Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but it looks like Joe Balcer is one of the characters on the back glass (Right) and so is Matt from Back Alley Creations (back left)

Will the games ship with the pinball on tap topper or is that sold separately?

Sorry if it’s been asked before, but when will distributors be receiving their games?

Rule question: Was playing this game with a buddy and he got into a beer barrel multiball with jackpot values 450k+. The stein that increases the value in that multiball was only picked 3 times and I believe he had close to 40 ducks. Is this scoring normal, or are there tweaks coming?

Had a crazy game on this! Unfortunately the game reset on the last ball after I shot it into the scoop, but still had a ton of fun.

84E7402A-EA28-4FFA-AA17-B0847B4A7298 (resized).jpeg

Ok, after owning this game for a week, I have some rule questions:

What does the captive ball do besides give the occasional mag nab?

How does each duck effect mode scoring?

How do calories effect jackpot scoring?

How do you relight the bar for stein collects?

When does the game do mag-nabs for you?

How do you get higher than a 2x playfield?

The ? Skill shot seems like it’s a bit excessive on points

Any combo rules coming? Maybe a classic left orbit to side ramp?

Seems like there is some missing music choreography at the start of Corkscrew MB when the balls are released

All the lights in Corkscrew mb are red. Maybe make the jackpots one color and the targets another so it’s easier to differentiate between.

Sometimes I hit the mag nab button and nothing activates even when I have plenty of them. Can you not activate it while the ball is on the flipper?

Is there / will there be a big final wizard mode?

I am definitely enjoying the game. It feels so different and special. It’s just fun. It’s not the smoothest player, but it has good speed and the variety of the shots is great. Music, Rules, and art are right up there with JJP. As far as animations, the main UI screen during gameplay is great because it tells you your progress toward everything. The mode animations are miles ahead of Houdini and are colorful. They’re definitely not super interesting to look at, but I don’t really care. Unless I’m playing a movie themed pin, animations don’t really bother me.

A tip to owners/operators: If you have the game set a bit steeper than factory, which keeps the game fast, make sure you jack up the flippers a few notches. The lower ones I did an increase of about 5-6. And the upper around 7-8.

Thanks @ferret. I really appreciate the quick response time and rule clarification. I’ll keep playing and make notes about other things I don’t quite understand. It’s awesome you guys are so into the community, keep up the good work!

Ok Ferret here’s round 2 of more rule/choreography questions on Oktoberfest:

Have you thought about adding an adjustment to have the food tent modes be randomized?

The cake mode (2nd food mode) is worth a *lot* of calories. Since calories boost jackpot scoring, I’ve had some ridiculous jackpot scores. This mode should be toned down some, calorie wise.

How many ducks advance bonus x?

I’m assuming the value for the completed modes in bonus is some % of the mode?

Any sound FX coming for food shots besides the normal shot sound?

Do ducks targets in duck hunt add toward the total duck count in normal play?

What do the Prost targets do during beer barrel multiball?

I seem to be getting a bit too many Outlane saves from the targets. Will there be an adjustment to increase the difficulty of this?

There’s no sound effect for hitting the bar.

I’m stein race, after all the shots are collected to win the mode, the game says “You’ve won the race, but Shoot green shots for more points!” — everything is still blue. It would be cool if in each of the modes, there was a victory callout and different colored shots to indicate that you’re basically in victory laps.

Does hitting the Prost or Oktoberfest targets during normal play advance the respective multiball jackpot value?

There should be a bonus for completing a tent mode the first time played.

Status report coming?

Looking forward to the next code release!!

Well with around 1400 calories and no barrel multiball boosters (I think), my first jackpots started about 500k and a few shots later I cashed in a super worth 4 million. No playfield x running. I haven’t had Corkscrew running with that number of calories, so I can’t speak for that.

The only problem then is that there is a call out in Stein Race that says “You’ve won, but shoot green shots for more points.” I’m assuming it should be “blue shots”

Yeah the victory presentation is good though with the confetti. A brief lighting effect could be thrown in though as well to really make it feel like a special moment.

