New Bram Stoker's Dracula custom competition ROM

The software ‘knows’ it happens too. Once the ball released from the castle lock closes the shooter lane switch, the launch button lights solid. Launch ball, light goes out.

Any time the shooter lane switch closes during multiball, the auto plunge should fire. Can’t think of an exception to that rule. (in BSD)

Yeah you can do it in single player.

Sounds like something Belsito would do in a match ;D

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Well I didn’t wanna mention names :wink:

I saw this once during a single player game at TPF, and the player did the right thing and pressed the plunge button to put the ball back in play during their multiball when they noticed it. But it made me wonder how many times a ball had been left in the shooter lane during a MB – either intentionally or unintentionally.

It’s actually pretty easy to see from a distance if the launch button bulb isn’t burnt out. If you hear jackpots being collected and the launch button is lit solid, remind the player he/ she needs to plunge. Probably don’t even need to hear the jackpots. If the player is flipping and the launch button is lit, that’s a big tipoff. Seen it at least once or twice in league.

Too rare to ban the game from competition, but definitely something that should be fixed if possible.

Josh, I know you feel strongly about the ‘no ball save issue’ and I’ve seen your other comments on this subject. To add another consideration to the debate, what if we take the extreme case, say we set the ball save to 10 minutes, then at the end of the ball save the better player would be in front of the worse player, which is the fair outcome in a tournament situation, no?

Kinda takes recovery skills out of the equation, along with making Bats and Rats a gimme.

The same argument applies.

If someone plays and drains in 9 minutes 59 seconds their award is an extra ball.

If someone plays and drains in 10 minutes and 1 second, their award is end of ball bonus.

The main issues I have with this game (I own one and play it):

  1. A tilt warning shortly before drain/bonus results in no bonus (sometimes).
  2. When the mist ball travels across the playfield, it does not pause (or backtrack slightly) during Video Mode.
  3. If you are in Castle Multiball and you lock a ball, then draining the last ball on the playfield at or slightly before the same time as the castle lock timer times out causes the game to go to bonus.
  4. Setting the ball save to OFF results in no ball save time for the multiballs (these should be on separate adjustments).
  5. The mystery award is all over the place, and useless - unless you are awarded 10 million or more. Either turn the mystery lamp off at the start of the game, so the only way to get mystery is to go down the right return lane and shoot the mystery shot on a timer, where it times out with points (5M all the time would be OK), or make it a series of deterministic feature awards that are actually worth something (like Getaway).
  6. There is no reason to release locked balls at the end of the game. Leave the balls locked, and when a new game is started and a player locks a ball, then (if necessary), release a ball into the shooter lane for the skill shot. You waste valuable ball time (and earnings) by doing the opposite – not to mention it frustrates the player who just wants to play again - and may never lock a ball in the castle on their next game.
  7. For tech. alerts in switch test, there is no need to mark “OPTO L. POCKET” bad so prematurely. Only try to mark it bad for the balls that actually start the Mist feature and the ball does not make it into the “OPTO L. POCKET” without also starting Mist multiball.
  8. It would be great to have a “VIDEO MODE = POINTS” option. 25M might be a good place to start. If set for “POINTS”, then there’s no need to pause Mist multiball in (2).

Other than that, the game is perfect! :slightly_smiling:

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Deterministic order for the random awards would be great!

There’s also the odd behavior around Bats and Rats – it seems like you get an extra 50M to a Bats or Rats if it’s completed during a 2x multiball, and 100M during 3x. I could be wrong on this, but I’ve seen Rats completed for over 100 million, and it’s very weird.

When things like that happen, I say “What the Pfutz”!

From the pinball.org-hosted rulesheet:

“The Bats Bonus is subject to the Multi-Multiball Jackpot Multiplier that is in effect when the Bats mode begins. A single Bats Bonus can therefore be as high as 150M.”

Not sure about Rats, but wouldn’t be surprised if values were multiplied.

Unfortunately this is not what happens for Rats – which is normally like 12 or 13 million, becomes 62 or 112 million when in the 2x or 3x multiballs. It would make sense if they were doubled or tripled. I’m curious what the code actually says on this :slight_smile:

Are you sure that you’re not just seeing the effect of >1 Rats bonus being scored in a game, with 1 or more of them being multiplied? 112 million would suggest that’s not what’s going on here, I guess.

Yes, I’m sure :slight_smile:

Thanks for that detailed rundown and the added remarks by others. Embarrassing - I used to own a BSD and have noticed a lot of this myself from time to time. Obviously a bit of a mouthful.

I am only interested in improvements for competition play. The less the better. So I say definitely release locked balls. In competition setting the games should totally reset states from game to game. Also, if that was how-it-is, it would not make players power cycle the games at competitions. Which always scares me - and takes time.

If a game like Twilight Zone (in competition setting) would take time out to cycle the power ball to same position before each game, I would give it thumps up.

I agree, the credit dot should be trustworthy and omit switches that may not change state for several games of normal play. But it has to go on the nice to have list.

Is this a code issue or a hw issue? I know my BSD has hw issues at the moment where bonus will be counted because the game sometimes thinks a ball is in one of the pockets when its not. I’m going to fix this one of these days :frowning: Before this popped up I never had a problem with balls ending prematurely.

Then no one would ever see the stealth “invsa-wolves” in competition :wink:

This game is so broken, I hope noone uses it for any upcoming tournaments :wink:

I say keep it in :wink: