The Munsters Rulesheet

Games Wiki Rulesheets
90

Alright, so call me crazy, but I think I might have figured out how to access Secret Mania. This is entirely hypothetical but I think I’m getting close to something.

There are four meters at the bottom of the display, and each one is capable of showing the number “3”. Wild guess here, but I think Secret Mania could be activated by getting to “3” on the Zap Meter while 3x Playfield is active, with 3 Super Jackpots qualified. These three are relatively easy to get. Then you might have to shoot the scoop and press the flippers three times during the Super Jackpot animation to start it?

My reasoning for this is the Secret Mania rounds in Getaway, STTNG, and Who Dunnit, all coded by Dwight Sullivan, are all activated in ways related to the number 3. Unfortunately I don’t have a machine to test this on but it might be worth doing some glass off research into.

91

@mwelsh Figured this out but hasn’t shared yet AFAIK, at the request of @Dwight. Seems like it’s time to me. This game could use a little location love and people trying to activate this could be just the ticket right now.

1 Like
92

I’ve been trying to figure it out for a while now. I’ve figured out that it doesn’t have anything to do with the random lights at the start of the game, that’s just a red herring… I think.

93

What’s the deal with combos? I see the meter but i don’t know what they do for me. I love shooting combos in this game, but it would be cool if there was another super jackpot for combos. Or maybe combos could award enlarging Ray in premium/le Right now mystery is the only way to get enlarging ray, which i don’t love because i want to collect 10 out of 10 supers at 6x

94

Combos do absolutely nothing for you besides awarding some token points. On the Premium / LE though, you can rack up some decent points off of combos on the lower playfield.

Also, welcome back Mitch!

1 Like
95

Dwight’s blog may hold some clues.

1 Like
96

Is this already reflected in the rulesheet? According to the Super Jackpot table in the current version of the rulesheet, the triangular sequence of value increases for stacks still ends at the 4-stack.

97

I just wanted to add to this conversation and really hope the coding can be changed to allow better flexibility and provide players a bit more utility in completing the game esp in a competitive state.

The one thing that really is frustrating about this game is Mystery awards being collected once per game, and additionally, only one player can collect it. For example, In a match play the first player to Mystery on lower PF blocks that collect from anyone else. Has anyone else noticed this?

Additionally, the mystery award, when it gives Spot or Raven, is the most ideal situation a player can get, with Spot, you immediately get to skip the requirement to building SPOT up and can then work on timing it out. With Raven, it’s just self evident that a multiball will pay off better than other modes. Light kitty would be the third best option, as to help build values in current modes.

If any other users can tag the correct coder for this suggestion, I’m going to put it out here:

It would be much more beneficial for all players to have the ability to access mystery. Additionally, if the mystery could relight (Maybe as a dragula award - i.e. 2 dragulas relight mystery, 5 for the next, 9 and so forth) it would add some key shortcuts to help players progress and might alleviate the general consensus that the game is pretty difficult (it is).

Finally, the mystery award seems to have some weird flipper behavior that I can’t explain. Often, when you land on what seems to be the final mystery award (i.e. he opens the book, and the page flips twice), you can push a combination of buttons to move it forward, or backwards, from what should be the final reward it gives you to one more page or back to a previous award. Has this also been explored by any users? i.e. in my case it lands on light herman mb, and I push right button, and it moves one more page to light kitty. or it goes by a light spot, and I push left buttons to move it back. Is this accurate or am I just making it up?

98

I’m fairly certain when in Competition Mode, that Munsters will award Light Kitty as the first award for all players, followed by other deterministic awards. And one player getting one of those fixed sequence of awards does not lock out other players from enjoying the same sequence.

99

Correct. I should have distinguished between competition mode and regular one. So, Light kitty is the first award in competition, but in either setting, only one player can collect it from how I have seen it played. i.e. If Player 1 collects mystery, 2,3,4 can no longer get it - this happened during a recent tournament and may not have affected the final outcome very much but it did frustrate me because I could not collect it after someone else did.

100

Oh, I see. Yes, indeed: that would be unfortunate and not a level playing-field. I could have sworn in a Munsters game at a tournament in late October, that at least two different players were awarded Light Kitty as their first Mystery
I don’t have one of these to check.

101

Haven’t seen it on Munsters, but I think Ghostbusters had something similar for mystery on earlier code. Press both flippers rapidly when the mystery mode choices begin scrolling on the display and it would keep scrolling longer. Sometimes you get better stuff, sometimes you don’t. GB mystery gives 3-5 awards every time, so a lot of awards would go by until you finally see what you got. Fun show. Seems like a Dwight thing. Will try this on the Munsters at league next time.

102

Aaaand I’m wrong. Played it twice on league play last night, 2 players or more collected mystery. Someone skipped the Raven for a plus 3x bonus multiplier, ouch.

103

Still would be great to have a mystery relight function on this game!!

2 Likes
104

Didn’t an early instruction card say that playing Munster Madness would relight it?

105

Can’t speak to the instruction card on the mystery relight but I haven’t seen this happen… yet!?

106

When is the playfield multiplier applied to the super jackpot? If you hit the super jackpot shot during multiball, then while it’s doing the animation, if you hit Kitty to increase the playfield X, does it still get applied to the super jackpot collect? I’m guessing it will apply anytime you increase the playfield X before the moment you can cancel the collect. The other possibility is you’re locked into the current playfield X as soon as you hit the super jackpot shot. Which is it?

107

You are not locked in when you make the shot. I have definitely increased the playfield X while the jackpots are adding up. I think as long as you do it before the final animation it will work.

3 Likes
108

Since Secret Mania is a normal part of the game now, the actual puzzle was this: the random lights near the score, when interpreted as binary, spelled out a flipper code in ASCII. Entering the flipper code revealed a password which you could tell to Dwight and required an oath of secrecy, at which point he would reveal the second clue to unlock the mode. But from there it took me a long time to figure out how to actually start it…!

This was my guess at how to start the mode for a very long time, figuring it had to do with ‘3’ in so many other games. I spent way too much money on location actually setting up 3 combos, 3 SJPs, 3x PF, and 3 zaps just to be disappointed… :slight_smile:

Once it was unlocked, the actual method to start Secret Mania was to complete the standups and start Grandpa a second time before Munster Madness.

3 Likes
109

Edited the rules document to describe chattering teeth, at long last, and would appreciate help on calculating the new super jackpot values now that up to 11 can be stacked.