Again, thanks for responding to all my questions, it means a lot.

“Bring on the music”

Probably the bonus light show

This is one of the best new games games you can get. It’s packed full of high quality toys and features. It’s pretty challenging. It’s not Iron Man / bksor hard, but it’s no Hobbit. Game times are similar to WOZ or Houdini, maybe even a bit shorter. It depends how you set it up. Don’t have the Outlane saves set to easy and you should be fine. Code wise, there’s a *lot* to do, and WAY more to come. There’s so many strategies and I’m still figuring out the best way to play it after a month of owning it. To me, the theme is more like a carnival with all the tent modes. WOZ is a great game, but Oktoberfest is just special

Finally got to the Flipper Meister mode. Pretty cool! Not going to spoil it for anyone. Just have a few rule questions.

- what determines the value of each of the shots? Is it related to your mode scores? I had one pin wiz ale stein going into this also.

-It would be nice if there were some instruction text before the mode starts since it’s a bit confusing.

-I got all the shots and went into what seemed like victory laps for 2 million a shot (the first one was a million, maybe a completion bonus?). Anyway, seems like a tad too valuable. The beginning shots seem well balanced.

-Anything special happen with the tent modes afterwards? I drained before I could start another one. (Here’s a quick idea: Have a super Flipper Meister mode if you complete all the modes and not just start them. Try to get all the tents green. Just a thought

-Sorry if it’s been mentioned before, but what are the current wizard modes in the game and what’s still to come?

Thanks!

Final score was 16.5 million. Little over half that was from flipper Meister

If you bring a food mode into multiball, do the jackpots increase as you collect calories, or does it wait for the mode to be over before calculating the new value. I stacked the cake food mode (2nd one) with corkscrew, and as I was hitting slings and pops, my jackpot value wasn’t increasing. Only when I made jackpots did the value increase, which is just part of the multiball rules.

Does the stein that makes Oktoberfest easier to spell carry into the targets during corkscrew mb as well, or just to light locks?

Do calories effect duck derby, or just corkscrew and beer barrel?

There seems to be a bug with the food stand drop target not awarding tent points when it is up. Usually when this happens my next food mode / extra ball is ready.
- just tested this with Rotor mode. First few shots on the target were fine, but then when food was lit with the target up, my lit rotor shot didn’t score

Ah so there was a drop target self-drop coil in the prototype. I was wondering about that. I saw that in the coil test menu when we first got it. It would be useful when Food is lit and it doesn’t make you shoot an unnecessary drop target. I assume it was removed for good reasons though

Found an interesting bug after playing Flipper Meister: (see pic). All it is is the shot number for completion not resetting.

D6B9C2C8-9EE1-4FFB-AD29-3A4A18E94BAF (resized).jpeg

I only got 13 mil total score and 1.1 from FM. I didn’t get to victory laps so that’s why lol.

Great! Glad to help out!

Found a couple bugs with the one handed play option:

- when the adjustment is set to ‘Off’ the screen still comes up during attract mode after holding the right buttons and hitting start, one hand play would be enabled. The problem is that it doesn’t actually set the game that way. Once the adjustment is set to player select it works. Pretty minor

- the bottom right button still activates mag nabs, which I’m guessing are supposed to be off or enabled from the left button

- when selecting a stein or tent mode, hitting both right buttons should lock in your selection, instead of having to use the normal left/right button press

- had a weird issue (I can pull logs if it would help) where a player was able to start 2 tent modes at once: Juggling and Duck Hunt. I think he must’ve hit all 3 buttons at once?

Slightly unrelated, but any teasers on rules / features in game #3?

Art is important, but the gameplay and rules are what really matters to me. Wonder if we’ll ever see a contract game from them too. Sherlock Holmes could certainly be interesting.

That’s what I like to hear!

As an owner, the artwork is pretty solid. It’s busy, but it works well. It’s a big festival with lots of stuff going on and that’s what you see. As far as animations, they’re good. Not saying they’re awesome, but they get the job done in a meaningful way. And you’re right, they’re many other choices, but I’d encourage you to go with Oktoberfest. What other titles are you considering anyway?

