Top notch work. looks great!

This is really really cool. I am super sad a SoF had to die. BUT I guess that makes all the other 2,704 SoF worth more...right Great work!

Really, really nice !

For Buffy to come to life - it's so worth it! Need Sarah Michelle Gellar to come play and sign it.

thanks for the info on the ramps and also the video - your machine looks awesome, love the timber look coin door, flippers and ramps and the art looks great especially the logo near the flippers - looks like metal. Also nice touch with the tranlite art continuing down into the lcd / dmd panel - little touches that make the machine look so professional.

One beautiful machine, I want one. Well done

What a labor of love. It looks frick'n Amazing! I can't wait to see it in person this weekend. They should make you an honorary Scooby.

maybe next expo as hoping to get there next year with a few mods....

keep up the good work

Buffy is alive and well at expo and, even though I couldn't be there, I've been updating the code remotely --sending new code and bug fixes to Nelly as he sends me issues that are being uncovered given all the play testing it has been getting.

To everyone who has stopped and played: thank you! You're helping us make the game better through feedback. If the game crashed while you played it on an earlier day of expo, most of those issues have been worked out. All sorts of issues have bubbled to the surface and many of them I've been able to pop.

Here's a fun example: Nelly sent me a bunch of new video clips to use and I converted and added about 900mb of video (uncompressed) literally the day before expo started. That first day we discovered that the necessary pre-loading of all the video really breaks down when you hit the 2gb of memory limit for 32-bit Python(!). He bought more ram while I re-processed about 12 of the largest videos to drop their frame rate and we were back in business.

I really wish I was there at Expo, but having a constant stream of text messages with pictures of crash logs is almost the next best thing

Thanks everyone!
- Michael

You guys did a very nice job on Buffy. It was fun to play. Will there be a "get out of jail" magic spell mode?

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/19/showbiz/nicholas-brendon-buffy-arrest/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

I had the chance to try it out at expo and concur that was extremely nice. the flow was smooth and the game played well for the stage that they're currently at. the only design feature that I had an issue with was the magnet in the upper-right portion of the playfield which seemed to throw the ball SDTM more than a few times during the 3-4 games that I played.

the water transfer on the ramps, coin door, stake and flippers was especially beautiful

Thanks guys! I'm glad to hear the machine was well received and that by and large most people had a pretty good experience with it. A lot of issues have been squashed thanks to the logs you guys generated. I really do appreciate every play that we got at expo.

My heart goes out to the player who was having an awesome game (beat training level 5, collected two weapons, rescued some scoobies, completed VAMPIRE), and made it up to the slayfield to battle the first boss only to have the game crash on him --he did, however, /finally/ reproduce a very elusive bug and his log allowed me to finally track it down and squash it!

The magnet has been in Dave's machine for a while but I only wrote the code that controlled it a day or two before expo. The intent for that magnet is fairly different than the way it behaved at expo (and I'm sure we'll be adding more of an initial delay on the magnet pulse so it brings the ball back toward the target and releasing it sooner (to flick the ball a bit more) instead of holding it and dropping it SDTM! Not being there I didn't see it send the ball stdm and I didn't look at any log that didn't end in a crash but I guess we can start analyzing the last few events before the balls end. Awesome!

Anyway, thanks again!
- Michael
(Code monkey)

I got to see this in person at Expo and I thought it looked good! The wooden stake plunger was a brilliant theme integration. Keep up the great work!

Aaron
FAST Pinball

I played this game at Expo and thought it had some really unique qualities. Spoke to both Dave and his dad and they are great guys as well.

Anybody get a video of it being played at expo?

It was great meeting you and getting a chance to play your game. I look forward to your future progress and playing it again. Thanks for bringing it to the show for us to enjoy.

Thanks soo much for bringing this to Expo. It played and looks great. Love some of the small details on it, like the Wooden Stake plunger. Really nice touch! Can't wait to see it when the plastics are done and code if finished.

I know you would never do this again, but ...... If you change your minds put me at the top of the list to get one. Dream theme and incredible execution (stake to the heart).

Very Shiny!

BTVS is now in our archive!
https://pinside.com/pinball/archive/buffy-the-vampire-slayer

That is awesome!

awesome, congrats Nelly

Stellar work by all on this project, very well done.

