Table of the Week Club...Week 18: RIPLEY'S BELIEVE IT OR NOT

Well this week's table makes me very happy, as it is Ripley's Believe It Or Not! I know for a lot of people it is a love it or hate it affair, and I used to be in the hate camp. Spending a solid week on it with everyone giving input, be curious to see if more people learn to love it. Have fun getting to Atlantis, and see if you can find all the ultra predictable bounces this particular build provides!

I don't believe you.

Frog Frenzy. Enough said.

Good news is: Time to rack up a good score, within given time.

Bad news: The game-ending bug is still there. Hope it will be fixed soon.

I've never been a huge fan, as it never felt quite the same as the other Lawlor tables on TPA. I'm willing to give it a good workout over the next week though. Here is Keith Elwin giving a nice tutorial on this table:

Pinballwiz45b said:

...Bad news: The game-ending bug is still there...

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I just played this a few weeks ago and before I could launch my last ball, the Initials screen popped up. I got to clear a lot of goals beforehand tho'. So that was fun.

Pinballwiz45b said:

Bad news: The game-ending bug is still there. Hope it will be fixed soon.

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At least someone has finally figured out why it's a game-ending bug. As far as bugs go, it's an obscure one and the fact it's taken 3 years for the community to track down the reason it happens means you can't really blame FS for not spotting it during QA.

I've never really got along with Ripley's. I've got all the goals and that and a semi-decent high score... but it still ain't my favorite table.

Boom. Took me all of 2 games to get all the wizard goals, and yet I can't finish Harley? Anyway, I love this table.

Yay, I like this table too.

I'd advise you to play the 2x Playfield / Multiball stack all day - not only are doubled jackpots and Super Jackpots valuable but if you enter Frog Frenzy while in 2x playfield your scores will go through the roof.

It's a bit tricky to get 2x and Frog Frenzy though. I do make sure I have 2x ready to go by my last continent collect, so that then I only have the one shot to start it, and then I shoot the continent scoop immediately after. Then for extra satisfaction, I collect the super jackpot with the remaining time of 2x scoring.

I hadn't played this table in some time, knowing it would eventually come up for TotW. My first game, I had forgotten all my tricks. Then, like riding a bike, it all came back to me. Didn't even take that long to tune in my aiming. I've yet to post an epic score for the PC version, so that will be my goal. I did run into the game ender (sorta), twice no less. In all my time playing on the PS3, I never experienced it and yet here on the first night of playing, wham.

So ball drains, and the final score and start button appear even though it was my first ball. I pushed 'start' just to see what happened, and it offered me player 2. Okay? I let that ball drain, and then it went back to player one! A few balls later, it did it again, and now added player 3. Let it drain, back to player 1. Very odd, but I did manage to play on. Come tournament time, it will be everyone's option to either start the game over or play on if they can get it to do so.

Just no pretending you had a table crash so you can start over!

53,750,540. First score after reading that this was the table of the week. I realize this score blows compared to many but for me it's the highest by double ever on this table. Even though I have a ps 4 I still play on my iPad mini retina. (Insert sympathy points here)

shutyertrap said:

It's a bit tricky to get 2x and Frog Frenzy though. I do make sure I have 2x ready to go by my last continent collect, so that then I only have the one shot to start it, and then I shoot the continent scoop immediately after. Then for extra satisfaction, I collect the super jackpot with the remaining time of 2x scoring.

I hadn't played this table in some time, knowing it would eventually come up for TotW. My first game, I had forgotten all my tricks. Then, like riding a bike, it all came back to me. Didn't even take that long to tune in my aiming. I've yet to post an epic score for the PC version, so that will be my goal. I did run into the game ender (sorta), twice no less. In all my time playing on the PS3, I never experienced it and yet here on the first night of playing, wham.



Just no pretending you had a table crash so you can start over!

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Holy crap!! My table just crashed 42 times on ball one. How strange?

There is something about this table I really like. The theme maybe, a bit of Indiana Jones, discovering stuff - I just like this table and I like the shots!

Could be a bit harder.... That is my goto answer on almost all tables

I'm beginning to wonder how I ever scored 750M on this table. I mean, the score's there, in my high score table and in the leaderboards, and I have slightly better than vague memories of posting it... but when my next best score is 194M (which I just posted, like 5 minutes ago!), well, color me puzzled.

Maybe it'll be like NGG or MM where high-scoring strategies finally click (okay those last two, vikingerik posted "just go for multi-ball" and I did and it worked).

I used to LOATHE this table. I started playing it quite a bit more over the last 3 months and have grown quite fond of it. I'm not a great pinball player by any means, and this table is one of the more difficult ones for me with a really deep rule set. I very rarely finish this table, but it's very satisfying when that rare occasion happens.

shutyertrap said:

So ball drains, and the final score and start button appear even though it was my first ball. I pushed 'start' just to see what happened, and it offered me player 2. Okay? I let that ball drain, and then it went back to player one! A few balls later, it did it again, and now added player 3. Let it drain, back to player 1. Very odd, but I did manage to play on. Come tournament time, it will be everyone's option to either start the game over or play on if they can get it to do so.

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We've been over this in the Ripley's forum. The bug is that TPA thinks the game has ended while that's not true in the ROM. So when you try to start another game in TPA, it will "press start" on the ROM. The ROM acts like it does in a real machine: it interprets the start button either as adding another player while continuing the current game (if you are still on ball 1 thanks to an EB) or else starting a new game (if you are on ball 2+).

