And late last night I couldn't sleep,so I finished Pimlico and Longacres.

I believe these are the last two with bumpers in the curly springs below the #4 that award the entire field when lit and hit.

Keeping track of and awarding that is actually pretty complex.

I also started work on a much more complex (later) game that I had marked as code complete... But I hadn't backported any of the "production" fixes to it (minor bugs and changes I was forced to make due to small issues).

Hopefully I'll have a chance to do that work this weekend. I'm down to 12 total games that I can implement today (with artwork available). Another 17 do not have any or any usable art, and then five more cannot be implemented. The total that will be available once I'm done coding will be 36.

I've got some thoughts on the evolution of the games, as now I've touched all of the game logic except for one manufacturer. I'll save those musings for when I finish the last bit of code.

Hard to believe that York was such a short while ago and I already have almost triple the games available to play...

Citation and Lexington are complete as well. These are some of the later games with guaranteed advancing odds. Only 10 left to add!

Special Entry/Bally Entry are done. These games are the first to use a funny arrow setup for the odds. In reality, there are only 5 positions the odds can be in, just like earlier games, but it looks like the odds can flash everywhere. As far as I know, this is not true.

Jockey Club and Jockey Special (games I have yet to complete) also use this setup. Down to 8!

I've created all the illuminated artwork for the final few games. Also, I finished Jockey Special. I don't have a good image of the title from Jockey Club, so that one moved to the 'future' pile. Also, I found an image for Big Parlay, and it turned out to be an 8 selection game (I noted that a few days ago). Down to 6 games remaining.

I have some amount of code written for most of these, but aside from the portioning, I have to rewrite everything. Going to try to finish the initial code with animations by the end of this week!

Today I spent my lunch break helping a new bingo tech troubleshoot a problem on a Mystic Lines game, so I'm behind schedule! No worries, though as I still managed to redo all the logic for the next game, Champion. Champion is one of the later one balls and has essentially every feature from Turf King except for dedicated feature/odds/selection play.

Ha! As soon as I publicly say something like a deadline, everything comes out of the woodwork to slow me down. I'm hoping to finish by the end of this weekend, but who knows. I have another two in playtesting, but the graphical elements are not lining up correctly yet.

Three left - Gold Cup, Champion, and Kentucky are done.

Favorite, Sunshine Park, and Trophy are all that remain. Favorite is surprisingly graphically complex. Sunshine park as well, though that is the last one ball, so to be expected. Trophy is very similar to Gold Cup, but payout, so actually a bit simpler!

Down to one more to go - I've added Sunshine Park, which will require a physical modification to the ball trough to fully play. Right now, there's only one ball loaded in the game.

I also added Trophy.

Now, on to the last game, Favorite. This is the only game from Keeney that can be added using the standard playfield layout. Keeney will be the fifth manufacturer with a game in Multi-Races. It also has some of the most interesting features of any one ball.

Favorite is complete! I added some randomization to every motorized or carry-over stepper, and updated the menu. Now the game will be completely randomized when you start it up. For debugging/early game creation, I have most units start at zero position, to help find bugs and identify graphical issues.

There are 36 total games in Multi-Races now, and aside from some simple polish, I'm not sure how much more I can/will add on the coding side. Unless artwork is found for those other games, it might remain at 36 for some time!

The games provide a fascinating look into the history and development of these games - mostly from the standpoint of player appeal and keeping players coming back to new versions of games.

I'm looking forward to throwing this code on the real hardware and seeing if anything breaks. Hard to believe there are 26 more games than were available in York 2 weeks ago!

Thanks @luvthatapex2! Hope you get to try it one day soon.

Well, I'm still shocked. Thanks @zimjoe - you bet. I'm working on putting my gameroom back together now. I've let it sit idle since York. Hopefully soon.

The law - the Johnson Act made them illegal to transport across state lines, except to a couple of states.

Sunshine Park was the only game produced after '51 (when the Act went into effect) and it had the ability to buy more balls to avoid the ban. The bingos were also able to avoid the problems since you had more than one shot.