This is amazing!!! I'm currently re-watching all seasons of Buffy on Netflix, I'm near the end of S5. A Buffy pin would rock, and this one looks great, good job!

Videos look great.

For the record, I made up that 60% number. If I were a major manufacturer I would have released today and used the next year to send revision updates

I got to play BTVS yesterday at Nelly's house, and I really loved it. Beautiful art package, amazing videos, and incredible theme integration! Loved the gameplay, too. Very satisfying to play, cool shots, interesting modes, and an intuitive playfield layout. The game was standing next to one of the most beautiful, heavily-modded TRONs on the frickin' planet, and I am still struggling to pick which one looked more attractive. I wish all new Stern LEs looked this attractive.

Nice work, guys. What a wonderful game!

Any chance this game will be at the Midwest Gaming Classic this weekend?

I asked, but not really early enough. Maybe he changed his mind, but it sounded like it was too late for this year.

Jaz

Right on! Will you have it at Expo again this year? I still tell people about the custom plunger when referring to a perfect integration of theme into the pinball game build.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

Right on. I'll ditch the FAST t-shirt and we can play a few games and talk pinball design!

Aaron
FAST Pinball

I hope I can make EXPO this year, I loved playing it before and can't wait to play the updated version. I really appreciate all the hard work and dedication you have put into this project.

look forward to seeing the revised game

The plans are crazy ambitious as always and I'm already sweating bullets to get things done in time. If not, I'll be coding all day while I'm there

Not sure when Nelly's planning to officially release teasers, but let's just say that I've had to go back to developing against Visual Pinball because there are So many playfield tweaks, mechs, etc. that my SoF has fallen seriously far behind the "next version" of Buffy.

It's pretty dope.

My dad is making Swords of Fury ramps. Let me know if you need one in some cool color and I can bring it to Chicago with me.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

I'm not a buffy fan but I've been following this thread.
YES YES YES!!!!
Love the goat!

You can do RGB lighting? You using the Proc system?

Right on. I don't think being "that guy playing pinball without a shirt on" wouldn't win any new friends anyway!

Cool on the ramps. Looking forward to seeing your work.

See you in Chicago.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

Let me know if you need some help. I'm back home again and just 5 minutes away.

I'd like to know more about this. I may use a RGB system for the inserts on my coversion project.

Sure. My code is derived from Mark S (Snux)'s Arduino code for his F-14 second Sortie. My interface cleans up the pyprocgame integration so that you define a wsRGBs section in your machine yaml file and the parser pulls out the Arduino number and the default color (similar to marks)

Under the covers, I changed things so the wsRGBs get treated as real first-class objects in the pyprocgame code, and these objects work just like lamps (and actually get added to the lamps array), but also have two very cool methods: set_color(letter) --where the letter is a short hand for one of handful of colors (eg, W for white or M for magenta), or set_color_rgb, which sets a 64 bit color (2 bits red, 2bigs green, 2bits blue).

These rgb lamps, when present, otherwise behave exactly as regular pyprocgame lamps do. They can be enabled, disabled, or scheduled. On the pyprocgame/Python code side I wrote a threaded client to do the usb sending of commands, so there's virtually no impact on game loop rates.

The difference is that when their instructions are encountered, the messages are sent via usb to a Teensy 3.1 with an OctoWs2811 "add on" running custom code that decodes the lamp index, 64bit color, and schedule, and updates the lamps.

The teensy is amazing for this task as it can run the ws281x leds via DMA (Direct Memory Access), so the teensy's cpu is totally free to deal with usb messages and color decoding.

I'm happy to share the code for all of this. Most of it has already been shared, but I haven't shared my 64bit color stuff with anyone (other than another project). If you want the code or more details just fire off a PM.

It sounds more complicated than it is, really.

You can read the whole crazy process to improve this code and the capabilities in this thread, here:
http://www.pinballcontrollers.com/forum/index.php?topic=1239.msg13518#msg13518

Great work on Buffy!

Great pin for a boutique run. There are a lot of hardcore fans.

Looks great, well done.

I have no idea what the hell you just said right now. How about I just pay you to come program my game when it's ready.

If I don't need to come there, and you want to buy me a P^3, we can talk.