Working on it.

Open to suggestions for the 3-target set in the middle and the one at the Science Patrol lane.

RM

Forgive me, but I hadn’t seen this mentioned yet. Found a light show bug on latest code:

If you start bemular and then press both flippers to skip the animation (immediately start the mode), the playfield lights continue to stay off for a few seconds when the ball comes back into play.

Extra challenge mode in a dark room.

Basically I suspect the light show isn’t being skipped when you skip the animation.

Haven't seen that, but I usually don't skip animations.

Have you sent that bug to Matt?

RM

After your reminder, yes, yes I did.

Recently installed the Vimtoman bridge, scoop and beta capsule mods. I didn't have tons of rejects with my scoop to start but still made an improvement on my game

Haven't hooked up the lights for the bridge but looks great even without.

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I'm in the club! Have owned the game for about a month now and have been really enjoying it so far! I especially love the upper playfield rules. Big kudos!

I'll start with the positives. This game has some serious depth and shoots really really well. There is a fantastic mix of tough shots and easy shots and they are properly awarded point values based on that difficulty. I also enjoy how on a given ball you cannot play science center multiball more than once! Great thinking. Also, awesome idea that the skill shot allows you to immediately lock a ball for science center multiball! So much fun to go for right out of the gate.

There are some seriously detrimental bugs that I have come across while playing:
- This story covers two bugs: stuck in spacium store, service menu ends game. So I was playing and had 10 spacium so I entered the store to buy an extra ball, but when I had the extra ball selected on screen, neither the start button nor pressing both flippers would buy the item. I could still move between the various items in the store with left/right flipper buttons. So I moved to Exit Store, and once again, I could not select this option with either the start button nor by pressing both flipper buttons. This was pretty aggravating so I figured that that store would time out after a certain time period of inactivity. I waited 2 mins and I was still stuck in the spacium store. Since I was having my best game yet (110M) I figured I would try to salvage things by opening and closing the service menu. Well... this actually ENDED MY GAME. Not good!
- Bug: multiball ball save delay. This seems to be the case with every multiball in the game. The ball save for multiball does not activate immediately upon making the shot to start multiball (say the crossover). Instead, the game will wait for the display effect animation to complete before activating the ball save for multiball. This leads to some serious emotional damage if one drains while the display effect is still running (and therefore the ball save has not been activated). I have had this happen to me numerous times. If I make the shot to start a multiball, please IMMEDIATELY activate ball save and do not wait for a display effect to end. The switch should always activate the ball save and that should never be dependent upon animations.
- Bug: My game's ball kickout to shooter lane sometimes falls back into the trough. This can be a problem because I have noticed that the game will get confused and consider a ball that falls back into the ball trough to be a ball drain. Please check the logic of this and only count the ball as actually being in play once it is on the shooter lane switch for X milliseconds.

I also noticed some inconsistencies and more minor bugs:
- Inconsistency: skill shot. Many times I step up to plunge my ball and for some reason or another, the playfield has become activated. Perhaps it was a flaky switch. However, please reconsider which switches count towards the active playfield counter and maybe increase the number of switches before activating playfield.
- Scenario: I have just plunged ball two and make the science center skill shot. That ball will be held behind the science center drop target. I then immediately press and hold the start button to restart my game. The ball behind the science drop target will stay held and I will restart my game with a pretty nice advantage.
- Minor bug: I was playing a four player game and after player 4 drained their ball one and it was player 1's turn to plunge their ball 2, I tried pressing and holding the start button to restart the game, but no matter how long I held the start button, the game would not restart.
- Display bug: During attract mode, the TV console overlay stays on, but the high score text and other attract mode screens become hidden behind the overlay.
- Missing information on display: 2x scoring. Please show the status of 2x scoring SOMEWHERE. Also, when I get 2x scoring by shooting the ball between the drop targets, how long does that last?
- Inconsistency: I have had science center multiball running with a mode before and I have noticed that the 2x scoring is not always consistently applied. Perhaps there is an issue where if the upper playfield is purple (you are shooting the spinners to qualify the MB), then 2x scoring is not properly applied?
- Inconsistency: I have gone for 4x scoring before and made the science center super skill shot to lock the ball, shot down the middle drop and then shot between the two outer drops to activate 2x scoring, then quickly started a mode and then shot the science center to begin science center multiball, but it seems that I wasn't able to get a 4x scoring stack! That would be really fun to go for!
- Missing info: Jackpot/Super Jackpot score values! How many points am I scoring?? This is making it very hard for me to develop a strategy because I need to wait until the display goes back to showing my score to try and figure out how valuable something is.

