Look at what's in my basement!

Tommy.JPG

That's my friend Mike (dkpinball) playing it.

I was surprised to see there is no Tommy club here on Pinside yet... so I figured I'd start one.

I am just starting to explore this game. So far I am really liking it. What's everyone's thoughts on this one?

Let's see some pictures of your game!

Any suggestions of what you'd like to see changed?

Good suggestions so far!

Looks like the Lite Extra Ball for this scenario will only happen on Ball 2 or 3... never Ball 1.

Can you tell me where/when Amazing Journey is played?

TOMMY COMBOS EXPLAINED!

I don't see this fully documented anywhere else. So here we go.

UNIQUE COMBOS:
3 Way Combo - Right Ramp, Left Ramp, Right Scoop - Scores 10 Million
3 Way Combo - Left Ramp, Right Orbit, Mirror - Scores 10 Million and advances two TOMMY letters
4 Way Combo - Right Orbit, Right Ramp, Left Ramp, Right Scoop - Scores 20 Million
4 Way Combo - Right Orbit, Right Ramp, Genius Lane, Mirror - Scores 20 Million and advances three TOMMY letters

BUILDING COMBOS:
3 Way Combo - Left Ramp, Right Orbit, Right Ramp - Scores 10 Million
Can build to a 4 Way Combo - Genius Lane - Scores additional 20 Million
Can build to a 5 Way Combo - Mirror - Scores additional 10 Million and immediately lites Multiball Ready.

Also, there are these miscellaneous Combo/Bonuses:
One Way Combo - When Mirror is down at start of ball and player launches ball into play with a full plunge and immediately shoots the Tommy hole from the upper left flipper - Scores 5 Million
Sigma Bonus - Bounced off the right side of the Silver Ball target and into the Tommy hole when Mirror is down and Multiball is ready - Scores 10 Million
Extra Ball Combo - From Lite Extra Ball at Right Scoop to Genius Lane where you immediately Collect Extra Ball - Scores 5 Million
4 Engine Start Bonus - Four consecutive shots to the Left Ramp (only available during higher Captain Walker levels where it takes 4 or more Left Ramp shots to start the Captain Walker Spinner/Ramp Bomb Dropping mode) - Scores 10 Million
Lyman Bonus - If you drain on your last ball and are within 2 Million of the replay score, you will be awarded an extra 2 Million and you will get your replay - Scores 2 Million
Ramp Skill Shot - Shot to the right ramp after full plunge at start of ball - Scores 10 Million
Race To Wizard - Start Pinball Wizard before ever starting a multiball - Scores 20 Million
Parachute Sneak-In Award - Shot to the Parachute hole during regular gameplay when Skill Shot is at maximum - Scores 1 Million

Actually, the One Way Combo is when the Mirror is down at the start of the ball and you launch the ball and make the Tommy hole shot immediately off the upper left flipper. It is worth 5 Million. I'll edit my previous post to include this.

You were describing the Sigma Bonus.

Encore (Ball Save) is not adjustable. It is based on amount of switches hit. I think it is 4 or 5 switch closures.

But these switches do not count until Skill Shot is either determined to be Success or Fail:
Top Left Rollover
Top Right Rollover
Right Ramp Entrance
Left Spinner
Right Spinner

If anyone has a copy of the ROMs that have shaker code... please PM me.

Kind of off topic.

I just got to say... I've always liked The Who on the periphery. I liked them but never owned any of their albums. I grew up in the 70's/80's in a house where one brother mainly listened to Pink Floyd and another mainly listened to The Who. I've always leaned towards Pink Floyd, Queen, Supertramp, and The Beatles.

I never really got into The Who... but I knew I liked them.

Well... getting my hands on a Tommy pinball machine made me go out and rent the movie Tommy a couple weeks ago since I had never seen it. Then last weekend I just found a used copy of Tommy on vinyl at a record store. I've been listening to this album a lot. It has really grown on me! At first I was taken aback by it... maybe because I always thought it would be more polished like the later concept albums (such as Pink Floyd's The Wall). But when I put myself in the mindset of when this album was released (1969) and think of how it came out alongside other albums from bands I am more familiar with (like Saucerful of Secret from Pink Floyd) then it really opened me up to be able to appreciate it for its time. Tommy has a much more raw sound overall. Dark Side of the Moon came four years later... and The Wall came ten years later!

This album Tommy is great. I am so glad I've gone down this path. I have a whole new appreciation for The Who.

You are correct! However, it looks like it is only granted if you get to Pinball Wizard without ever starting Multiball. It is worth 20 Million.

I'll update my original post with this info.

