https://pinside.com/pinball/archive/medieval-madness/ratings

Stacking multiballs. Trolls that call me "human burger". Also - Tina Fey!

It has been a good earner for 18 years.

LTG : )™

WTB MM

http://www.ipdb.org/rate/showrate.pl?gid=4032

Sorta Python-esque humor. Great Castle toy. Classic fan layout.

I'm not sure it's the best of all time in any one category. It is simply a complete package with very high marks across the board - layout, design, theme, code, art, toys, sound, music, flow, etc. it doesn't really have any faults or weaknesses.

The game is also well balanced.

Easy to understand for the casual player and enough going on for the hard core pinhead.

It's not overly difficult to get multi ball, destroy the castle, or get trolls to pop up.
This gives the casual player the feeling that they are rewarded for good game play and will put more money into it. It also has very good flow.

Definitely the accessibility for beginner play. Veteran's have a ton to accomplish as well. All in all a crowd pleaser which is rare to attract all players in a room.

For me what makes a great game is having a variety of things to do , combined with shots that change. In MM, it has pop up trolls and the diverter to the prrincess. Plus it has the castle gate. I also like combos and the ramps are fun to shoot.

I remember it as the last decent game Williams made. No more, no less. When it came out it seemed they would just keep on coming..

Barnyard Multiball

Total package.

MM is a great machine for people who don't know pinball rules. You can walk up to it and it's obvious what to do. Hit the drawbridge and it opens, then destroy the castle. Obvious and achievable aim, no wonder it does so well on site. The three games that I always see kids enjoying are MM, AFM and WCS. All three of them enjoyable from the off.

For me the multiball lock involving the jump over the moat and going through the wall is one of the best shots out there.

I have only played Medieval Madness in physical form once (Pinball Expo 2011), but always hope for a new game to be released with a cool toy like that castle. I think Pirates of the Caribbean comes close with the sinking ship?

Castle toy, pop up trolls.

Targets like that are so much fun IMO.

This.

awesome layout an call outs , looking through the glass you can see theres a whole other world underneath the glass, so you just want to press the start button to see whats going to happen..

I like the castle and the callouts. I'll get my MMR hopefully by Xmas.

The universal appeal of MM lies in the fact that it doesn't get anything wrong rather than getting anything spectacularly right. It's a game to be enjoyed rather than a game to be loved. Very few people would find anything to object to with this game- and a major reason is that it's not licenced. Players don't feel alienated or confused by not having seen a particular movie, not listening to a particular band, not reading particular comic books etc. The trade-off is that MM is a lot of people's second-favourite game; it will never have the kind of devoted fan base that Centaur, STTNG or LOTR have.

It's fun and easy for the casual player

CV wasn't decent?

MONSTER BASH wasn't decent?

I think this has been said in many MM threads, but I think the game is more fun if you save banging away on the castle for multiball and you concentrate on saving damsels, peasant revolts, jousts, and catapults during single ball play. It's fun to attack the castles with multiple balls as it moves your through the castles quickly should you get a mutliball going for a while. I also like to attack the trolls during multiball, as you can easily rack up troll jackpots and you can usually get the Master of Trolls light lit within one multiball.

If you're just banging up the middle at the castle during single ball play, over and over, and you find this boring.. who wouldn't? Try playing a different way.

I really enjoy the humor in this game.
All the fun things the different characters say.

The castle toy! Probably the best toy in pinball. It's very mechanical and through player interaction reveals new shots. The only other toy that I can think of that is similar is the ship in POTC. The sounds, rules and music also play heavily into Medieval Madness's popularity.

I just wish the code for MMR could be made open source to allow home owners to create even deeper and unique rules for the game. The castle rules in MM can become repetitive after a while.

Humor

Wow, I never thought about it like this, but it think it perfectly answers my question, "Why is MM as popular as it is?" Personally, I never understood why MM was number 1 on Pinside or why it sold for insanely high prices. I really do enjoy the game, it has good flow, great presentation, and the castle is probably the greatest toy in pinball, but to me the rules always seemed a little shallow. Just basically, shoot that ramp over and over again to get this, shoot the other ramp over and over again to get that, etc., until you reach the wizard mode. Circus_Animal is right though, MM really doesn't do anything wrong, and everyone enjoys it, giving it the highest average rating, and making it a great pin to own because anyone will enjoy a few games, unlike, say, TZ, which is one of my personal favorites, but some find too stop-and-go or feel there's too much going on.

Ain't TZ #1?

It's #1 in me not understanding the rules even though I've owned one for almost three years.

