Here’s a live demo that Ron Richards and I recorded for TNA, integration with the Scorbit app, and the ScorbitVision scoreboard:
Here’s This Week in Pinball’s interview with Ron Richards, Jay Adelson Brian O’Neill about Scorbit:
Your score pages rendering on a phone in portrait orientation could use some work. Looks fine in landscape.
@ectobar, we recommend using the app for that, but yes, we aren’t rendering ScorbitVision for phones yet. Right now they are intended for big screen displays.
App release version 1.0.18
This release includes QR code support to speed up claiming of player slots and navigating to a machine. If the user doesn’t have the app, the QR will take them to the appropriate iOS or Android app download pages.
Release notes:
-Now supports generating QR codes for your machines
-Generated QR can be printed/shared and placed on the machine
-QR code scanning available from anywhere in the app
-Scanning a machine QR takes you right to that machine and claims a player slot for a one player game
-You can now display a machine’s QR on your phone for someone else to scan
-Minor bug fixes
Screenshots:
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Hey @scorbit! We tried it out at our (closed because of lockdown) location with a GnR standard. Pretty interesting far and definitely impressive to watch scores update in real time on my phone when my opponent was playing (“I can watch myself lose in real time!”).
Stray thoughts and observations:
- Congrats on the partnership with JJP! This is definitely a very innovative system and well needed in pinball. Really looking forward to game-specific achievements (e.g. play all songs in GnR) if that’s possible at all.
- I accidentally “added” a machine and there is no option to remove it in the Application
- I was a bit confused by the “My Machines” section at first - I couldn’t tell if this meant “favoriting” machines or adding them to the database. Given that I’m using it from the perspective of location pinball, I thought that this page would be “My machines” in the sense that I don’t have to look up the machine every time. If every player is supposed to have the app, that means the majority of users won’t be regularly adding machines - perhaps down the road it would be a good idea to bury the adding machines menu to avoid confusion.
- I saw your QR codes. I’m thinking these could go on on coin card on the machine under the glass?
- Can you change the order of players or modify ongoing matches? As you know, tournaments especially go haywire in ways I would have never predicted, so I think the ability to change order is needed down the road.
- It’s really interesting to see your friends scores remotely. I can see this being very fun for league players and people in the community.
- Could this be used for score entry for asynchronous tournaments? E.g. a fully “socially distanced” tournament where people played 10 machines for qualifying on their own over the course of a week or two.
Let me know if you want any more thoughts from a user. Contact me whenever.
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Jordan,
Fantastic feedback. Let me address each point as best I can, but we’re definitely going to take this all in.
- Congrats on the partnership with JJP! This is definitely a very innovative system and well needed in pinball. Really looking forward to game-specific achievements (e.g. play all songs in GnR) if that’s possible at all.
Indeed, the achievements engine we believe will be very powerful. A ton of work to do but we’re getting there.
- I accidentally “added” a machine and there is no option to remove it in the Application
There is a website, https://tools.scorbit.io. Check it out, it allows you to delete a machine from your list and some other options. We’ll be adding additional features here soon.
- I was a bit confused by the “My Machines” section at first - I couldn’t tell if this meant “favoriting” machines or adding them to the database. Given that I’m using it from the perspective of location pinball, I thought that this page would be “My machines” in the sense that I don’t have to look up the machine every time. If every player is supposed to have the app, that means the majority of users won’t be regularly adding machines - perhaps down the road it would be a good idea to bury the adding machines menu to avoid confusion.
I see what you mean. I think you might want to bookmark machines and visit them… The left-most tab is under construction, and that will have that set of features. You’ll notice the My Venues option also includes machines, so perhaps we EOL the My Machines as we roll out the browse tab.
- I saw your QR codes. I’m thinking these could go on on coin card on the machine under the glass?
Correct. The idea behind a QR code is you can go to any machine you control on your My Machines list (and soon via the tools site) and generate a machine-specific QR. Ideally, you could print that out and place on the score card or on the lockdown bar. If you scan that code from outside the app, it will take you inside the app directly to the game session and auto-claim the player slot. If you scan it from inside the app, same thing. If you scan it and you don’t have the app, it takes you to the app store to download it.
- Can you change the order of players or modify ongoing matches? As you know, tournaments especially go haywire in ways I would have never predicted, so I think the ability to change order is needed down the road.
You can long-press a player slot and it de-selects it. We’re working on ways to create a more tournament-oriented interface (probably web with some enhancements to the app as well) that lets an organizer select/change players in slots as well.
- It’s really interesting to see your friends scores remotely. I can see this being very fun for league players and people in the community.
