Maybe you are having some high voltage issues? Reseat all your connectors in the backbox and also check your voltage from the wall. My MC is especially finicky on the power at the outlet.

I absolutely LOVE this game. I don't know that you can get the full effect even playing it at a show. A big part of the appeal is the atmosphere that the lights and sounds create. It's seriously one of my favorite pins of all time and I doubt I will ever sell.

Brian

What's wrong with the scoring? I always thought it was pretty well balanced and the rules are fairly deep. Sure, a few of the modes don't give you as many points as they probably should, but I think that's the case in most mode based games.

Doom mode is without a doubt my favorite. I never get tired of the screaming skull in Doom multiball. I think everyone loves this part of the game.

I don't know how you'd be scoring so low in a 20 minute game unless you are cradling the ball the whole time. Lots of the modes give you decent points. Some are better than others, of course, but none are that fruitless. If you don't know the rules and you aren't hitting the right shots during modes, I could see how a mode might seem low scoring, but that applies to any game. You could hit total annihilation in AFM and get 0 points if you don't hit anything. I really doubt you're that bad of a player.

I would suspect the header pins for that lamp board. Have you tried reseating the connector or wiggling the connector during a lamp test?

One really nice one went for 6.1k last year. I wouldn't part with mine for $4k. Not sure about the particular demand in Australia, but there's actually a lot of Alvin G parts there.

I've gone as far as to use a weak rubber band to take up the slack on my right flipper assembly. Still, all original flipper mechs and it still plays great. I'll keep them going as long as I can. I wish someone would repro these wear and tear A.G. parts.

Seems like $4k-5k the last few years.

That's not a proto machine. The cabinets being 'speckled' or not actually seems to come and go throughout the run. The playfield does look really nice, though.

http://www.pinballspareparts.com.au/dtp-001.html

It should be a real backglass and not a translite. The GI issues with the backbox seem to be pretty common and it looks like the connectors at the top right of the driver board are prone to overheating, so LEDs can help prevent this. I found that the basic pinballlife flat frosted LEDs work great. I used white aside from purple for the welcome sign and used a paper strip as a diffuser there to make it look like neon. Congrats on the score.

Congrats on the update. It's worth the trouble. I have had my MC for about 7 years and never broke a drop target. Maybe they aren't dropping properly?

Maybe the stock that is left has become brittle over the years.

Here's the image for the drop target decals you needed. I made this by hand, but it should be pretty accurate.

MC-drop-hires (resized).jpg

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.

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.

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.

That's a very nice looking MC you got there! I like the look of that speckled cabinet. Mine is just flat black.

I haven't personally heard of needing to swap the speakers out. The audio quality in this game is one of the high points. I do get a minor amount of background noise from the DMD when it's in attract mode, but nothing that distorts the audio while playing. Maybe there is a loose connection somewhere, or there's a problem with the sound board, or a blown speaker?

On standard settings, collecting the crystal ball should light the extra ball shot at the right ramp.

It's been an eternity since I updated my MC to Rev3, but from what I remember, I swapped the chips and it ultimately worked without changing any jumpers. I think I had also had issues with the DMD being blank at first, but then it started working after a few reboots and has worked ever since. I can't say why... it's a mystery! There was something about two different versions of the DMD rom existing tho, and some machines seemed to work with one but not the other.

The Rev3 ROMs were factory. It seems that only late run machines had shipped with them installed. Most of the machines shipped with Rev2 and were never updated.

From what I have seen, that power supply board is pretty difficult to find a replacement for and it's a common failure point. Clive at CoinOp Cauldron offers a rebuild service for this board if it's not too toasty.