************************************************************************** * * * STERN PINBALL, INC. * * (C) COPYRIGHT 2012-2018 STERN PINBALL, INC. * * * ************************************************************************** * * * METALLICA PREMIUM/LE * * * ************************************************************************** HELP US, HELP YOU! If you have any suggestions, questions, need technical advice, find errors or have comments, contact us through our website: http://www.sternpinball.com/contact.shtml or call 1-800-542-5377. You can also email bug.report@sternpinball.com to report any software problems. This text file and all other documents relating to this product, playfield components, features, rules, programming and operation are subject to change without notice (Service Bulletins, if applicable, available through our website). V1.80.0 - November 16, 2018 =========================== - Add RED G.I. to coffin hammer strike LED G.I. effect. - Added LED GI effects for mode items, snake multiball ready, and snake multiball start. - Changed EoL start and background LED GI effects. - Added LED GI effect for the super spinners. - Loop post stays DOWN when a shot is made for the super spinners. - Reworked EoL RGB lamps: blinking bright green = super jackpot, solid dark green = scored, blinking medium green = available. - Added lamp effects (background) and LED GI effects (background) for the coffin magnet diverter lock sequence. - Implemented lamp effects and LED GI effects for super spinners. - Added a setting (currently, game-specific adjustment #91) that controls the amount of time the coffin magnet remains down during ball search (default: 5 seconds, range: 2 seconds - 10 seconds). - Ball search coffin/magnet will activate the coffin magnet when the coffin magnet diverter is held down. This may or may not help free balls that may be jammed in the back of the coffin behind the magnet. - Improved the coffin magnet sequence in an effort to minimize balls getting jammed behind the magnet. - Switch compensation for the snake jaw now only done when the snake jaw is UP. - RGB test was not freeing the rgb layer before exiting. This has been corrected. - Added a background lamp effect for the super spinners. - Reworked ball locked lamp effect. - Captive ball extra ball #1 (default for auto setting) lowered to 10 hits (from 15 hits). - Combo champion # of combos lowered to 10 combos (from 20 combos). - Added new marker to The End Of The Line music for better shooter groove. - One (lady justice) mode was not being restarted when a shot was made during the mode. This has been corrected. - Added a "reset timer" adjustment for the One (lady justice) mode. - Added combo lights adjustment. Default is FLASH ONCE (show lamps once for a small period of time, then turn the lights off). Other settings: ALWAYS and NONE. Competition + Director's Cut are set to FLASH ONCE. - Coffin hurry-up now leaves all shots lit to reset the hurry-up score when multiple hurry-ups are available instead of requiring the player to complete them individually before they all re-light. - "The End Of The Line" song is now selectable at the start of the game if the player has made it to "The End Of The Line" (the 5th Crank It Up mode). - Shot features shot lit (the blinking arrow at the start of the ball) will no longer move to a shot that is ready to start the coffin hurry-up, nor will it move to a shot that is associated with a currently running coffin hurry-up. - Super skill shot to light a shot for the coffin hurry-up will now always be on the active shot for lighting items (the blinking arrow at the start of the ball). - Reworked guitar pick target lamps. The unscored lamps now blink only when they are available to light the snake lock (and during Blackened). Otherwise, the unscored lamps are OFF. - Added explosion sounds to the start of the fuel mode. - Changed the sound for completing a pop bumper to something slightly louder. - Reworked song transition markers for "Sad But True" so more of the song can be heard. - Added lamp effects for "The End Of The Line" super jackpot. - Added shaker motor effects to "The End Of The Line". - Shortened the extra ball and replay effects during multiball and "The End Of The Line". - Fixed the timing of the snake bite sound at the start of the long version of the extra ball display effect. - Added more speech for snake lock. - Added snake talk scripts (ADULT CONTENT and BEEPED) for completing the guitar pick targets when doing so lights the snake lock during multiball or during "The End Of The Line". This was implemented, but the scripts were missing from the snake script table. - Updated some HSTD initials. - Crank It Up modes now wait for collect/continue to finish obtaining user input before terminating. This allows the player to "collect" the mode points even though the song (mode) has technically ended. - Changed the Crank It Up default collect/continue relight difficulty from EASY to HARD. This requires the player to re-collect the Cross, Electric Chair, Coffin, and Snake to relight collect/continue during the Crank It Up mode. - Some work on The End of the Line: - Starts as a 2-ball multiball. - The music does not start until the mode start animation has finished playing. - Removed the timer. The mode will continue running during single ball play. - Added mystery award for single ball play. This awards the first available shot from left to right (even if that shot is the super jackpot). - If the mode is played through until the song ends at 7:51, the