I think it is possible on any ball... as long as Multiball has never been started. If someone can confirm, that would be great.

Yes. Not much though. Couple of voice calls... "Go to the mirror" and "Amazing journey".

Extra Ball is hard to get. I don't think you'll ever see it on the first round of Mystery Awards. I believe it is only possible starting on the second round and even then the chances of collecting it are low.

Special is very, very hard to get. I don't think you will ever see it on the first four rounds of Mystery Award... and then if/when you do see it on the 5th round, the chances of collecting it are even lower than that of Extra Ball.

The TOMMY letters auto advance in between balls. This guarantees the spelling of TOMMY (and the lowering of the mirror) by start of Ball 3. Currently, there is no way to adjust this in this game. This is a common complaint for many Data East games including this one.

Actually, on Ball 2 you are spotted three TOMMY LETTERS so you start off with TOMM.

The Tommy in my basement is similar in that the right spinner takes a lot of the inertia out of the ball whenever I make that right loop shot. I need to take a closer look into this.

Yes, "Parachute Sneak-In Award" is granted if you are already at maximum Skill Shot of 50M and the ball drops into the Parachute hole.

Looks like I fixed mine!

My flippers were just slightly set too high. I needed to adjust them downwards a small bit. I think what was happening is the only way to get the ball to go through the Right Loop was to flip when the ball was right at the tip of the flipper. The problem is that this doesn't give the ball a solid push and therefore the speed of the ball when entering the Right Orbit was not fast enough.

Just slightly adjusting the left flipper downwards (and actually aligned it straight with the left return lane) makes it so the ball doesn't have to be at the tip of the flipper to shoot the Right Loop. Instead the ball is near the tip but still gets the full power of the flipper.

If someone has the prototype Tommy ROMs with shaker support, please PM me.

Thanks!

The Tommy I am borrowing has a black rubber only on the left post. Right post is bare.

Couple of questions... what is your Adjustment 3 (Replay Levels) set to? If it is "None" then Lyman Bonus will never happen.

Also... the score shown at the end of the game.. after the Bonus is added and JUST before the match sequence starts... that score was under but within 2,000,000 of the Replay Level?

Finally, you are sure the Replay Level was at 550,000,000?

Adjustment 47 (Jackpot Criterion) and Adjustment 48 (Multiball Ready Style) are unused in version 4.00... so it does not matter what they are set to, they will have no effect on the game.

One thing to note about Lyman Bonus... in Version 4.00, if Adjustment 4 (Replay Award) is set to Extra Ball and you get the Lyman Bonus then you will not see the Lyman Bonus animation... instead the game will play the Extra Ball animation. You will only see the Lyman Bonus animation if your Adjustment 4 (Replay Award) is set to Credit.

I always thought it was odd that they don't allow you to choose 2 warnings outside of tournament mode.

If you have a Tommy, are familiar with the rules, and have the ability to burn ROMs (27C512 and 27C040) then please PM me.

Here's something you've probably never seen... the "Multiball Ready" animation in Tommy is actually twice as long as what is displayed during gameplay. In the code they have the video repeating too soon, so the whole video is never played. At about the 19 second point in this link is when the video would normally end/restart. This means there is about 10 seconds of "never before seen" video.

I'm surprised no one pointed out the fact that there is a voice call in that video that is not in the game.

No Pinsound board here.

Don't recall specifics... but it's a little more involved than that. I believe the game normally plays a glass breaking sound effect right at the start of that Multiball Ready animation.... except the glass breaking sound does not match the animation of the mirror breaking. It plays too soon. Plus when the animation repeats, the glass breaking sound is never played again.

Anyways, I put "Go to the mirror" in place of that glass breaking sound and then delayed the glass breaking sound to match up with the animation so you hear it when the mirror breaks. Also... when the (now extended) animation repeats the same "go to the mirror" voice call and glass breaking sound are played along with all the repeats. So the player is occasionally reminded to "go to the mirror" via that voice call until they actually make that shot.

If you are at MGC this weekend and you are familiar with the Tommy ruleset... check out the Tommy in the game hall. You may notice a few things with the gameplay.

Ready for some new Tommy fun?

Check this out...

http://www.pinballcode.com/

Sorry, no.

www.pinballcode.com details all the changes.

Does not stay lit. Poor wording. I'll update that in the doc.

Don't worry. It's still the classic Tommy that everyone knows and loves. Just a little nip here and a little tuck there... a tweak here and a nudge there... and you've got a better, more balanced, more engaging gameplay experience.

Yes.

This mode is all about hitting the Mirror. You now got at least 4 nicely set up shots to hit the Mirror when the balls are launched around the orbit and past the upper left flipper. Use those opportunities to your advantage.

