(Topic ID: 260728)

No Good Gofers: Battle For The Green (2.0) New Code by Cardona

By jamescardona

4 years ago


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There are 337 posts in this topic. You are on page 4 of 7.
#151 4 years ago
Quoted from jamescardona:

I'll update the screen

No worries! I've enjoyed watching the progression of your development cycle from things like FreeWPC to something as ambitious as this.

Keep raising the bar man!

#152 4 years ago

just sent out the next update to the beta testers based upon the feedback from the live stream. Here are some of the changes that affect game play:

Added a text display of points and new sound effect when a skill shot is hit.
Made hole-in-one and cart hit to be skillshots.
Made all three ramp shots trigger the lowering of the slam ramp during skillshot timer.

Added a replay on coin play if a special is made. On freeplay, special still awards points.

Added an option to turn off auto-launch in menu. This also turns off ball search until the first switch hit is made. To make this happen, set "autolaunch" to 0 in the menu and
"skillshot timer" to 0 in the menu.

Changed the super jets logic such that if super jets is lit and ball is shot to the putt out, it does not count as a water hazard and ball always goes to jets.

Made hole-in-one worth 6 million and changed end of ball bonus to reflect actual under/over par instead of a set value (was 1 million/500,000 previously).

#153 4 years ago

Still working on the social media aspect of all of this. I think, in retrospect, I created this pinside thread a little early and should have waited until I had more social media in place. What can I say? I'm a coder, not a marketer. Anyway, here is my facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/Cardona-Pinball-Designs-102869057961683

The plan is to post NGG2.0 stuff there that might not make it here and additionally information about other projects I am working on.

#155 4 years ago

weekend update:

getting close to another code release with requested tweaks and changes. Should be out early next week.

Also, I am working on getting the code installed at locations in the Philadelphia/New Jersey area and currently have two locations interested in doing that. Should be cool to get some pinballers opinions on it so I am excited about this development. I was asked to not release the names of those locations until the machines are out on the floor but expect it to be soon.

As far as the discussions with PPS, that is ongoing and we are awaiting lawyers so I do not know how long that will take. In the time being, I will continue to work on the dual boot option and maybe that will happen.

Also, I wanted to give a big shout out and thank you to Dutch Pinball who provide me some code fragments from their dual boot code so that has saved me a lot of time. Again, not promising dual boot will become a reality, but maybe it will. I also want to reiterate that dual boot is going to add substantially to the cost so keep that in mind.

Happy Valentine's day to you all.

#156 4 years ago
Quoted from jamescardona:

weekend update:
getting close to another code release with requested tweaks and changes. Should be out early next week.
Also, I am working on getting the code installed at locations in the Philadelphia/New Jersey area and currently have two locations interested in doing that. Should be cool to get some pinballers opinions on it so I am excited about this development. I was asked to not release the names of those locations until the machines are out on the floor but expect it to be soon.
As far as the discussions with PPS, that is ongoing and we are awaiting lawyers so I do not know how long that will take. In the time being, I will continue to work on the dual boot option and maybe that will happen.
Also, I wanted to give a big shout out and thank you to Dutch Pinball who provide me some code fragments from their dual boot code so that has saved me a lot of time. Again, not promising dual boot will become a reality, but maybe it will. I also want to reiterate that dual boot is going to add substantially to the cost so keep that in mind.
Happy Valentine's day to you all.

If we buy now and dual boot becomes available how would that work?

#157 4 years ago

If I get the approval for the dual boot, I am going to have to pay a licensing fee for the williams assets so I need to charge for that.

