Date: 7th September, 2013
The biggest hurdle any potential home pinball machine builder used to have to overcome was not finding a cool theme. Nor was it designing a killer playfield layout with interesting shots and ingenious toys. No, the hardest part - and this continues to affect commercial pinball manufacturers today too - used to be creating a control system to make everything work.
Getting flippers to flip and bumpers to bump may seem easy enough, but when you start adding complex lighting effects, display animations and deep rules, suddenly the task becomes far more complex. Complex enough to defeat many budding game builders.
But all that changed in 2009 when Pinball Controllers started selling the P-ROC board.
The P-ROC board
The P-ROC gave game developers a ready-made control system which provided the bridge between custom game designs and the sequence of instructions to drive them. Game builders could hook up their lamps, solenoids, displays and switches, sit down at a computer and tell the P-ROC what to do with them.
But if that wasn't exciting enough, the P-ROC could also take control of existing machines from Williams, Bally and Stern thanks to the multitude of connectors around the outer edges of the board.
Suddenly, everything other than the actual playfield layout was fair game for changing, because - let's face it - most games have room for improvement in one area or another.
So if you want better display animations, deeper rules, more interesting objectives, more balanced scoring, less-annoying quotes, funkier music, or even stereo sound, it was all possible by installing a P-ROC.
It still wasn't exactly a trivial task of course, since even rules or effects you wanted to keep from the original code had to be re-written for the P-ROC, and that's in addition to all the new features. But far more time could be spent developing the fun parts of the game, instead of working out how to design the basic framework of the underlying control system.
The pinball world really sat up and paid attention when Barry Driessen and Koen Heltzel revealed the work they had been doing to upgrade The Machine - Bride of Pinbot.
The most obvious feature was the addition of a dot matrix display to replace the original's alphanumeric variety, but below the surface they had completely rewritten the rules to make it less of a one-shot game, while adding amazing 3D animations to the display, numerous gameplay modes, and a brand new stereo soundtrack.
Several months later Dennis van de Pass began work on improving his Demolition Man, rectifying the deficiencies of the original rules by adding multiple modes, making the multiballs more varied, and adding a two-stage wizard mode.
Since then, many other game designers have either taken existing machines and re-themed them or built their own machines from scratch, using a P-ROC board to drive them.
To celebrate their achievements, this year's Pinball Expo will feature a special display of P-ROC-based games.
Gerry Stellenberg of Multimorphic (owner of Pinball Controllers) has arranged for eight custom games and their designers to come to Expo and display their machines on the Multimorphic stand alongside the company's P3 pinball platform which is also based on P-ROC technology.
According to Gerry, bringing these machines together is as much a look into pinball's future as its past. He told us, "In addition to showcasing the amazing efforts by each designer, the goal of this display is to show people that the future of pinball is very bright. Older games are being given new life, and newer games are taking the industry to the next level."
We thought it would be fun to give you a preview of this display, so we asked the designers of all eight machines to tell us a little about the projects they will be showing at Pinball Expo. As you read through this article, we'll highlight each of them in turn.
Despite having created the technology which has made these amazing games possible, Multimorphic have not been resting on their laurels and have developed a new version of the P-ROC board targeting designers of fully custom games. This new board is called the P3-ROC.
The philosophy behind P3-ROC is to integrate many of the most common needs of a custom game designer which were previously provided by add-on boards, and build them into the base P3-ROC board.
The P3-ROC board
The P3-ROC is a separate product to the the original P-ROC and is aimed squarely at custom game builders rather than those modifying existing machines, for whom the P-ROC continues to be the board of choice.
So, as we turn the spotlight on the first of our P-ROC-based projects, let's take a look at the capabilities of the new P3-ROC and see how it differs from the original P-ROC.
Because the P-ROC was created to interface with existing machines, it supported the same electronics architecture used by Bally/Williams and Stern.
Both companies used a switch matrix of either 8x8 or 16x8 to sense when switches in the game were activated, and the switch matrix connectors plugged directly onto the P-ROC to provide support for that system.
