BLACK ROSE: SKULL AND BONES REVIEW

Today we are going in-depth with the ‘2.0’ conversion kit for the Bally title, Black Rose, which consists of an entirely new set of game rules, display graphics, sound calls, music and artwork, together with a complete replacement boardset and a mini-PC to run everything.

Black Rose: Skull and Bones is the second conversion kit from Cardona Pinball Designs, following their No Good Gofers: Battle for the Green kit which was first announced back in 2020. That kit was originally not a licensed title, and it ran on the P-ROC hardware platform. However, Cardona Pinball subsequently worked out a licensing arrangement with Williams/Bally rights licensor, Planetary Pinball Supply (PPS), which allowed Cardona to incorporate the original No Good Gofers code and assets alongside their new Battle for the Green code and subsequently to use the Bally Black Rose branding for this kit. PPS now insists all ‘2.0’ kits licensed by them run on the FAST Pinball platform, so that’s the hardware Black Rose: Skull and Bones uses, as does the revised No Good Gofers: Battle for the Green.

Cardona Pinball sent us a Black Rose: Skull and Bones kit to review. We don’t own a Black Rose machine ourselves, so we installed it in a local owner’s machine for them to enjoy, test and feed back their experiences.

The kit costs $2,200 plus shipping from Cardona Pinball Designs and arrives packaged in a large cardboard box complete with a flyer and – because we are are not in the US – a customs declaration certificate.

Standard USPS Ground Advantage shipping costs $35.90 within the US, while shipping outside the US is charged at cost. There may also be import charges to pay on top. If you happen to live close to Pennsville, New Jersey, you can pick up the kit in person from Cardona Pinball Designs by arrangement.

HARDWARE

The size of the box is defined by the new translite and a new backbox insert which both illuminates the new translite and supports the kit’s new colour LCD panel.

Opening the box, we are confronted by a plethora of paper sheets detailing the kit’s contents and quick installation instructions, as well as various warnings and helpful information including the gameplay rules.

Covering all this is the new translite which is protected on both sides by more cardboard and has a protective sheet of film over the front to further prevent scratches.

We then unpacked all the components to make sure we had everything we would need to install the kit.

The kit’s contents were:

• Fast Pinball WPC-89 controller board
• Power supply module
• Backbox display panel
• PC & audio controller board assembly
• Translite
• Instruction and pricing cards
• Various miscellaneous connectors, screws, fasteners and fuses
• Installation instructions and game manual

As you can see, converting a Black Rose to run the Skull and Bones version isn’t exactly a simple plug-n-play operation. However, in order to upgrade the display, the sound, and the rules, it’s inevitable a certain amount of work is going to be needed. This is kept to a bare minimum but, as we shall see, to install the kit you do need to be happy disconnecting and replacing several major components in the backbox.

We were initially concerned by the prominent warning notice in the documentation saying the kit is designed for use on 110V power only. In Europe we have 220-240V power which would destroy anything which was expecting 110V. Fortunately though, the label on the power supply module indicated it had already been switched to use 220V.

We were actually a little surprised the power supply module wouldn’t automatically work across the usual 110V-220V range like by many similar devices on the market, and needed to be manually switched.

We laid out everything and confirmed we had all the components needed.

In the picture below, the power supply module is top-left, the PC and FAST Pinball audio controller board assembly is top-centre, below them is the FAST Pinball WPC-89 controller board and then the new backbox lighting and display panel.

The installation could now begin, using the Quick Install Guide as our reference.

We’d be performing some major surgery in the backbox, so here’s what it looked like before we began.

There are five PCBs in the backbox. Top-left is the Fliptronic II controller board, while bottom right is the power driver board. These are the only PCBs we shall be keeping. The sound board (top-centre), the DMD controller board (top-right), and the CPU board (bottom-left) will all need to be taken out.

Before that though, we need to remove the backbox lighting and display panel.

