From phaedrus@halcyon.com Tue Jul 01 01:20:19 1997
In article <33B7571F.45B2@ibm.net>, Jim Hicks  <jimhicks@ibm.net> wrote:
>I've created a page with some Medieval Madness (Williams' next
>pin) pictures and information.  Check the link from
>my home page
>http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Meadows/7856/
>if you're interested.

     Cool!

>Note:  I have no connection with Williams nor any inside information on
>this game or its' production ...

     Then where'd that quote from someone "close to the game" come from? :-)

>If you see any incomplete or inaccurate info, please let me
>know so I can correct it.

     You asked for it... :-)
     Before I go any further, let me mention that I'm not entirely sure
that the local machine is on standard settings.  It's set for 5 balls per
game, $1 per credit--or 6 credits for $5.  No extra ball buy-in.

>Playfield

>Huge castle with moat in upper middle of the playfield 

     That moat is important; it can be your friend as well as your enemy.
The castle lane points just about SDTM, so shooting at it has certain 
inherent hazards. :-)  If the drawbridge is up, it can be to your benefit to
shoot at the castle softly, so that the ball bounces weakly off the bridge 
and falls safely into the moat.  Of course, once the bridge drops and you're
working on the gate, it's every warrior for himself...
     The two troll standups (as opposed to the troll figures themselves) are
on either side of the lane leading to the castle.

>Swinging door on left side of the castle (multiball start) 

     This is a much narrower lane than the main castle gate, so it's a
difficult shot.  But unlike the castle gate itself, it's a safe shot if you
make it; whether the ball goes through the door or not, it winds up in the
moat.

>Left ramp 

     A very long ramp, but rather forgiving; the ball doesn't have to get
very far before it'll go the rest of the way on its own.

>Dragon/Tower (right) ramp with upper level/diverter on right to rescue the
>damsel-in-distress from the tower. 

     A shorter ramp, but much steeper and less forgiving to shoot; it's
easy for the ball to lose steam and fall back down the ramp.

>Hidden trolls that pop up from the middle of the playfield 

     And believe it or not, hitting these things seems to be a reasonably
safe shot.  (A useful combo: Bouncing a shot off the left troll and into the
center saucer awards a Troll Bomb--usable for killing trolls, just like the
Martian Bombs in AFM.  You can also get Troll Bombs from Merlin's Magic, or
from hitting the troll standups enough times with Trolls! already lit.)

>"Merlin Magic" saucer in right front of drawbridge awards random award on DMD 

     Starts the game lit; relit by hitting the three star targets at the lower
right of the playfield.

>Catapult launch on the far left that feed two rollover lanes at top right,
>with pop bumpers below 

     There's a bit of confusion here.  The catapult lane doesn't feed the
rollovers at the top; the orbit shots feed those under certain circumstances.
Balls launched from the catapult wind up on the left ramp's path, and lead
back to the left inlane.
     The catapult shot is one of the most dangerous shots on the playfield;
it's a narrow lane, and it's so close to the flippers that the ball will be
coming back to you in a very very big hurry if you miss the wrong way.
     By the way, notice the target at the top of the catapult lane.  If you
shoot the ball up the lane hard enough (so it hits the target, rather than
just weakly falling into the catapult), it counts as two catapult hits; this
is useful as heck during Royal Madness.

>Left and right loops (complete three times to light multiball) 

     A little bit of confusion here; see below.
     (The left and right orbit shots are interchangable; the game is counting
total orbit shots, not counting each orbit separately.)

>"FIRE" rollovers in the in/outlanes. 

     Completing "FIRE" gives you +2 bonus X.  (There's no extra ball here,
as there was on the Stroke of Luck lights in AFM; they moved that to the
Castle Hurryups.)

>Mode start saucer on the right (where the scoop in AFM was) 

     Extra balls are lit here as well.

>"Return to Battle" Ballsaver during the first few seconds. Draining in an
>outlane autoplunges a new ball as soon as the outlane switch is triggered,
>so it's back in play pretty quickly. 

     You also get a few seconds of ballsaver at the start of Multiballs, and
at the start of Royal Madness.  (Get that catapult shot in early, kids!)