The switch matrix runs the same wire to every playfield or cabinet switch on the same column or the same row. This, along with a similar system to drive the lamps, accounts for much of the rats nest of wiring found under the playfield.
The P3-ROC eschews the switch matrix and instead uses a distributed modular system of small switch boards, each of which connects directly with up to 16 switches.
These SW-16 switch boards can be located under the playfield near their associated switches to minimise wiring, and daisy-chained to other SW-16 boards using a 2-pin RS-485 serial connector. |
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Created by:
Barry Driessen & Koen Heltzel
Assisted by:
Jules Reivers, Roel Gommans, Scott Danesi, Pinball Dreams/Henrik Maurer & Joep Peters
Project started:
April 2010 |
Project completion:
Estimated Q1 2014 |
Why theme was chosen:
We had the machine and were a bit bored playing it. Adding the DMD and giving it '90s style rules was an exciting idea to us.
Game's most notable features:
DMD replaces the alphanumeric display, '90s style rules with 11 modes & 6 multiballs (including 2 wizard modes), and high quality stereo music, effects and voice calls.
How many will be built:
Since it will be an upgrade kit instead of a full machine we should be able to meet whatever the demand for the foreseeable future. |
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Because the switches connect directly to the SW-16 board without using a switch matrix, there is no need for external diodes on each switch and the failure of one switch doesn't impact on any of the others.
The SW-16 switch board
In addition, the number of switches used in the game is not limited by the size of a matrix.
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Created by:
Eric Priepke
Project started:
May 2012 |
Project completion:
December 2012 |
Why theme was chosen:
CC is the one game almost all pinheads agree wasn't really finished. Having owned one since it came out, the incompleteness was a big downer. When the P-ROC became a thing, I thought for sure someone else would pick it up and finish it. Two years later no one had, so I decided to get off the fence and do something about it.
Game's most notable features:
Cactus Canyon Continued has all sorts of new gameplay, sounds and dots that aren't in the original. Favorite among them are probably the Cowboys Vs Aliens Multiball and Drunk Multiball which reverses the flippers.
How many will be built:
The code for my project is free online at the wiki soldmy.org/pin/ccc so anybody with a Cactus Canyon and some tech smarts can set it up for themselves. |
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Adding additional switches is simply a matter of adding another SW-16 board at any point in the chain. In this way, the system can support a virtually unlimited number of switches.
The SW-16 board also makes it simple to use opto switches rather than mechanical ones.
Rather than needing a separate opto driver board to convert the opto receiver's signal to a switch closure, the SW-16's switch inputs can also be connected directly to an opto receiver without any extra electronics.
It even handles Eddy sensors, hall effect switches in the same seamless way.
Using the 2-wire serial bus to daisy-chain the boards together necessitates an RS-485 master controller at the start of the chain.
The P3-ROC incorporates this functionality, with two SW-16 master controllers built into the board. The second controller can be used to run an additional chain of boards, such as those in the cabinet or the backbox. |
The two master controllers for the switch boards are joined on the P3-ROC by another two for lamps, LEDs and solenoids which operate on a separate bus.
As with the switch boards, Multimorphic's lamp and solenoid control continues the modular approach, with the ability to add any number of boards to drive a flexible and near-infinite number of devices.
When it comes to control of the machine's lamps or LEDs, the choice of control system has been left up to the game designer.
While the P-ROC provided support for the lamp matrix used by Williams/Bally and Stern's hardware designs, the use of a lamp matrix with the P3-ROC is just one of two options available.
The Power Driver Matrix 8x8 board can be used to control up to 64 lamps or LEDs in the form of a matrix.
It too uses an RS-485 2-wire connection back to the P3-ROC board, allowing multiple boards to be chained together to create a matrix as large as needed.
But with LEDs increasingly taking over from incandescent lamps, and the use of multi-colour LEDs becoming mainstream, a dedicated solution for these is also available with the PD-LED board. |
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Created by:
Matthew Bonnema
Assisted by:
Mike Jupp, Jeff Steeve, Michelle Bonnema, Stephanie Bonnema, Phil Page
Project started:
January 2013 |
Project completion:
End of 2013 |
Why theme was chosen:
I chose zombies because of the large amount of media available to use for inspiration, and who doesn't like zombies?