The law was amended in '57 and tightened down again in the states. Gambling pinball production changed rather dramatically in the US at a few points:
1) After '51 and the Johnson Act (one balls RIP)
2) After '57 Korpan decision (United was dead at this point for bingo production, and Bally became the focus of industry ire)
3) In '63 with the multiple test cases for domestic production (the story goes that they threw everything in the boxes as fast as they could for Golden Gate and Silver Sails, and Bounty was made in fewer numbers... then there was a pause in production and they came out with the entirely different, but also kinda similar, Mystic Lines games).
4) 1980/81 when Bally decided to let it go.

There are likely many other interesting ups and downs, those are just the ones off the top of my head.

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IMG_20191109_194010 (resized).jpg

Wow! The game saw a lot more action at York than I thought.

Things are still silly busy, but between the Houston Arcade Expo this coming week and the launch of two major projects at work today, I should be able to get back in the groove soon!

With the code complete, I still have a few physical modifications left to do.

I have 36 in there, but Fairmont is not one that I was able to find a good backglass image of, and thus I wasn't able to add. This is the game with the weird coin-vacuum! Would you mind taking a nice backglass photo for me and the IPDB?

These games are ones missing art (aside from Fairmont), if you happen to own any of them:
Thorobred Bally
Man-O-War Gottlieb
Multiple Races Gottlieb
Derby Clock Western
Across the Board Universal
Flying Champ Western
Quinella Western
Seven Flashers Western
Hot Tip Keeney
Blue Grass Bally
Kentucky Bally (0 button, early 40s).
Sport King Bally
Santa Anita Bally
Record Time Bally
Bally Entry Bally
Pace Maker Bally
Club Trophy Bally
Jockey Club Bally

I expect this to be a years-long quest.

Hey @hula, sorry for the delay.

I can add stuff to the Pinside DB, and am especially interested in adding the horse race games. That said, time is limited for me these days, so please let me know the games to add and I will do so.

Regarding SP, I was able to piece together an image from a few different sources. I'll have to check now if it was a high res source or low res, but thank you for photoing your game. It's amazingly difficult to find images and information about some of these games, as I'm sure you are well aware.

I do have Sunshine Park paper, and that was an incredible help. Thank you for the offer, though!

I am familiar with the Chico Derby and Home Stretch, but rules those out for Multi-Races (had to draw the line somewhere!) I think those games are really neat and wish that I had the time to determine a way to make them work, but I'd have to make my own playfield to do that (probably pretty hard to find spares...), and time and tools are a factor for me.

Thank you also for the Fairmont photos. I'll have to find its sister game and see if I already wrote the rules for it. If so, adding Fairmont will be a very quick exercise.

Hey Craig, it took me a while, but I was able to add all those games to the archive here. Upload some of your photos on the archive pages, if you don't mind.

I have been working this year with an artist to create a beautiful backglass to complement and frame the original backglasses in Multi-Races. He is finishing his work (hopefully) today, and I will then have printed on backglass film!

I've been waiting to have this glass finished before coming up with a more permanent mounting solution for the monitor in the backbox and putting the finishing physical touches on the game. I'm going to see if the artist will post a copy in the thread so you can see what I'm so excited about!

The artist is Joel deGuzman, who has done some amazing art for pinball companies as well as custom games. Joel was willing to take this job and has been extremely easy to work with - I've been very privileged to work with amazing artists for the games I make. Thank you, Joel!

I really love the way the horses/jockeys draw the player in, and the title that overlays the monitor window. Just gorgeous!

Can't wait to get this applied to the backglass and get it ready for the next show!

The backglass arrived a few days ago and is now installed in the machine! The machine is back together and really looks fantastic.

Some photos of the machine, and a short video of the coin flash for a game.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/m25STB7DvfQavVkK6

Joel's backglass artwork complements the original artwork of the games perfectly. So pleased with how this has come together.

Still on the lookout for play all / extra ball buttons for the footrail (I'm using old magic screen buttons in those positions). I missed out on a few blank buttons several years ago and still kick myself for that. I may end up modifying the bingo buttons further, sanding/smoothing the top surface and slicing off some of the length of the button. I had previously added extra mounting clip grooves to the shafts, but in order to make those buttons more reliable (the wiring is attached to the underside of the lockbar assembly), I'll need to give the switches some room to breathe. So a little bit of physical work is left to make the game perfect, but definitely almost there!

