Well I've had my pro for about a week now.

WOW... I am just floored by how far this code is already. The game is really a lot of fun, and I can see how it would appeal to a wide range of skill sets.

I have played a ton, and had a few notes on the game that I thought others might benefit from.

Awesomes:

- The multiballs are really interesting right out-of-the-gate. The Turtle Power multiball is so cool because you can keep it going by collecting all the turtles and hitting the right ramp to add another ball. The Ninja Pizza Multiball is also cool because the toppings really do create a different type of multiball scoring and so you have to alter your game to really go for the points. Just really cool.

- I like how many different paths there are. Training and Leveling your character, the foot spinner and the 1-2-3 foot combo shots, the weapon hurry ups, etc... there's so much going on, and I find I want to reach the end on all of them.

- The episodes are just a ton of fun. I feel like they are interesting and not just "all shots are lit... hit them all". Each one has a slightly different progression and it really makes it fun to choose your episode. Also, I love the 2 locked episodes that can only be reached by playing the one that precedes it.

- When you hit that Krang Combo, it is one of the most satisfying combos in pinball for me personally. It just feels good.

- The playfield is mean (in a good way). I love games that really make you slow down and think about risk/reward for every shot.

- Co-op mode is GREAT. My girlfriend is always frustrated when we play together because I've been playing pinball for most of my life and so I sometimes get large scores. Now she is actually getting into the game and learning rules to pinball because we can progress the game together in a co-op fashion rather than me shooting-the-moon every time and her getting frustrated with her skill level. She also likes the chance to put her name into the high-score board.

- I'm sure I don't need to tell anyone about how stunning this machine looks...between the artwork and the lighting, it's just a masterpiece.

- I could go on and on, but I think I'll finish with the callouts in the game. They are fun and funny. I find myself not skipping animations and wanting to hear all the callouts just because I really enjoy all the voice acting and some of the good one-liners they have. It's AWESOME!

Could be improved:

-Almost all the flaws I've seen are software-based except one. Mind you, this is for the PRO and not the other models. The one problem I've noticed with the machine is the sideways middle ramp shot. I'm hoping someone has some advice for me on this (like flipper strength or something), but one of the objectives for the Cowabunga Wizard mode is to do a "Max Krang Combo" which is 3 upper loops and then the middle ramp in succession. It's a very difficult maneuver which I've done now twice (and that was just going for nothing else other than that combo). One of the problems is that when you loop that upper orbit multiple times, the ball really gets going and when you manage to hit that ramp afterwards, a lot of times it air-balls and just hops the sensor so you don't get credit for it... it's sooooooo frustrating because it's already difficult. I wish they would have put some sort of top-plastic over the ramp to prevent it (maybe they did and it didn't work).

The code problems I've noticed are very minor, but I'm hoping they get addressed to really polish the game:

- The "Player [1,2,3,4]" at the bottom of the screen should be reduced to reflect the actual amount of players in the game. Even if you're playing a 1-player game, players 2-4 are still shown at the bottom of the screen.

- The pop bumpers sometimes award items that you can't get in your current scenario (add-a-ball when you're not in multiball, add-time when you're not in a mode, etc...)

- The "weapon" inlane light should be visible during the animation for starting the skill shot. If you are playing Raph or Don, then the ball is about to come down the inlane and it'd be nice to know which one is lit before the animation ends rather than guessing.

- Scoring is much too Bonus-heavy right now. There's a few exploits in bonus multipliers and I think there should probably be a cap on multipliers or at least take away the pop-bumper bonus multiplier increase awards because it's easy enough to get to the top-lanes.

It would be nice if the action button did a little more. I like the pizza frenzy (especially the sound effect), but I feel like there could be at least one more function (diverter aside).

I don't know how it would be implemented, but I believe the software team for this game has worked on all the good action button games (GoT and Star Wars). I'm thinking it should be more of a GoT implementation where it's turtle based.

So I hadn't played Leonardo too much, and I decided to really dig-in on the new 1.10 code. One thing I noticed, is that it's kind of unfair that he starts out with Training Lit, but his skill shot is also the training shot. The unfortunate part is that if you want to get the training quickly, you are probably better off timing-out the skill shot because if you get to the lair when both skill AND training are lit, it will only give you the skill shot and you have to get to the lair a second time to collect on the training part.