Unlike later WPC games, Black Rose’s dot-matrix display is mounted on the lighting panel. That meant disconnecting the DMD power and data cables as well as the more usual backbox illumination cabling. This machine has recently been professionally refurbished, with all the cabling neatly tidied away. Removing the DMD and lighting power cables involved carefully tracing the wires and delicately removing them and their connectors from the bundles of other cables.

The securing bolt and washers on the lower hinge could then be removed and the board take out of the game.

The kit requires the re-use of the locking hardware mounted on the right side of the backbox board, so this had to be taken off the original board and transferred to the replacement one.

Illumination for the new translite comes from LED strips which use adhesive to stick to the board, while the connecting cables are taped down. These ran a little too close to the newly installed locking hardware for our liking, although we’re sure it will be fine in practice and should be pretty easy to reposition away from the latch.

The Quick Install Guide tells us next to “disconnect all cables” inside the backbox so that three PCBs can be removed. However, we chose to only disconnect those cables plugged into the three boards in question, knowing the PCB with the most connectors – the power driver board – was remaining in place and we’d only have to reconnect many of those if we disconnected absolutely everything.

So, with all their cables respective disconnected, we were able to unbolt and remove the CPU, sound and dot matrix boards from the backbox.

If, once the Skull and Bones kit is installed, you decide it’s a keeper, you can always sell these boards to offset some of the kit’s cost. In our case though, we simply wrapped them up and stored them away safely.

Now it was time to start installing the new boards, starting with the PC and audio controller board module.

The game runs on a Next Unit of Computing (NUC) mini-PC, which has a very small form-factor but limited computing and graphics power. It generally features an Intel Celeron CPU inside and only requires a 12V-19V power supply to run. You can then boot into your operating system of choice, which for Skull and Bones is the open-source Linux distribution, Ubuntu.

Linux is a popular choice of OS for pinball systems as it is highly customisable and lightweight, booting quickly without all the unnecessary overheads of a Windows installation. It also doesn’t complain if you simply depower it without going through a shut-down procedure, as is likely to happen with a pinball machine.

The mini-PC has the OS and Skull and Bones software pre-loaded, so there is no need to load any code other than any updates which may be released from time to time.

The mini-PC is mounted on a metal plate alongside the FAST Pinball audio controller board. The plate is pre-drilled to align with the mounting holes for the original WPC sound and DMD driver boards.

While it mostly aligned with the captive nuts mounted on the Black Rose’s back panel, it wasn’t a perfect fit and we ended up leaving out one bolt which was never going to fit without re-drilling the mounting plate – something we didn’t want to do yet.

Once satisfied that the PC/audio controller board assembly was securely fixed, our next task was to mount the FAST Pinball WPC-89 controller board.

This board slotted onto the existing mounting bolts without any issues.

The FAST Pinball controller contains many of the same connectors as the original WPC-89 board, plus a few new ones. The switch matrix rows and columns connectors at the bottom were pretty straightforward to re-plug, as were the ribbon cables to the power driver and Fliptronic II boards.

The new controller board also has an ethernet connection to the new audio controller board as well as a USB connection to the mini-PC.

There was slight confusion about the power connection though, as the Quick Install Guide pictures it in a different position on the board compared to where it actually is.

We plugged the power connector to the block of pins further down the board which was keyed appropriately and looked like it was the correct location.

The next stage was to mount the power supply assembly in the main cabinet.

This supply provides power for the NUC mini-PC and the audio controller board in the backbox, so there are cables which need to be run alongside the lighting/switches/solenoids wiring loom. Cable ties are provided in the kit help here. The power supply is mounted on a board alongside a blade-style fuse block.

It was when installing the power supply assembly that we hit our first real roadblock.

The instructions tell us to plug the power supply unit into the service outlet on the Black Rose’s power box which covers the main on/off switch and includes the main fuse. However, most non-US games of this era didn’t have a service outlet fitted. There’s a cut-out for it on the face of the power box, but it’s simply filled with a blanking plug.

Clearly, to power the kit we’d need to find an alternative method.