A reminder that unlike the Multi-Bingo, the sound in Multi-Races is purely from original electro-mechanical components driven by the boardset inside the game.

Prepping Multi-Races for York! That means a bit more polish and a lot of playtesting.

I reached out to a fellow collector Hula to see if they had any additional one ball buttons to replace the Magic Screen buttons I was using for extra balls and play all. They did and were very kind to send two buttons from Sunshine Park to me. These are blank buttons without wording on top, unlike some of the earlier buttons (Turf King era) that included wording or symbols as well as an escutchion plate that indicated the button's function. Thank you @hula! I likely would be looking for these for quite some time otherwise.

My initial plan was to use an engraver and carve the function onto the buttons themselves. Obviously I'd only have one shot at this. I spent a bit of time practicing on some scrap metal, and spent a lot of time with washable fine-tipped markers drawing letters in the appropriate style on the buttons. I did attempt to write a letter on one button (lightly), but was unhappy with the appearance (it did not create a smooth cut). Since I didn't want to be unhappy with these unobtainable buttons, I left well enough alone. I may paint the function on them instead with red enamel.

After that, the cabinet needed some modification. I had to chop up my switch stacks under the new buttons to meet the (much shorter) stems of the buttons, add washers and clips to hold them in place, and fix a slightly crooked hole drilled for the furthest left button. I did all that, removed my metal spacing bracket from both switch stacks, spent some quality time with a file, and everything moved smoothly.

Next, The furthest left button wouldn't travel when the lockbar was in place. Well, that's because the washer I was using stuck out too far (due to initial drill error). Not a huge deal, I had to file out about 1/8" of the front cabinet in about a 1/4" area, then the travel worked properly with the lockbar up or down.

Next the front of the game needed attention. The cabinet was a Victory Derby cab. This was one of two games Bally produced with a manual shuffle reset. Pretty neat piece of engineering, hydraulic rod with a lockout coil to prevent actual reset without a coin.

I had removed this in order to install the Turf King playfield, with it's shutter motor. This left a gaping hole in the front of the cabinet about 1.5".

I used a 1/2"x2" carriage bolt with a couple of fender washers and a locknut to close that off. It's low enough that the lockbar switch solder tabs do not touch. The last little bits I'd like to resolve mainly deal with the playfield itself. Or rather the shooter rod. The playfield is not screwed to the support rails as I've been working on the game. It's time to do this and prevent the slight bouncing the playfield has when plunging. This kills momentum on the ball A LOT. In some instances, the tiny hop prevents the ball from leaving the shooter lane.

Another thing I'd like to attempt is to adjust my mech for token dispensing. My tokens are not true nickel sized. They are also super light (plastic instead of metal). As such, the mech likes to dispense a bit more than it should in some instances. Additional weight seems to help this problem. I'd like to retain the ability to dispense nickels rather than replace the payout mech with something custom. Plus it's original to a one ball... it needs to remain in place. So I think I can 3D print a small cylinder that will hold a weight and maintain downward pressure like a stack of nickels would. That will hopefully help. Or it will jam up the mech immediately. One or the other.

I recently added a new game to the stable as well - unfortunately, I don't recall which game it was... but I remember it being an early one. I have some more software work to do (generate score/instruction cards for each game, set my menu to start with Preakness, little things like that). The list of available games gets longer!

York is in October and I plan on having my suite of custom and commercial games available for play.

Hey there horse racing enthusiasts:

I've started a newsletter that will be sent approximately once a quarter (though an out-of-turn update might occur when a new game is released). If you would like to keep up with games, books, and podcasts in which I play a part, feel free to sign up here:

http://eepurl.com/hFW5aX

I'm always working on tons of stuff that I'd love to share with you.

Time sure has a way of moving fast when I'm locked away making games.

Multi-Races has a few updates...
1) I painted the buttons I received from Hula (thank you again!!) with instructions to note which was the Play All and which was the Extra Ball button.