#158 4 years ago

another update:
just sent another batch of tweaks and changes to the beta tester team. Here are some of the improvements:

Hole-in-one skillshot now also counts as hole-in-one for the current hole on the scorecard (does not grant wheel award)

Cart skillshot now also grants a cart letter toward starting mini mode

Added voice callouts to various skillshots and and also at game over (only if no high score entry)

Changed skillshot scoring as follows:
hole in one skillshot = 8,250,000
cart skillshot = 1,250,000
captive ball skillshot = 250,000
middle target skillshot = 250,000
top or bottom target skillshot = 125,000

if a player is added after the skillshot timer has started counting down, the skillshot timer now resets

Created an extremely simple "game over" animation that only plays when a player did not get a high score. If a high score, the high score entry animation plays instead

#159 4 years ago

as far as the location spots that I had posted about. One is waiting until the currently running tournament is over. The other has the game but is working through a pre-existing problem on the power driver board. I am hoping to be able to post about one of the locations soon. If you are in the Philadelphia area then you may have already seen and played the game but I am not advertising it as yet because I don't want people to be disappointed if the owner shuts the game off to work on the pre-existing problem.

Also, we plan to have the machine at the next Delaware Pinball Tournament event, in addition to more live streams on the delawarepinball twitch channel.

#160 4 years ago

As far as permissions from PPS to dual boot their code, I am still waiting for the go-ahead just as you are. When I get the nod or the shake, I'll post here so stay tuned.

#161 4 years ago

I'm pleased to say that I received permission from Multimorphic and Scott Danesi to include their data sheets and manuals as attachments in the NGG2.0 manual.

The updated manual can be downloaded here:
http://jamescardona.com/ngg2manual20200220.pdf

#162 4 years ago
Quoted from jamescardona:

As far as permissions from PPS to dual boot their code, I am still waiting for the go-ahead just as you are. When I get the nod or the shake, I'll post here so stay tuned.

Why do you need approval? Why not make the code able to dual boot and leave it up to the end user to get the rom and drop it in. Seems like a pointless price increase.

#163 4 years ago

I agree on this.

#164 4 years ago
Quoted from Syco54645:

Why do you need approval? Why not make the code able to dual boot and leave it up to the end user to get the rom and drop it in. Seems like a pointless price increase.

The same reason Dutch Pinball licensed the Williams code for Bride Of Pinbot in BOP2.0.

There are two choices here. Either license the code and use it or do not license the code and do not use any of it. I initially tried the second path and the consensus from the posts here was that people would be willing to pay more if they could also play the original game. This is why I am following in the footsteps of Dutch Pinball and licensing the code. PPS has been gracious enough to work with me to make this happen and it looks to be moving forward. We have not signed any paperwork as yet but I am optimistic.

#165 4 years ago
Quoted from jamescardona:

The same reason Dutch Pinball licensed the Williams code for Bride Of Pinbot in BOP2.0.
There are two choices here. Either license the code and use it or do not license the code and do not use any of it. I initially tried the second path and the consensus from the posts here was that people would be willing to pay more if they could also play the original game. This is why I am following in the footsteps of Dutch Pinball and licensing the code. PPS has been gracious enough to work with me to make this happen and it looks to be moving forward. We have not signed any paperwork as yet but I am optimistic.

Sure but couldn't you write the software to look for a rom in a specific location? Emulators do this with bios files. I mean ultimately the choice is your and was not trying to shit on your project, just simply presenting an idea to keep cost down for the end users (which I would think would ultimately cause more sales).

#166 4 years ago

spent the last week trying to get a linux version of pinmame working and it is not looking to my satisfaction.

I think at this point I am going to go in a different direction as far as the dual boot. Idea is to rewrite the existing rules into a subset of NGG2.0 such that if you hold down a flipper button while you push the start button a menu will pop up allowing the player to choose to play NGG1.0. If this option is picked, it will play the game using the original rules of NGG with the original sound set. I do not as yet have this working with the original DMD frames as I am having a hard time finding a set.

If any one has the ability to extract the DMD frames then that would be much appreciated. Also, if anyone has a custom colorized version of the frames they would be willing to share, then I would certainly put them in.

#167 4 years ago

Oh and the agreement with PPS is verbal so far and now they are waiting on me. I just wanted to get this working 100% before committing the funds.

#168 4 years ago

Ngg2.0 is live at the pinball gallery in malvern, pa. Actually it's been here about 2 weeks.

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#169 4 years ago
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#170 4 years ago
Quoted from Rarehero:

Appreciate the effort, but I think it looks terrible. Cheapens a great game that had wonderful music, voices & DMD animation. Now it looks/sounds like a weird slot machine.