flippers are turned off and the balls are collected. - The first part of the rule has been changed from all 6 shots lit to light the super jackpot to 1 shot lit to light the first super jackpot, 2 shots lit to light the second super jackpot, etc. up to a maximum of all 6 shots lit to light the sixth super jackpot. If an unlit shot is made during this stage, that shot will light to advance to the next stage (super jackpot). - Removed "failed" super jackpot award display effect and moved it to "ended". (This is the animation of the car not making the jump and crashing at the bottom of the canyon.) - Removed the failed shots from the second stage (super jackpot). There is now only one shot available during this stage (the super jackpot); it moves around randomly. - Removed some audits (super jackpot failed, completed). The mode cannot be completed, it can only be played until the song ends. - Added jackpot speech. - Added super jackpot lit speech. - Added instructions to the start display effect. - Added instructions/status to the background display effect. - Changed the scoring for the super jackpot. The first super jackpot awards the total points scored during the first Crank It Up mode played. The second super jackpot awards the total points scored during the first Crank It Up mode played plus the total points scored during the second Crank It Up mode played, ... etc. - Corrected the mode tune. The full song is now played from the beginning, and it ends in silence. - A ball is added when lighting the super jackpot and for scoring the super jackpot, always. - Added logic to shut down some rules, as this rule is not covered under the normal multiball handling (it can be single ball play)). - Added item collects (Cross, Electric Chair, Coffin, Snake) to light collect/continue. - Added collect/continue so the mode can be ended (it does not end normally when play goes down to single ball). Collect/continue is only available during single ball play. - Snake lock for 2x scoring now allowed. - Reworked the replay effect so it is more efficient. - Shortened the replay effect if the replay is awarded during bonus (as a result of the bonus putting the player over the replay score). - Inhibited the trailing "free game" speech at the end of the replay effect if the replay effect is run immediately after bonus. - Added small explosion sound for completing a pop bumper. - Broke out right eject kick settings into TIME and POWER. This gives better resolution/control over the behavior of the kick. - Added a setting to carry over the fuel lane (piston) awards (lights) from ball to ball. - Changed default cross hits from 2 to 1. - Changed default item requirements for Crank It Up from 15 to 12. - Fixed a bug in the Blackened mode where the super jackpot light would stay lit (blinking) after it was collected and no longer available. - Added a custom sound previewer when changing the MODE COMPLETION SOUND adjustment so the user can preview the sound before having to try it out in the game. - Implemented alternate Crank-It-Up completion sounds. The sound that is played when "completing" a Crank-It-Up mode is controlled by a new game-specific adjustment: "CRANK IT UP COMPL. SOUND". The sound that is played is a new sound that is more appropriate for a Metallica game (less fanfare-y, more metal-y). - Game over effects are now killed when entering test mode. - Fixed a bug in the auto-percentaged extra ball module that would sometimes set the extra ball values (captive ball hits, combos) to an out of range value. - Mystery award text now expedited when the mystery award display effect is blown off. - Flipper blowoff for mystery locks the last frame so the player can see the award. - Score type changed from 32-bit to 64-bit. - Updated to new game versioning scheme. - "The End Of The Line" mode background lamps now higher than BLACKENED lamps. - Fuel mode start was also scoring the first letter of "FUEL" for lighting double scoring during "FUEL". This has been corrected. - If all piston lights are blinking and the fuel lane target is hit then the score value is doubled. - Changed fuel lane scoring. Changed fuel lane "blown pistons" so a blown piston is awarded for each light that is lit instead of only awarding one blown piston for any number of lights lit. - Increased the priority of the fuel lane target hit display effect so the extra ball lit display effect would not cut it off. - The three lights by the fuel lane are now reset when the blown pistons are collected. - Fixed an issue with the skill shot where the 2x right lane award was not being re-enabled on short plunges. - Fixed an issue where fading the music volume would cause the music to cut out entirely (bonus, game over). - Snake multiball background display effect was not showing the correct shot value when the super jackpots were lit. This has been corrected. - Lowered the score for the snake multiball super jackpot. V1.7 - June 19, 2016 ==================== - Added/implemented the setting "COFFIN LOCKS/MULTIBALL STACK WITH OTHER MULTIBALLS", which existed on the PRO but somehow was absent on the Premium/LE. - Added an addition rule for the spinners. Completing the guitar pick targets lights the spinners for extra points (1-shot). The base value is 100k/spin, and increases 10k/spin each time the guitar pick targets are completed, to a maximum of 250k/spin. - Timed modes (Blackened, Coffin Hurry-Up, Fuel, Lady Justice, Seek & Destroy) were not being paused when the Crank It Up mode select was active. This has been corrected. - Changed combo scoring