Spooky stopped R&M code updates (other than bug fixes) when Cartoon Network bought the rights and prevented any further seasons from being added. The most recent update which added the one-ball challenge mode and additional dimensions was done by Eric P on his own time and had nothing to do with Spooky.

That begin said, Spooky will continue to update the UM code.

Some things I’d like to see in the next update are

- monster battling progression save
- better use of the middle playfield when head to headquarters is running
- head to headquarters sometimes clashes with a battle mode so that interaction needs improving
- more std use of rgb colours for features like eb orange, lock green, jackpot red and only using green for locks etc as others have said
- bottom drop target deeper/extra rules needed
- hold start button to restart game needed
- number of replay/extra ball levels setting needed
- ball save adjustment time needed
- display in attract of current replay/eb levels needed

I think this is the case. It does not work on my machine also and the currency cannot be spent. I thin this is a known issue getting addressed with code updates.

I really like the placement of the shot and it feels really satisfying to shoot, but not worth it to me. Idk. I'm starting to learn and like the game more as I've explored the rules a bit more. I've got maybe 125 games on it. Maybe in another 125, I'll appreciate that shot more

In a nut she'll that is this game. The more you play it the more you start to strategize the modes and how you want to play through the game. I've always enjoyed the game but the more I play it the more I enjoy it. There's some super satisfying shots, especially the closing shots for each of the main multi ball modes. I've gotten close to clearing all the modes and hitting Wizard mode, but still haven't done it. I'm about 550 games in and still find some of the shots tough, especially the right orbit.

What is everyone's GC score and how many games have you played. My GC is a little over 66.8 million.

This is a very, very good list. Just please don’t take away my HQ credit from dropping in from the upper playfield. I do that on purpose quite often.

Good list of what seem like realistic improvements. Coming from Rick and Morty, I was shocked at how bare-bones the settings menus are... I figured the basic programming framework (stuff like adjustable ball saves + EB limits) would transfer from game to game but I guess not.

To me, this seems like the biggest issue of moving from boardset to boardset. The format for the programming might be different at least at some point, and you have to start all over.

As a (distracted) homebrewer, I’m using FAST boards and MPF as the “code”. If I move to another board MPF might not be an option (but it might be because Jan at MPF is great) and so any stuff that is common game to game (basic menus, ball save, all examples of how to do stuff in modes and with mechs that you already figured out once) all of that is scrapped and slows you down when you create it all over again.

Hopefully with this current board, Spooky is using a code format that they have already used and have a library of examples to draw from.

My biggest concern for Spooky is that their manufacturing capability/pace is going to outpace their game development pace. When that spreadsheet for ETA of delivery of H/UM was posted I saw my delivery date get pushed back as far as March 2023. Then word came out that they expected to have the run done in late fall. That pushed things up 6 months. They went from 15 to 25 to 40 games a week. 40 games a week is a run of 2000 games for a title in a year. At that pace dev time doesn’t have a whole lot of room for delays. I’m not saying Spooky is in trouble, just that it is a balance and I’d rather have a little bit of a queue for games ready to go than the line working faster than the design teams can reasonably get a game to the line.

Yes I was to. Spooky really should standardise on the settings list and make sure all games have that set from day 1. Of course each game will have its own feature settings but the rest can be standardised

Currently it feels more like spooky is just the manufacturer of various small design teams that don’t talk to each other or share best practices!

Honestly, I think the boardset change is yet another sh*t sandwich that the UM and HW owners have to eat. Instead of future spooky games building on this codeset, or future updates to the "standard features" coming to us, we will forever have this single game boardset and code that only Fawzma and the new New Zealand Coder (can't remember his name) have ever dealt with. We suffered by having a brand new boardset, and now we suffer because this will be an "orphan" boardset. The hits keep coming, i guess. We would have been better off with PROC. At least Ultraman is fun...

Not really.

The PC and everything is the same. The programming is the same.

The only thing that changed is the driver board under the playfield - and that’s down to supply issues. No other reasons. Spooky decided to make the investment and take it all in-house so they’d have a guaranteed supply.

DJ has stated they have a stack of Pinotaurs left for any repairs, and Longhorn Engineering in Texas will probably still be making them.

If you want to do more reading on the subject, search up Spooky_djs thread on it.

rd

Got our machine last Wednesday and streamed it a bit tonight from location.

