Zaccaria Pinball - update v1.9

[LeBaron]

I've just played Stargod again and the two upper kickers still don't work *sigh*

 

[Jamman39]

I've just played Stargod again and the two upper kickers still don't work *sigh*

Same, pretty disappointing. It's starting to seem like the Zacc. License was wasted on ASK. They don't have the chops to do these tables any justice. People should look at these tables the next time they feel like giving Farsight grief over a PA bug

 

[night]

Dissapointed to see Stargod is still unplayable due to not functioning slingshots.. how can this be? Do we need to wait another month for the fix, this problem was clear 5 mintutes after it's release.

Ok, the good news, Magic Castle, looks are great as always, but I'll post some graphic settings tomorrow to spice it up a bit, default is a bit too dark with to bright lights imo.
Plays good so far, I had two hanging balls, one on the bumpers that hardly would come off, even after some serious nudging, the other somewhere in the lower left corner. Another interesting obscure Zaccaria table.
But no fix for Startgod is a bit of a bummer.

 

[fenderbendr]

If you look in the change-log, it says that two slingshots were added to Star God. Not sure why they still aren't working.

 

[Zevious Zoquis]

I really like the new table. I've had a couple of hung up balls too. Seems to happen on several tables.

Personally, I'd be happy to forego a new table for a month or two and have ASK spend the time resolving outstanding issues on the current tables and do some more tuning on the physics. I like the general feel of the game, but there are issues with different aspects of the engine that could use some work. Some tables have certain elements or areas that are almost impossible to access via anything other than a one in a hundred lucky shot. Its also nearly impossible to aim a shot from a trapped ball up the middle of the table.

 

[norbert26]

the new table is great but star god is a total disgrace. Did anybody even bother to test the "fix". Where were the new sling shots added ? I don't see any new sling shots its still unplayable . It looks like that table is dead for another month.

 

[Pavig]

Time machine: ABCDEF and 1234567 lights not working properly. Targets all seem to function now though.

 

[Pavig]

Farfalla: scoring orange bonus (at top of ladder) lights 1,2,3,special flowers for yellow. (Also 1,2,3,special lights for red,blue,yellow not reset between balls... But I am researching to see if this is correct behavior.)

 

[Crawley]

The voice FX don't seem right on Magic Castle. I played the table recently at the Pinball Expo and the voice cues seemed to be actual voice recordings. This is using the mechanical voice that's on other tables. Its kinda too bad since I thought the voice recordings added a bit extra flavor to the table.

 

[Pavig]

Shooting the rapids: ball gets stuck behind red special target. Orange special lights when ABC (bonus multiplier) targets hit — new behavior but not sure if is an error as I don't have rule card for machine. (Anyone got the rules for this table? I haven't been able to find them.)

 

[Pavig]

Methinks ASK could do with a few community play testers.

 

[Pavig]

The voice FX don't seem right on Magic Castle. I played the table recently at the Pinball Expo and the voice cues seemed to be actual voice recordings. This is using the mechanical voice that's on other tables. Its kinda too bad since I thought the voice recordings added a bit extra flavor to the table.

If you played the Italian language machine the voice recordings were of a far superior quality to the English language machine. Also, with old pinball machines much of the sound character is a product of the tuned analog amplifiers (which filter off frequencies above 8khz, the frequency beyond which 8 bit samples have a lot of digital noise). The wood speaker housing and down facing speakers also help with this.

Zac machines often had a headphone socket (another eccentric element) and could be put into a sound test operator mode, which cycles through all the voice and sound effects. Tapping this jack is most likely how the samples for these machines are recorded. (Either that or close miked.)

The most accurate way to reproduce the sound of the original machines would be to take an impulse audio signal (short square wave) through the audio circuit of a real pinball machine, and mike it at head height. The sounds could then be sent through an impulse reverb, which would simulate the frequency falloff, smearing and resonances of the electronics and environment. (A free audio processor of this kind is available if you google SIR reverb.)

Unless the sounds are batch processed through such a system, they're going to sound artificial, because frankly they are - they're hybrid analog / 8 bit digital sounds that only really come to life in a real (or simulated real) environment. We're just not used to hearing them clean.

 

[night]

Made some graphic adjustments.

 

[Zsolt]

Thanks for your quick feedback!

We don't know yet what problem could cause these bugs after approval, because all of them have been fixed and aren't occurred at all here. We are going to investigate it, fix it and try to send a new update as soon as possible.

 

[Pavig]

Yeah, very cool! But I doubt we will see it in the Zaccaria app.

Re magic castle backglass animation.
It wouldn't surprise me if ASK did this. They did the animated back glass on devil riders, and graphics are definitely a strength. The difficulty would be in handling camera angles as the ball spends little time in the upper play field. Also building graphic assets for that area would be tricky as they don't stay still for long.

 

[night]

Re magic castle backglass animation.
It wouldn't surprise me if ASK did this. They did the animated back glass on devil riders, and graphics are definitely a strength. The difficulty would be in handling camera angles as the ball spends little time in the upper play field. Also building graphic assets for that area would be tricky as they don't stay still for long.

Yes, camera movement will be a problem I guess, the ball is still in action while the animation takes place. Well, we can't have it all.

 

[tripleplonq]

I have found another bug: In some camera views, for example camera 3, when launching a ball, the camera points to the lower playfield while the ball is in the upper playfield.
[strike]This happens only in animated camera views and it appears that the transition from launcher view to playfield view. [/strike]
It appears as if the camera goes from launcher to lower view and then transitions to the ball position and on some tables the ball is out of view for a short moment, especially in landscape mode.

I first noticed this in v.1.7. (iOS5.1, iPad 1)
It's very annoying because the camera view usually follows the ball.

 

[night]

Did anyone ever loose a ball in the left outlane on Magic Castle? So far it never drains a ball..

 

[tripleplonq]

Did anyone ever loose a ball in the left outlane on Magic Castle? So far it never drains a ball..

I had 4 drains so far. About one in ten games, I think.

 

[LeBaron]

I agree with you. It's now December and I'm not buying Magic Castle when they still haven't fixed Star God. Voting with my wallet.