so 3+-way combos increase in value much more quickly. - Fuel lane now awards 1 blown piston for each lit light, instead of 1 blown piston for all three lit lights. - Added speech to the "Enter Sandman" and the "For Whom The Bell Tolls" modes. - Synced knocker to run with replay/special effects. - Added speech for chair guy fry ready (electric chair multiball). - Added a speech call for snake lock lit. - Fixed player up effects so they wait for speech. - For whom the bell tolls mode was not displaying the score correctly. This has been corrected. - Added mystery awards for the "Crank It Up" modes: Battery - Awards 1 sparky hit. Lights all shots at level 2 (blinking). Increases the sparky value. Increases the shot values. Enter Sandman - Awards the first blinking shot from left to right. Lights 1 additional item. Increases the shot values. Fade To Black - Awards the blinking shot. Requires 2 fewer switch hits to achieve the next fade level, to a minimum of 5 switch hits per level. Increases the shot values. For Whom The Bell Tolls - Awards the first blinking shot from left to right. Lights all shots to complete an entire column (1 time). Increases the shot values. There is no advantage to increasing the mystery level before collecting the award; the award will not improve. - Cross/electric chair/coffin/snake super skill shots now award +1 of the item towards bonus/crank it up/end of the line bonus for each regular skill shot made. - Fixed a problem with the bonus where blowing off the bonus using the flipper buttons would leave one of the item flasher effects (cross, electric chair, coffin, snake) running. - Some switches would be flagged with an error in the tech alert when they should not have been. The list of offending switches are: TOURNAMENT START BUTTON START BUTTON TROUGH JAM LEFT COIN CENTER COIN RIGHT COIN FOURTH COIN FIFTH COIN TILT PENDULUM SLAM TILT (OPTIONAL) TICKET NOTCH BACK MINUS PLUS SELECT DIP #1 - #8 - Added bonus for all items collected at the start of "The End Of The Line". Added speech and sound effects. - Added a lamp effect for coffin hurry-up start. - Added alternate speech for fuel mode start. - Removed "casket" text from coffin multiball start effect. - Fixed an issue where the music was not quiet immediately after the player selected a mode for "Crank It Up". - Added super jackpot stage to snake multiball. After collecting 5 (adjustable) snake combo jackpots, all shots are lit for super jackpot until the end of the multiball. Playfield shots disappear when collected, and reappear when all have been collected or the snake eject is scored. - Added speech for HSTD enter initials timeout. - Fixed a bug that was causing the device driver for the magnets to ignore the "disabled" adjustment. - Fixed the player up display effect so it does not end with blank text. - Fixed stray (bad) pixels in the BATTERY mode intro art. - Combos were not clearing a counter properly, which caused incorrect combo values to carry over to other players. This has been corrected. V1.64 - April 23, 2015 ====================== - The coffin magnet was not honoring the "disabled" adjustment. This has been corrected. - Seek & Destroy mode has been changed so it now awards 1 cross, 1 snake, and 1 electric chair each time one of the main shots (left loop, cross lane, left ramp, right ramp, right loop) is made when lit. This allows progress towards lighting "Crank It Up" during Seek & Destroy. - Boosted Seek & Destroy scores from 750k to 1M (seek shot) and 375k to 500k (regular shot). - Added lamp status on the sparky lamps for electric chair multiball and battery mode that indicate progress toward lighting the super jackpot and completing the mode, respectively. - Added art to the combo high score to date display effect in the attract mode. Changed the font for the combo award and the combo jackpot award. - Increased lady justice "big value" score. - Added design team members to the default (factory reset) HSTD. - Increased the display/lamp/sound priorities for the multiball modes (Coffin, Cross, Electric Chair, Snake). Previously, these were the same as Fuel/Seek & Destroy, which caused interference. The priority for Coffin was set to something higher than Cross/Electric Chair/Snake, as Coffin is rare to get, and alternates between shots and the captive ball (so there will be opportunity to see Cross/Electric Chair/Snake effects on the shots when Coffin is available on the captive ball). - Changed the names of the diagnostic buttons (these are translated now). - Fixed a problem with the mystery sound effect not coming through due to higher priority sound effects from previous effects taking too long to finish up. - Removed track #4 from outlane drain sound so big effects will not get cut off. - Fixed text running off the display. V1.63 - September 2, 2014 ========================= - Added LED GI effects for the "Blackened" mode awards. - The 2x playfield multiplier is now paused during cross, electric chair, coffin, and snake multiball start. - Crank it up points selection was not scoring the points. This has been corrected. - Lady Justice mode start criteria has been changed. Ramp letters and mode start are allowed as long as seek & destroy and any crank it up mode are not running. (Previously, ramp letters were allowed during multiball, but mode starts were not.) - Fixed up snake lock so it works better when a ball is being held on the cross magnet for super jackpot. - Any shot that completes a row or column in the grid during the "For Whom The Bell Tolls" mode is awarded at 