I did this by hand and approximated the font used on the Turf King sitting beside it. I'm no artist, and it took many attempts. I think they are passable, but this game deserves better than passable. On the way to work today it hit me: adhesive vinyl stencil! I could digitally mock these up using the appropriate font and then just paint through the stencil to get a perfect look. Now, to find an inexpensive vinyl plotter/cutter... or make a stencil by hand using an xacto. Because of the size, I think a computerized cutter would probably be best. If anyone has one and would be willing to be paid for a small project, let me know!

2) Multi-Races is now open source! As with the Multi-Bingo, I wanted to wait until the majority of the work was 'complete'. In the case of Multi-Races, I have working implementations of as many games as possible.

I figure it might be useful to know the limitations of this release, though.
a) I did not have access to (most of) these machines, so I had to guess on some of the portioning from images. The manuals and schematics for the Bally bingos have definitely spoiled me as far as detailed drawings and wire color (and even rivet wiring!) information on all units. For the one balls, I sometimes had a sideways photo in the manual, usually with any extra switches labeled, but not necessarily any of the rivet functions! Much less wiring. The games themselves are a bit simpler, but I did have to fudge a few portioning-related things in games with advancing odds and the like. I'm happy to further refine this and will of course update the open source repository as more information comes to light. For now, though the intense accuracy of the Multi-Bingo was not achieved, I'm pleased with the way that the games play. That probably means that my portioning is too lenient, haha!

b) I don't have clearance to release the backglass artwork for each game from the rights holders - as with the Multi-Bingo, if you wanted to make your own, you can do so, but you'll need to provide your own backglass images.

c) I haven't had time to make a manual for the game yet or scan the schematic. In fact, I can't locate the schematic currently! So I may have to draw another at some point. Once I do I'm sure the original will show up immediately.

If you're interested, the game uses the core multi game 'engine' I put together for the Multi-Bingo. If you're familiar with that game, you can build a version that plays one, a dozen, or all 142 games through the use of a menu system and a few glue scripts. These are included in the repository, along with the communication scripts for the supplemental score/instruction card computers.

The repository is located at https://github.com/bingopodcast/multi-races-public - if you end up building one of your own, I'd love to hear it! And of course if you have the ability to improve the portioning on any of the games using a meter, a ream of notebook paper, and lots of time, I would welcome the assistance.

Unlike the Multi-Bingo, Multi-Races uses almost all of the electromechanical components in a one-ball horserace game, which means that it requires no speakers and has no emulated sounds. It's all pure motors, steppers, and aural goodness.

In other news, I'm still working on a perfect solution for dispensing tokens. I need to find something to make the tokens the perfect weight and height, but this has proved actually very difficult.

Ava has a friend with a vinyl cutter - I'll acquire a roll of adhesive backed vinyl and they'll be able to cut the stencils for me!

Some continued tweaking of Multi-Races -

1) I made and uploaded a manual for the game, in the same style as the Multi-Bingo's manual (but a little more sparse, like a one-ball)

2) I thought I had made a schematic for this long ago, but was not able to find it in my 'stuff to scan' pile. I ended up redrawing the whole thing as an homage to early 40s Bally schematics. I planned, penciled and inked it, but it's still on vellum and has not yet been scanned. I made one mistake on the border lines, which I'll need to digitally fix.

3) Thanks to Pinsider @wylte, I was able to use his photos of Record Time to create Santa Anita and Record Time in Multi-Races!

4) I ran the updater for score and instruction cards (happens over the network, but requires running a separate script, and I'd been lazy since I haven't been to any shows for a while!)

5) I spent all evening/night yesterday playtesting. I went through every game and tried all kinds of wacky things to try to break it. I found and fixed several bugs:

a) Inconsistent free play handling on games from the middle years.

b) Incorrect button combinations to exit a game on some games. I changed my mind about this as the game evolved.

c) Weird crashes - fixed a few actual bugs, like calling self.game.regular_play() in certain contexts instead of self.regular_play().

d) Improper motor handling - in three games, depending on the operation, the control unit would never stop rotating.

At this point, there are only a handful of things left on the to-do pile. I'm pretty excited about that.

1) Find a solution for dispensing tokens and nickels as desired. I'm using the original nickel payout tubes. As the tokens I'm dispensing are inexpensive (and legal to make) I'm attempting to figure out a way to make them work. Going to attempt to model a small 3d printed holder to bump up to nickel size, and include a weighted disc or maybe even magnet in each(?).

