Hey guys, I'm loving my MC. Things are coming along and I see the finish line for mine to be ready for battle very soon.

Can someone do me a huge favor and please help me confirm a few things.

1.) The black plastic that sits behind the PF. Does anyone have any photos of this exact placement, or could just explain here how it gets installed? I swore I took pictures of it before removing and can't locate the screw holes.

2.) In the picture below I grabbed from Pinside, I'm pointing to a post that I believe sits above the top drop target and the opening of the ramp. Can anyone confirm what type of post goes there? Is it the same as the posts that sit on either side of the red broken statue targets? Mine has a hole for it, but it's missing an looks like it was there at one time before breaking off.

3.) The three tall hex spacers that sit beneath the ramps in the middle of the PF and prop them up. One of them is taller than the other two. Can anyone confirm where the tallest one goes out of the three spots for them?

As always, thank you to everyone for all the help!

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The black plastic is just mounted with some screws to the backside.

As you see on the pics before my renovation, that post was also missing on my machine. I mounted a normal post with a black rubber sleeve.
In front of the ramp I also mounted a "modding" post .. this is to prevent the ramp from damages. Its not original amnd maybe ugly .. but it saves this hard to buy ramp !

Please see pics if it helps with the posts. I have not measured them.

Cheers
Tom

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Thanks Tom! This is very helpful. I really appreciate these clear shots and good info.

Hey everyone, I just wanted to check back in here. My MC is fully working and playing snappy, fast and all around great. This game has way more flow than I anticipated. It's awesome!

I do have some questions I was hoping to get insight from some of you...

1.) Strength of coils: I have it on the softest setting, but man does the game punch the balls around violently. It almost makes me cringe how hard the flippers are even on this soft setting given how rare the parts and plastics are. Is this normal for MC, and have any of you purposely toned this down?

2.) I have the REV3 Rom set from Coin Op Cauldron, but notice I no longer see the game over Crystal Ball game match animation at the end with the cool sound effects. Is this not in the Rev3, or did I unknowingly turn this off in the settings?

3.) Hunt Button on front of cabinet: Does your Hunt button also start a game if pressed? I notice it acts just like the Start button, and I constantly hit it on accident when leaning over the game to look at something haha.

4.) There's a spike post at the very top of the PF basically at the end of the secret door gate that opens and closes, can you tell me if you all have a 3/8" rubber on that one? I don't recall the manual listing that as a rubber placement.

5.) Has anyone found a good paint color match for the boulder's yellow and brown? I have one or two spots from previous ownership that has a little wear, nothing crazy, and I may even leave it alone. It actually blends in quite nice already.

I may be able to help you with a few of your questions - #1 - I have mine on the weakest strength - but I swear that it
is faster than before I made that switch - may go back and reset to regular strength to see #2 the match effect is turned off if you have it on free play.
#4 I left my original rubber on that spike post as the smallest one I received in my rubber kit was still a bit too big imo -
and I didn't want balls to be returned from hitting it.
M

Thanks man! All of that makes sense, and come to think of it, I haven't tried going with 'normal' or 'harder' coil strength either to see what that does.

The rubber on the post, I unfortunately don't have my original rubbers anymore. I wonder if putting a small 3/8" would effect it's physics, and like you said, rebound the ball back out. It just makes me nervous having the ball hit the metal.

And hey! You have a Class of 1812 too. My MC is sitting next to my 1812 and I love them both...

I have mine on freeplay and still get the match animations. Maybe you have the match feature turned off?

Mine does this. I am always starting games accidentally if I am working on the game or cleaning it.

Ok, I'll look in the menu and see if I have that turned off. I've seen it in the few videos on youtube, I kinda like it and want to have it play at the end of a game. And yes, that damn button always gets hit.

Thanks guys!

After looking into the service menu, I could not find a setting that allows me to turn the game match setting on/off. Anyone come across this in their game?