2x. The last shot is 4x as it completes both a row and a column. - Fixed a bug with the guitar pick targets that would cause the score for completing the targets to be one increment too high. - Added combo rules for stage #2 of Crank it Up. Making any shot blinks a random shot for 2x. Making additional lit shots increases the multiplier on the blinking shot by 1x. - Tightened up captive ball extra coffins timer from 2.5 seconds to 1.5 seconds. There is still a one second grace period. - Fixed a bug in cross multiball that would keep the super jackpot multiplier from advancing. - Added left ramp cross to the up/down effect lamps; it was missing. V1.6 - June 5, 2014 =================== - Implemented the coffin lock behavior adjustment. There are 3 settings: 1) COFFIN, NO STACKING Balls must be locked in the coffin to start coffin multiball. Once a lock is lit, the ball must be locked in the coffin before the next lock can be lit. (This is the behavior that existed in version 1.51.) 2) COFFIN, STACK LOCKS LIT Balls must be locked in the coffin to start coffin multiball. Once a lock is lit, additional locks can be lit by hitting the captive ball. (This is the default setting.) 3) COFFIN, CAPTIVE BALL Balls do not need to be locked in the coffin to start coffin multiball. Once a lock is lit, the magnet is activated to lock the ball in the coffin. If the captive ball is hit when a lock is lit, the lock is awarded and the magnet is deactivated. (This is roughly the same behavior as the PRO). - Disabling the coffin magnet via the adjustments results in behavior that is identical to COFFIN LOCK LIT BEHAVIOR = COFFIN, CAPTIVE BALL, with the exception that the magnet is never activated. (This is exactly the same behavior as the PRO.) - Added switch compensation for the snake jaw. If the snake jaw is disabled via adjustment and the latch switch is active (meaning the jaw switch is not accessible), or there is a "stuck up" device error, or the snake jaw switch is bad, then the awards for hitting the snake jaw are given from the captive ball and the right ramp standup target that is closest to the snake. - Snake up/down latch was (sometimes) making the wrong sound when the minus (-) button was pressed. This has been corrected. - The G.I. effect for coffin multiball was not specifying the correct resources. This has been corrected. - Added "Blackened" (target) mode for collecting all of the band members. - Added an adjustment to award extra coffins from the captive ball. The default is "+1 W/ RETURN LANE" which will award 1 extra coffin if the captive ball is hit within ~2.5 seconds of a return lane switch. - Corrected some loop logic. - Lowered 2nd+ combo extra balls from 100 combos to 50 combos. Lowered the 2nd+ fuel lane extra balls from 40 pistons to 30 pistons. - Skill shot and super skill shot lamp effects were (occasionally) not going away when their respective awards were no longer available. (This was noticeable when the mystery eject was made for super skill shot.) - Reworked the guitar pick targets rule. Collected band members carry over from ball to ball. Sets of band members reworked to require more completions next time around, but not as brutal as before. - Added settings for snake eject kick and right eject kick power settings. - Changed the increment for the item requirements for qualifying Crank It Up from 1-5 to 1-3. - Added new right eject ramp-up sound for the right eject kickout. - Added adjustments for the cross magnet and the electric chair magnet so the user can turn off or lighten the magnet effects. - Added an adjustment for the number of shots required during the super jackpot stage of cross multiball to bump the super jackpot multiplier. The old (hard-coded) default was 4; this has been lowered to 3 to make it easier to increase the multiplier. (Adjustment range: 2-4). - Fixed a problem with setting the slingshot power during factory reset. - The slingshot power was not being updated after the adjustment was changed in the game adjustments menu -- it was only ever updated at power-up. This has been corrected. - Fixed a problem with mystery. The "electric chair" awards were displaying the coffin icon, and the "coffin" awards were displaying electric chair icons. - Increased "Fade To Black" units per level on the PRO from 10 to 15. V1.51 - March 17, 2014 ====================== - Loop diverter post NOT activated from shooter lane when a ball is being held on the cross magnet for super jackpot. - Added "Blackened" and "Ride The Lightning" to the list of songs that may be selected at the beginning of the game. These were the songs that were chosen by Metallica fans. See http://www.metallica.com/news/20140219-605356.asp for more details. - Implemented an adjustment to vary the music that plays during Electric Chair / Sparky multiball. The options are: CREEPING DEATH - Always play "Creeping Death". RIDE THE LIGHTNING - Always play "Ride The Lightning". ALTERNATE C.D./R.T.L. - Play "Creeping Death" for the first multiball; play "Ride The Lightning" for the second multiball; ... (This is the default setting.) ALTERNATE R.T.L./C.D. - Play "Ride The Lightning" for the first multiball; play "Creeping Death" for the second multiball; ... RANDOM - Randomly choose either "Creeping Death" or "Ride The Lightning". Both songs have an equal chance of being chosen. - Fixed a problem with the FUEL random award that was allowing fuel to be added at the wrong time. - Fixed a bug in the algorithm that selects the fake mystery awards to display such that it no longer displays the "INVALID" award. - Due to the lack of spinners on the PRO (bummer), the number of switch hits required to drop to the next level for the "Fade To Black" mode has been reduced from 20 to 15. - Added speech for Crank It Up mode collect. - Added magnet toss to "Battery" mode electric chair hit. - Crank It Up modes and The End Of The Line were causing the selected song to restart from the beginning. This has been corrected. - Added progress bar to Crank It Up collect/continue display effect. Formatted the time remaining with a leading (-). - Added kickout warnings for the snake eject and the right eject. Fixed a bug in the logic that was sending out speech for one player's score being much lower than everyone else's. - Added 4th sparky fry animation. Tweaked lamp effects. - The "For Whom The Bell Tolls" mode was not resetting the song position to the beginning when the mode was started. This has been corrected. - Added (adjustable, may be turned off) ball saver to the modes. The default is 10 seconds. - Added kickout warning sounds and lamp effects for the snake eject and the right eject. - Battery mode was requesting adult content speech with the ADULT CONTENT adjustment set to NO. This has been corrected. V1.5 - March 6, 2014 ==================== - Synced the motorized grave marker with the grave marker that rises out of the ground in the display at the start of grave marker multiball. - Tightened up the hammer sequence. 1.5 seconds of checking for the ball has been reduced to 1 second (this speeds up the sequence). Immediately before the magnet is lowered, the magnet is turned on solid for a little more than a quarter of a second to stabilize the ball. The magnet should stay on until the ball can be diverted into the coffin. The diverter is released when there is switch activity in the coffin lockup after a minimum amount of time (3/4 of a second). - Added better handling for the release of balls from coffin lockup. - Top lane skill shot without the aid of the loop diverter post awards 2x value (so a non-post aided right top lane is 4x value). - Lowered fuel scores. - Added an adjustment (NO/YES) to add the mode completion bonus points to the mode jackpot (default NO). - Added an adjustment to control the relighting of the mode collect select. The default is EASY which keeps the collect/continue lit for the remainder of the mode. For those who want a challenge, set the adjustment to HARD and this will unlight the collect; the 4 items will have to be collected again to light the collect. - Some multiballs were allowed to start while a mode was running. This has been corrected (no multiball during modes, except "The End Of The Line"). - Boosted up the volume for the "Jack F*ck*n' Pot" speech, which is sent out for any super jackpot (cross, electric chair, coffin, snake) scored at 4x. - Added a short sound for use by the bonus effect (electricity, which was too long and ran over into the next player's ball, and then some). - Removed grab and toss random from electric chair multiball super jackpot award as this is proving to be too much work for the magnet. - Fixed a priority issue with "extra ball" and "mystery" that was preventing the mystery award sounds from playing. - Added more shaker motor effects. Changed some existing effects so they are better synced with sounds and effects. - Added sparky coil requests to the "Battery" mode. - Increased the volume of the hammer hit sound. - Added face bash sound for snake jaw hit during snake multiball. (This is a PREMIUM/LE feature but the sound is common to PRO and PREMIUM). - Mode bonus collect points lowered to 1/4 of the total points scored during the mode, as the points can be collected multiple times; the full value was WAY too unbalancing. - Added mode instructions. These can be turned of by setting the "MODE INSTRUCTIONS" adjustment to "NO". Mode instructions are off for the "DIRECTOR'S CUT" install. - Reorganized the order in which the metallica ramps awards are given. These are now higher than combos, which they probably always should have been. - Modes now keep track of the total number of times "collect" is lit, which is reported to the mode bonus when lit when the player finally chooses "collect". This determines the points scored for the shots made to light the mode bonus at the right eject. - Metallica ramps mode, Fuel mode, and Seek & Destroy mode songs pick up where they left off (approximate) when the modes are restarted or end up at the top of the stack as a result of another mode going away. - Reworked the "fuel target hit" display effect to include information about the number of blown pistons to light extra ball. - Added fuel lane extra ball to instant info. Lowered default number of combos required to light the combo extra ball from 25 to 20 (extra easy goes from 15 to 10, easy goes from 20 to 15, hard goes from 30 to 25, and extra hard goes from 35 to 30). - Added an audit for mystery. Cleaned up some audit/adjustment display text. - Loop post disabled during "Battery", "Enter Sandman", and "For Whom The Bell Tolls" mode. - Fixed poor distribution of available shots for the "Enter Sandman" mode when two or more shots have been completed. - Added fuel lane extra ball. - Changed the scoring for skill shot. Making the right top lane scores double the points vs. making the left top lane. Changed the scoring for super skill shot. Making a super skill shot increases the value of the top lane skill shot. - Added bonuses for collecting the required number of items (grave markers, electric chairs, coffins, snakes) to light "Crank