Game's most notable features:
4 pop bumpers, 7 targets, 2 spinners, 3 ramps, 3 different GI colors to represent modes, 1 diverter to direct the ball to a hidden entrance, fiber optic star field, and more features still to be determined.
How many will be built:
One. |
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It can control up to 84 individual LEDs, or if multi-colour devices are used, up to 24 RGB LEDs, or any mixture of the two. All LEDs can be turned on and off instantly, or faded from one brightness setting to another.
The PD-LED controller board for LEDs
Again, multiple boards can be connected in series to the P3-ROC's in-built controller and placed in the most convenient point for the connected LEDs.
The same is true when it come to controlling the game's solenoids, motors and flasher lamps.
The Multimorphic Power Driver 16 board features two banks of eight drivers where each bank can have its own power feed, allowing half the board's outputs to drive high power (e.g. 50V) devices, and the other half to drive lower power (e.g. 20V) hold coils, motors, or flashers.
The Power Driver board
Like the Lamp Matrix Board, the Power Driver Board is not a new product - they've both been available and in use for nearly two years - but they are both as much at home plugged into an original P-ROC as the newer P3-ROC. With the original P-ROC though, there needs to be an RS-485 controller added, either on a separate board or on a special version of the driver board which includes the controller.
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Created by:
Dennis van de Pass
Project started:
December 2010 |
Project completion:
October 2011 |
Why theme was chosen:
The project started as an educational/test project for a Walt Disney World themed pinball, including a complete hardware make over of a World Cup Soccer '94 (this project is now in progress).
Game's most notable features:
All the Cryo Claw exits (except ball lock/freeze) are actual modes with a timed mode jackpot available on completion. All four multiballs have different objectives with super jackpots. The car chase lane and eyeball target are more integrated in the gameplay, making it worthwhile to shoot for, plus a two staged wizard mode.
How many will be built:
15 |
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With the P3-ROC, the lamp/LED matrix, LED driver and Power Driver boards all connect to the two PDB master controllers built into the P3-ROC board.
Although they both use the RS-485 interface, the PDB controllers are kept separate from the SW-16 controllers since the lamp, LED and solenoids drivers only require unidirectional communications - they are told to turn something on, off, or change level, and don't need to return status information back to the P3-ROC. If a message is sent to activate a nonexistent LED or solenoid, nothing happens, and if a loss of communications with the P3-ROC should be detected, all outputs are turned off, helping to prevent locked-on solenoids or flashers.
By contrast, the SW-16 switch boards are all about sending switch signals back to the P3-ROC and then the host computer. They are also sent configuration and status information by the P3-ROC, so these need to have bidirectional communications. |
Keeping the two bus types separate increases the speed at which commands and status information can be transferred, increasing the responsiveness of the whole system.
Another way speed is increased is the way the data is transmitted.
The RS-485 system is widely-used in many different applications, but it only defines the electrical interface used to connect devices. To actually transmit the data you need to specify the format in which it is sent, and the speed of transfer.
Multimorphic's head, Gerry Stellenberg explains.
"RS-485 is a popular 2-wire serial bus. In fact, it's the physical layer used in the CAN bus commonly used in automotive control systems. Because it's a 2-wire differential bus, it's relatively immune to common-mode noise problems. Therefore, the bus can run reliably in electromagnetically noisy environments, such as under a playfield. That's why we chose it for our system. Trying to run single-ended digital signals under a playfield is a recipe for disaster which would likely result in corrupt data and damaged electronics."
"Once we chose RS-485 for our physical layer, we had to decide on the protocol to pass data across it." |
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Created by:
Josh Kugler
Project started:
July 2012 |
Project completion:
No date set |
Why theme was chosen:
I chose the family theme since I've had an idea for a long time of a pinball machine that could 'easily' be re-themed for other families. My idea was do ultimately design a couple of playfields and someone could choose a playfield and then modify the rules/artwork accordingly.