The workaround is to ALWAYS TILT AWAY YOUR BONUS. This works reliably to avoid the false game-over detection and is the only method that does. Do NOT speed up the bonus count by hitting the flippers, this does NOT dodge the bug contrary to some earlier reports. Do not speed up the bonus count because you need the time to make sure the game tilts.

I have no idea how you want to handle this for tournament purposes.

EldarOfSuburbia said:

Maybe it'll be like NGG or MM where high-scoring strategies finally click (okay those last two, vikingerik posted "just go for multi-ball" and I did and it worked).

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"Just go for continent tours."

To push past a billion on Ripley's, those escalating continent tours are the only thing that matters, everything else is peanuts. Ignore Europe, South America, and Asia until you stack a multiball continent with them. Ignore continent letters, Pukeballs, Ripoff, Frog Frenzy, everything on the jewel matrix except 2x scoring. Only cycling the continents and collecting the tours at 2x matter. The tour value passes 100M after an hour or two and dwarfs everything else on the table.

vikingerik said:

We've been over this in the Ripley's forum. The bug is that TPA thinks the game has ended while that's not true in the ROM. So when you try to start another game in TPA, it will "press start" on the ROM. The ROM acts like it does in a real machine: it interprets the start button either as adding another player while continuing the current game (if you are still on ball 1 thanks to an EB) or else starting a new game (if you are on ball 2+).

The workaround is to ALWAYS TILT AWAY YOUR BONUS. This works reliably to avoid the false game-over detection and is the only method that does. Do NOT speed up the bonus count by hitting the flippers, this does NOT dodge the bug contrary to some earlier reports. Do not speed up the bonus count because you need the time to make sure the game tilts.

I have no idea how you want to handle this for tournament purposes.




"Just go for continent tours."

To push past a billion on Ripley's, those escalating continent tours are the only thing that matters, everything else is peanuts. Ignore Europe, South America, and Asia until you stack a multiball continent with them. Ignore continent letters, Pukeballs, Ripoff, Frog Frenzy, everything on the jewel matrix except 2x scoring. Only cycling the continents and collecting the tours at 2x matter. The tour value passes 100M after an hour or two and dwarfs everything else on the table.

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It really is odd, because I didn't have this happen on the PS3 at all and always wondered what everyone was talking about with the 'game ending' bug. As for the tourney, like I said, handle it how you'd like. You can tilt it, you can add the extra player, you can just start over. Myself, if I can add the extra player and continue playing, that's what I'll be doing. I've only been having it happen on ball 1 when extra balls have already been collected, so I'll see how that plays out when I practice not using the EBs.

I agree on never collecting Europe unless you've stacked it, and Asia I'll give one go at the spinners as it ejects, but then yeah, I stack it and hope for the best. But South America? That one is so easy! It's a backhand off the right flipper to the right ramp, which puts the ball into the lock where it shoots out and hits the head for 2 shots, every damn time! Not only that, but you can feed it back to the right flipper within seconds with no danger of draining the ball. That and Australia are my go to for easy points.

I don't agree that South America is no danger. The head doesn't always catch the ball, maybe 80-90%. And it feeds the upper bumpers, which don't yield a guaranteed safe return. You get an upper flipper shot but there's no railroadable catch from that feed.

I also don't agree on one shot at the Asia spinner. The risk is hitting the super jackpot lane instead which feeds the most dangerous spot on the table, the lower bumpers. Just take the guaranteed catch and go stack Asia with a multiball continent.

Seriously, these little temptations were what was holding me back on Ripley's. When I fixed these leaks in my game, that's when I went from a billion or two in a game to 20B and the top of the leaderboard.

I should have read the thread more carefully! My game crashed on the bonus, and although I got to finish the game, my new high score -- double my previous high , didn't record! I did finally get the Atlantis wizard goal, though.

vikingerik said:

I don't agree that South America is no danger. The head doesn't always catch the ball, maybe 80-90%. And it feeds the upper bumpers, which don't yield a guaranteed safe return. You get an upper flipper shot but there's no railroadable catch from that feed.

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I really can't argue against you with your 20B score versus my 2B score, but I do find this continent can totally be put on a railroad. I shall explain...

1. From the continent scoop, the ball is ejected to the upper flipper. Hold the flipper out and let the ball bounce off it. It 90% of the time angle to the left slingshot, graze it, and if you have your left flipper raised, it will bounce off that and over the the right.

1.a. The other 10% of the time it falls short of the slingshot and can just be caught with the left flipper. Do a post pass to the right or shoot the right ramp from there.

2. Backhand the ball from the right flipper to the right ramp. The ball will now go into the ball lock area, where it will immediately be ejected straight to the head. Again, this works 90% of the time, odds I will take. Should be noted, this only works if ball locks have not been activated.

3. The ball will shoot a little ways up into the head, which scores you one hit, and then falls back and bounces on the sensor once more for your second hit.

4. Here's where it is on rails. The ball will fall and bounce off the top of the right sling, over to the left sling for a full hit, back over to the right just over the sling to the rubber on the right, and from there it will bounce into the scoop on the left. Let it eject, dead flipper pass to the right, and now you are back to where you started.

5. Repeat 2 more times, earn a letter, it will raise your continent bonus for South America by 2.5 million each go around.

So not once does it even come close to the pop bumpers! The most dangerous choice I can make during that entire time is using the left flipper to shoot the right ramp, as I'm only 65-70% from there, as opposed to 95% from the right flipper. But that choice is only if step 1 leads to 1a, and that is rare.

As for Asia, I'm less inclined to hit the super jackpot ramp, which would be shooting high, as opposed to shooting low and going into a tombstone.