I think that you should be able to collect both, because a lot of times by trying to get to the lair you would probably just end up lighting L-A-I-R anyways, so it sort of negates Leo starting with training lit.

...just my opinion.

Please report back on whether or not that setup works

I believe there's a bug in the latest code (1.10). Does anybody else notice this?:

If you are playing a one-player game and you get the Ninja Pizza Multiball the first time (but don't get the next one). Once your game ends and you start a new one after this game, player one will have 0 toppings lined up. It's super annoying because if you play multiple players in that next game, player one will be the only player that doesn't have toppings ready to go.

I'm sure you know this already, but start as Raphael, and you get the freebee episode to start the game. I like the idea of customizable rulesets in settings, but I'd like to point out how easy the game would be if that were the case. With only 4 episodes to get to the mini-wizard (Team-up), that would get you there in most games. I think one thing to really sit back and appreciate in this game is the risk/reward aspect of it. I like to personally get 3 episodes out of the way and then try and see if I can get "I want a body" done because I like the Team-up award for it (all turtles lit for save). Then I end up hitting the target to select modes and BAM I brick the shot and have to start over again. I know it's frustrating at times, but it would be boring if you could shoot-the-moon every game. By not forcing the episode objective in a per-ball fashion, they are also emphasizing the start awards for each turtle. It makes a fun distinction in picking your character, and I think the points are really balanced right now with the new code. So if you want to pick Donatello and just go for foot awards and multiball, you can do that.

There's meant to be a bit of mystery in rulesets. It promotes more play to really dig into it. I feel like this game is fairly straight-forward compared to other games. I can't wait until pinball competitions are started again, because I feel like this is a really fair and competitive game. There's a lot of orthogonal objectives which make it particularly interesting when playing in a competitive fashion.

As an addition to that comment, I really like the trend of adding a wizard mode to game select (which started w/Escape from Nublar in JP). It is a way for those tougher objectives to be seen and also gives the developers piece-of-mind that a large part of their work won't go unseen.

I've been playing a ton this week, and I had a few thoughts on the rules and scoring. Maybe Xaqery would be interested to know... or maybe not. Regardless I'm going to break it down.

The leveling of the turtles. I absolutely LOVE this feature of the game. I like that they have unique traits, and it's somewhat aligned with the turtle. However, I find that for some of the turtles, the later level bonuses are already gone by the time you get there.

Leonardo is great through Level 2. I like training lit, and add 10 seconds to all modes. The level 3 award of 2x Weapon scoring is... ok... but if you're on level 3, then you are probably running out of opportunities to use it, as in... you can only light weapon with the skill shot, and by the time I get to level 3, I'm on my last ball or have one more left. Level 4 2x team-up would be great if I didn't already go through the team-up by the time I get to level 4. That seems to be an issue with a lot of them in my opinion.

Raphael is really good on his level awards. I don't know if it's even worth going through, but all of those scoring opportunities Level 2 - 4 are great and can be easily gotten no matter what part of the game you're on.

Donatello is a weird one to talk about because his Level 1 award of 1 shot to Turtle Power can be used in a number of ways. I personally like to light 1-2-3 foot and hit the right ramp to activate the first episode without getting my multiball. Level 2 (2x Foot Scoring) is also great because the foot scoring is fun and easily gotten. Level 3 (additional ball save time) is also a great asset, but you're getting to a point again where you probably are already done with most of your multiballs (especially since Turtle Power was almost assuredly done in ball 1), and so it will only be effective for probably your last ball on your ball start save. Which leads to my last point of Level 4 being 3x Turtle Power scoring. Yeah... that'd be great... but I definitely finished my multiballs by this point.

Michelangelo just seems a bit stunted right now with the pizza eating contest scoring being low. I'm not a huge fan of his Level 1 Battle Again being lit, mainly because I always seem to hit the opposite drain, and it doesn't seem to go into effect. As it stands, I only really like his Level 2: 2x April Hurry-up scoring. It's definitely an asset you can use to your advantage. For Level 3 having 2x Pizza Eating Contest... maybe if it were like 3x instead of 2x, then it would feel more worth it. His Level 4 ability of 3x Ninja Pizza Multiball is amazing, but the one time I got it, I already used up my ninja pizza multiballs.