>"Missed Ramp Save" feature 
>Both ramps "look broken" with a gap at the bottom of the ramp, split all the
>way up. 

>"The "split" that you noticed is actually a very player friendly feature.
>There is actually a long [triangular] piece of plastic mounted on top of a
>normal flat bottom ramp. This plastic prevents roll backs from the ramps
>from going straight down the middle. [It] looks a little odd but it was a
>little tweak ... added after playing the first prototypes. It feels a lot
>nicer and makes the game more fun to play." 

     And the designers really succeeded well in this regard.  Despite the
castle shot and the catapult, MM really gives me a feeling of "if the ball
drains it's your own damn fault."

>Game Play

>Destroy the castle 
>Hit the moat to lower the drawbridge so you can launch pinballs to destroy
>the castle by launching three "cannonballs" into the castle. Destroying the
>castle is very cool. (There are several castle inhabitants that taunt you
>while working on this). With each hit on the castle, there is a coordinated
>"cannonball landing" sequence on the DMD with wonderful sound effects. When
>you make the third shot, the castle is "destroyed" - the castle shakes,
>the towers fall and you know it's gone ... 

     This is a great playfield toy; fun to watch, yet of absolutely no
consequence to the game if it breaks.
     To describe the mechanism a little more closely:  The castle is 
protected by a drawbridge and a gate.  Hitting the drawbridge X times (1 time
for the first castle, 2 for the second, etc.), lowers it and exposes the gate.
Hitting the gate three times opens it; hitting the inside of the castle once
destroys it.
     If this sounds suspiciously like saving cities in AFM, it is.  (The sixth
castle, "The King of Payne", is always last, like the Attack Mars round in AFM;
I've seen the King lit, but I've never seen anyone actually get far enough
into it to see whether the rules are different from the other castles.)
     Destroying the third castle lights an extra ball.
     One important difference between MM and AFM:  In MM, during a Multiball,
you can finish off one castle and start on the next.


>Complete each ramp or loop 3 times to light a multiball mode. 
>These modes can be overlapped. All ramps, loops, multiball start and
>catapult are then lit for jackpots. 