Any service outlet would be providing power whenever the machine is plugged into a mains socket. It would be better for the kit to only be powered when the switch under the cabinet is turned on, just like the rest of the game.

So we tapped into the mains power coming out of the switch box. That meant the kit would switch on and off with the other components, and also be protected by the machine’s main 5A fuse.

Fortunately, we had a short length of suitable mains cable we could use, and a connector block. It’s only a temporary solution which can be tidied-up at a later date, but it allowed the installation – and this review – to continue.

The Quick Install Guide says to mount the power supply assembly on the opposite side wall of the cabinet from the service outlet, but our replacement cable wasn’t long enough for that. So, we temporarily mounted it on the floor of the cabinet instead, conscious of the potential danger of playfield screws or other hardware falling onto it.

The outputs from the power supply were run around the cabinet and up into the backbox, plugging into the audio controller board and the mini-PC.

Then it was time to fit the new backbox display and lighting board and connect it up.

The new display needs power from the audio controller board, and also an HDMI video feed from the mini-PC. The cables for this are already attached to make it easier. The mini-PC generates game audio, but it is combined with the display video and sent down the HDMI cable to the LCD panel.

To get the audio to the original speaker system it is necessary to let the LCD panel’s controller split it from the video and send it back to the new audio controller board which then amplifies it to the level needed by the speakers.

The original Black Rose speaker system is quite rudimentary. There are two speakers at the top of the backbox – one mid-range and one tweeter – and a woofer in the bottom of the cabinet. The backbox and cabinet speakers are fed in series, which means both sets of speakers get the same mono signal. There are no separate volume, balance or frequency controls for the backbox and cabinet speakers.

The Skull and Bones kit allows this shortcoming to be corrected to some degree by splitting the feeds to top and bottom speakers. Doing this involves cutting or separating the speaker wires in the backbox and attaching them to new IDC connectors, which are supplied in the kit. What’s not supplied is an IDC insertion tool which you really need to properly attach the wires to the new connectors, although you can make a decent attempt with a small flat-blade screwdriver (which is what we did).

The final connection for the backbox board is for the LED strips which simply plug into the power driver board.

We checked and re-checked. As far as we could tell, everything was connected correctly. It was time to put peel the protective film from the front of the translite, put it in its frame behind the glass, close the game up, switch it on and see what happens.

To say we were surprised when it powered, booted and launched into attract mode without any apparent issues is a gross understatement. Obviously, things should just work when you follow the instructions, but they rarely do. You forget to reattach one of the connectors or make some other basic error, but not this time.

As with any PC-based pinball, there is a boot-up period of around 30 seconds before the operating system and code have fully loaded and the game can enter attract mode.

With the game running, it was time to put away the tools, stash the old boards, clean up the debris and play a few games.

SOFTWARE

Of course, the point of replacing the machines electronic hardware is to be able to play the new Skull & Bones software and enjoy the new ruleset together with all the opportunities for enhanced audio and video.

Before we get into that though, it’s worth pointing out that the original Black Rose game code, dot matrix displays, music tracks and sound calls are all included with the Skull & Bones conversion kit.

If you hold in the start button for around five seconds, the game enters a game selection menu where you can choose different match-ups for Skull & Bones team play, or choose to run an emulation of the original Black Rose software.

Obviously there is no longer a physical dot matrix display to use, so the graphics are reproduced on the LCD panel instead.

It’s a fairly basic emulation of the 128×32 dot matrix display without any attempt at anti-aliasing or smoothing of the text, resulting in a fairly blocky representation of the graphics.

The LCD’s frame rate also doesn’t appear to be matched to the graphical update rate, resulting in some tearing during fast-moving or flashing animations.

However, it’s nice to still be able to run the original game code, effectively giving you two Black Rose rulesets in a single machine.

One slight irritation is that once you are running the original version of Black Rose, there is no easy way to switch over to the Skull & Bones version without depowering and then repowering the machine.