You can adjust the flipper strength to whatever you want - not surprised the operator didn’t do it. I increased the lower flippers on mine about 6 units and upper one 4 units. I agree that MB remake is solid, but it’s not all that deep. Seems like whatever decision you make will be a good one

I added 6 spots to mine (2 on each lower slingshot and 2 near upper flipper.) Also added pinstadium.

For flipper area, I used a warm white led strip. Looks great now.

Houdini worked because they looked like stage lights - fit the theme. On Oktoberfest they decided to instead have all RGB lighting for GI, which looks really good, and again fits the festival theme. Honestly, at least there’s a light strip in the back from the factory. Stern pins have even worse lighting. Besides, spot lights and led strips are fairly cheap, and it’s fun to light up areas yourself.

My view on callouts is that less is more. I’d rather have a fair amount of good/funny ones, than to have a speech callout for every insert that lights up. Right now it’s pretty good, and I’m excited to hear some of the new callouts. There’s already plenty of informational callouts within modes and locks and such.

Just want to shout out Ferret and rosh for the great continued code support/polish for Oktoberfest - finally got a chance to download the latest release, very solid.

Will play a few rounds and see if I notice anything odd or have any small suggestions.

Just a few things I noticed with the code and some questions/suggestions

- no sound FX for hitting bar
- If the player misses the right ramp from the left inlane super skill shot, sometimes the light on the ramp won’t go out until a major light show happens. Pretty minor
- would like to know hits remaining to open bar (maybe use the Collect Stein insert: red for 3 hits, yellow for 2, and flashing when the bar is open
- When you collect the “Easier to spell tent” stein and you complete the tent lanes, there is usually 2 callouts that the tent mode is ready. I’m assuming it should be just 1.
- would be nice to have a “Food Stand ready!” callout
- If you’re in Looper, for example, and you shoot into the bar for a stein, and you choose the “More time in tents” stein, is that supposed to affect the current tent mode running or does it wait for the next one? Right now it doesn’t effect the current mode.
- Let’s also say I’m in Looper and I collect the stein that boosts that mode, is my mode value supposed to be 2x now, or do I have to wait to play it again for the booster to come into play?
- I’m a pretty good player, but I’ve never gotten anything higher than a 3x playfield (and that’s with a couple steins that increase playfield x time). Would be cool if the 3rd collection of the “more playfield x time” stein would activate the magnet on every orbit shot while the player had a multiplier running. And it could be set to only do it up to a certain x value, then the player would have to use magnabs. Just an idea, but would certainly be an interesting strategy. (Of course scoring execution would still be needed )
- Secret skill shot for short plunging and hitting the center drop target to immediately start a food mode??
- I know it’s still in the works, but how will the final wizard mode be qualified?

Thanks!

You definitely made the right trade.

Ferret Found a small text bug. As you can tell in the pics, the duck count is off by 15 between the UI and the status report. I believe this was because I finished Looper at the last second. The status report had the correct number.

515696EB-9979-483F-929E-145E6CB17CAC (resized).jpeg

EB433012-695E-4CF4-9D45-5C1EE35A1182 (resized).jpeg

The new knocker + shaker effects in Beer Barrel multiball are great! Nice to have clever integration like that

If you shoot an orbit after an inlane feed, the game will auto mag-nab at either the TAP lanes or upper flipper. The magnet lights will flash to let you know this. The magnet it stops the ball on I believe is based on game state...?

IMO, it would take away from the “fun festival” of Oktoberfest if there were constant adrenaline rushes left and right. The big one I could see would be the start of Corkscrew.

Finally managed to get to Calorie Coma (Hilarious btw). Couple notes:
- the 4th food mode gives A LOT of calories (had around 1200 during single ball play) compared to the other modes
- How does the Coma scoring work? I saw the counter in the upper right (assuming that’s calories remaining) and the spinner decreased that value.
-Is the bonus for winning based on the calories you came into it with?
-Each spin gave me -20 calories- is that number based on total calories as well?
- All the lights go dark, which is an awesome effect, but after the time ended the backboard light strip remained off for the rest of the ball.