Game's most notable features:
My focus has been on creating a deep and challenging rule set. This is a game for home use, so it needs to have the kind of depth and challenges a collector would want.
How many will be built:
Right now, just the one. But time will tell if I pursue building custom machines for others. |
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"Perhaps the easiest solution would have been to just use CAN, as it's a standard protocol and there are plenty of available chips that already implement it. That said, CAN chips are relatively expensive, the bus runs at a slow 1mbps, and the packet structure in CAN has a lot of information that isn't useful in pinball machines."
"Not only is 1mbps too slow for a number of pinball features I can imagine becoming popular in the future, the CAN bus is effectively much slower than that because of the wasted overhead."
"So I chose to implement a very simple proprietary protocol and run the bus at 8mbps."
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Created by:
Gerard "The Big One" van de Sanden
& Dennis "The Other One" van de Pas
Assisted by:
Sascha Voskuil, Renata, Ed Hage, Ben Boogaard, Jeroen van Nes, Jeroen (Morpheus Protectors), Farid Reicher, Robin van Beijnum, Rob Capel & Bird (Ministry of Pinball).
Project started:
December 2011 |
Project completion:
July 2013 |
Why theme was chosen:
The Matrix is, next to The Terminator, the most influential films in sci-fi movie history. An amazing movie with state-of-the-art graphics, a great story, fantastic quotes and action-packed as well.
Game's most notable features:
The pace - there are almost no moments during gameplay where the ball stops flowing, the modes have multiple stages and objectives, very intense music unheard of in pinball history from Joey Beltram to Daft Punk to The Prodigy, and the longest DMD animations to date with The Matrix hacking into the score display, playing with the score figures, all in real time.
How many will be built:
A couple more than Richie Rich! |
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"Keeping the protocol very simple reduces bandwidth lost to packet headers and the cost of logic on each device, and running it at 8mbps means it's unlikely we'll run out of bandwidth anytime soon."
In addition to Gerry's interface, protocol, and bus speed choices, the distributed design of the system means that if one board should fail in its entirety, it won't impact on any of the other boards in the chain. If it's an LED driver, only those LEDs directly connected to that board would be affected, and all others would continue working normally.
Gerry explained some of the other benefits of a modular approach using separate controller boards, and why it is better to build the intelligence into those boards rather than getting the host PC to do all the work. He told Pinball News, "If the program running on the PC had to control all of the real-time circuits on the machine (switch scanning, pulse-width modulation on RGB LEDs and coils), it would have to be relatively powerful, and the programmer would have to do unusual things with the operating system to allow consistent and fast access to the control system hardware." |
"Even if they did that, they wouldn't be able to control the microsecond PWM rates on LEDs required to get smooth color fading."
"Contrast this with putting all of the real-time control in the control system boards. Each board does exactly what it needs to do as fast as it needs to do it, simply receiving periodic commands from the computer and periodically returning switch events."
"The computer therefore has very little to do and can thus be very small. In fact, most games can run fine using a small single board computer like a Raspberry Pi or Beaglebone, and they can run stock operating system images without low level kernel hacks."
"Our PD-LED board, for example, controls up to 84 individual LEDs (or 28 RGB LEDs), and it has local intelligence to control the PWM signals going to each LED. Software can simply send a command to the board asking it to set a specific LED to a specific color. Software can also send a command asking the board to fade an LED to a new color at a specific rate."
"In fact, the board can fade all 28 RGB LEDs simultaneously to different colors at different rates, and the fades will be beautifully smooth."
"Because the board handles all of the low level details automatically, software needs to only send it a few commands rather than looping quickly and sending it thousands of color codes each second." |
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Created by:
Kevin Kulek & Aaron Klumpp
Project started:
2010 |
Project completion:
Autumn 2013 |
Why theme was chosen:
The theme is just really cool. It was sadly overlooked for a pinball machine years ago, but it makes me glad that we had the opportunity to make it very modern with a tournament-playable ruleset.
