Awesome James!

So, like the guy who rewrote CCC, you can't rewrite the entire thing, keep all the DMD animations and williams logos in there? Even if you don't sell it? Doesn't sound like much fun. I am in for new rules though on both games!

Will you use existing rules rewritten in new code?

This is awesome news James. I remember your poll between NGG, TOTAN and a couple other games...
I'm sure you'll receive volunteer requests for BETA testing within mins.
Thanks for your work

Legally he can recreate the modes just as long as the code is different. At least that should suffice. My NGG is in pieces right now doing an extended shop / resto. Every piece of this machine is layed out on my pool table LOL. I'm more than willing to beta test whenever you have stuff to deliver.

Cheers and can't wait for this.

I was told from someone that it has 6 balls because there's still 4 available for multiball in case you've got 2 locked under the ramps, especially when playing 2 player... but I'm certainly no expert in the matter.

Yay! Thanks for doing this. Apparently I've got all the cool "let's write new rules for this" games.

Stud!

My NGG arrives on Friday. I am a somewhat decent player (a playground legend in my own mind), and can give detailed and well written feedback to any code you create. I also have high level tech ability on pins and am capable of burning roms. If you needed to make quick changes and want immediate feedback, I could certianly do that.... Just let me know when the time comes...The only reason I sold my old NGG was because the code was lacking, the game is AWESOME!

I see. Pretty neat project. Good luck.

I assume that your Caddyshack reference is because the owners of *that* franchise would come after you, not PPS, right?

As for that, I've *always* thought that NGG would be better with an actual Caddyshack theme. That said, seems like a better candidate for P-ROC rather than FreeWPC since you could use an LCD and actual movie graphics, because...

Seems the way around the license issue in "can't use stuff from the movie" is possible. It makes distribution "interesting", but you *could* write a program that pulls the movie scenes and sounds you need out of a DVD. Then distribute that program and users would have to own or buy a copy of the DVD and build their own copy. Now, if you really wanted to have a "complete" game you could do your own alternate graphics and sounds, too. But I don't think I'd bother, personally.

But again, that's something more suited for P-ROC than FreeWPC. Unless you also wanted to write something that converted actual Caddyshack movie scenes to dots, but I don't see that working very well. *shrug* But you could potentially still get Caddyshack sounds this way and do your own custom dots...

--Donnie

I have a Gofers and love it. It would be cool to go deeper in the ruleset with other call outs or a true wizard mode after 9 holes. I am interested to see where this goes.

Very excited love my Ngg third time owning it !!!!!Cant wait for this gofers always seemed a little to easy.

image.jpg

Wow, sounds like a fun project! I wish I had a ROM burner, I would love to play with FreeWPC myself. Didn't even know it existed till now.

Can't blame you for this at all, and if you have the ability to do cool dots and sound (or at least get that part contributed), it'll be pretty great this way, too.

As for pinball_happy wishing for a ROM burner, they really aren't that expensive and definitely aren't difficult to use. You'll want an eraser, too, but again, not expensive.

I have a burner and plenty of ability to use one, but no NGG right now. I've got a WTB out there looking for a prototype one, but so far no sellers. I've got my eyes open for a close enough decent deal on a non-proto, too, but only thanks to this project. So if one falls into my lap I'll be willing to be a tester, too. I've been burning ROMs since I was 12 and around the coin-op basically my entire life.

--Donnie

I am interested in helping out

Will you be able to use the original sounds and music? Part of what makes this game fun is the humor and interaction with the gophers.

I dont see why adding code to an existing product is a problem. We can add mods to the playfield and it should be the same for the code. No one is stealing any sales from Williams. Sometimes laws in this area are just stupid.

Of course the answer to that is NO, the sad fact is we have to move this stuff underground to keep it viable. Torrents is your friend here, you can also use bitcoin for donations.

With a FreeWPC rewrite, since the sound rom is untouched, it's apparently no issue that the sounds are used. Never mind that they're used differently than originally intended -- since they're just called from the original storage it's fine. Somehow.

And one of the limitations of using FreeWPC is that the original sound is all you've got to work with. Most games have unused sounds/quotes in the ROM that can be incorporated, though.

Related question, then...has anyone done any open-source-ish tools for dot animations that will work with FreeWPC? I poked around the FreeWPC docs and don't see anything mentioned in this area. I did see the description of how the pixel intensity works, but that's it.

--Donnie

OK but PPS is not Williams...just know that.

Regarding the multi ball modes. There are a few modes where you can add a ball and I have gotten to a point where I have had a six ball multi ball. I believe rip Off multi ball allows you too add a ball by hitting the Newton ball a certain amount of times.

I am highly interested in this

This project sounds super awesome~! I have a gofers and we play it probably everyday, but I have to agree that it is essentially an incomplete game and would be very interested in helping out to help finish the new code.

Great project!

Do you have a feature / rules template yet ?
Feature wishlist ???

Sure, this happens when I get rid of my NGG!

Anyway, I'd love there to involve a "Mulligan." You loose your ball, but you have 20 seconds to get a hole in one to gain your ball back.

Have you tried using After Effects for your animation?

If you could open the original animation would you be allowed to use them?

I'm curious as to how you represent and encode rules. If the order in which switches were activated didn't matter, I could see how you'd do it with a bit array to represent switches, logic to flip bits when switches were activated and timers to check & clear them... However the second order matters, I would think that goes out the window. What's the golden path for rule handling?

BTW, if you want me to rtfm / rtfs, then pointers to either is cool and appreciated.

Thanks,
S.

How cool would it be if there were an open-source, reusable, config-driven library for representing rules? You could have a central repository for rules for various games without the legal encumbrances... a methodology & tooling for non-coders to capture/validate rules by removing the glass and walking modes. It's an intriguing thought.

(BTW, not volunteering your time.. just having a geek out moment.)

Very cool project!

are you still planning on having the capability to go back and forth to original code?

If you have Pinball Arcade (iOS, Android, PS3, etc) and you have NGG for it, the rules there give you a lot of details about scoring and how much certain things are worth at what time. Might want to check it out.

I'm curious how the pinball arcade guys capture rules because their stuff seems to be pretty faithful to the originals. I could see some FSM representation for rules and having it be configurable, but capturing them off an existing machine seems like a real challenge.

pinball aracade licenses stuff .. dunno if from PPS or williams directly, but they don't have to recreate the game, can do emulation of the hardware

Two game features I like is the reversed flippers mode like TSPP "Springfield mystery spot" and the vacation jackpot in WH20 if those could be implemented in a mode or new modes.

The basic rule set is generally OK but lacking a real wizard mode and if the ROM has room you can add new mode/s or video mode / animation. Playing dodgem in a golf cart video mode similar to HS2 would be cool. A knock off of the caddyshack song "Im alright" would be WAY cool if possible.

I like how in WOZ when you drain in the no place like home mode you get a chance to earn your ball back. How about you have to light the kickback for it to work but if you drain out the left side without the kickback you get a short amount of time to "find the gopher". Hitting different lit shots would advance and when you hit them all you have "found the gopher" and are back in the game.

Is going to have a video mode ?

That would be cool.