Yeah, i don't understand why they didn't stick with PROC for these 2 games if they were making their own boardset anyway. I assumed (i guess wrongly) that the change from PROC to pinataur was them standardising and we would see evolution of the pinatuar hardware in future games. And therefore the ability for older games to get the hardware upgrades and spares still.

Lets hope that from the code point of view the framework they have will work on both warden and pinatuar hardware and therefore the standardisation & update of base features/settings/tests/utilities/updates etc can still be included in older games as they move forward with new ones.

So Pinataur was just some stop gap? I guess I didn't realize that they were moving away from this board already. It sounds like it doesn't matter, but yeah not liking that Halloween and Ultraman are gonna be 1 offs?

This was my concern too. Per rd (who seems to be working for Spooky at this point, or is at least very tight with them?) a couple posts up though:

Hopefully that means continued support of this basic stuff for a while, so I'll try to not get too worried until updates stop entirely. Game is fun as is, I'd just like to see a lot more utility + adjustability in the menus (along with other more general 'code' stuff). I just miss EP's work on Rick and Morty I guess.

Unrelated, is there anywhere you can buy replacement decals for Ultraman, or any recommendation for printing myself? I've got a standard and the only missing decal that really bugs me is the SSSP badge (it's just bare metal which I wasn't expecting). Spinner decals would be cool too but not as important for me.

This is already in the game. You just have to hold the start button a super long time and it can't be in the end of ball screen.. the next ball must be in play.

Though it does cause the audio to cut out until you hit a switch sometimes.

..and stand on 1 leg.. think it needs redoing to be honest !!

I'm not sure Gomora should use the center ramp. You start the mode, shoot the drops down, and then it says get to HQ, but what it then wants you to do is hit the drop and then the crossover ramp. First, that's not what I would categorize as "easy". Next, anything that involves the center ramp adds to Jirahs progress and if you start that and are at the spinner stage, the drop target won't stay down even if it isn't red. I just did it and it was purple and kept resetting with every hit. Wasn't hurting me, but also was locking out of Gamora progress.

I'd suggest using the left ramp for Gomora. Drops>left ramp>standups around left ramp>left ramp>done. That's 7 switches/shots total and Ragon is 5 lit shots and you only need to hit 4.

Gomora stacks with Jirah really well if you play it right.

Literally, doubly so if you start with a Dirty Pool shot.

I noticed the 1.08a code is now locked down on google drive. I can no longer download it. Anyone else see this?

Just downloaded fine for me. Win10 PC.

RM

Weird. Google asks me to sign in and then denies me access and asks me to request access.

can you try a different browser?

RM

Sure honey, I’ll have it out of the living room by Christmas…

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I waxed my butt pretzel last night.

A code update would made a great Christmas present for UM owners…

I think the problem is the head to headquarters rules override the gamora ones if you hit the spinners first and so the drop target down for gamora keep popping back up. It’s code that need to understand stacking better..

Monster modes should be highest priority

Any way to buy a backup Pinataur board set now to have as a spare?

Spooky is keeping them in stock

Please let this be true!! I would love an update whilst I have time to play!!

Looks like Ultraman has a new Kaiju to battle. Elf on the shelf attacks those who upset Santa. I guess killing monsters doesn’t get you on the nice list.

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Just got my Ultraman SE, and first impressions are great. No issues to note other than a very slight adjustment to the tilt bob bracket, and it shoots great out of the box. Incredible care taken with the packing and with the extra goodies packed with the game. I'm pleasantly surprised by how well the ball moves around the playfield given packed layout. It's crazy how quickly you can get in and out of the middle playfield and getting to the pretzel to progress in modes feels epic. Really enjoying the discovery phase of figuring out the modes and how all the mechs work. I'm not the best player, so I appreciate that the standups are a good distance from the flippers so a bad hit isn't an instant death sentence. I'm forgetting the mode, but hitting the roaming target is awesome.

Having a little trouble figuring out how the mystery award selection works. Each one has a cost associated it seems, and I haven't been able to select some of the rewards even though I appear to have the correct amount of points. Am I missing something?

Aside from Baltan multi-ball and modes, are there other general objectives that you like to shoot for?

Congrats on the game, I'm still really enjoying my SE too.

Some awards may not be purchasable in the store if you already "have" them, for example opening HQ, oftentimes HQ will already be open if you've got Jirah's Multiball qualified (the upper PF). The game doesn't do a good job of communicating this to you.

As far as stuff to do:

There are 3 standard multiballs in the game: Baltan (left scoops), Bemular (middle playfield scoop), and Jirah (upper playfield). I usually try to bring a mode that stacks well into these if possible. Jirah is the only multiball I seem to be able to get big points out of, if I can cash some serious upper PF jackpots.