We are capturing the game updates in real-time, and we keep them (including modes for games that support it) to generate a “game histogram.” This will be an interesting sharable object and probably useful for good players to analyze their game.
- Could this be used for score entry for asynchronous tournaments? E.g. a fully “socially distanced” tournament where people played 10 machines for qualifying on their own over the course of a week or two.
100%. We’re working on that interface now.
Thank you for the thoughtful input! Keep it coming.
3 Likes
App Release Version 1.0.19:
This release addresses some graphic issues, machine editing, and fixes some bugs.
Release notes:
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Fixed fonts in titles and score areas: We changed the font uses in certain titles and score areas to not be messy when using parenthesis (like JJP (LE) versions of games). We also mono-spaced the live scores so they stack better on top of each other.
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WiFi improvements and bug fixes: The WiFi establishment would sometimes fail several times depending on the speed of the DHCP server, so we increased the timeout and solved this problem. We also corrected some other pairing-related edge cases.
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Fixed some graphic bugs: Mostly during the install process.
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Implemented Free Play toggle in machine edit: Added the Free Play toggle and cost/currency pickers for game price. This information will be used later for both payments and browsing machine information. We also defaulted a new machine to Free Play off and credit to $1.00.
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Added default ball count: By request from a manufacturer, defaulted the ball count to 3 for new machines.
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Fixed save button bug, could create multiple venues: When creating a new venue, if you hit the save button, it would show no response so you may be inclined to hit it more than once. This would create multiple venues, so we now only take a single press and display a waiting indicator if necessary.
2 Likes
Ho, ho, ho, it’s that season again.
A few have asked for gift cards, so we put them up. I’ve never sold a gift card in my life, so I’m new to gift card etiquette. Let’s review.
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If you sent this gift card to someone who didn’t have a pinball machine, doesn’t that make you a jerk? I mean, probably, you should buy them a pinball machine instead. Or give to their “buy me a JJP” GoFundMe campaign.
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Now, let’s say you already bought your friend a pinball machine, and it hasn’t arrived yet. Maybe it’s a GnR. In that case, first of all, you’re quite the hero gifting a pinball machine. Please add me to your gift list. I have no more words on this one, you’re a special person. You’ve done enough. Don’t buy a gift card.
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Now, let’s say your buddy has one of those already, and five other machines, and he or she wanted them all on the same leaderboarding system and so forth, you could send them one of these and it’s much more politically correct. (JJP owners don’t need this for a JJP machine, because it’s 100% free for those, so it would be super weird and strange thing to do.)
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I guess this also makes a nice tournament gift, though if you had to choose a prize between giving this and toilet paper right now, you might choose the toilet paper, because we have plenty of gift cards, and last I checked there isn’t as much toilet paper. Just saying.
1 Like
I put the QR codes on the apron about postage stamp sized and it really makes a big positive difference to the scorbit experience very easy to get a game up on the app and start playing
Also got first scoreboard up and running in my arcade (need to tidy the wires!). I’m using opensource digital signage and with any android, webOS or Tizen TV I can bring the up the scores - I run events at my house and it means I can bring up the scores and add matchplay/DTM screens, video from the cameras and streaming rigs without a lot of effort.
I put the QR codes on the apron about postage stamp sized and it really makes a big positive difference to the scorbit experience very easy to get a game up on the app and start playing
We realized that the share feature on the QR codes outputted enormous QR codes, and forces you to resize when printing…sorry about that. Our next bug fix will output 40mm x 40mm or so. You can also save to camera roll so you can print from other apps.
Also got first scoreboard up and running in my arcade (need to tidy the wires!). I’m using opensource digital signage and with any android, webOS or Tizen TV I can bring the up the scores - I run events at my house and it means I can bring up the scores and add matchplay/DTM screens, video from the cameras and streaming rigs without a lot of effort.
FYI, Neil is using the multi-up Scoreboard feature on ScorbitVision. Our scoreboards are designed to fill a screen and aren’t responsive to make those narrow columns work as well, but we’ll add some formats for this configuration (since it’s on a big screen but sharing an image).
Also we’ll be adding more leaderboard options soon. Stay tuned!
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yeah there is actually two screens its a Dell that allows you to split the screen PBP/PIP so the res is 1920x2160 they round robin between screens.
You can also use the ScorbitVision slideshow feature to change views from any number of Scoreboards or Leaderboards.
At Expo last year we had it rigged to “lock on” to a Scoreboard when it was an active game. If we get more people asking for it, maybe we can do something like that in the tool set.