I turned free play off, and it still wouldn't show at the end of my game. There is 'award type' setting that I have turned to OFF, but I believe that is tied to an award (i.e. free credit, extra ball, etc.) designated to a certain score achieved.

hmm... all I know is that on mine, I switched the free play off (don't remember which setting) and I had the end of game animation.
There are other settings about matching, percentages etc... that always confused me. Plus, I swear that I never match - and that I only
get 1/2 the numbers (ie" 10-50 or 50-90) that come up at the end of a game.

Maybe do a factory reset ?

For the end of game crystal ball match award animation. I had Award Type set to off, thinking it had to do with the stock replay score of 300,000,000. I turned it to ‘credit’ and now plays and I love it.

Also, I found some cool features. As we may know the crystal ball lights the extra ball when found, but if you find the crystal ball while in doom mode you earn two extra balls. I also noticed my game immediately puts you into joker mode once you collect the extra ball. If you are in joker and start the doom multiball in the secret door, there is an extra creepy laugh that accompanies the normal screaming skull noise. Listen very carefully and you’ll hear it. And as we know, some things like Joker are doubled during doom multiball.

When somebody’s ready to leave the club lmk

Will do. Feel free to come by and play it sometime if you’re in my neck of the woods.

Has anyone hooked their MC up to a external sub? I have, and it sounds great, but when I turn the game off I get a loud pop sound. Any way I can eliminate this?

In addition to the above question...

Does anyone else see their backbox lighting dim slightly throughout the game? Sometimes mine is bright, then dim a little, then come back to bright.

And I'm now getting my left slingshot coil locking on, immediately blowing fuse F15 (2amp slo blo) which protects coils #4, 5, 14 which are the slings and knocker. Safe to say I have a bad transistor somewhere?

Check the pin from the GI in the backbox ! Mine was burned .... there are 2 pins for 6 volts, the outer pin was melted.

Alvin G's lamp matrix loves to burn up and cook the powers supply board.

Thanks guys! Unfortunately, I had to step out on a quick biz trip, but will be back early next week to dig in and evaluate the connectors.

I'm also going to dig into the loud pop I get when I turn the game off. And the F15 fuse blowing which seems to be the right sling kicker locking in. Could be a transistor issue, or could be a sling switch issue as well.

Without being able to hear it, I’m guessing your “loud pop” is normal. Every Alvin G game is very loud when turned off. That aspect of their system has always driven me nuts.

If something is normal, I can live with anything. And I'd bet that's exactly what it is, with maybe a small amplification due to the amp.

Not to complain, because I think Mystery Castle is an awesome game, but I really wish they incorporated some of the modes to force you to hit the Tower or Ballroom shots.

For instance, with Potion, I wish that once you throw the ball into the secret door at the start of the mode, and it comes down the left lane, you had to hit the tower or ballroom with the upper left flipper to score some a jackpot of some kind. Right now, it makes you get it to the bottom left flipper and hit the catwalk, which is not an easy shot in itself, it just feels more natural to combo off that upper left flipper.

Also, I have yet to complete an entire set of freaky jackpots during Doom or Mega Mode, primarily the tower and ballroom are what remains for me. Incredibly difficult.

And lastly, I'm hoping this works out soon, but a friend of mine bought a clear/red skull made out of resin at the Allentown show this year. I convinced him to sell it to me and once I get my hands on it, I'm debating on fixing it to the top of the game, and wiring it to tie into the red doom GI chain. Whenever doom mode is activated and things turn double points, the skull above will be lit up with it. I'm not a topper guy by any means but I'd be willing to try it.

I’m in!
Added to the lineup this afternoon
Proto #3417
Sadly I can confirm that there’s also one less machine out there hiding. #3499 was parted out many, many years ago. The previous owner of this one had all the backbox boards for 3499 that came as spares.

Any leads on the yellowish clear circle standup target would be appreciated. Mine is spider cracked all over and probably a few solid hits from being in pieces.