+1. Great effort for sure but not a fan of the design. At least chose new 3d for the characters and make new animations for the appeal.

#171 4 years ago

some feedback for those who have their games on power strips and use the strip to turn on and off their games.

NGG2.0, like a lot of the other modern computer-based machines are relying on the service outlet to properly shut down the computer. You should not turn off the power by effectively unplugging the machine. This probably applies to several of the other new machines, but I won't speak for which ones.

#172 4 years ago

another live stream of NGG2.0 going on right now

https://www.twitch.tv/delawarepinball

#173 4 years ago

The beta testers I am using are so great. They typically get together once every two weeks and play my game code for 4 to 7 hours straight. Really been tremendous at finding bugs and suggesting tweaks to the code. I think this kind of thing is a must for making a great game.

#174 4 years ago
Quoted from jamescardona:

The beta testers I am using are so great. They typically get together once every two weeks and play my game code for 4 to 7 hours straight. Really been tremendous at finding bugs and suggesting tweaks to the code. I think this kind of thing is a must for making a great game.

Jim - I know several people have commented on the rendition of the bear. Have you made any adjustments to this?

#175 4 years ago

Bear? I thought it was a possum.

#176 4 years ago
Quoted from djreddog:

Jim - I know several people have commented on the rendition of the bear. Have you made any adjustments to this?

Not really. I understand a lot of the people who watch the videos or look at the pictures have focused on that and made funny comments and I have no problem with people attacking or making fun of Bud, "the bear". He actually doesn't mind either. He's kind of nice like that.

But actually, the people who have played it have been making gameplay recommendations and suggestions. And I think that is as it should be since, in the end, it's really all about the kinetics (IMHO).

We have so far fixed some small bugs and made many 'look and feel' tweaks along with a bunch of changes to scoring, in an attempt at making it more balanced.

One of the things that seems difficult to get right, for example, is the hole-in-one shot. Initially, I made hole-in-one worth much less because we wanted to make combos more valuable since it is hard to chain a bunch of those in a series. So we wanted to reward excellent skills and a good combo score is a prime example.

Still, the hole-in-one shot is difficult so the testers wanted it to be worth more and we made that change a few weeks ago.

Now, we are discovering that we made it worth too much so we are now dialing that back, but just not back to where it was.

It is certainly an iterative process and such a process takes playing a lot of pinball.

#177 4 years ago

Just a suggestion on the hole in one, but depending on how the game plays the shot cab be very very difficult. I have a very low play gofers and the flippers are so strong it is very hard to make the hole in 1! I would imagine it would be the same if someone rebuilt their flippers. My first gofers was not playing as strong and I could make the shot a lot easier as it sort of trickled up there.

#178 4 years ago

I thought most Morden day games boot up in some sort of read only manner with pretty much everything done in ram so very little is written to disc so you can just kill the power when you want, it’s usually corrupt files that causes issues on a read write system when powering down mid write. This is how most embedded Linux devices behave.

#179 4 years ago
Quoted from jamescardona:

You should not turn off the power by effectively unplugging the machine. This probably applies to several of the other new machines, but I won't speak for which ones.

You keep reinventing the wheel. This is a solved problem. Scott Danesi sells a power controller for this.

Also, you might try joining us at pindev.slack.com and asking some of the guys there how to handle the emulation. This is also a solved problem. Not sure why you’re so dead set on not leveraging the huge custom pinball ecosystem.

#180 4 years ago
Quoted from jamescardona:

And I think that is as it should be since, in the end, it's really all about the kinetics

This is how AP has been thinking - that the playfield And rules is all that matters - but it’s a whole package: playfield, mechs, sound and art. If any one piece is wrong, it doesn’t gel. And then doesn’t sell.

I mean, you’re perfectly welcome to ignore your customers and do your own thing. It’s your project. But you yourself have said you’re not an artist or graphical designer - not sure why you’d say that then discount what people are saying about your art and design.

