I now have a concrete deadline to have the machine ready for expo. It's getting picked up on the 12th for shipping. I'm suddenly all anxious about being totally finished again. It's already in a pretty good place, but it's always hard to say "ok I'm ready"

The stream the other night was.... Interesting. I broke a bunch of things messing with the code this week. Most bugs I've found in one session since I can remember.

Time to spurn all activities but work and working on the game so you all can enjoy an exciting and bug free experience in a month. Can't wait to meet a lot of you.

That being said, I have the memory of a goldfish and the only thing I can remember about people are faces, so if you walk up to me and introduce yourself as a well known participant in this thread, please don't be offended if I can't recognize your usernames. Once I've met you and seen your face I'll never forget it and could pick each and every one of you out of a crowd (but I won't remember your name)

I have now separated all my remaining tasks into "before" and "after" shipping piles. If I NEED the machine in my physical presence to accomplish something it is now top priority. Today I knocked out the remaining plastics and got our boy back on the PF. I like him better where he is now.

Mirror, door/drop target code debugging, and possible stuck balls are on my short list coming up.

I also have a surprise or two in store for those who attend the shows. Genesis does.

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The topper is done! Well... mostly.

With time for physical work running short, I had put enough effort into this that I wanted to make sure it was one of the things that got finished. I planned and 3D printed the parts a while back. I then handed them off to a friend for painting who recently returned them. Most of the work today was wiring and making sure you couldn't see any of the lights/wires. I built it in such a way that it can be disassembled somewhat and packed up for shipping so hopefully there won't be any problems bringing it to the shows.

Unfortunately it doesn't light up yet. I didn't notice that my GI lights are 12v (not 5v like all the rest) until I was nearly done. I had to order some 5v replacements so no lit up pictures til those arrive (supposedly Tuesday) I can write the code in the meantime and make a few light shows.

It's turning out great, I feel like I'm not ready, but the list of things to do is shrinking quickly. Hope to see you all soon.

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Topper lights are done. 5v replacement lights came in, swapping them out was pretty straight forward. Had to muck with show priorities a bit, but attract and basic game integration is done. Nothing super fancy for light shows yet, but I'm super happy with the way it turned out. Final tweaks and play testing this weekend, then it gets packed up and shipped on Tuesday. I will probably do a final pre-show bug hunting stream on Friday as well.

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Switch holders are still there. If you can't see them then I did a good job hiding them :p

Yup. I have considered swapping the left ramp for optos just to get the switch holder out of view for mirror but haven't gotten to it

Huh.... Totally should have had that playing in the BG instead.

Spinners are done.

Everyone loved the sprite animation spinner so of course we went with it. It turned out great. I'm going to try adding a strobe effect to the surrounding lights to see what effect that has on the animation.

For the right spinner I went with a speed label to further cement the connection with spinners and the multiplier system. I think the speed mechanic is very intuitive now. Everything matches and references each other in such a way that I feel people will figure it out without being told if they put even a tiny bit of effort in. When I'm playing and trying to figure stuff out I tend to read the rule card (I know I'm crazy) but then as I read it I try to identify the things being talked about on the playfield. If I read about speed and went looking, I'd find it all immediately. Play testing shall tell if I'm right.

For the spinner art I just used shipping label paper covered in mylar. Cover it in mylar BEFORE you cut it out and you have a durable sticker with no extra steps.

Sonic's head is the same, attached to a 3D printed plastic piece that is perfectly shaped for his head because I took the exact image and used a 2D to 3D model tool online. Add a mounting tab and some epoxy because there just isn't enough time to try welding a stud on to the spinner bracket and tadaaaa; instant fun spinner. The bad parts of the stand off plastic effect were minimized I think with his head being perfectly cut out and not surrounded by white space (I used the Cameo)

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The micro switch ticks for every full rotation. The math involved would be timing the strobe for the half rotation. I could also try the lazy approach and trigger the half strobe on switch release. I think I'll start there and try to improve it later on.

Something rather special today. Andy at Rocket City Pinball (@SkyKing2301) was kind enough to make me a custom start button for Sonic! It's a beautiful 3D print using a silky filament that has excellent optical qualities. He designed it specifically for SSB and it looks incredible. Unfortunately I'm not doing it justice currently as the start button is not lit up. I will light it eventually but there is just no time before the shows. Check out his other designs at https://rocketcitypinball.com/

I am weird and I hate shooter rods and buttons that aren't smooth, so he was nice enough to further customize the design in such a way that I could pour resin into the center of the button to make it nice and smooth. The ring acts like a pool and surface tension was enough to give the button an excellent smooth dome that my picky OCD-like fingers love to push.

In addition, his daughter Mallory was kind enough to send me a 3D model of a dragon that she modeled in TinkerCAD. Evergreen came out great on the resin printer, and my friend Frank, who did all the painting on the topper, also painted Evergreen for me so we can use them in a DnD campaign in the future. Thanks so much Mallory! Tell your dad to not be lame and bring you to Expo!

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And the final physical addition to SSB before it ships out on Tuesday: The mirror. Allows good view of upper rollovers because Robotnik is too fat to see behind. A janky version was on V1, now there is a proper adjustable mount. Time to pack it up.

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Packing Paper Zone: Act 1

Palleting up for Chicago Expo

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Yeah I knew about this. I believe it was a retheme. As far as I can tell it was brought to one show and was never seen again. Can't find any footage of anyone playing it either. Just walking passed it.

Ready to go!

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See you at expo!

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This is why mine does not, also I consider it a design challenge to teach without using callouts, but if the game gets picked up by a manufacturer it will not be entirely up to me as it will then become a group project. Also I'm sure SEGA will have an opinion that will need to be considered.

It's heavily insured. I wouldn't be miserable if it fell into a river on the way HOME. I'd just rebuild it and spare no expense.

Did some work on software last night. Still lots to do even with the game currently shipping. Here are some of the things ive done to look forward to at expo so far:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/sonic-spinball-expo-selfie-tournament
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https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/sonic-spinball-expo-pintastic-bug-reports
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Drowning slides along with new more urgent lightshow
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I didnt forget about you SegaCD nerds. Here ya go:

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Yes, though actually Tilt warnings may be higher.

I bought knuckles, I haven't been able to find the standing one a spot but if he is the right size this will do nicely.

I assume so? I'll be in the same boat there trying to play as many homebrews as possible while hanging around mine

New full color T shirts are in.

PM me if you want one.
$25, free shipping (international +$5)

Can bring them to the show just let me know!

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How was this not already a thing?

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Will this fit behind the left ramp? We will find out when I get to Expo

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