TZ makes me appreciate what it must be like to be a man and have to try to figure out women. It yells what seem like random instructions to me and tells me to do things that make no sense. I know there's a pattern there somewhere - but it's just too much work to figure out.

Blown out world wide for like 1700 bucks they where terrible.

MM comes down to software. All software. The design is very meh. But again SOFTWARE really ties the room together yes yes.

I once owned a MM... My brother and his kids loved it to death, they said it was the best machine I ever had, though my brother compared the castle towers with big d***s bouncin around....

As for myself, I really dug the trolls and the save the princess mission, but overall I felt like the game had nothing really special to it.... sold it in a heartbeat....

I recently purchased a TZ, but I'm not comparing, 2 different machines with very different approaches!

Rudy is not happy with you now.

Medieval Madness is one of those games that continues to have me coming back for more.

The Castle toy just begs to be bashed, and the level of interactivity that exists with the whole process is just incredible satisfying. It's not just bashing a toy and receiving a callout. It's bashing the drawbridge several times to get it to drop, bashing the gate several times to get it to raise, and finally sending a ball inside to take out the whole thing down, that is probably one of the more satisfying bash sequences in all of pinball.

Between the Joust loop, the Peasant ramp, and the Damsel ramp, it just has a great flow to it.

Stacking the multiball madness is fun, and the callouts bring a level of humor to the game that plain makes it fun to play. Turn the volume down and you'll see what I mean. Listening to the Peasants gradually get more and more riled up followed by the Damsel and her Valley Girl quips makes me smile every time. Even interacting with the various Kings Men is hilarious; each bash continuing the Montey Python-esque banter.

- Monty python holy grail knock off theme
- Castle.. Obvious to casual player, multi-stage mechanical progress.. So very satisfying in a rube Goldberg kind of way.

Theme, music, call outs, humor, art, code, dots, light show, easter eggs, stacking of MB / strategy, best wizard mode ever. All around as close to the perfect game possible IMO.

Nostalgia is a big draw for me on MM. It was the game that got me back into pinball at age 18.

I played Space Shuttle, Black Hole, and Haunted House as a kid hanging out in the bowling alley arcade while my parents played on their league when I was around 9 or 10. I remember that I'd skip the video games and always dropped my precious quarters in these amazing pins. Then there was a long gap where I totally forgot about pinball.

I stumbled onto MM, a lone pinball in the local bowling alley, and fell in love with pinball all over again because of this game. Now, 18 years later, it has escalated and I own three machines and growing.

MM is a great game. The pick-up-and-play style and humor and toys have something to do with it, but it really isn't the game that keeps me coming back for any other reason than nostalgia.

Go play the top rated games.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-brooklyn-the-laundromat-as-hangout-1428972965

People have fun playing it.

Only machine delivered with complete code since I got in the hobby in 2000. sorry could not resist.

Never a ROM update? WOW!

A definite must if they ever make a kaneda pin.

LTG : )™

There are many reasons, but one of the biggest is the fact that they hired actual comedy writers/actors (Second City). I can't imagine why this hasn't been done since, given how popular the voices and script are in MM.

All good examples (from the King of Toys, no less!)

But I must disagree with you and agree with Pezpunk. After a full FH restoration and lots of time spent bringing Frankenstein--uh...Rudy--back to life, he is the greatest toy in pinball. Five coils to operate him, a motor, four gears, and tons of other mechanical wonders inside one 3x3 box creates a toy that you can easily believe has a soul when you hit the start button.

And that's what makes him so goddamn creepy.

It's frustrating, knowing my MMr should be coming in the next month or so.

I've played a whopping 1 game on an original MM a couple years ago....that's it.

The most frustrating part?...no communication from the distributor. Was asked just over a month ago to confirm my trim color choice.

Can't wait to play the hell out of my MMr.

Come on now.

No....MMR has complete code when launched that qualifies as MM correct?
MM had updates till Williams bugged out of the pinball business.

Ain't that the truth

nothing special about it. Main reason it was priced higher than most games even in the "cheap" days, was because it earned good on location. Good earnings means, ops didn't sell them unless you made it worth their while. We still have MM's on location around us. Not to long ago we had 8 of them within 30 mile radius at various spots. So ops charging more, and many still on location brought the available numbers lower. combine those 2 factors and you get higher price demand. Reason it does so well on location, is because the rules are written for a 5 year old. So anyone and their grandma can figure them out and know what to do. Which is great for location games. Tie it in, with a heavy nerdy Medieval theme, with a nice toy, and you have a good money maker.

I always thought it was the cool interactive web site...