So, what of the new Skull & Bones gameplay?

Reprogramming an existing game is always a challenge – in some ways more challenging than programming a home-built machine. For a start, you have to work with the existing shots, targets, inserts and labels on the playfield, and make them work in a logical and consistent way in your new code. Then you have the expectation that all your new rules and objectives will be just that – new. The original software might have incorporated many good ideas, but you have to improve on them all.

In mitigation, at the time Black Rose was released there were constraints on the amount of memory available to store the rules, graphics and sounds, resulting in much simpler rulesets than we have come to expect these days.

The new rules for Skull & Bones provide many more modes and far more complex scoring opportunities compared to the original game, including a mini-Wizard Mode and two full Wizard Modes. It also expunges the three video modes – Walk The Plank, Knife Throw and Rigging Swing – replacing them with shot-based objectives bearing the same mode names.

The original Black Rose storyline – such as it is – is a simple one, based around loading the cannon, shooting it at target ships and eventually sinking them, while collecting treasure along the way.

Skull & Bones expands on that but makes things more character-based, with a storyline which sees the moniker Black Rose transferred from the name of the captain to the name of the ship, under the command of Maria Cortez De La Mancha. She has a motley crew of pirates, one of whom is secretly plotting to take control of the Black Rose for himself. With the threat of mutiny ever present, Captain Maria has to work hard to keep the crew on her side.

The game includes voice calls for ten separate pirates:

• Two Tooth – Bernie Sennstrom
• Britt – Bernie Sennstrom
• Scott – Bernie Sennstrom
• Ole Dan The Drunk – Frank Gigliotti
• Chen – Frank Gigliotti
• Red Beard – James Cardona
• Giganticus – James Cardona
• Captain Maria – Lydia Cardona
• Jack’s Son – Sean Sennstrom
• Garcia – Stephen Thaxton
• Tattoo – Stephen Thaxton

If you recognise the name of Frank Gigliotti, it’s probably from him being half of the Riot Pinball duo who designed the Legends of Valhalla game, along with Scott Gullicks (who also created the Skull & Bones backglass artwork).

The game begins with a three-stage skill shot sequence, starting with a plunge into the three ‘fire’ targets, followed by a shot into the Broadside upkicker and finally a hit on the Doubloon standup target.

Before the ball is plunged, the display offers three skill shot awards which cycle until a switch is hit. If the first switch is one of the ‘fire’ targets then the award is given, otherwise the skill shot sequence ends and regular gameplay begins.

As you can see from the picture above, the standard LCD graphic includes plenty of status information. On the left side is the player and ball number, the amount of treasure collected but not yet stashed, the all-important bonus and scoring multipliers and finally the timer for the current mode.

On the right are the running totals of the elements needed to arm a cannon – cannonballs, fire and gunpowder. These are collected by hitting the correspondingly-coloured red, yellow and green banks of standup targets.

Hitting all these standup targets qualifies one of the game’s six modes at the Broadside upkicker. These modes are: Millions, Knife Throw, Instant Multiball, Polly, Walk The Plank and Rigging Swing.

The display shows how long a ball save you get, your current progress through the mode (if you are re-playing it after not completing it before), what you will earn when you do complete it and the type of mode it is.

We mentioned earlier how important the shot and mode multipliers in the game are. The main one is the shot multiplier which applies to all scores and can reach up to 5x through a combination of shot combos and the skill shot 2x scoring award. In addition, each mode has its own multiplier which is built up while playing through the mode and shown alongside the shot multiplier. Mode multipliers typically max out at either 10x or 20x depending on the mode.

Each mode has a comprehensive set of rules. For instance, in the Knife Throw mode shown above one pirate loyal to Captain Maria faces off against another who supports Red Beard’s mutiny. Each is represented by either the left or right ramp. Only one ramp is lit, but that can be changed by rolling the ball through an inlane. Shooting a lit ramp makes that pirate attack his opponent, but a pirate’s weapon can be charged by first shooting any shot or target on their side of the playfield. This bumps that pirate’s mode multiplier up to 5x, but if both pirates’ weapons are charged up the multiplier increases to 10x. A charged weapon causes more damage and speeds up the conclusion of the fight.

