Hey There. I'm new to this particular web joint, but not so much to pinball. I'm working on a project this crowd would probably appreciate -- I've slapped a P-ROC board in my Cactus Canyon and am working on recreating the original game, and then expanding on it.

There's a wiki about the project here: http://soldmy.org/pin/ccc/

There's a thread with all the details over at the P-ROC forums : http://www.pinballcontrollers.com/forum/index.php?topic=520.0

And a rundown of key bits I've added so far:
- A new super skill-shot with better prizes that requires a follow up shot on the playfield to collect
- A new gimmick multiball called "Drunk Multiball" with reversed flippers that ties to the beer mug target and saloon
- A new mode that alternates with Showdown called Ambush, which is a cross between Quickdraw and showdown
- A match animation, which if won awards "Last Call" - A special multiball
- A new tumbleweed animation/award for full loops once the horse/trick shots are complete
- A new ramp shot combo system
- Many new 'high score' category types
- A Moonlight Madness
- Cowboys vs Aliens multiball
- 2 new "Save Polly" modes, one for each ramp
- And of course, Bionic Bart

I've been working on it for several months now, and am a little curious what other Cactus Canyon fans think of the project.

E

_{Post edited by epthegeek : Updated added bits}

Yeah, everything that you want it to do has to be fed to it. There's more detail in the thread at the P-ROC forum, but the TL;DR version is that for sound I used M1+Bridge, and for dots I mostly used a new version of WPCEdit -- that was tweaked just for this purpose.

I should probably also add that a lot of the dots are stuff I made up and/or edited and rearranged from the stock graphics. Like everything in the Bionic Bart mode I had to create from scratch. The audio for BB was in the ROMS, but nothing else.

_{Post edited by epthegeek : More detail}

I don't know that there's much more I want to add, I don't want to OVER do it. It'd be pretty easy to really trash up something like this, and I'd rather avoid that. I wanted to give it a little more to do, that fit in with the style/look of the game. There's some other smaller stuff I didn't mention here in the first post, like the new Extra Ball is Lit animation, a new "Ball Saved" animation, lots of little lighting tweaks and stuff, and so on.

A this point, I'm probably just going to do a lot of testing and finishing up details and see where it's at.

Thanks for all the positive feedback. If anybody has any specific "wouldn't it be cool if ..." or "I always thought that it should ..." type suggestions, let me know. There's quite a bit of that from me already in there -- which you'd see more of if you read the thread over in the P-Roc forums.

Yes, this is correct. In order to run the code, you need a P-Roc and a computer to drive it with.

That's kind of what I was doing with Bionic Bart. Bionic Bart is available after the 5 points of the badge are lit, and if you don't beat Bionic Bart, you don't get high noon -- Everything resets.

I may still change/tweak gameplay around Bionic Bart, it's definitely a work in progress.

As for this bit - maybe something like that could be what you get for a match, instead of a "Free game". Hit the match? Whoa! Back into action you go! Hmm..

Whoa. Typo! Man, who programs this garbage. Oh, wait.

Edit: Just checked the code, it actually is in there properly - the font file must have been missing the "F" at that point. Originally that font was just for "Bionic Bart" so it didn't have all the letters, I was adding them as I used more, and if letter isn't there it just gets left out.

I wondered about what more to do with the train too. Part of the problem with expanding CC is that you're stuck with whatever the hardware is, and there's not a whole lot to it.

One thing I do have in my notes is a 'MOVE YOUR TRAIN' (think "MOVE YOUR CAR") where it would move out to the center of the tracks, then shots to the left side move it forward, shots to the right move it back, and you have X seconds to move it X far one way or the other to 'win'. But I wasn't sure how to start it/award it. Maybe a random bounty award? or skillshot award?

I have combos in my notes too, but haven't done anything about them yet. I was actually considering having a 'River Bank' champ for going back and forth between the River ramp and Bank ramp, but haven't added it yet, because every time I look at it, it seems dorky. River-Bank, Riverbank, pffft, that's lame.

In some of the other videos on my youtube account that I didn't link, you can see that in the attract mode there's already a QuickDraw champ and a Showdown Champ - and I definitely intend to add more, just hadn't picked out specific categories. Don't want to over-do it, and with some categories, it's just a matter of whoever had a great game will set all of them. But out of the way stuff is more random. So I'll probably add something for Full Loops, Beer Mug Hits, and maybe Combos.

Update: The list of high score categories now stands at:
Quickdraw Champ
Showdown Champ
Ambush Champ
Tumbleweed Rustler (Full loops)
Town Drunk (beer mug hits)
Undertaker (Quickdraw, Showdown and Ambush combined)
Bounty Hunter (Bart brothers defeated)
Motherlode Champ (highest single motherlode score)
Combo Champ (for longest ramp combo - not just total combos)

_{Post edited by epthegeek : Added list of current categories}

RE: Move Your Train

I don't know. I don't really want to encourage hammering the center ramp, honestly. And with something kind of quirky and theme breaking like this, having it be a little more rare/random seems appropriate.

I definitely like the idea of improving the animation at the end of Polly Peril -- but I'm not sure I can make anything better myself. 128x32 pixel art is pretty tricky to make things look nice, especially in 4 color. If anybody has mad pixel art skills and wants to take a crack at it, that'd be awesome.

The P-ROC board does do some of it's own processing, for instant reactions on certain things like coils -- but for handling the actual game code, that's done with a computer, running through the P-ROC to interface with all the pinball parts (lamps, display,etc).

I like this idea. I'll switch it to either require a 2x motherlode (meaning all the jackpots had been hit) or 3 1x motherlodes to light it.