It Up". - Increased the default high score for "Lady Justice" from 1.5M to 2.5M. - Added more speech for combos. - Shots used to start the coffin hurry-up are now available for points and to reset the hurry-up value while the hurry-up is running. - Added a display effect to show the mode selection after both flipper buttons are pressed OR the mode select screen times out. This gives the player some feedback, letting them know what mode they selected. - Added magnet handling for the electric chair hit and multiball awards. - Electric chair hit speech was being requested such that certain phrases could be repeated. This has been corrected. - Cleaned up some flasher entries. The left and right back panel flashers have 3 flash lamps tied to the coil drive; this was not being reflected in coil/flasher test and has been corrected. Added "L.E.D." text to the electric chair spot flashers and the snake flashers, as these are L.E.D. flash lamps. - Electric chair hit speech only requested when the feature is advanced. - Added a new stage to grave marker multiball. When the grave marker is lit by making 5 shots (initially), shooting the grave marker awards double jackpot and holds the ball 20-30 seconds (adjustable) for super jackpot. Hitting the held ball with the other ball(s) in play awards the super jackpot. While the timer is timing down, the four grave marker shots (other than the grave marker itself) may be made for points. These points add to the value of the super jackpot. Completing all four shots while the timer is timing down increases the value of the super jackpot multiplier by one. The super jackpot must be collected to lock in the multiplier. The value of the multiplier is retained throughout the course of the game. - Consolidated combo display effect and METALLICA ramps display effect. The combo display effect now also shows METALLICA letters. - Cleaned up METALLICA letters and Lady Justice mode. Completing "METALLICA" scores 2M (base). Scores increased for Lady Justice. Reworked the start display effect. Added lamp effects. Cleaned up bugs. The background display effect was showing the low value at the start of the mode when the large value was available on both shots. Added speech. Added an audit for the big value. Fixed up a bad frame of art. Score font now rendered at the base of the scale instead of always at the bottom. Handled error cases. Timer paused when necessary. Changed the priority of the sound effects (these were being specified incorrectly). Added lamps/sounds for the total display effect. - Fixed up LOTS of beeped speech. All questionable speech that could be considered "ADULT CONTENT" has been beeped out (including a couple that came as a request from customers (crazy b*st*rd, for example). - Added new fuel art. - Added lamp/flasher blinking to the snake when he talks. - Added an adjustment to enable/disable coffin locks during other multiballs. - Added additional levels to electric chair multiball. Once sparky has been fried 7 times, all shots are lit for super jackpot. (See the multiball background display for head count status on progress). Progress is retained throughout the course of the game. - Coffin hurry-up start on the loop shots now causes the ball to loop around. - Cross magnet ball search now ignores the cross opto switch for a period of time. - Added an adjustment to control the slingshot power. - Added a special sound for draining during coffin multiball. - Added instant info for mystery. - Added "The End of the Line" (final wizard mode). - Added "Crank It Up" modes. These include: - "Battery" - (beat up sparky) - "Fade To Black" - (shots/switches advance through thresholds that turn the playfield darker) - "For Whom The Bell Tolls" - (progressive shots) - "Enter Sandman" - (shots change/hide, nightmare) (need more speech!) - Items (grave marker, electric chair, coffin, snake) are now recorded for progress towards lighting the "Crank It Up". Once all items have been collected (adjustable, currently 15 each), the "Crank It Up" mode select is lit at the right scoop. - Added Lady Justice (metallica ramps) champion. Added art to HSTD displays for the Lady Justice mode and the Seek & Destroy mode. - Electric chair multiball shot award now adds different meter units based on the shot that was awarded. - Fuel bar no longer advanced when a mode is active. Fuel can still be spelled to light 2X playfield at the piston target. - Shot features no longer lit or awarded when a mode is active. - Items no longer awarded when a mode is active. - Updates during game over no longer kill the game over music. - Lady Justice mode start display effect is killed any time an award is given. This keeps the start effect from appearing when it is no longer relevant. - Fixed a problem that would cause the wrong music to play when the coffin hurry-up was started and the song that was selected at the start of the game was not the music that was playing. - Added items left to light "Crank It Up" (modes) to instant info. - Reworked mystery. Completing the top/bottom lanes continues to light mystery at the right scoop, but if the lanes are completed with mystery already lit, then the mystery awards will improve. The mystery display effect will scroll down and show the award at the proper depth on the skull pile (depth of 1 for completing the lanes 1 time, depth of 2 for completing the lanes 2 times, etc, down to level 4). The mystery awards are: - Points - Add bonus x - Hold bonus x - Metallica letter - Add grave markers - Add electric chairs - Add coffins - Add snakes - Light grave markers - Light electric chairs - Light coffins - Light snakes - Light coffin lock - Award coffin lock - Snake letter - Light coffin hurry-up - Start coffin hurry-up - Light 2x playfield - Add fuel - Light extra ball - Added super skill shot. This is available by holding in the left flipper button when plunging the ball. The following shots are available: - Piston target: lights 2x playfield if not already lit/running. - Left loop, grave marker lane, left ramp, right ramp, right loop: all are lit for points; one is lit to light the coffin hurry-up. - Right eject hole: lights mystery if it is not already lit. V1.22 - August 13, 2013 ======================= - Changed the timings for aborting out of the hammer sequence after the ball has been detected and grabbed by the magnet, as the non- presence of the ball is reported much more slowly by the new firmware as compared to the old firmware. - Added cross/snake/sparky lamps to seek and destroy background lamp effect for "seek" state. - Coffin magnet "grab" time lowered from .9 sec to .8 sec. - Added a display effect for hitting the snake in the jaw during snake multiball. - Fixed some issues with instant info. Cross multiball lit and electric chair multiball lit screens were not clearing the display before rendering their text. This has been corrected. Added a border to the snake letter screen for instant info so it can be more easily distinguished from the snake letter display effect that is run during the game. - A right top lane award was calling the award function with the ID of the left top lane. This has been corrected. - Snake multiball combo multiplier maximum changed from 5x to 3x. - Changed the award display effect for super skill shot to display the special awards (light playfield multiplier, light coffin hurry-up, light mystery, etc.) when they are collected. (The "light hurry-up" awards are currently disabled until the skill shot is reworked to be more balanced/valuable.) - Added more switches that tell the system that the ball is on the playfield. Added an adjustment to tell the system that the ball is on the playfield for certain known "flaky" switches (drop targets, pop bumpers, slingshots). V1.2 - July 31, 2013 ==================== - Added adjustments and code to work around certain magnet boards that have trouble detecting the presence of the ball while the ball is being held (magnet being duty-cycled). Set game adj. #73 (ABORT HAMMER/LOCK SW. ACTIVITY) to NO (default is YES) to restore the behavior as it was in V1.16. - Changed the logic for locking a ball in the coffin. Balls will be diverted into the coffin even if there is no room to physically lock the ball, either due to another player already having balls locked or due to balls being missing from the game. - The coffin magnet test was exiting the "detect" state prematurely when it detected a ball. This has been corrected (the test stays in the "detect" state and makes a sound when the ball is detected). - Snake jaw was scoring switch hits when it was not supposed to. This has been corrected. - "SNAKE LOCK HOLDS BALL" adjustment changed to YES after merge. - Fixed the background lamp effect for fuel mode, which was not showing the fuel lane arrow properly. - Fixed a programming issue with bonus that was causing the last frame of the animating icons to not be displayed. - Added an adjustment to change the grave marker type. The settings are "NORMAL" and "R.I.P. TOMBSTONE". The user override for the "Middle East" dip switch settings now specifies a "GRAVE MARKER TYPE" of "R.I.P. TOMBSTONE". Bonus, instant info, and grave marker hit / multiball display effects have been changed to support the new setting. - Changed up the snake multiball rule. Each snake icon shot on the playfield starts a snake combo which can be collected at the snake. The first shot lights the snake for 2x the value, the second shot lights the snake for 3x the value, etc. Once the combo value is collected at the snake, the combo is stopped and the next snake shot will start the combo multiplier at 3x. The multiplier is capped at 5x. - Changed the scoring for the snake during snake multiball. Fixed up snake sounds. Some of these were specifying bad priorities. - Increased the scores for the "Seek & Destroy" mode. - Coffin hurry-up start display effect is now removed if queued to run but the hurry-up has already been collected. - Added an adjustment to disable locking balls in the snake during multiball. Ball(s) were getting stuck on the PRO, which has no snake jaw to close after the ball is locked. People who aren't bothered by this problem are free to change the adjustment and the old behavior will be restored. - Changed snake multiball start display effect so it would not take so long. - Changed fuel scoring. Points scored during the mode no longer add to the jackpot; the jackpot starts at 1M and increases each time it is collected. The switch score starts at 15K and increases 1K each time the fuel targets are hit. - Added instant info for the metallica ramps. - Added a peak meter for the song select. - Added and reworked some instant info items: cross, electric chair, coffin, snake. - Consolidated the "cross/sparky/coffin/snake" instant info screen into one page. - Fuel background no longer shows queued up floating points when the effect first runs. - Fuel mode timer now limited by the value of the adjustment "FUEL MODE TIMER". (Adding time previously increased the fuel mode timer above this value, up to a maximum of 60 seconds.) Added HSTD for FUEL mode. The score for