Game's most notable features:
The way the multiballs work together and, the mode that really made the game famous, the Hunt mode. A player can use one of the extra buttons on either side of the cabinet to enact the Hunt mode, which triggers the game to go dark and enable a surrounding series of UV lights to change the look of the entire playfield while the game challenges them to make a single shot within a short time. Making multiple successful Hunts really causes the game to go wild.
How many will be built:
No more than 250. While we have quite a bit of demand for more, we feel as though that is more than enough to go around, but few enough to keep it a really special part of a collection. |
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So the P3-ROC creates a modular approach to game design, with multiple boards located near their associated switches, mechanisms, LEDs and motors, all controlled though a simple 2-wire bus.
But the P3-ROC also drops a number of features built into the original P-ROC.
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Created by:
Scott Gullicks
Assisted by:
Frank Gigliotti, J. P. Salas & Ryan Waltrip
Project started:
January 2012 |
Project completion:
Estimated Q4 2013 |
Why theme was chosen:
I love Greek mythology. It is rich with interesting characters, monsters, storylines and captivating visuals. There is so much to be able to pull from to make a really beautiful game that can tie into a pinball machine with great sounds, images and a rule set that is deep and relevant to the theme.
Game's most notable features:
First game ever to have been fully designed and built digitally, released to the world free-of-charge to play, and then be created as a real machine. The game has six flippers, an upper playfield, three ramps, four orbit shots, two drop targets, a subway system with a VUK, kick-back, DMD with sixteen shades, fourteen standup targets, a captive ball, a deep rule set, and an incredible hand-drawn art package.
How many will be built:
The current plan is to build just this one prototype for personal use. However, if there’s enough interest and excitement from Pinball Expo and future shows, who knows how far it will go. |
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Because it is aimed at game designers building their projects from scratch as opposed to modifying an existing title, the compatibility with - and support for - Williams, Bally and Stern switch matrices has been removed, as have the connections to those companies' power driver boards.
As we've described above, the ability to drive lamps, LEDs, solenoids and motors is provided by Multimorphic's various controller and driver boards. But there's two areas we've not mentioned so far - sound and vision.
With the addition of a PC or other computer, sound hardware is already included, so there is no need for a separate sound board. An amplifier is required, but there are plenty of options there, from powered speakers to stand-alone audio amps.
Probably the biggest feature taken out of for the P3-ROC is the ability to drive a dot matrix display.
The assumption, as Gerry Stellenberg told us, is that anyone building a new game from scratch would be unlikely to use a physical dot matrix display to show player information and in-game animations, opting instead to use something cheaper and more easily sourced. |
He told us, "Many of our customers who are putting 'DMDs' in their machines are actually putting LCDs in and emulating the dots (like the ColorDMD). It's much cheaper to do it this way, and DMDs are getting harder to source (and most of the LED DMDs have those ugly grid lines). Plus, going the emulated DMD route provides the possibility of changing from 'DMD' dots to full video in the future."
In case you are wondering how much all this technology will set back a budding game designer, the original P-ROC costs $325 (+ $4 for a WPC/WPC mounting plate, or +$14 for a Stern mounting plate), while the new P3-ROC has just gone on sale at a price of $275.
Driver boards prices are $100 for the Power Driver 16 and 8x8 matrix board, and $90 for the LED board. The SW16 switch boards have just become available and cost $60. When used with the original P-ROC, special versions of the driver boards with a built-in controller are available and cost $10 more than the regular versions, or alternatively a separate controller for the driver boards is available for $50.
If seeing what can be created with the P-ROC and P3-ROC systems has got you thinking about what you could achieve, or if you'd like to experience this one-time opportunity to see these eight custom machines brought together alongside the latest version of the P3 pinball platform, make plans to visit Pinball Expo this October.
As Gerry puts it, "Each of these machines is fantastic in its own right, and having them all in the same booth at Expo will be a site to behold. As much I appreciate them bringing their games, I'm even more excited to have the game designers presenting seminars and hanging out in the booth to answer questions about custom pinball design and using our control system products. The community aspect of this business is what really makes it fun for me. See you at Expo!"
© Pinball News 2013 |