You can read the rules for these main modes along with all the other modes in the online documentation on the Cardona Pinball Designs website. However, here’s a brief summary of the key points:

The end-of-ball bonus is comprised of many elements and can be quite confusing. There is the original bonus made up from ramp shots, pop bumper hits, unclaimed treasure and more. Then there is the mode bonus, then the multiplier. Quite when and how these values are added to your total score is inconsistent and remains somewhat unclear until the whole process is finished.

While upgrading the operating system’s hardware allows for far more immersive audio and video content to really draw the player into the game, all those voice calls, music tracks, informational graphics and animations have to be designed and created.

An original title such as Black Rose doesn’t come with many (if any) usable assets for use in the Skull & Bones upgrade, so pretty much everything needs to be built from scratch.

The larger pinball companies have teams of graphic artists and animators working to craft the hundreds of display animations needed in a typical game. Cardona Pinball Designs doesn’t have that pool of talent, so their graphical content is far more modest.

To us, coming from a graphics background, there are a several issues with the visual design of the LCD content.

First, there is far too much red text everywhere. The colour, font and quantity make it challenging to read, especially quickly such as when you’re starting a mode or trying to find your next shot.

The attract mode explainers are similarly awash with blood red text.

There are some nicely rendered background images, but one of the other main graphical shortcomings is in the rendering of the characters. Sometimes they are animated, sometimes just there as static composite images and at other times the pirates pop up out of nowhere and then do nothing. In some renderings they have black outlines, in others it’s red or white, while still more have a more photo-realistic look with no outline.

It’s an uneasy mix, with quite a few of the graphics looking like placeholders until fully-rendered animations can be added.

The music is generally attractive with the main theme having strong Pirates of the Caribbean influences. The old WPC sound system used in Black Rose was far less capable than today’s PC-based audio, but that simplicity tended to lead to a more striking and stirring soundtrack, instantly drawing the player into the game’s theme. The Skull & Bones music is more subtle and nuanced, taking some time to be fully appreciated.

Another advantage of modern sound systems is the huge amount of memory available to store audio samples. Modern pinball games often contain over 1,000 different voice calls, allowing common phrases to be spoken in multiple ways and key gameplay information to be presented both audibly and visually.

Skull & Bones features eleven characters which provides plenty of vocal variance, but also leads to little association by the player with what’s happening in the game and who is doing the talking. We also don’t hear nearly enough from the main character herself, Captain Maria. The game is really all about her, but she is rarely there to encourage you or convince you to fight for her side.

Those are what we see as the shortcomings in what is otherwise a very worthwhile upgrade.

Black Rose has never been a hugely popular game. Its sales no doubt suffered by being released immediately after the hugely popular The Addams Family, but even taking that into account the title marked a significant dip in early-’90s production numbers.

Brand	Title	Production
Williams	The Getaway: High Speed II	13,259
Bally	The Addams Family	20,270
Bally	Black Rose	3,746
Bally	Doctor Who	7,752
Williams	Fish Tales	13,640

The Skull & Bones kit give a whole new take on the gameplay and the storyline. It’s not inexpensive, but you do get a lot of hardware and software for your money, plus you could potentially recover some of that outlay by selling the original boards.

There are certainly some rough edges to the multi-media content, but the new ruleset seems well thought out, providing a well-pitched challenge alongside some serious scoring opportunities once you get your multipliers up.

If you get the opportunity to play Skull & Bones at an owner’s house or at a pinball show you should certainly jump in and experience for yourself a whole new way to play this ’90s Bally classic.

Finally, a big thank you to James Cardona of Cardona Pinball Designs for supplying the Skull & Bones kit, and to Marc Gatward for the use of his Black Rose game for the installation and gameplay review.