This is purely speculative, but I’ve personally felt like the tilt on Munsters had a very different feel from other SPIKE games. I dont have one handy to play with under the hood, but I wonder if they’ve started factoring the accelerometer in. Maybe @timballs or @sir_tankalot are able to comment?
I have had exactly two people complain to me about games being too steep in two years operating at the location. On the other hand, I hear positive feedback on game setup every week. The last thing I want to do is put a Lord of the Rings out on location with the leg levelers set for 6.5 and then watch every good player that comes in play for 45 minutes on .50. Same for Demo Man, Monster Bash, Maiden, and on and on. That most of these games are actually less sling>outlane drainy when set a bit steeper, is great for the casual players (where the location actually makes money) and is a net plus IMO. That the good players appreciate the game setups are challenging and helping them improve their skills is a double net plus.
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Nice. When the positive feedback outweighs the negative feedback by a large margin, you know you’re doing it right. I wasn’t condemning all operators and all steep games. When I operated games, several were steeper than factory. BSD and Ripley’s because those both had upgraded flipper coils and POTC because games would last forever if I didn’t. BSD was a blast at 7 degrees. Screaming fast ramp returns. Used numerous times at CAX tournaments and got many compliments.
What I don’t like seeing is a row of modern Stern’s all jacked up. Not selectively chosen, just all of them. The cabinets are configured now so that the game should be at 6.5 degrees with all four levelers all the way up. When you look at a row of new games and all the back legs have levelers extended, that doesn’t look selective to me. I don’t trust factory bubbles, but apparently Stern is getting better with those as often the bubble is above the line when the back levelers are extended.
I believe all the CGC remakes are the same way. Levelers all the way up on level floor = 6.5 degrees pitch. If you operate games (not you specifically jay), please use at least the Pinguy app, if not a digital torpedo level, to set pitch. Side to side level is easy to eyeball. Pitch is not.
Also, thank you for operating games. It is appreciated, even though I’m nowhere near you.
Do operators get a special tag here? If not, they should. Hell, regular location players should probably get one too, although that might be a little harder to verify.
I’m going to a friend’s this evening to unbox a Munsters… What do you want me to check?
I don’t feel like I could eyeball it consistently and to keep this on topic, I also don’t think an accelerometer for playfield leveling makes any sense because you’d need to stick about a dozen of them under there in different spots to get a accurate picture of the shape and make an adjustment that suits the variance it’s bound to have. This goes for pitch as well, I’ve seen loads of playifelds that are 6 between the flippers and 8 up top as the mechs in the middle weigh down the plywood.
In this spirit, in the last year I switched to using the tiniest bubble level I could find and use it all over the playfield to see how much variation there is vs. the basic between the flippers measurement. An example of where this pays off… The Munsters at the location (not mine) has a more than slight warp toward the right outlane—maybe half a degree or so. When we first set it up (and leveled between the flippers), the balls were draining over there like crazy. A double check with the bubble level indicated the problem—the game is pretty flat up and down in the middle but bows down on the right only. So now it has a very slight left lean on purpose and it has made a noticeable difference in ball times and basic fun. Balls were very difficult to nudge out of the outlane and you could almost see them making a beeline for it. Since making the change, I haven’t had anyone tell me it’s not level so I expect nobody has noticed outside of the game feeling more normal.
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Whoops, didn’t see this til now. Honestly I’m not sure how one might easily test that theory short of sniffing the spi bus or having access to game code (and even sniffing the bus will only really indicate that something is polling the device, not that the data is being used).
Either way, odds are looking high that I’ll buy and possibly break a Munsters soon. 
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