To get into the Zetton wizard mode, you need to get a super jackpot on each of the 3 multiballs. Just learned this recently and haven't made it a goal yet, but that's not too easy

Other goal with the (standard) modes is to complete 3 of them so you can get into Pigmon, no idea if it scores well, but some of the funniest clips in the game which is reason enough to go for him. I think you need to complete 1 or 2 modes to select Dada as well, which is a lot of fun.

edit: I should add a link to the rulesheet. It's out of date and missing stuff from the last update (including anything about Zetton wizard mode), but still helps if you're trying to do something specific, like figure out Baltan super jackpots.

http://tiltforums.com/t/ultraman-wiki-rulesheet/7456

Great info, thank you! Looking forward to getting the Pigmon mode, maybe it'll clear something up: My daughter was asking me why he is holding balloons, and I had no idea. Honestly I'd never heard of Ultraman until the game was announced, I just like comic book art, monsters, campiness, unique layouts, and Spooky games.

Joining the club next week with a CE!

Christmas miracle code drop please??

It’s a tracking ballon the Science Patrol attached to him.

Possibly the greatest tribute song ever:

I parked my UM in the garage for about 6 months during my last move. Just set the game up 2 days ago then updated to the latest code and played a few games. WOW! What a massive improvement! I don't remember what I updated from but it was 6 months ago. Really love how different UM is from my other games. I also updated R&M but only played 1 game then went to bed. Keep it coming!

When do we get a new code update?

-forget Scooby Doo
-forget TNA
-forget Halloween

Fix Ultraman, don’t ignore it.

It sucks spending the time to get deep in a game just to have it hang consistently:

What is happening in game that is causing this? Does it happen on or after a certain mode or multi? Does it happen when certain modes are stacked? My suggestion would be to get a clean stick and reload the code as I don’t believe this is happening to everyone

Beat most or all of the kaiju or spend at the shop a few times, it will happen. It happens deep in games (30 minutes in). The spacium shop hangs. Ive reloaded the code. I doubt most people get deep into the game, that’s why it’s not happening to everyone.

I'm going to get this printed on a shirt to send to Spooky Pinball. I so want a reason to play this game more (if at all) and a code update will do that. I've been waffling between listing my game as it's the easiest one to get rid of due to lack of play, but I really want to see this through. I've waited over a year already for something to happen and still have faith this game could be special. I would just like a little glimpse behind the creative curtain to see if that's true or not.

I have noticed that each subsequent time I get to the Spacium store it is choppier and slower than the previous time. I haven't gotten into the store more than three times in a single game but it definitely gets choppier each time. I think I need to get better at finishing modes to have it crash.

But, more than that I want that Diverter Adjustment option in the menu, I think that might be the biggest improvement on the HWN update that recently came out.

I was a big Ultraman fan growing up. I like the game. The kaiju modes are fun and getting the super jackpot in all three multiballs is challenging. The callouts need serious help, especially there needs to be more callouts instructing the player what to do. The video integration with the kaiju modes can be improved - I’m not engaged or amused with the current content. There needs to be at least one more wizard mode when you beat all the kaiju and a cherry on top would be a final wizard mode when you complete the first two wizard modes. It needs a lot of polish, but would be so good with those additions. I’ve been spending good time on it and am frustrated waiting on new code. I gave you my $10k a year ago and lost $4K opening the box, can I please have a great pinball experience? It’s like they’re just moving on leaving us to just deal with it focusing on the new stuff. It’s defeating getting 30+ minutes into a game and it hangs on you …especially when you have balls left and are buying an extra ball.

Gotcha, I had this bug on my HWN on the last code iteration but it hasn’t happened to me recently (and I frequently complete all the modes and multis) so hopefully that bug fix works it’s way into UMs next update

Soon. After they do a quick bug fix on HW then UM is up again.

rd

Getting mine on Wednesday but y’all are making me nervous. Hopefully the kiddos will like it and maybe a code release by New Years. Rick and morty is their favorite pin but I know that’s comparing apples to oranges

Don't be. The game is a ton of fun and challenging enough that it not having the ultimate Wiz mode in it not a complete bummer.
Mine is sitting next to R &M and TNA and none of them are going anywhere.

Heck, forget the code, send us early game owners a darn serial number for our machines…like seriously, I’d like to insure my machine as I plan to keep it.