Questions:
- I have been wondering how to start the mode that requires you to make a super skill shot. I have tried selecting it after making a super skill shot and it doesn't seem to be allowing me to start the mode. How do I start that one?
- How exactly is Dada qualified to be started?

Nice to have fresh blood in here that's excited about the game.

I fully agree that it's difficult to come up with a scoring strategy without some more info being shown on the display (or official rules posted somewhere with more information). I'd love to see more jackpot values on the screen. And I've been asking how long the 2x scoring last (when earned via center-drop-snipe) since I got the game ~6 months ago; no one seems to know I think I need to just take the glass off and figure it out, if it's 30 seconds I need to be more strategic with it, and if it's longer I should really be prioritizing that more than I do.

Lots of good bug catches + input in this comment, hope someone from Spooky takes a look at it. You should definitely email the bugs to them directly to make sure they're caught, too.

I guess I should double check that I am on the latest code... All I have is a USB drive that is 128GB. Has anyone attempted an update with this large of a drive before? I know they say to use a drive with size between 2GB and 32GB so...

Lol yea I have been doing some glass off testing and the next thing I wanted to test was how long the 2x duration lasted. Also, pro tip, one of the modes seems to score way way higher than all the others (with 2x scoring you can get 40M+ off playing the mode just one time). But I don't want to give it away in case they balance the scoring XD

I know it’s only been a month, but any luck on an update coming soon?

Hahaha... stay classy pinside.

I know, I know. Always wanting more.

Eh to be fair there is bugs that need tending too that are causing folks to crash.

With TPF I assume things will be a bit slowed down for the week though

I'm waiting for the first revision to update. So, hopefully the polished version comes out soon.

I think that’s totally fair. We have a lot of ground to cover.

Got this bug today, sorry if it’s been mentioned. I was in Jirahs Multiball, ball save was still flashing. Drained to 1 ball in play, but drained ball didn’t relaunch. MB kept going until the ball save stopped flashing, then the MB ended.

jfbenson has already emailed me directly ([email protected] for any bugs!) but I thought I'd just answer some of the questions here too so everyone can see them:

- ball bouncing back into the trough: you can dial down the "Trough" eject power in the Menu > Coil Settings, I have mine set to 15 instead of the default 18. This setting won't be lost when you update now either =)
- How long does the "Eye of the Needle" shot through the middle of the drop targets 2x last for? 30 seconds. There's a cool new multiplier display coming.
- Dada is qualified by starting at least one other mode first.

By any chance will anyone be bringing a scoop mod to Pinfest?

Thanks! Excited for the next update.

New Ultraman & Kaiju prints:
https://store.nakatomiinc.com/ultraman.aspx

Nice!

Coming soon: New ball deflector shields for Halloween and Ultraman. These will be 3/16" thick and will come with new hardware to replace the OEM stuff.

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thank you!

Anyone know the specs for the topper motor, voltage and amps? I rearranged my basement and had to remove the topper. I want to hang it up as an art piece and use a microcontroller to trigger the lights and spacium beam periodically.

Hey quick question for the club. Does the updated metal ramp shoot smoother or function better? Or is it just cosmetically nicer without the screws. Not wanting to waste Spooky time if it's just for cosmetic reasons thanks.

Potential for your ball to catch on an angled screw head. Other than that it's the same.

my LED strip around the lower-upper playfield started flickering and occasionally showing incorrect colors last night.

Is there a potential loose connection I can check, or does the LED strip need replacement? Any recommendations?

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Yes, take out the balls and put on your art blade protectors then lift the PF into service position. On the middle of the bottom is a big circuit board (the Pinataur board). Right in the middle of that board are two connectors called LED 1 and LED 2. Check those connections and if possible follow the wires to the connectors (buried in the gap for the uppers) and make sure they are plugged in too. If they are all good them reach out to Spooky for a new one.

Verify that your 3 lights on the lower playfield also work. If not, it is the boards above the shooter lane that can get smacked by the ball on launch. Viewable from right side of playfield.

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I need to say big thanks to Matt. He lent me his Ultraman for my pinball meeting on last Saturday. Matt was spending his own time to explain to all of us how to achieve a better score as well as how to start the modes. More importantly Matt still seeks for improvements in all the different modes. Ultraman is a beautiful pin with a lot of fun modes

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My pleasure Pinrookie ! Was good to introduce 30-odd new people to the game, and get all the first-time-playing feedback. When you play a game a lot, you sometimes forget what it was like, and we are always looking to improve and make it a really great experience for long-time owners as well as people pressing Start for the first time.