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Congratulation to this nice proto !!
I am the owner of the number behind you: # 3418

To get this machine was also an adventure: In germany we have a coinop who is importing pinbals, jukeboxes, signs and diner stuff in containers from the USA to Germany. He collected also a MC with no pcb´s, no speakergrilli and missing some coils and mechanics.
I swapped this machine with its missing parts against a "Black Rose" pinball. So the coinop told me that it will become hard to get spareparts and all the pcb.
Years before I importet an HUO garage Band from the USA and it came with a complete set of spare pcbs .... so it took me some days to get the MC up and running
For the speakergrill I modified the wood from a T2 and made a plexi myself, meanwhile years after I bought also a used speakergrill on ebay.

Hi TomDK,
Thank you. Very cool to have back to back pins off the line
Sounds like you definitely had a journey with yours getting it back in action. Haven't had a chance to put too many plays on mine yet, but like everyone alludes to, the sounds and music are very immersive!

Would be nice to know if you have the full ROM set or the "small set". Mine came with the "small set" but a friend of mine was able with the help of the whole community to burn it. So some more animations are the result !!

REV3 roms were in there when I got it. I have Dancing Skeletons, the wizard guy for Tilt warning, and moving eyes for Painting mode.
So I think that would be the total REV3 roms set right?

Any other telltale signs?

I think this is the full set !

i was missing all this animations first !

Hey everyone, I'm still working through the issue of blowing fuse F15 which controls the slings and knocker. Upon power up with a fresh fuse, the left sling locks on in the forward motion and then falls back once the fuse blows. I replace the Q24 transistor last weekend and noticed that old transistor was reading bad compared to the others. Sling sound efx and scoring act like normal. Just no kicking action.

Since putting in the new transistor, the sling still acts the same. Now I'm curious if now even the new transistor is blown out because of something else.

Anything come to mind as to what I should look for next? Anything in particular to AG games where this occurs? Bad diode on the sling coil or switches?

Thanks for any advice.

A swap of the coil from left to right would help to figure out **IF** it is the coil.
The price: Maybe solder an other transistor.

http://www.pinball.center/en/shop/pinball-parts/playfield-parts/targets/standup-targets/6130/standup-target-yellow-transparent-round?c=2175

Can also cut these down to make the oblong style which is what the factory did. All the nos I have had show signs of being circular targets that were cut down.

Thanks man! I’m back from a Biz trip and hoping to dig into this over the weekend.

Do you all feel that the AG design team intended for ball 3 to play the music again from ball 1? If they saved the more sinister song for ball 3, as in your last life in the castle, that would make more sense. For that reason I have my game set to two balls, just cause I love ending on that final song.

Also, the King item is shown as ????. Were they simply out of time and published the game with that code, or do we feel that mystery scoring is on purpose, making the player reach the crown to find out?

With that said, could there be a Rev4 out there?

I think it's intentional. The game is called 'Mystery' Castle, after all... better have some damn mystery in there or that's just false advertising.

Given how the software on mystery is the deepest of any alvin g, I would say it was intentional.

Good point hahahaha.

Very true. The music and sound effects are so eerie and awesome, I was secretly hoping that there is some buried treasure out there with a new song to add to the mix!

So I had some time this evening, and a handful of left over leds laying around, and decided to Led the backbox. I noticed that the #44 bulbs in the bottom right and top left corners (enclosed by the reflector/deflector paper) do not work. The flashers in those areas work fine but none of the 44s. Any thoughts as to why just those sockets don’t work? All other bulbs / flashers are fine.

They are only illuminated in certain modes, so if the machine was just simply on and in attract mode, none of these will work. Go into lamp test to illuminate them.

They don't work in lamp test either. Single or matrix. Don't work during any gameplay that I saw either.

Ahh, gotcha. Let me get back to you again sometime when I'm free and am near my machine. We'll get to the bottom of it.

It's still developing for me, and so this is essentially the rough draft. I have this clear red skull I thought would be amazing to light up when you're in doom mode, signaling the game is in double scoring and in it's highest status.

I used Comet LED matrix wiring accessories with a bright 6SMD red LED strip, and ran it down the back of the game and into the power cord port. Then alligator clipped it onto one of the red doom mode GI lights. I'll eventually solder it in place if I keep it.