Next is Stein Slinging!

Is there a reason the Oktoberfest targets don’t count towards Lock progress while in ring toss?

I don’t think there is currently, but they are working on a major wizard mode for getting all the mini wizard modes done.

Played in a monthly match play tournament today where the location had an Oktoberfest. They have over 30 games, but didn’t include Oktoberfest because of the long ball times of everyone choosing Juggling as their first mode. I personally disagree with them because plenty of games have easy multiballs right off the bat, but maybe there should be a setting that makes at a single ball mode the 2nd+ time it is chosen by the same player.

Could’ve had a playfield x, some mode boosters, and the 2nd Food food, but still that seems excessive. Normally that isn’t one of the higher scoring modes unless you have a multiball running

It’s certainly an interesting idea. I just think that it’s a pretty major change. It’s nice to see more people come up with actually good ideas though.

The problem with the 2x mode idea is that they would way overpower multiball or food stand scoring. But like I said before, it’s a cool idea, and I wouldn’t mind that as an adjustment.

Uhhh... where did you hear this?

Quick rule question. Let’s say I play Looper and get 4 shots then drain. Next ball I finish looper and only hit one shot total. Does the 10% bonus in the end of ball bonus use the total Looper score from both attempts, or just the last one?

Switching between steins resets the timer, so you can just keep flipping through until you find one. Plus, it’s pinball, not a board game. Keep the ball going

Just put up my best game on this! Over half of this was my last ball bonus lol. Got to every wizard mode. At least I know it’s possible to get to the super wizard mode when that’s in the code. Still, super fun, and the point opportunities get enormous.

D48254DD-80BA-4008-B7F6-BDD718A905A5 (resized).jpeg

Just 2

Play all the modes

Personally, I like where the multiballs are at on Oktoberfest. Harder than most games but feels rewarding. Makes it so players can spend more time exploring modes and steins and worrying less about stacking everything with a multiball like a lot of Sterns. Not saying that’s a bad thing either, but I like the variety.

Any word on new code in the near future?

Will there be any more polish on Calorie Coma, or is it supposed to just be a quick fun mode not worth anything? Pretty easy to finish and it always says my total is 0.

Is there any way to add an adjustment/setting to balance the music, speech, and sound FX to the user’s liking? Just feel like the speech is a tad loud, but I like the volume the music is at.

Any idea on release of new code / need another beta tester?

I noticed ever since I installed the new coil stop for the upper right flipper, the side ramp and captive ball shots feel much better but the Bar is nearly impossible because the angle just isn’t there anymore. This means that the only times I can collect a stein are a successful skill shot or a bounce/ricochet into the bar.

Is there any way a future code update can add an adjustment so that a full captive ball shot will open the bar for those of us with this problem?

That is true, but at least it would be much easier to get the bar open, especially if you need 2 or more hits.

Think I found my new favorite mode... just had a 25 million Rockin Express. Feels great to stack steins and multipliers and get a huge pay day in a mode.

Yeah! Played after Flipper Meister so had like 130 ducks. 2 steins and 2x playfield. I definitely went for the lit orbit to boost value. Are you saying combos to the orbits like right ramp -> lit right orbit increases the value even more?

Ahh.. that’s interesting, didn’t know that! Don’t think my bonus on that ball was that huge but my biggest bonus ever on the game is 50 million lol.

Besides the one stein, what else boosts the spinner value?

Also does the the base spinner value during normal play effect the value of Rockin Express at all?

The targets above the left and right inlanes

Ferret Think I found a bug in juggling. If the food stand is open (can’t recall if the drop was down or not) and you play juggling, the shot to the center will only count if it goes in the hole, not the drop like it usually does.

Yes, playing all modes lights Flipper Meister. After you play that, you can play all the modes again. There is no final wizard mode in the game (yet) so just keep going for modes or try for stein slinging or calorie coma.

After you get to FM the first time, you will have to play every mode again to reach FM a 2nd time, regardless if you completed the mode prior