Second, for those of us that aren’t there (or those that are, and are patiently waiting out their queue), let’s talk about the game settings. Much respect to Jim, Karl, Bob, and the rest of the INDISC crew for consistently coming up with creative settings/mods to make pins more appropriate for high-level play.
To get things started:
Banzai Run: Cliff Jumps fixed at 10K… nice! Now you have to play the rest of the game.
Baywatch: No free multiball on ball 3… nice! Although now getting locks qualified will probably be pretty random based on ricochets as people play modes, right?
Seems a bit excessive and could definitely see the game run into a spinners and laps game if the scores are reasonable. I’d love to see custom code that allows beating a racer to reset the value to the normal for one shot; then we can limit the number of high value shots while not removing the feature.
Did the whole free lock progression get gutted? I think I saw a game running this in the Magfest free play bank and it was totally fair. You could focus on the locks a la Iron Maiden if you wanted to… and it’s even 2 completions to light them all the same.
The new Sterns ship with no rubbers on posts by default, it should be expected. I think Beatles doesn’t even have clearance for a ball to drain with a normal rubber on the inlane/outlane post.
Banzai has been down thus far- really hope they get it working today. Iron Maiden ruined my only chance at a good card so far. I have no idea what I’m doing on this Safecracker- I thought I had a for sure Multiball and I was wrong.
I traveled all the way from Michigan and I’m having a great time but some of the mods on the games make it seem like you have to be “in the know” of how to really play it. The brutal-ness I expected but I feel a bit overwhelmed with the software mods that I’m personally not used too. It’s a minor critique of a really well done tournament.
My opinion: you don’t need to list standard physical adjustments that are able to be seen by the player. No need to mention whether rubbers have been taken off of Outlane posts, or the width of the Outlane — that’s on the player to observe on their own.
Safecracker gives a guaranteed multiball if you make it the boardgame IF you collect after your first spin. If you continue you might make your jackpots bigger…or you might royally screw yourself. It’s a nice level of risk reward.
On this one you can get to the boardgame by locking at least one ball and hitting a lit entrance
I do not like the heavy element of randomization and video game accuracy involved in Safecracker. As Jim pointed out it is worth thinking about other games where players do not play pinball in situations that are worth a lot of value (Jackbot Casino Run, Ghostbusters video mode…). It was frustrating to be eliminated on this game… should’ve played better!
We have access to a Safecracker locally and I’d love to be able to use it in tournaments if I could get my hands on this ROM. Or is everything done by game settings?
I believe it was a stock ROM, with these feature adjustments:
A.2 10 FIRST WHEEL POS changed to LIGHT LOCK
A.2 19 CONTINUE CHOICE changed from NO to YES
A.2 20 RANDOM KNOB NUMS changed from YES to NO