I delayed it to give you more time to prepare for the next attempt.

Original video mode scoring was bad. Do nothing and get 13M or try really hard and get maybe 18M.

New video mode scoring actually rewards you for trying. Do nothing and get 10M or try hard and get 40 to 50M. Giving player incentive to actually play the mode.

Also, if you hate Video Modes, you can now turn this one off in the Adjustments.

Video Mode is something I struggled with. It is true that the scoring doesn't always match what is displayed on the screen. There is a static "shot map" that basically compares to the location of the cross hairs to locations on the animation. If the cross hairs are in line, then you get 1M points for "hitting" the target. The problem is that the shot map doesn't always match what is displayed on the screen because there are some random elements to the animations of the cities, planes, and blimps.

I did make the shot map more accurate... so this is a good thing. I also made it so different targets have different values... which is another good thing and allows the player to score more points in this previously low scoring mode. However, I was unable to remove the randomness of some of the animations. This means that it is still not 100% accurate. It is better... but not 100%. I'd say the original shot map was about a B- while this newer shot map is a B+. Because of the fact that it is not an A+ (100%), I added the ability to skip the video mode and just grant the player a flat 25M. This is a new adjustment in the game (Adjustment 35 - Video Mode - Default ON).

I think the best thing about this newly updated Video Mode is that you are rewarded for actually playing it. In the older version, you could just walk away during the mode and collect 13M... or you could actually try really hard and score 17M or 18M. Either way, not many points and not worth the effort. Now if you walk away you get 6M and if you play the mode you can get in the 40M to 50M range. Considering that Tommy is a higher scoring game overall, this helps bring this mode up to the scoring level of many of the other modes.

Definitely a power issue. Your sound card keeps rebooting (the "Tommy" voice call is always played upon sound boot up.)

I see your display even rebooted. Again... power. Might be your power was right on the edge before and the ColorDMD has pushed your power supply over the edge?

The Tommy that I was borrowing didn't have this issue at all either. I wonder what makes some games have bounce outs and others to not. Unfortunately I do not have the game anymore to be able to look closely at it. I do know there were no Cliffys on the one I was using. Maybe that is a factor?

The patch is free to download from my website at www.pinballcode.com if you have your own burner.

If you pay someone to burn it for you, please note that I see none of that money. Feel free to toss a donation my way. Link on my website. Much appreciated and keeps me motivated.

Easy to install. You pop out two socketed ROMs and pop in two new ones.

V.5.00 definitely gives you more options to make the game harder. For starters, the "gimmie multiball" from the auto advancing of the TOMMY letters is now fully customizable. Before, there was no control over this function.

If I recall correctly, set Adjustment 4 (Game Awards) to None. Also set Adjustment 6 (Limit Extra Ball) to 0.

Game will now give you points instead of Extra Ball.

Was it a slam tilt? Or a regular tilt?

There is no warning with a slam tilt... this is triggered by the switch in the door. When it happens, the display shows SLAM TILT and the ball ends immediately.

The normal tilt is the one that is controlled by the plumb bob tilt mechanism on the left side inner wall. This one is the one that will give you DANGER warnings, and then will display TILT when you've hit it too many times.

TommyMatrix (resized).png

All the switches you mention are in the same row. Check all the switches in this row.

PAPA should be using it.

You are right... more blinder action in v.5.00.

Original game only uses blinders during Tommy Scoring mode, Pinball Wizard, and in the later stages of Multiball.

v.5.00 also adds blinder action to Cousin Kevin and Smash The Mirror modes and the earlier stages of Multiball.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it here:
http://www.pinballcode.com/tommy5

Make sure each switch is wired correctly. I’ve seen switches that have wires soldered to the incorrect lugs that would cause issues.

All songs in the code are used. However, these are not songs, but there were two unused voice calls that I added into v.5.00... they were "Go to the mirror" and "Amazing journey".

http://www.pinballcode.com/tommy5

Hell yeah you do!

Gaze upon its glory here:
https://www.pinballcode.com/tommy5

Contact Meloyelo51 if you don't have your own ROM burner. He can get you set up.

https://www.pinballcode.com/

Psst...

https://www.pinballcode.com/tommy5

Thank you. Wow, has it been that long? Ahh, back when we were younger and more innocent.

Wouldn't have been nearly as good without all your suggestions. Was a blast tossing ideas back and forth with you!

For everyone else... Ive was the my main source for rules change ideas for Tommy. There is a good reason why IVE is now #2 in the default high score initials.

Dan Loosen also suggested a bunch of changes for Tommy. Matt Schmidt lent me his game so I could do the update. Many thanks to them too!