I think it'd be really great if there was maybe action button awards at the later levels, or something that could be used more readily. I always end up going for Level 2 no matter what turtle I'm playing, but the later levels are understandably hard to get and not really worth it (in my opinion). Except for Raphael... those perks are quite good. I also realize that there are rule tweaks I can do in settings to maybe allow for more multiballs or easier to get multiballs to make some of these more worth it, but I think the default rates are good. I'd just like to see more useful level perks at later levels.

I agree with a lot of the other posters that scoring is relative, so billions vs millions doesn't matter much to me.

I will, however, say that there are definitely tricks to scoring big in this game. There's a few routes you might try in your next games.

1) Ninja Pizza Multiball toppings: if you find yourself with a large amount of pepperoni... GO FOR MULTIBALL QUICK! It can be extremely lucrative. Similarly, there are a few rare toppings you can catch for an easy couple million if you play it right (ice cream, chili pepper, pineapple). I won't give all the specifics away, but it's there.

2) If you find yourself with 2 episodes completed then don't be afraid to just hit the right orbit and go for bonus multipliers. Utilize your Turtle Power multiball to focus on bonus multipliers and utilize your ball save for the easy up to the top lanes. That's all I'll say about that.

3) 1-2-3 foot... YEP... I said it... pick donatello, get to lvl 2 and just hit that spinner all day long. I've gotten some BIG BIG 1-2-3 foot combos.

Use tricks like these and try to combine them for bigger scoring games. It won't be outta the park like you want, but 50 - 70 million on this game is AMAZING.

I waxed mine and it plays wicked fast as well.... a little too fast. I'm getting rejects from the pizza parlor, and the occasional accidental kickout of balls locked in the parlor.

So this one has me stumped... I'm trying to understand how to install my new cliffy shooter lane eject. I'm not sure how to get these two screws out near the eject. The tops are flat and the underside doesn't have any leverage either.

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Awesome! Thanks!

So I switched all the rubber to Titan rings this last weekend.

I feel like I'm playing a different game all of a sudden. The first thing I noticed in the switch is how the post rubber that comes stock is like a hard plastic. That made a good difference in speed-of-play because I feel like the brick shots are just a tad slower and almost manageable at times.

I think overall, I like the new play in the game but there's one thing that is bugging me.... I had just figured out the LAIR shot by the quick flip back up the left inlane and when it rolls to the end of the flipper you just backhand it in. I was getting pretty good at it, but now the quick flip doesn't get the ball up the inlane enough to get that backhand to the LAIR.

Other than that I really like how it's slowed the game just the tiniest bit.

I just went with the manual and eyed it... I usually buy titan rings for my machines and so I have some spares and I have an eye for the sizes at this point. So I just compared and decided on colors.

I bought the regular "Titan Competition Silicone Rings". I find the silicone to be grippier (yes I made a new word), and so I feel like anything around the flippers to be a slower play. It may seem like that wouldn't make a bunch of difference on it's own, but that upper flipper also has that grippy-ness (yep another new word) so it makes a noticeably slower playfield in my opinion (not much, but just enough to give me half a chance). That on top of the stock posts being essentially hard as a rock, it definitely seems to give me more react time on bricks to the posts when I miss ramps.

I've seen a lot of comments as to the rules of the game and how code could fix some of the brutality or fairness. I have a few ideas I think would not be terribly difficult to implement. Maybe Xaqery will take some of these into consideration <fingers crossed>

1) I have played this game a TON. I really do enjoy it a lot. I can't tell you how many hours I've put in (but it's a lot), and I think I know the rules as well as anybody who didn't write the code. Yet... I STILL cannot figure out how to re-qualify L-A-I-R and A-P-R-I-L after you collect so many that they stop allowing collects. Does anyone know? I feel like it might just be a "next ball" sort of thing... possibly only after Team-Up is completed? Regardless, the reason I bring this up is because it really halts the game, and there are several other areas of the code like this. I'd like a flat out way to re-qualify them during a single ball.

2) Why can't there be a way to get Bonus Hold outside of the pop-bumpers? It could be very strategic and fun to allow for this in some way.