     To give a bit more detail here:  The left ramp has four Peasant lights;
the right has four Dragon lights--so you have to hit a ramp four times to
finish it off.  The catapult lane has three Catapult lights; but you can do
it in two shots, if you hit that target at the top of the lane at least once.
The orbits, collectively, have three Joust lights.
     The rules for how to start Multiball Madness are a teensy bit confusing.
The description makes it sound I play through five Madness rounds before
arriving at Royal Madness, but I don't; I only play one--but the rules for
the one I play depend on what I do before starting it.  
     Each set of ramp/orbit/catapult lights has a corresponding Madness light
at the center hole; the Trolls have one as well.  The least confusing way I
can come up with to describe how it works is to give an example.  Let's say
that I finish off the Peasant ramp.  The Peasant Madness light will start
flashing at the center hole; if I hit that hole now, it'll start Peasant
Madness.  But I don't want to do that just yet, for reasons that I hope will
become clear in a moment.  So I finish up the Catapult instead; so the
Catapult Madness light starts flashing too.  Now I finish the Peasant ramp
again.  Since Peasant Madness is already lit, the game instead gives me a
Castle Hurry-up; I'll get to that in a second.  I hit the center hole,
and Multiball Madness starts.
     Multiball Madness is a two-ball multiball if you only have one
Madness light flashing going in, a four-ball multiball if you have all five
(this also gives you a wonderful, monster-truck-rallyish variant of the
"MULTIBALL MADNESS!" quote), or a three-ball if you have something in between.
Most of the major shots--the ramps, the orbits, the catapult--are lit for
Jackpots.  The shots that I'd already lit the Madness lights for--so the
Catapult and the Peasant ramp, in this case--are lit for Super Jackpots 
instead.  The small left door on the Castle is good for Double Super Jackpots;
the Castle itself just plays normally, and the scoop isn't lit for anything.
The value of the Jackpots and Super Jackpots depends on how many Madness
lights you had flashing going in.  If you start Madness with just a single
light, you get a paltry 100K for Jackpots and 200K for Super J's; the
values gradually rise with additional lights, reaching 1M for Super Jackpots
with all the Madnesses lit.  (This represents a _lot_ of points on this game;
the GC on the local machine is 215M.)
     Jim describes the way the Trolls! modes work below.  If they sound a lot
like Martian Attack and Martian Multiball, you're right.  If you suspect that
means that they can be combined with Multiball Madness, you're right again.
If you actually complete the Trolls! round before starting a Multiball
Madness, the Troll Madness light starts flashing.  You can also have the
Trolls! mode running when you hit the scoop to start Madness; in that case,
the Trolls! mode keeps running along with the Madness, and if you complete
Trolls! before Madness ends, Troll Madness gets added on to the Madness
already in progress--which gives you a fresh set of balls for your multiball
if you've lost any, a fresh few seconds of ballsaver, and the higher values
for the rest of your Jackpot and Super Jackpot shots.  This is very cool.
(I suspect the designers agree, because I've noticed that when you get the
other four Madnesses flashing, get Merlin's Magic lit as well, then hit the
center hole, "START TROLLS!" seems to be an awfully popular award...)
     (No, you can't start Madnesses other than the Trolls this way; shots
to ramps/orbits/catapults during Madness don't count towards finishing those
shots--they just give you Jackpots or Super Jackpots.)
     So playing Madness effectively is somewhat similar to playing Dracula
effectively.  In Dracula, you try to set things up so that you have all
the multiballs nearly ready to start, then start them all as fast as you
can.  In this game, you can't add new Madnesses in mid-Multiball this way,
so you try to avoid starting Madness while you get as many of the Madness
lights lit as you can, then hit the center hole to start the carnage.)
     Anyway, once Multiball Madness finishes, you're now just trying to
finish up the shots you didn't finish up before (so the Dragon, the Joust
and the Trolls, in this case).  The Madness lights are no longer flashing;
they're lit solidly instead.  Finishing up a shot lights the Madness light
for that shot if it wasn't lit before, and starts a Castle Hurry-up in any
case.
     When you get all five Madness lights lit (which you can do by starting
Multiball Madness with all five flashing, or by cleaning up afterwards), Royal
Madness lights at the center hole.  Royal Madness is an intense round--and
no, it's not another multiball.  Two lights are lit at each ramp, at the
orbits, and at the Catapult; the Trolls pop up as well.  The object is to
clear all these lights, and slay the Trolls.  The first time you hit a lit
shot, one light goes out, and you get 250K.  (This also counts as finishing
that shot once, for the purpose of the wizard mode--more on that later.)
The second time, the other light goes out, and you get a 750K Jackpot.  
(Remember that a solid hit to that Catapult lane will give you credit for
both Catapult shots.)  Each Troll only requires one hit to slay; the first 
Troll down gives 250K, the second 750K.  (And yes, those Troll Bombs work
here.)  There's a 20-second timer for all this--pause for the cries of 
Bullshit!" to die down--but that timer resets every time you successfully
make a shot.  (And there's about a five-second grace period when the timer
runs out.)  
     Clearing all the lights and slaying both trolls, without losing the ball
and without running out of time, awards an extra ball.
     Two strategy hints here: go for the Catapult first (while the ballsaver
is still lit), and consider saving at least one troll if possible (since 
hitting a troll is an easy way to reset the timer if you're having trouble
making a shot).
     Once the mode is over one way or the other, the Madness lights clear,
and you start all over again.

     Oh, yes, the Castle Hurryups:  Like I said, you get one of those when
you finish a shot, but you've already lit that shot for Madness, or you've
already played Madness (and haven't played Royal Madness yet to reset
everything).  The main castle gate lights; the value starts at 100K and
counts down.  As in AFM, if you finish off another shot with a Hurryup already
running, the value escalates to 300K, then to 600K, and so on.  But there's
one thing to bear in mind here:  You get an extra ball for 10 completed
Hurryups.  So combining a bunch of them may not be the best idea, since no
matter how many you combine, they still only count as one towards that
extra ball.

>   Complete all multiball modes to start Royal madness. 
>   Then every multiball mode must be completed 3 times to start wizard mode. 

    Not quite correct; see below. 

>   Regular (Castle) multiball started by "locking" three balls. 
>   Jackpots are the ramps. Get 5 jackpots to light super jackpot. 