Securing the skull on top of the game is a must, but I didn't want to put any sort of adhesive on top of the head in case it pulled paint later. One idea I had was to get high end delicate surface painters tape, put down a 3" x 3" square of tape down, then put the strips of high test velcro on top of the painters tape, and the bottom of the skull.

Instead, I decided to avoid adhesive on the head, and took a rubber dog bowl mat we were no longer using and cut it to a flat edge to be my new surface and still grip the wood. Then I adhered the velcro strip to the mat, and taped down the LED strip wiring to the mat.

The skull is securely in place, even if I shake the game beyond what it would ever be, it doesn't budge much. But I'll still find a way to secure the mat or skull to fishing line and nailed to the stud behind it. That'll be my fool proof safety net.

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I received a question regarding my exact setup for the topper above. Here are the parts I used for this...

Red Skull topper: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071JZS38F/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s01

Here's a clear blue one too. I bought both to test, since the skull icon on the PF is blue and then turns red. The red LED strip turns the blue skull red, but the red skull really glows. Plus, I felt the red skull sitting on top of the game when not in use looks better than the blue. Just my opinion: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MST4FJH/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00

Here are the Comet accessories I used:

MATRIX Various Length Wires - 36 inches (I used two 36" with a couple other extenders I had on hand, but you'll want three 36" wires for a comfortable reach).
http://www.cometpinball.com/MATRIX-Wires-p/mtxconnect.htm

MATRIX Brightness Adjustment Screw
http://www.cometpinball.com/product-p/mtxbriteadj.htm

MATRIX 6 SMD 5050 6.3V LIGHTED PADS - Red
http://www.cometpinball.com/MATRIX-6-SMD-5050-6-3V-LIGHTED-PADS-p/mtx6smdpad.htm

Wire Pack - Alligator Clips
http://www.cometpinball.com/product-p/wirepack.htm

And then of course the rubber mat to become my surface to attach the velcro base to, and tape the LED strip into place directly behind the skull.

Attached below is the image of the setup. You'll see the skull velcro'd to the mat, and the LED strip taped pointing up and into the skull from the back, and then the wires run down the machine into the power cord hole and attached to a red GI flasher.

I thought of going with an actual human skull replica and putting lights in the eyes, or have a red glow come from underneath, but I found these clear skulls really pop when the light comes on.

What's cool is that every item you find, the Red GI flashers/skull flashes, plus Doom Mode, and the end of game match sequence which turns on the skull and it's a very cool way to end the game.

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What is the best strategy to get all of the freaky jackpots? The hardest two are of course the ballroom and tower lanes from the upper left flipper, but I just can't seem to get those yet. I'm seeing only two ways while in the middle of a multiball.

1.) Forcefully shoot a ball up the far left dungeon lane, so it comes down through the ballroom and may hit the left flipper to give you a chance to shoot it back through one of those two lanes.

2.) try to hit a ball up towards the left flipper, in hopes it is ever in position to then be hit through the tower or ballroom.

And has anyone organized the 3-way, 4-way, and 5-way combo points/achievements? I know the rule sheet that was circulated around was still uncovering those. Maybe this weekend I'll take the glass off and see what they do.

This is what I usually do. I just hit that orbit and the ball comes out of the ballroom straight to the upper-left flipper on mine. It's always a live shot at first, but once you make a ballroom or tower shot it becomes more controlled. Sometimes I can get a rhythm going and loop together a few ballroom and tower shots. Keeping the tower ramp well waxed helps.

also really helps if you have new silicone rubber on that upper flipper

Anyone done with their Mystery Castle? I played one over the weekend and am digging it big time!

BUMP!

Might want to use a wanted ad for that man, but its a tough to find game as it doesn't seem to rotate out of collections often.

Hello.
I have not turned on my MC since Sept and when I switched it on today I have no sound whatsoever.
Where would you start to troubleshoot this problem?
Thanks
Scott.

Hello,I have re seated most of the connections on the boards and changed the battery.I then hit the reset on the main board and sound is back.I need to re do all my settings again but I have sound again.

Well, the sound board is its own computer. If memory serves it has a cpu light, what is it doing?

Red light on sound board is flashing about 1 per second.