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It’s a new year and to celebrate 2021, we’re excited to announce the release of a new version of the Scorbit mobile app! We’ve been hard at work and have got some great updates to make your pinball life even better. Here are the release notes and details of everything you can expect from Scorbit V1.0.20– Make sure to update your app on the Apple Appstore or the Google Play Store.
Overview
The new app debuts a new live game session screen, added game modes to the visual interface for live games, the addition of game specific leaderboards, a number of new enhancements, performance improvements, and dozens of bug fixes. Nothing exposes bugs and new feature ideas like having 1000 screaming Jersey Jack Guns N’ Roses fans all join your platform at the same time. Before you ask, no, we can’t force your game to play November Rain repeatedly forever, but trust us, we wish we could.
Updated Play Screens and Modes
The game session information has been redesigned to make it easier to see who is playing, what ball you or your competitors are playing, and new to the app, what game mode is happening live in the game. For new games like Guns N’ Roses (JJP) and Total Nuclear Annihilation (Spooky), the modes work out of the box, like magic. These are the same modes visible within ScorbitVision scoreboards, and works with supported games. We’ll be adding modes for all games over time, so be on the lookout for future releases.
Leaderboards While You Wait
We all need a lot of motivation to play better. To help with that, now when waiting for a game to start, Scorbit will display a few leaderboards to help set the bar before you coin drop. In these leaderboards you can see the top scores of this machine, the global top scores for that game, and the top scores of the previous month for this machine. We will eventually be adding other custom leaderboards to this list created with ScorbitVision, so stay tuned.
New Player Preferences for Games
Now when accessing your player preferences in the Settings, you have two new options. Auto-claim will add you to a player slot if there is only one available, automatically, when you navigate the app to a machine. Auto-submit will save your scores to the machine’s leaderboard after a game is over (without asking you first). While some may be more discerning about which scores get saved, we find it’s a good motivator to know that everyone can see all of your scores, even if it was a 300 on Wonka while on the main stage at Pinburgh in 2019. Not that this actually happened to any of us.
QR Codes Are So Hot
Listen, we had to be forced kicking and screaming into QR codes, we admit it. We didn’t believe they were useful. After hearing some compelling arguments from some of our users, well, call us converted. This stuff actually turned out to be pretty amazing! Just tap the QR Display icon from your game session or edit machine screen and you can generate a custom QR Code that can drive people directly to your machine. Save it to your phone, share it, and best of all, print it and put it on your game someplace. Now, anyone can use the QR Camera icon in the app, scan the code and boom it pops the machine right up and claims a player slot (if there is only one available).
This makes using Scorbit way easier, and most of all, fun, because your friends are more likely to claim player slots and get in on the action. So if you’re like our friend Chris in Detroit who has a 100” television in his basement showing ScorbitVision live scores of Baby Pac Man (don’t judge him), your friends‘ names appear on the screen, and everyone loves to see their name in lights. If your friends don’t have the app, don’t worry… The QR code will take them right to the app page to download it, super fast.
Performance Improvements
The Scorbit team has been building Internet stuff for thirty years. Well Jay has, because he’s really old. That being said, we did not anticipate all you streamers getting all hackery on us so fast. Just so our friends in Monterey can keep the MFP pinball flowing at high speed, we’re constantly working at improving our performance. There are many more improvements coming, but we think you’ll find the app a bit more snappy.
Anyway, lots more to come, we’re just getting started! Here’s to a great 2021 and pinball!
-Jay, Ron & Brian
V1.0.20 Release Notes
- New and exciting game play screens
- Modes now displayed in real-time (on supported games like Guns N’Roses (JJP), Total Nuclear Annihilation)
- Added Top Scores, Global Top Scores and Monthly Top Scores while you wait for game to start
- Added Settings > Player Preferences
- Added Player Preference to auto-claim a player slot (when only one player is available) on a machine when it starts
- Added Player Preference to auto-submit scores you’ve claimed when app is visible
- Improved QR code for selecting game and player slot
- Sharing QR codes now available from all machine screens
- Scanning QR codes now available from anywhere
- New Settings format in Account Menu
- Dozens of minor bug fixes and graphic improvements
- Performance improvements that make Scorbit awesome like a well balanced tilt bob
Don’t have the Scorbit app yet? Download it today from the Apple Appstore or the Google Play Store.
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App Release Version 1.0.21:
Release notes:
- My Top Scores - All pinball machines now display your personal top scores on that machine as well as globally for that title.
- Manual Score Submission - Added leaderboards to all pinball machines, including machines without Scorbitrons installed.
