Hello all! I figured I'd finally move my build log over to pinside since my game is finally getting somewhere. Some of you maybe have seen this at SFGE the last two years. This summer it will be there again but fully playable. Most of you know the story here. Gottlieb's Gladiators was meant to be a Legend of Zelda table but the project got shifted around several times. All that remained of Zelda was the Gladiators playfield. Years ago, I contacted Jon Norris asking for a little input from him and he told me the SNES classic was to be the source theme. I love A Link to the Past and it's my personal favorite Zelda game, so I went for it. I started this project not knowing what I was getting into, never having once coded anything in my life. I'm going to skim over a lot of the boring stuff that happened in the first few years but I have plenty of pictures and links to share. Just last week, a group of friends and I streamed it to find bugs and boy did we.

My game is written in YAML, read in MPF and uses FAST pinball boards.

I obtained the cabinet in May of 2015. Slowly, I began removing everything from the playfield and cabinet. It took me a long time to get the FAST boards wired because I did it incorrectly at least twice. It also took me a long time to think of new rules to apply to the original Gladiators playfield layout/inserts. My vision has morphed and evolved over the years and now it's in a place that I am pretty happy with.

Here are some videos of the machine in action, and lastly, I will post a link to the stream from last week which is 4 hours of gameplay. My hope is to stream again a few more times before SFGE to hammer out all the bugs and get the game to a solid state.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=ln95FWDFDNo

TWITCH STREAM:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/428492903
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Looks like we may stream again this coming Wednesday(June 5th) around 7pm eastern. Ill post the link when it goes live. First stream had a lot of bugs that have since been resolved.

- Fixed all current crashes
- Slide issues corrected
- Some variable issues from player to player solved(hopefully)
- Changed the shot patterns for the Agahnim multiball to make it a tad harder and for a better logic flow
- Added 2 more extraballs for a total of 3 possible
- Added Ball Search
- Added Early Ball Saves

Still lots on my to do list:
- Speaker box and LCD mounted, translite resized to fit
- Several hardware things that need to be fixed before it goes to a show
- Shoot again slides, ball saved slides
- Plenty of UX polishing and score balancing
- Lay Art and perfect the final wiring

Still plenty to do but I feel like Im in the home stretch of this project!

We are live! I'll upload the shared video later

twitch.tv/dbootynabber

Here is a clip from last night showing most of a walk through for my game! Also one of our players was actually able to beat the game! No crashes this time.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/435241948

Thanks for the kinds words!
Here is fine, what did you want to know?

Thank you all! I have been trying to button up the head of the table and get it playing well with the glass on so I can leave it unattended for SFGE. If you have general questions about homebrew and are local to the con, be sure to check out our panel on making homebrews! Still plenty of little logic errors which I hope to fix before July 12 but for now I'm pretty happy with how it plays. I won't have playfield art yet but it's next once all assets are in place and the rules are 99% finalized.

Zelda is mostly buttoned up for SFGE mid July! My hopes are my artist resizes the translite and colors it, then down the road we apply the art, do the final touches on the code and then move onto another video game themed pin
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Not yet, it's a work in progress at the moment. When I have it I will share!

Zelda went to Southern Fried this past weekend and racked up 307 plays with no crashes and only the occasional stuck ball! I was able to get a lot of feedback on my game which was great. Lots of flailers at the convention so some people didnt 'get' my machine and its modecentric progression but overall I think it was received positively. I know of some tweaks I want to make to make so its a better experience next time. Also congrats to wolfmarsh's Spaceballs pin for receiving Best in Show for customs! Heres his thread if you havent seen it: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/spaceballs-the-pin
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This is my first test print on plain paper of my insert vector. A while back a photographer took some hi res images of the playfield and Ive been using that as my template. When finished, the file will be the canvas for my artist. Lots of little tweaks already from this first print but hopefully it shouldnt take many more to get it zeroed in.

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Thought Id share some of the art coming my way since its been a minute since my last update. Art is the only aspect of this project I needed help with and is being done by the talented Cassie Hart. Assets are slowly coming in and eventually the PF will be done!
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Slow and steady with the art. Most of the inserts are done thankfully, now its all about filling the negative space without cluttering the playfield. Still on target to have it finished before SFGE but it looks like I may be bringing it Pinball Expo in October as well.

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I have a hidden chicken mode somewhere in the game that typically results in a quick ball loss but its not part of normal gameplay. Heres another art update! We are almost there and getting ready for some test prints!

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Test print of the overlay and alignment check! A few minor alignment things to work out but after that a final print will be done and the pf will be cleared and good for reassembly! Almost there!

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Got the final art down and cleared a few weeks back. Repopulation! Cleaning up a ton of old wire messes and getting things in place. GI done, fixing optos next, then LEDs, then switches and coils since that will likely be most of the work.
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Rewiring 99% done. All FAST boards moved to the underside of the pf(were originally at the bottom of the cabinet), added 4 flashers and a new board to support them, cleaned up tons of messes made previously. I also installed a fresh subwoofer, new leg brackets and one of the final mods is a headphone jack for conventions.

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