     Super Jackpot collected at the small Castle door.

>    Make the catapault three times to start "Multiball Madness" 

     No; this just lights Catapult Madness at the center hole, same as with
the other shots.

>    The third time you make it, you get to launch something from it. The
>choices were pretty funny. I picked the skull from NF once and got the
>scream. I also launched the cat once and got the high pitched cat scream as
>the DMD showed the cat flying through the air. The plastic over the catapult
>shows all the items you can launch once you get the third catapult shot.
>There is a duck, cow, cat, and some other items. 

     The five choices are duck, cow, cat, bowling ball, skull (not
necessarily in that order).  The catapult rapidly cycles through them (hit
the flipper buttons to select), and each one has a different value, up to
500K.  In addition, I believe that launching three different items during
the game gives an award (though I don't remember whether it was a lit
extra ball or just some big points).

>   Two different troll modes  
>   TROLLS ! 
>   Hit the two yellow targets in the middle of the game to light TROLLS! on
>the right eject. Sometimes you hit the yellow target on the right side and
>the ball goes directly  into the right eject and starts Trolls. This is
>pretty cool. In this mode both trolls come up and you must hit each one 3
>times to complete. This lights troll multiball madness. 

     One troll blocks the small castle door; the other blocks the center
hole.  This makes it somewhat tricky to start Madness with Trolls! running;
you have to either slay the right troll first, or bounce a shot off the left
troll.  (One time, I managed to bank a ball off both trolls and in there;
I seem to recall that the game actually recognized this as a different combo
from the basic troll-to-hole combo, and gave me 3 Troll Bombs instead of 1...)

>   Troll Multiball Madness 
>   The trolls alternate left and right. Hit the left one and it falls and
>then the right comes up, etc. In this mode you must get 10 troll hits to
>complete that task for the wizard mode. 

     Again, this isn't really an independent mode; it's another aspect of
the Madness mode.

>    Rescue the "damsel in distress" from the fire-breathing dragon 
>    "It's getting hot up here - isn't anyone going to rescue me?" 

     This is just the schtick for clearing the Dragon ramp.  The quotes are
great, though. :-)  "Like, totally chivalrous, dude!"

>    Complete six modes in "The Reign of Payne" to reach "Battle for the 
>Kingdom" 
>    The Earl of Ego 
>    The Duke of Bourbon 
>    The King of Payne 
>    "Troll Madness"? 
>    (two others I can't remember) 

     You're confusing two different parts of the rules here.
     There are six castles to capture, each one defended by a different
character--the Earl of Ego ("Behold my splendor!"), the Duke of Bourbon
("Quit makin' all that noise!"), Sir Howard Hurtz ("Who the <bleep> are
you?"), Sir Psycho ("You can't beat me!  I'm medicated!"), Sir Francois of
something-I-can't-remember ("I will get medieval on your derriere!"), and
finally the King of Payne.
     The wizard mode--Battle for the Kingdom--is something else again;
your progress toward that is tracked by blue lights near the castle.
You have to finish each ramp, the orbits, and the Catapult three times each.
(Again, the first shot to each of these during Royal Madness counts as
finishing the shot once, so this isn't really that hard at all.)  You also
have to kill your quota of trolls, and--by far the most difficult one--
destroy all six castles.  I can't tell you any more about it, because I've
never started it and never seen it started...

>Comments

[actually snipping some stuff here for once...]

>Some will not agree, but the playfield layout is similar to AFM. If you
>liked AFM, you'll probably like MM. 

     Yep.  It's a super-AFM, with a bit of Dracula mixed in as well.
     It looks like it's going to be a really fun machine; it's simple for
novices to get into, but the rules have a _lot_ of depth to them. 

>After you defeat the first troll in troll mode, the second one says "he was
>weak I am strong."  I think the second one says something clever when you
>defeat him, but I can't remember. 

     This game is absolutely loaded with MST3K-style "callbacks" to previous
pins.  Occasional opening quote:  "It's a great day for jousting!"  Sir
Francois:  "You will remove that battering ram from my castle!"  Angry
peasants:  "They've taken our livestock and treasured historical monuments!"

-- 
\o\   If you're interested in books/stories with transformation themes,    \o\
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