2) Drill holes for leaf switches welded to a post, wired on spring bumpers.

3) Repaint play all and extra balls buttons using vinyl stencil.

4) Add schematic and flyer to public repository.

5) Add any other games as artwork becomes available from the following list (which would bring the game count up to 49):
Bally Thorobred
Gottlieb Man-O-War
Gottlieb Multiple Races
Western Derby Clock
Universal Across the Board
Western Quinella
Keeney Hot Tip
Bally Blue Grass
Bally Kentucky ('41)
Bally Sport King

6) Find score/instruction cards for the following (all Bally):
Preakness
Sport Page
Fair Grounds
Pace Maker
Grandstand (1938)
Seabiscuit
Thistledowns
Grand National
Dark Horse
Long Shot
Hawthorne
Jockey Club
Pimlico
Longacres
Citation
Lexington
Special Entry
Bally Entry
Champion
Gold Cup
Trophy
Sunshine Park

First attempt happened last night - not quite up to par yet, will try again tonight!

PXL_20220310_012443739 (resized).jpg

This is while the first layer of clear over top of the enamel was applied. The text was very hard to apply. After several failed attempts, I finally dried the paint out for each layer with a heat gun, then painted a clear enamel over top. It's not perfect, but by far the best that I could do. I've got five coats of clear on top of it now (applied with a different direction each coat), which will hopefully prevent a lot of finger wear. You can still sand off the text, but I am hopeful it won't come off during normal play.

I've also pulled things out to photograph for the flyer! I should have that finished today, at which point the most pressing concern is finding a better way to dispense tokens.

Flyer created and uploaded. I also scanned and touched up the schematic and uploaded. There's some perspective skew in the scan (the giant plotter/scanner started to eat the vellum :-/ ), but it's totally serviceable.

I also added fixes from the private repository for reliability and proper performance to the public repo, including the much nicer backglass photo that Hula provided for Sunshine Park.

With that, unless additional games come to light, I just need to figure out token dispensing reliability, and field bumper installation.

Hey all, reminder that the White Rose Gameroom Show is happening in York, PA next week(!) October 7-8.

I will be on hand with all of my P3 games, homebrew and commercial, released so far, including:

(Homebrew) Quest For Glory in its first public appearance! Play, save your progress, come back and resume your game later! Earn achievements and try to finish the game with all three character classes!

(Commercial) Ranger In The Ruins - the popular pinball roguelike playable on the Cosmic Cart Racing playfield. Run through the ruins of a former civilization to find the sum of all knowledge, acquiring items from the ghosts of past players from all over the world!

(Commercial) Silver Falls - choose your avatar from dozens of choices, furnish rooms, and clear special modes to progress through your home! Play Team Games with other attendees to make more progress and hear more of the excellent Scott Danesi chillhop soundtrack!

(Commercial) Flipper Foxtrot Rhythm Explosion - sometimes the P3 just wants to dance! Choose a song, and one of five difficulties, then show me your skills! Happy to play a game against you and see how I stack up.

I will have a TV display (this is my first year trying this, so we'll see how it holds up) with a countdown timer showing when the game will be changed over. Come back often!

--Non-P3 Games--

I also work with bingo collectors and help maintain and teach people about bingo pinball machines in Bingo Row. As part of that I'll be bringing two custom games.

(Homebrew) Multi-Bingo - 142 playable games, total, this year with a 20 hole playfield installed (which limits the number of games to 15).

(Homebrew) Multi-Races - 39 playable games, total, a mixture of payout and replay versions. This is the first year it will be shown with Joel de Guzman's excellent backglass artwork! Win a custom token that you can keep!

Earning a 4 or 5 in a line on any of the games in Bingo Row will allow you to win a unique promo item for my next game: Drained. This game has not yet been released (and will not make an appearance this year), but I'll be bringing a very limited number of vinyl postcards containing a medley of the songs from the game! These postcards can be played on a record player, and include a QR code for streaming.

Beyond all of the games, I'm looking forward to meeting more of you and hearing your thoughts about the games I've made. It's very rewarding to be able to share a creative work with many people, and to share the joys of the one ball games. Please say hello!