- Many bug fixes.
The My Top Scores will display on the main screen when you navigate to any pinball machine. If you haven’t posted scores for that machine yet, it will still show you your top score ever (logged on Scorbit) for that title. Note: this doesn’t require Scorbit connectivity, it includes manual score submission.
We’ve improved the manual score submission screen for those games without a Scorbitron installed. Now, all the leaderboards are visible prior to submission. Like a Scorbitron-enabled game, you can page back and forth across these leaderboards. If you start typing a score, it will jump to the photo upload screen to speed up score submission.
Finally, we improved some of the memory usage and navigational elements, QR code sizing and printing, player slot auto-claim features, and general graphic fixes. We also added support for more Jersey Jack Pinball, Spooky Pinball and American Pinball integrations.
2 Likes
The app feels a lot faster Jay when waiting for the list of games ! Fantastic!
Thanks man. You’ll see more significant performance improvements soon.
1 Like
Scorbit Is Now Available on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory from Jersey Jack Pinball!
Jersey Jack Pinball and Scorbit are at it again! After the amazing response to Scorbit being available on Guns N’ Roses from Jersey Jack Pinball, we got hard to work to bring Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory to the Scorbit platform. With the release of the latest code update for Wonka, version 1.34 brings WiFi capability to the machines and with that, owners of machines can connect to Scorbit!
Connecting to Scorbit is easy! With new version 1.0.22 of the app, once a game is connected to WiFi, all you need to do is scan the QR code from the Scorbit menu. You can scan it with the app, from outside the app, whatever you like. If you don’t have the app, it will install it. If you do, you can scan it anywhere. If you’re an advanced user, you can use the traditional method and choose Activate Scorbit from the Edit Machine options.
If you like a little more detail, you can follow the few steps needed to connect as outlined in the Scorbit Knowledge Base.
Once you’ve got your machine connected to Scorbit, it’s now connected to the universe of pinball on the Scorbit platform. That means you can submit your scores to keep track of your personal bests and brag to your followers. You can challenge your friends to beat your scores and best of all, you can use ScorbitVision to create leaderboards of your game to use on livestreams or on displays in your game room. Just go to sv.scorbit.io and log in with your Scorbit username and password to get started!
Note that along with the connection, there are settings to add or remove the QR graphic that appears during attract or prior to launching the first ball on the game. This QR graphic is used to give you Scorbit status, automatically connect the app to the game session where you can claim your player slots, watch it live, or submit your scores to the leaderboard. You can also print out the QR code for placing on scorecards or your lockdown bar, and remove the graphic from the screen using the game menu options. We have found that for multi-players, it really helps get people connected and claiming scores.
Now that Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is online with Scorbit, you can see the Global Leaderboard for all scores on Wonka on Scorbit. Check out the Wonka CE/LE Leaderboard and the Wonka Regular Edition Leaderboard.
Make sure you install the Scorbit app to make this all happen! Download it today from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.
We can’t wait to see all your scores come up on Scorbit as you play Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory/Thanks to our pals at Jersey Jack Pinball for making the connected pinball magic happen again!
1 Like
Quick Scorbit app update: v1.0.24 Release
In addition to many bug fixes, two important feature changes:
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Any leaderboard created with ScorbitVision will now appear in the Waiting to Start game session screens (and leaderboard viewing screens) if they are associated with the machine you’re viewing, public, and created/owned by the person who owns the machine. For example, you could create a leaderboard for a machine specific to your local pinball league for a machine, make it public, and now anyone playing will see that leaderboard in the carousel while waiting to play.
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If you open the app or return to the home screen from within a venue and have location set up properly, the app will launch with the machine list for that venue. This is particularly useful for home users which are always in the same venue (their house) and want to skip the venue list. There will be more controls over the venues and venue listing in the next release.
v1.0.24 Release Notes:
-Various performance improvements and bug fixes
-Corrects Android WiFi pairing bug for some OS/hardware combinations
-App will now launch inside a venue if you’re standing in it by default.
-Tapping machine title leaderboard icons now takes you to larger leaderboard view.
-Added public custom leaderboards from ScorbitVision to game screens (useful for pinball leagues!)
-Fixed a pairing bug that caused install to get stuck
-Fixed searching for venues with apostrophes
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Hey folks. JJP just updated GnR (1.20) and Wonka (1.36).
These updates correct some communication issues with Scorbit, and should eliminate any freezing or other odd behaviors since the previous updates.
Please, if you get a chance, update to the latest code! Over WiFi it took me all of 3 seconds to update Wonka.
1 Like