Quoted from dr_nybble:Ipdb seems to have this info in its database -- is there a way to query based on it?
Quoted from DefaultGen:They unfortunately don't have standardized ways of listing features. Swords of Fury says Spinning targets (3) TX-Sector says Spinners (2), Caribbean Cruise says Rollunder spinners (2), Apollo 13 says Spinner (1), TWD Premium doesn't list the spinners it has at all. It's possible to search, just not super easy and not complete.
I'm sorry for that. In earlier days, they were often entered as "Rollunder spinners" or just "Spinners" until I standardized the term for the IPDB as "spinning targets". There's so many older listings to fix that I fix them only when I am updating a listing for anything else, like when adding pictures.
If you are looking at a specific game manual, it often identifies any kind of spinning feature as just a "spinner" because that's all it took to point you to what playfield feature they were talking about for that game. That's how the term "spinner" got added to many IPDB listings. However, in a database, if you searched on "spinner" you would pull up every kind of spinner there is, like whirlwind spinner, captive ball spinner, backbox spinner, etc. So, I expanded that single-word term into various phrases to make Advanced Searching on any of them more productive. Our Glossary lists the expanded terms, if you search there for "spinner".
Tonight I've fixed every game mentioned in this thread so they will pull up in an Advanced Search in either of two ways:
1) If you want to search for games that have any number of spinning targets, place this phrase into the Notable Features field:
spinning.target
Note that you must place a period (.) between the words to make it a searchable phrase. If you forget the period, you will pull up every game that has those two words floating ANYWHERE in that data field which will get you more than you were looking for.
2) If you want to search for games that have a specific number of spinning targets, place this Regular Expression into the Notable Features field:
spinning.targets?.?[(]n[)]
where n is any number greater than zero and represents the quantity of spinning targets you're looking for.
For instance, searching on
spinning.targets?.?[(]4[)]
will get you the Alvin G. games that were mentioned:
You might realize that you can modify the Regular Expression to search Notable Features for other playfield features for which we have standardized terms. For example:
flippers?.?[(]n[)]
pop.bumpers?.?[(]n[)]
If you want to, say, find games that have 3 flippers AND 5 pop bumpers, you would place two Expressions in the Notable Features search box as follows:
flippers?.?[(]3[)] pop.bumpers?.?[(]5[)]
Note that there is a space separating the two Expressions.
Thank you,
Jay
Fort Lauderdale, FL
Vaudreuil-dorion, QC
