(Carried this forward to 0.69 since it wasn't a huge update)
New code is out today. I'll list the changelog first, then make a space like the GB and KISS thread to compile bugs from the thread posts after that so all the problems are in one place, hopefully giving them the best chance of being addressed.
http://www.sternpinball.com/game-code
V0.68 - January 31, 2017
========================
- Added backgrounds for Mad Hatter and Egghead.
- Timers were not being paused when the minor villain select screen was
running. This has been corrected.
- Removed AUTO default setting for the villain extra ball (the default
is now 2 villains).
- Added display effect, sounds, and speech for main multiball super
jackpot.
- Reworked the multiball rule:
- All shots lit (green).
- Shot scores go up 50k a shot.
- After 15 shots (adjustable), super jackpot lit at the atomic pile
(the turntable moves to the batcave position when lit).
- Main multiball was not computing the scores for the jackpots correctly.
This has been fixed.
- Added sounds for bat phone hurry-up gordon target and ball locked
display effect.
- Top eject and trough were not waiting for multiball start to finish
before kicking balls. This has been corrected.
- Blink the villain lamp associated with the villain for batphone hurry-up.
- Blink the villain lamp associated with the active villain.
- Added missed effects for batphone hurry-up when the hurry-up times out.
- Gordon target increases and restarts the batphone hurry-up.
- Fixed a bug with the major villain modes where the progress for starting
the modes was not being initialized correctly.
- Fixed vertical centering on some text items.
- Added Penguin skill shot.
- Changed RGB LED colors for super skill shot.
- Changed skill shot scores.
- Changed super skill shot to award major villain mode or gadget, as
appropriate.
- Fixed a bug in the skill shot that was causing the skill shot points
to increase over time by large amounts.
- Fixed a bug that was causing the number of shots for the villains to
not increase after the villain was completed.
- Mystery awards were not being given out during multiball. This has
been corrected.
- Shot multiplier target no longer easier if shot multiplier shots are
lit from mystery.
- Light shot multiplier shots award is given out less frequently from
mystery the more it is awarded.
- The shot multiplier target lamp was not being disabled when the
multiplier shots were lit. This has been corrected.
- Shot multiplier target hits were not being reset when the multiplier
shots were lit from mystery. This has been corrected.
- Added mystery display effect, sounds, and speech.
- Added a setting to allow penguin advance from the pop bumpers, but not
after the first penguin completion. (This is the default.)
- Combo award for the penguin VUK was being identified as coming from
the left loop. This has been corrected.
- Added a sound for using a gadget.
- Added status lamps to the catwoman mode.
- All balls are released from the turntable lock at once when there are
no balls locked.
- Fixed a crash bug at the start of ball 2, 3, which occurred with a
villain mode running at the time the skill shot text label was called
to be displayed.
- Incremental updates - speed up future code updates by only copying
changed file(s).
V0.69.0 - February 16, 2017
===========================
- Added shaker motor effects.
- Cleaned up villain super jackpot award display effects (text, speed up).
- Added display effect and sounds for extra ball.
- Added display effect and sounds for extra ball lit.
- Fixed a bug in the batphone hurry-up where stacking the 4th villain
would not lock in the 4th villain; the 4th villain would continually
allow the batphone hurry-up to be restarted.
- Restart batphone hurry-up award from mystery now given every other time.
- Pop bumper target increases the pop bumper values.
- Implemented new versioning scheme.
- Added turntable magnet to villain vision shots to the turntable during
main multiball.
- Changed the names of the TV target targets and lamps.
- Stop penguin skill shot on certain playfield switches.
- Rework text bubbles for skill shot.
- Cleaned up control gate issues. Added open control gate for combos and
for batphone hurry-up.
- Extra ball now awarded on the left loop switch as well as the top eject.
- Added batphone hurry-up champion.
- Fixed an issue with the node start-up code that would fail to detect
the Villain Vision (TV) node on certain games. The node start-up code
would continually reset the node bus, and after 5 tries, give up.
Shortly after giving up, the TV node would come on-line. This has been
corrected.
- Major villain mode scoring now based on:
a) Number of times all villains have been captured
b) Batphone hurry-up score
c) Number of villain shots made.
- Major villain advance was not being initialized correctly (villains
would not require more shots after they had been completed). This has
been fixed.
- Added restart batphone hurry-up award to mystery.
MYSTERY AWARDS IN 0.68:
Hold Bonus
+1 Playfield Multiplier
+5 Bonus X
Light Extra Ball
Multiball
Light Shot Multipliers
Light Lock
Award Lock
5,000,000 points
Add-A-Ball (if in Multiball)
+1 Gadget
500,000 points (displayed in old DMD style dots)
v 0.69 BUGS REMAINING
-----------------------------------------------
- When holding the left flipper button to go for Super Skill Shot at beginning of ball, "INSTANT INFO" comes up too quickly (and is the ugly old DMD style message). Maybe make "INSTANT INFO" take 4 seconds instead of 2 on the left flipper before ball launches, but be normal timing for the right? Using the same button for two things at the same time is tricky.
- Batphone on rotisserie can STILL be in the wrong position asking you to hit it when it can't be hit. Played a number of games when the batphone was stuck on 3 o'clock position while flashing and the hurryup counting down. No way to hit it. Always corrects itself next villain, but it's irritating.
