using one of three random transitions.

Music:
Ball 2 Music - "The Force Parts I and II" by The Droids (1977).
Saturn Mode - "Do It Again" by Easy Going (1978)
Jupiter Mode - "Space Rock" by Rockets (1977)

+++

Video 4
This video shows Mars Mode. It's a longer mode, but it's not easy to get into the shooter lane from the left ramp, so you'll need the time. After that is Earth Mode. Earth mode isn't written yet, but it's going to be a video mode. The idea I'm playing around with is avoiding space junk and satellites orbiting the planet. Should be fun. Disclaimer (never written a video mode before).

Mars Mode - "Israël Connection" by Laurent Vaguener (1979)
Earth Mode - "Disco Computer" by Transvolta (1979)

+++

Video 5
This video shows the Venus Mode placeholder. Don't know what this will be yet. I'd welcome ideas! Same is true for Mercury Mode. Open to any suggestions....

Venus Mode - "Le Spank" by Le Pamplemousse (1977)
Mercury Mode - "Galactic Reaction" by Milkways (1978)

+++

Thanks for watching!
Dan

Thanks for the feedback.

Yes, you can control GI via P-ROC, so turning off the lights is indeed an option.

Yes good point. I'm planning to redesign the DMD to give a lot more information than what is there currently, but it's quite a ways down the priority list.

Which switches do you mean? Are you talking about something where the mode ends if you miss the target or you just try to complete as many as you can?

Thanks,
Dan

Yeah, me too. Fun stuff. Need to get back to it and code the multiball soon. Non-pinball stuff taking a lot of my time lately.

Thanks Mocean! I've not been doing a great job of keeping up with pinball stuff the past two weeks but I did manage to build the repository on github last night so others can view my code.

As Mocean mentions, my Pinbot 2.0 is built on his framework, so without his code at the link provided above, my code won't do much.

http://github.com/Curbfeeler/Pinbot-AdvGame

I'm providing it for reference only. There are lots of gameplay videos above, and the intent here is you can watch the videos and follow along mode-by-mode in my source code to see how certain things are done.

If someone is interested in getting this up and running on their computer please contact me for instructions and I will try to help. The setup is several steps, and they are very specific. I won't be able to get you the music but can sub out PD songs in their place to get something workable.

Dan

Hi guys. Sorry it's been a while since I've posted here. A lot of good progress, though. First of all, hardware-wise I've completed the apron display. I'm using a $75 IPS display, which really looks sharp during game play. I wish pictures or video could do it justice.

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I also have my gas displays working (thanks to MOcean for figuring out the issue with these). Obviously the apron-mounted display is going to handle all the fancy stuff, but my gas displays show score, ball #, player #, which is plenty.

The other cool thing these days is MOcean (creator of SkeletonGame) has created a display template that I think looks really fabulous. It has a nice 4-player score layout at the top and just enough space across 3 lines of text below to spell out what the player needs to do next. For fun, there's an icon at the right that allows me to display a picture or animation related to the current mode or task. I'm not using it to its full potential right now, but I'm very excited about it. I think it looks clean, intuitive, and sufficiently fancy for my needs.

This video shows it running virtually in my DEV environment. This will demonstrate the modes from Pluto to Earth. Earth is going to be a video mode, so stay tuned on that...

Dan