Mine Shaft patterns in Congo

Games
1

In the Mine Shaft video mode (the one you get from hitting the inner upper loop shot) I’ve heard that there are some “patterns” that this mode can have as to where things are. Playing it yesterday I found that if I had one where Choice 1: Far Left gave me 10m and Choice 2: Far Right gave me 20m, I could go Far left, Far Left again for 30m or 40m. Didn’t figure out where the 50m was though for the next award.

Looking at the pinball.org rule sheet here: http://pinball.org/rules/congo.html the author implies this pattern thing. Can anyone confirm or deny these patterns existing? If so does anyone know what they are?

2

My foggy knowledge on that video mode knows two things…

  1. There are only 3 or 4 different paths.
  2. The pattern is the same for all players in a multiplayer game until someone completes it.

Both of these may be wrong, but the latter has definitely worked when watching an opponent make progress, then copying them.

3

I know there is 1 patter that is Left all day, so I just go with that and hope for the best :slight_smile:

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4
  • There are no patterns, the generation of mine shaft paths is random.
  • However once generated, the shaft pattern is the same for all four players
  • The farther in you get, there is a higher percentage of good paths than bad paths.
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5

it would still be interesting what is the max number, left all day end up working once in a while after all :slight_smile:

6

You could go left or you could go right… I go left all day too :slight_smile:

Left all day seems to show up enough to go left all day. Is that just random goodness? Is the pattern reset if one of the players gets to the end?

7

Yup!

This I don’t know.

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8

One thing - only the actual awards are repeated player to player. The 5 diamonds award is not the same between players.

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9

The pattern is not random. Dean confirmed.

10

I have reason to believe that is incorrect.

11

I have reason to believe that it is correct :-). Consider it “pseudo random”. There are certain elements which are truly random, but their are other elements which are definitely not.

  1. The first and second screen choice (2 doors and 3 doors) are 100% random. Go where you heart takes you.

  2. On the third and fourth screen (4 doors and 5 doors) you will never, and I mean never get the millions on the two right hand doors. I forget whether you can get diamonds there, but I don’t think so.The left side there is still pseudo random, but 100% better than the right hand side!! Around 12.5% of the time, then, you will see left-all-day work perfectly.

  3. Note that this is when the game is in tournament mode. I have no idea if this true in non-tournament situations.

Adam

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12

This is more in line with the information I have. The greater point I think was that it is not a series of preset patterns as some seem to think.

13

I used to own a Congo and I will concur that left is usually better. Another strange element is how fast you pick them. I know it may be in my head, but sometimes picking the doors really fast would yield all correct guesses.

2 Likes
14

When I had a Congo, it seemed I had the best luck beating the heck out of the left button throughout the mode and only hitting right to select each lefthand door.