Now you got me excited for the next update.

What’s an Ultraman CE worth these days? The ads are all over the map.

Not much unfortunately. 6k is the sweet spot it seems.

My upper flipper stops working and won't work even after back drain. Did a restart and it still didn't work. Has happened 1 time before but the flipper came back after a day or so. Any thoughts on where to look?

OK, need more info here.

Your lower two flippers should always work during an active game.

The upper two flippers should only work when a ball is on/able to get to the upper playfield.

Do all 4 flippers reliably work in Coil Test every time?

RussM

I miss the screen door screech sound at the end of each game -- the spine tingler sound that lingers after the match display.

It ends abruptly after taking the latest update. Hopefully this will be fixed soon?

Love the game either way guys.

Have you sent this question to Matt at Spooky?

He's the coder for UM.

RM

Any word on the next code update?

Yes, I thought we would be getting more frequent updates for sure.

It's to the point where I don't know if I'm actually optimistic or simply gullible. Will this game ever get the attention and the changes it needs to become something special? This game needs help Spooky. Please make this the awesome pin we all thought it was going to be.

If anyone is looking for an Ultraman CE i have one for sale asking $5,999

This is the last spooky i buy the resale value is brutal lose close to 50% in 8 months ouch haha.

Yeah, curious what I can even get for my standard

Was waiting to give the code a chance to mature but not sure I have the patience.

When the gap between reality and expectations is so great it’s tempting to just throw your hands up and do nothing. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s how Spooky is feeling given this thread.

Hopefully not since I’m guessing that there are plenty of us, likely the quiet majority, that think the current code is solid and fun and just needs a couple more creative adds and continued polishing to tie it all together.

The idea that Spooky is going to pull a Lyman and transform the game with a stroke of coding genius, and untold hours, isn’t realistic. The current state of code is no different than a lot of games these days - some like it, some don’t. I’m no fan of Dwight or Keith code but plenty love their games.

It's unfortunate but they need to care and need to try and turn these games around. Theres already lot of bad vibes behind Halloween/UM's release and the owners are clearly getting miffed. More keep dumping their machines at loss, it's not a good look and now I mean look at the Scooby thread. I can imagine it's tough on Spooky as clearly something happened with the loss of a programmer and more than 6 month gap in new code release and then we got new programmer and what seems to be rebuilding the code? That's a rough thing for the company going into the production of their new game.... which so far from the owners thread is looking like a whole slew of it's own issues. It all feels a bit like growing too big too fast and their games are suffering because of it.

I still have hope for the code to get fleshed out and to feel more complete, but I think on every end it's a tough place to be for all. The last code update was solid, so if we see some more progress like that, I think things are on a decent but slow track for the games still.

I felt Halloween was a big enough theme that would have pushed Spooky into a different league. It didnt and i wont fomo again.

I feel things were going good for these games, the updates were fairly regular and kept getting better, but that massive loss of time with the huge gap in no code really hurt everything. Now it feels like catching up or that the games kind of got pushed to the side. How true that is really hard to say but I can't say it doesn't feel like timing hurt with the focus being elsewhere, especially now that the runs on both UM and Halloween are long done and the games are sold/shipped.

Time sucks but I feel they won't just quit the games, they have folks working on it still. I just hope we get the completed code eventually with polish and that final missing wizard mode added.

The last code update was 9 months ago. Only 1 code release of "clean up bugs" code since then, no new content.

500 units that are paid in full. No reason at all for Spooky to pay attention to this title anymore. They will continue to delay a code release and ultimately release one more iteration of code with one new lame ass mode, then call it a day.

Prices will bottom out at $5K forever. 400 out of the 500 who paid $10K will never buy a Spooky game again.

Future polls:

You got $4K-$5K to spend:
-> Ultraman or Thunderbirds? ...hmmmm

That will be a really sad legacy to leave behind for a theme that was so important to Charlie. Why let this one falter? Why burn the goodwill of your supporters? Sadly, I think you will be right though. One more update to add the wizard mode and clean up some bugs then on to the next game.

I don’t want this to be true of course, but if so it really helps me conserve money when new games drop as there are only a few manufacturers left that I want to purchase from.

Save Ultraman Spooky…save Ultraman!

That ship has sailed