Went ahead and finally did the transformer ground mods on Robo-War earlier this week…prior to this, would get a very random issue with the extra ball lights locking on solid, and all the coils dying, that was remedied by a power cycle. Played about 20 games tonight, and nary a hiccup.

Weird having wire nuts in a game, but she’s ran flawless since.

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Mine luckily had the locking cam, but I had to use the old wood glue and toothpick trick for the stripped screw holes that held the display in the top portion of the backbox so it wouldn't sag. I'm pretty sure the cam is just a longer piece of metal than standard to hold the display up. I'll take a peak when I get home.

Lock is pretty standard with bent cam.

Catch is a notched out metal tab bolted through panel.

Opposite side is held in with an adjustable spring roller to keep it latched.

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I just used a tiny "J" test lead and clipped one end to each of the respective diodes as mentioned above. Takes 10 seconds to add or remove. Works great on RoboWar.

Just picked up an untested The Games, and working through it. The game powered on, the displays would read a single 0, and the credits would start incrementing to 8, and then the game would lock.

First things first, the game has a rotten dog power supply, and thankfully had a remote battery pack, as the batteries had started to leak. I clipped the battery pack, and tried powering the game again; same thing as before.

I started looking at the coin mechs, and someone had clipped the coin switch wires, and had tied the wires (literally twisted them on) to the closed switch lug, which explained the constant credit increment at game power up. I powered the game and it appeared to enter attract mode, and the displays read all 0s, and went back and forth to single 0’s with the attract mode.

I touched one of the previously tied wires to the closed side of the coin switch lug to add a credit, and the display indicated a credit. I hit start, heard the game start music (!), the tilt and game end relays clicked like it was starting, then the game reset back to attract mode.

I haven’t really done anything else except burnish the card edges and reseat the connectors and reseat the reset board connector. Im guessing this is a capacitor issue somewhere, as the game seemingly wants to start, but crashes right when the solenoids would power to start a game.

Where do I go next fellow system 80’ers?

Im including a pic of the borked coin mechs just to see if anything looks suspect there.

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Still working through this...

As to the battery leak, the batteries were in a remote pack and far away from the boards; there is no battery damage on the mpu.

I was able to get the coin door wiring squared away, but the test switch is acting a little strange, which I will detail below.

So currently, here's where I am:

Game powers on, the two relays click about two seconds later, and the displays all light up with "00000000" Game appears to enter attract mode.

If I add a credit by sliding the arm on one of the two coin switches, it will add a credit, but it is dependent on the orientation of the test button, if that makes sense. The test button is a three-way momentary switch, with left (hold), middle (hold), and right (momentary/clickable); if it is in the middle position, the left coin switch will not add a credit (but will make the credit sound), and the right coin switch WILL add a credit. (The same in the opposite scenario if the test switch is in the left position). 50% of the time, the act of adding a credit, the very first time, will cause the game to reset, then it will take credits from either coin switch, whatever position the test switch is in, and not reset. Very weird.

Once the game has a credit, when you hit the start button, it plays startup music, but then the game resets (and plays the sound that I can only guess is the "tilt" sound sequence, but I'm not sure as I haven't played a "The Games" in a couple years and don't remember), seemingly right before the playfield coils would energize. Maybe once every ten times trying this, it will actually kick the ball to the shooter lane, but still reset.

Another oddity with the test button, is that I'm able to enter test mode by clicking it to the right, and it will stay in test mode "01" seemingly ideffinitely; if I try to advance further, the game may make it to test "02" or "03", but then resets. If I click the button really fast, or just hold it to the right, it must have gotten to some type of coil test, because I have heard it cycle a coil, and then reset.

I was planning on adding the ground jumper to the interconnect harness this evening. I'm thinking it's either that, or corrupted roms, but I'm not even close yet.

coin door slam switch is closed, playfield slam switch is open, tilt bob is open...

Is there another mystery one I'm not aware of, haha?

I'm finalizing my order from Steve tonight, and an actual manual is at the top of the list.

I'm currently asking around the local pinball crowd to see if anyone has a spare, known good mpu for me to try and see if it's an actual mpu issue.

Just got home and clipped the “test switch” out. Turned the game on, flicked the left side coin switch to add a credit; the game made the credit noise but didn’t add a credit. Flicked the right side one, and the game reset. Flicked it again, and it added a credit. Hit the start button, and same thing as before.

Will get back to it later tonight after the kiddos are asleep.

I adjusted the DIP settings to the following:
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Left and right coin switches now give a single credit per flick.

Double checked all the wiring in the coin door, and everything matches the Alien Star manual.

The coin lockouts were removed prior to my acquisition of the game, and the wires are taped together where the left one would have been, and the right one is left open. I don’t think this should have any effect?
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The diode board (and associated harness) look good, however there is a distinct hole in a pad (that wouldn’t have a diode anyways), it looks like it should still have continuity.
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Game still resets after trying to start a game.

I’m nearly positive this game only has a tilt bob, an under play field slam switch, and a coin door slam switch, and they all appear to be correct in their respective states.

I’ll keep on digging.

Would the open coin lockout wiring have any effect on this? I could connect them to close the circuit, but I wouldn’t think it would have anything to do with the game resetting.

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I'm thinking it's an mpu issue as well. Might just send it out as there is nothing apparent on it from giving it a thorough look with it out of the game.

Popped a new Rottendog mpu in The Games, and she’s running like a champ.

Some cleaning and tuning, and she’ll be tip top.

Even without being cleaned, this game is fast!

In the mean time, I’m going to see if I can’t figure out what’s wrong with the original mpu. Going to break out the jeweler’s lupe and see if I can find anything, even though the board is super clean.

Finished up shopping out The Games this evening.

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I think it came out pretty good, and is surprisingly a nice looking game when all cleaned up.

A few thoughts:

Holy shit! This game FLIES! Polished and waxed, with new rubber and all the posts tight, this thing is lightning quick. I’m truly surprised.

Pitching the game to 6.5 degrees and replacing the outlane post 7/16 od mini rubbers with 3/8 od’s makes a world of difference with difficulty; it’s a completely different game. It’s really a drain monster with the pops above the outlanes.

This game is BRUTAL! It’s almost a combination of BSD and Taxi with draininess and objective; it “looks” simple, but try to pull it off, in one ball mind you (as the events reset ball to ball, but without a “hold passengers” chance available like Taxi). I played @forceflow’s a few years ago at Pintastic, and I don’t remember it being like this!

This game truly caught me off guard; I really thought I’d get it running reliably, shop it out, and trade it out, but I think this may stick around for a while. I like a quick, brutal game, and I’d say in the 20 or so games I have on it, the average game time is about 2 minutes.

All in all, fun game!

Sadly, this…