- Batman said "Super Jackpot is lit" during Multiball, but...nope, it wasn't. Later Robin said I collected Super Jackpot, but it was never lit at any time during multiball. If this is a SECOND area, unmarked Super Jackpot at the Atomic Pile, it should be called out better, like "Atomic Pile Super Jackpot" or "Batcave Super Jackpot" so the player understands it's not referring to the ONLY labeled Super Jackpot on the playfield, at the scoop.
- Batphone Champ score can be entered, but it doesn't show in attract mode.
- Mystery awards are activated when you hit scoop, so you know them before the animation announcing the mystery even plays. They shouldn't be awarded until AFTER the animation plays.
- it allows you to try and start a new game before locked balls are returned to the trough. The typical end game stuff happens at the turntable, but if you hit start, ball search starts and then the message about looking for balls is displayed. Kinda silly and a step backwards from .65
- Bad ball management. If the ball gets stuck and it launches another ball to replace it after ball search fails then the stuck ball un-lodges, you're screwed the rest of that game, because it will die when the first of the two balls in play drains, and then it keeps serving two balls on successive balls until the game's over, and the game will always go dead when the first ball exits. Other Sterns manage the balls better, so this can be addressed. This is also a problem when there are balls locked and ball search unloads the ball queue starting an immediate sudden death multiball, where any one ball lost ends the turn.
- MYSTERY should not award you one-off awards multiple times. I had "HOLD BONUS" awarded twice in a single ball, in effect having the second award wasted. If you already have "Hold Bonus" it should not be in the queue to come up again on that ball.
- When selecting a TV Villain, if you use the action button it selects the TVV AND like a bitch, uses your gadget. Gadget use should be suspended during TV Villain selection so you can use the gadget button as a selector without using up a gadget.
- If a ball is sent to the physical lock just as the phone starts beeping, it seems to reject the locked ball (first lock, not sure if this happens on lock 2), rotating the rotisserie around to dump the ball out and the lock doesn't count, because next locked ball is still Lock 1.
- On a related note, if locks are lit, but the right orbit shot "qualifies" Riddler to start the phone ringing, it REJECTS the lock you just earned, rotating the rotisserie and dropping the ball out. You should earn the lock AND start the riddler phone ringing.
- Bang! Book! Craaack! etc in multiball interrupts the Mystery video, taking it away so you don't know what you get! If that stays, it should float some text up the screen with the award you won, or SAY the award so the player knows what the mystery award was!
- If you have Mystery and TV lit and hit the saucer, it does the TV mode TVV selection and you seem to lose the Mystery (unless it's not seen and awarded, which it doesn't seem to be).
- Got a Mystery award where Batman and Robin ran to the computer like usual, but then the screen changed to the ugly DMD-style display and said "500,000" as it was announced the award was 500k. Weird. Only saw this one time.
- If you hit the 15th shot in main multiball and then drain instantly (I know, I know...) the "Super Jackpot is Lit" callout will play during the end of ball bonus on top of the other sounds. If it felt like an intentional taunt, it'd be cool, but it seems like a bug.
- If you adjust the volume during the match sequence, the 'clicking' during the match keeps playing until you trigger another sound.
- If the Batphone hurry up expires, you can quickly shoot a villain shot again (like Penguin for sure) and it will restart the Batphone at the next level. That is, if you have qualified Penguin, Batphone expires, shoot the scoop again and Penguin phone hurry up will start at 3M instead of 1.5.
- HARDWARE. The blue pad on the left side of the left ramp should be mounted on the INSIDE of the ramp. This FIXES the terrible left orbit dead/rattly ball syndrome and make the left orbit actually work reliably.
v 0.69 NEEDS ATTENTION
------------------------------------------
- Little game information messages on the note-paper that slide in on the screen are obscured by the Bang Boom Pow, etc messages during multiball, making them difficult or impossible to read. Maybe put them on "top" of the screen so they're not obscured?
- When batsignal that projects on the ceiling turns on and off (like while the batphone is ringing), it would be nice to have it fade in and out, maybe even flickering as it comes on or fades to off like a real beacon rather than instant on and off. The difference would be a fraction of a second up to maybe a second at most on each end, but the result would be more impressive/realistic version of a batsignal.
- Gadget button should turn solid red or turn OFF when you cannot use it (like when the batphone is active, etc).
- When I maxed out on something (gadget?) hitting it again gave me 1,000,000 in the old DMD style font on-screen. Ugly.
- Option in settings to leave topper light on when game is being played. It's weird that the Batman/Robin part goes dark during games.
- Turntable multiplier 2x, 3x, etc is full screen in the old DMD style font. Ugly.
- Ability to start next game while match animation is happening. Right now you have to wait until it finishes before you can start the next game.
- Showing the high score or grand champion score achieved on the name entry screen for high scores would be nice.
- Villain stack mode should be the default instead of the other way around.
- Jailing more than one villain at once should award more points for each successive villain jailed at the same time since it's hard to do.
- Some more Mystery awards would be nice, like maybe "Commissioner Gordon Hurryup" where you have to hit the CG target and get a bunch of points if you do it quickly. Or maybe "Bad Pussy Hurryup" where you have to hit a catwoman ramp as it tries to drain off up to 10 million from your score. Hit it fast, lose almost nothing. Hit it slow, lose a lot as it counts the loss backwards off your score until you hit one ramp. Infrequent negative (funny or interesting) Mystery awards the player can stop with skill would be a cool break from the usual.
Sydney
San Diego, CA
