Zaccaria Pinball - Clown (1985) Bugs & Feedback

Please post table specific bugs and feedback for Clown here.

Hmm....how did this happen?

I played about ten games of Clown today and I couldn't get that to happen. Does it happen often for you.

By the way. I really like this table. Getting all four of the clown targets are not easy but when you do and that moving target comes out...awesome.

Also, I love the new mechanical sounds implemented on this table. There's a new sequence before you start the first ball and the pops have a different sound. They really crack. Zolt, are we going to see this on future tables or is it restricted just to Clown?

Yeah I noticed the mechanical sounds too and love it! Would like to see the older tables updated with more of that.

+1 on ball reset mechanical sounds. Really add to immersive quality of the table.

Funny. On my iPad(OS 5.1) the mechanical sounds (Bumpers) are missing.

(Edit: The sounds are not missing. But I didn't recognize the mechanical sound because it's less prominent compared to the other tables. Maybe I should try headphones....)

Found a scoring bug. Spinner does not register any points. iPad Mini Retina w/ ios 7

Edit: Never mind. Pavig is right. Score is applied once spinner stops.

dtown8532 said:

Found a scoring bug. Spinner does not register any points. iPad Mini Retina w/ ios 7

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I think this is not a bug. Many Zac spinners (clown included) have a series of lamps associated with them, while the spinner is spinning the lamps light for each successive score, and when spinning stops the score is paid. Pinball champ works this way too. Correct me if I'm wrong on this.

dtown8532 said:

I played about ten games of Clown today and I couldn't get that to happen. Does it happen often for you.

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No just the once, it happened when the ball was served to the plunger, I don't know how it happened, I just looked down to plunge it and saw where it was.

Pavig said:

+1 on ball reset mechanical sounds. Really add to immersive quality of the table.

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+1

Does anyone else feel the flipper rubbers are way too bouncy? I've never seen a ball bounce so high off a static raised flipper.

Kevlar said:

Does anyone else feel the flipper rubbers are way too bouncy? I've never seen a ball bounce so high off a static raised flipper.

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If they are modeling dual-coil flippers (which is consistent with Zac at the time) then hard hits to the flipper would bounce exceptionally high. Hard hits would move the flipper, hitting the switch between low power and high power coils, thus effectively being "flipped" again. This is a quirk of flipper design at the time. There are effectively 3 bounces, light bounces which are all rubber, soft bounces which invoke the elasticity of the low power "hold" solenoid, and high bounces which move the flipper further and get a boost from the high-power "flip" solenoid.

Pavig said:

If they are modeling dual-coil flippers (which is consistent with Zac at the time) then hard hits to the flipper would bounce exceptionally high. Hard hits would move the flipper, hitting the switch between low power and high power coils, thus effectively being "flipped" again. This is a quirk of flipper design at the time. There are effectively 3 bounces, light bounces which are all rubber, soft bounces which invoke the elasticity of the low power "hold" solenoid, and high bounces which move the flipper further and get a boost from the high-power "flip" solenoid.

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Thanks, I've never heard of that before.

Clown 2.0.
- Upper right lane kicker lane does not catch ball often. Most shots either fall back out or go straight through.
- spinner sound cancels many other play field sounds. Even if this is accurate to the original table, mechanical sounds should still be heard. Pop bumpers are an example, and seem strange making no sound when spinner is active.

New update has ruined the unique mechanical sounds of this table. Why? Now Clown sounds just like all the others.

dtown8532 said:

New update has ruined the unique mechanical sounds of this table. Why? Now Clown sounds just like all the others.

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+1
Instead of implementing this sound on the all the other tables, just removing the sound is really a cheap solution to keep consistency... Kind of feels the same with the upgraded chrome-work on Blackbelt. Why not on the other tables as well?

Playing this table a bit today and there seems to be quite a few issues. As was noted earlier, the magnet at the top of the left lane doesn't seem to work right. There also doesn't seem to be any sound fx associated with it. Doesn't seem likely to me. I'm also not sure about the lane along the right hand side. It doesn't seem to do much either.

I also think there might be an issue with the geometry of the table at the left outlane. It looks to me like the part that leads to the left flipper may be offset a little too far to the right thus causing balls to bounce to the left and down the drain much too often.

The spinner sound still seems borked too...

I'm not sure how the scoring works either but it sure seems strange. Sometimes I will get scores around 12,000 thousand and other times it will suddenly jump up by 300,000 and it doesn't seem like much of anything happens to account for the jump.

I also have noticed on occasion (and this actually applies to other tables as well) that the ball sometimes seems to curve for no apparent reason as it travels down the table. It'll be rolling down towards the flipper and all of a sudden seems to curve a bit and go right down the middle between the flippers.

And just in general as noted in the update thread, scoring and average ball survivability is just way too low. Makes it very frustrating to play as it feels unfair.

How do you get the moving clown target to come out? Is it hitting the four red clown drop targets? Is there a specific order? They keep popping back up for me.

IGoFirstIndy said:

How do you get the moving clown target to come out? Is it hitting the four red clown drop targets? Is there a specific order? They keep popping back up for me.

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In the previous version, knocking down the red targets in any order gets the moving one to come out. I can confirm that is not the case now as well. Lots of little bugs since the update.