3) I'd love to see the level-up abilities re-worked. A lot of the level 3 and 4 bonuses aren't relevant by the time you'd get them. I go into detail on this in the following post:

4) More interesting pizza slice benchmarks.... maybe pizza eating contest + Bonus Hold on one of them.... I don't know I feel like there's a lot more that could be done with it.

5) I am not sure how jackpots are set and how they climb in Turtle Power Multiball, but maybe you could combine something like if you collect a weapon during the ball that you're on when you get Turtle Power Multiball, the jackpots double... or something... I don't know, I'd just like to see some more meshing of the objectives.

6) Utilize the action button more!!! You pioneered action button play with GoT and Star Wars... why did you completely forget it in this game? I know there's a glider mech to worry about, but there's gotta be a way.

7) I HATE the "Battle Again" mechanic... we all hate the darn left outlane. It's not a secret. However, I should be able to set Battle Again on it to counter this. I swear... every time I get "Battle Again" lit, it moves to the opposite outlane. I really want this to be less random. I think EVERYONE would be extremely happy if there was a way to pick the left outlane or even just give us both lit and once one of them is used they both go out. Just... something is gotta be possible here.

A lot of people mention that they don't like 1-2-3 foot because it sort of blocks them from other objectives. I feel like I might be in the minority on this, but I actually like it for that exact reason. It's nice to have it block Turtle Power Multiball so I can collect the episode light without going forward with the multiball (I like to bring a multiball into an episode). This topic of objectives blocking other objectives is extremely relevant in this game though, I think it might be overused a bit. The flow of the game just seems halted more frequently than you'd expect.

Sometimes I wonder if this game was meant more for co-op than for single player because it certainly plays friendlier when you have multiple people. It's just a ton more fun because there's never a 4-player game where everyone doesn't get Team-Up, and that's really cool.... however.... I play pinball solo these day much more frequently than with people (thanks a lot COVID-19 ... ) and I think the solo game suffers quite a bit.

I really thought I'd tried this... feel a bit sheepish on that one

The pinball scene in Seattle is pretty hoppin' and I play tournaments and leagues a lot. I like to keep the settings default so I don't get too used to something way off. If there are custom settings for this, I think the flipper choice would be a better default than the sling change.

I don't disagree with the aim of your thesis, but there's an undeniable and uncontrollable "swish-factor" on that left outlane. That's a fact. I don't disparage pins for trying something new, I absolutely love unique designs. That's why I'm a big fan of mid-80s Bally games. They tried a bunch out there and took some BIG swings and sometimes missed. The problem is the swish-factor on that outlane is accentuated by the randomness of the disc and slings. That along with the Battle Again default being too randomized make it unusually brutal. That was really my original point. With a sure-fire default-rules way to "Battle Again" that outlane, I think it would negate the negativity around the left outlane.

My original post was meant to help cultivate ideas on things I've noticed during play. I hope we don't get too focused on the left outlane. It was late when I wrote it and I meant to be a bit sarcastic but maybe it came out differently in my head. It's just been a topic of discussion a lot lately and so I brought it up meaning to connect it with the Battle Again portion.

Xaqery AMAZING job on the code update!!

Love the added mode for reaching Level 3. That helps incentivize it A LOT. It's also a really fun mode!

I also share the sentiment of loving the Battle Again rolling over from ball to ball. That has big implications for getting April hurry ups and just makes the reward more relevant!

I think you've managed to really even out the Turtles more, because you basically did something for every turtle but Raphael (which is good!). Multiball being worth more and the Foot score starting and incrementing higher makes Donatello better. The Neutrino Pizza Party makes Leo better, and the Battle again change makes Mikey better.

It seems like a small update, but I'm just having a blast with it!

I've never bought a topper before, and there's nothing about them that really interest me. These new toppers from Stern, however, are bumming me out because I don't like that there are additional game modes attached to them. Still... "goat mania" wasn't enough to make me shell out $600 for Jurassic Park, and I hope it will be something similar with TMNT.

I have an odd issue on my TMNT Pro. Sometimes when I hit the left flipper, the apron lights shine on. If I then hit the right flipper it goes off. I haven't been able to video it for when it statically stays on, but I did manage to video the flicker from hitting the left flipper.

Has anyone else seen this phenomenon? It only occasionally happens to me. Usually a restart stops it from happening, but it's just odd.