#181 4 years ago
Quoted from jwilson:

You keep reinventing the wheel. This is a solved problem. Scott Danesi sells a power controller for this.
Also, you might try joining us at pindev.slack.com and asking some of the guys there how to handle the emulation. This is also a solved problem. Not sure why you’re so dead set on not leveraging the huge custom pinball ecosystem.

My system uses the danesi power controller. But that doesn't help if someone unplugs the machine from the outlet

1 month later
#182 3 years ago

I am an essential worker as it turns out so I have actually been working a whole lot more hours than normal so unfortunately, coronavirus has not given me the opportunity to work on this. Quite the opposite, I've been spending way to many hours away from pinball and can't wait to get back to development.

1 month later
#183 3 years ago

Hi,
Are there any gameplay videos for NGG 2.0 version? I'm curious to see some
Thanks in advance,
Peter

#184 3 years ago

there were some streams on delawarepinball on twitch. I also had a few videos on my youtube channel that I took down because they of the beta code and I wanted to make new ones.

But then... I got coronavirus and was incapacitated for over 3 weeks. I am just over it now and just getting back to work now.

But of course, trying to buy any equipment to either stream or record video right now with all this going on is nearly impossible. Coronavirus and the flash popularity of zoom meetings has all the equipment totally sold out. Hopefully, once this is over I can get what I need and record a few videos.

#185 3 years ago
Quoted from jamescardona:

there were some streams on delawarepinball on twitch. I also had a few videos on my youtube channel that I took down because they of the beta code and I wanted to make new ones.
But then... I got coronavirus and was incapacitated for over 3 weeks. I am just over it now and just getting back to work now.
But of course, trying to buy any equipment to either stream or record video right now with all this going on is nearly impossible. Coronavirus and the flash popularity of zoom meetings has all the equipment totally sold out. Hopefully, once this is over I can get what I need and record a few videos.

Ok, thanks for telling me
I'll try to find some on twitch
I'm sorry that you got Coronavirus, and that you were incapaticitated for three weeks

#186 3 years ago

jamescardona sorry for asking, but will new gameplay videos of NGG 2.0 be ready anytime soon?
I'm so excited

#187 3 years ago

Delaware Pinball has one of my kits installed as they are on the beta tester team. They periodically stream gameplay of different pinball machines. I believe they should be streaming NGG2.0 sometime this week. If you miss the stream live, then you can also view it for a number of days later.

https://www.twitch.tv/delawarepinball

#188 3 years ago

That's great!

1 week later
#189 3 years ago

stream was last night:

https://www.twitch.tv/delawarepinball

you can watch it again for 14 days before it falls off

#190 3 years ago

I saw it, it's great stream!

2 weeks later
#191 3 years ago

Woohooo! Another delaware pinball's livestream!
https://www.twitch.tv/delawarepinball/videos

1 month later
#192 3 years ago

added a new gameplay video

#193 3 years ago

here is another video of game play of NGG2.0

#194 3 years ago

I watched a lot of twitch and it seems with pinball, the game sounds are generally too low so you can hear the people speaking. I tried to reverse that for these videos so you could hear the actual game.

#195 3 years ago

pinball gallery is opened back up and they still have a ngg2.0 on location so for those in the philly area, you should get up there if you want to play it

#196 3 years ago

one more game play video for now.

#197 3 years ago

Here is an instructional video where I talk about some of the playfield shots and some of the scoring opportunities.

#198 3 years ago

making progress on the dual boot functionality. There are yet a few details to tweak...

#199 3 years ago

James,
I was at the Pinball Gallery yesterday. Was on ball 3 with the ball in the plunger lane. I reset the game with the start button. Game geeked out and went to a black screen. Needed to be power cycled.

#200 3 years ago
Quoted from ectobar:

James,
I was at the Pinball Gallery yesterday. Was on ball 3 with the ball in the plunger lane. I reset the game with the start button. Game geeked out and went to a black screen. Needed to be power cycled.

thank you. I will check that section of the code. That is part of the core, so I didn't write it but I will check. I thought I had disabled fast reset, by the way.

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