hitting the FUEL standup targets was not being added to the total for the mode and was also not being added for high score. This has been corrected. - Cleaned up fuel mode background lamp effects. Lowered the amount of time that is added to the fuel mode timer when the timer is reset. Lowered fuel mode scoring. - Fixed a problem with mystery. When the level tables were added, the mystery level could go out of range (by lighting mystery 5 times before collecting it). This would result in mystery not being able to be awarded. This has been corrected. - Added art for hitting the fuel targets during fuel mode. Added sounds. - Fixed up fuel jackpot art. It was missing the last 4 frames due to a bad specification for the files in the build. - Reworked the fuel mode start display effect. Added sounds and speech. - Added a sound for a fuel letter (gas tank filling sound). - Added new fuel speech. - Cleaned up the fuel letter display effect. This effect was never displaying the last letter when FUEL was spelled. (Instead, it showed generic text.) This has been corrected. - Snake lock display effect turned into choreography with a lower priority. - Changed electric chair magnet grab time from 1/2 sec. to 1 sec. V1.16 - June 28, 2013 ===================== - Snake jaw no longer tries to re-fire during test if the device fails to satisfy a request to get open/closed. - Snake jaw hit was not lighting the snake icons on the playfield. This has been corrected. - Updated the mechanical snake to be in the correct state for the new snake lock rule. The jaw is open when the lock is lit and closed when the ball is locked or the lock is not available. - Fixed a problem with the lamp effect for the combos that was causing the lamps to be obscured. - Added free play check to attract mode radio. - Added snake lock feature. This is available during any multiball. Completing the guitar pick targets during multiball lights the snake for a timed ball lock. Shooting the snake the first time locks the ball and awards add-a-ball. While the ball is locked, all playfield scores are 2X. Completing the guitar pick targets again while the ball is locked in the snake will reset the timer. Once the timer expires, the ball is released from the lock and playfield scores go back to 1X. The ball can be re-locked for 2X playfield scores by completing the guitar pick targets and shooting the snake, but an additional ball will not be put into play. - Added coffin force field sound. Added art to coffin multiball super jackpot display effect. Added coffin speech. - Added attract mode flipper button speech. - Added speech for coffin hurry-up. - Added art for total screens (sparky multiball, fuel, metallica/justice, snake, coffin, etc.) - Added speech to the shoot again display effect. - Added sounds for seek and destroy, ticket (redemption) award, coffin hurry-up, cross super jackpot, coffin multiball, extra ball, and special. - Added speech to "player up" effect. - Lighting items (cross, snake, electric chair) will not light items for shots that have already been completed (hurry-up collected). Lighting neighboring (unlit) items (the snake is the only one who uses this) has been changed to not spread out so much (it no longer skips over items that are already lit, rather, it increases the count for those that are already lit). Once a shot has been completed (hurry-up collected), the number of items that are lit (available) is always 1. No matter how high an item count (cross, snake, electric chair) is built up, shooting the shot will only ever award one of each lit item (only the points awarded and the starting hurry-up value are affected). - Added effects for special lit and special. - Added electric chair progress lamps. Fixed up electric chair progress lamps in the explode/sweep lamp strings (#3 was missing). - Added ticket (redemption) animation. V1.13 - June 10, 2013 ===================== - The coffin was not releasing balls to satisfy requests for other multiballs. For example, if two balls were locked in the coffin and sparky multiball was started, only the balls from the trough (2) would be put into play. (Sparky multiball is a 3-ball multiball and this is wrong.) This has been corrected. - Fixed AUX board wire colors. - Snake shot (eject) was awarding a snake letter when the snake was not lit to score a letter. This has been corrected. - Added a flasher lamp effect for Seek & Destroy (destroy) at the coffin. - Fixed a problem with the initialization of the "seek" shots for Seek & Destroy (shots were not being lit in the order in which the hurry-ups were started/collected. - Fixed up issues with holding/releasing balls from the snake. - Added new hurry-up art (the background art had problems). - Implemented a new set of adjustments for coffin hits to light lock. (Instead of 10-10-10, it is 5-10-10 and the increment isn't as brutal.) V1.11 - June 6, 2013 ==================== - Added a delay before kicking the ball out of the snake eject. This allows more time for the jaw to open before the ball is kicked out (necessary on some games). - Added switch sounds to snake jaw up/down latch test. - Added switch sounds to drop target test. - Added coffin hurry-up to the list of criteria that leaves the loop post down so the ball can loop back to the flippers. - Fixed a bug with the music. If the music ended, then it would not always be restarted immediately. The song would also sometimes be restarted in the middle instead of from the beginning. This has been corrected. V1.1 - June 5, 2013 =================== - Initial release.