[4/1/2024] -Pi4/5 Support Incoming -Major League SkeeBall -- SkeeBall Controller

[nipsmg]

So, I could really use a graphic designer because my score graphics SUCK... but here's EightShot with sound and some pop-up score indicators.

I can assist you with the graphics. Tell me what you need and I can produce them!! This is a great project. I'd love to get the latest release. I plan on modding a 10' Barrington Billiards Roll and Score Game.

That would be awesome.. I want to release a public version of this but I really need to update some of the graphics in the game and to change out some completely.. I'm will try to log into windows tomorrow and get you a windows build. 

[hugowhere2]

I am building a Skee Ball for my bar in Vietnam. I am building from scratch and the software will be the last step.  I am interested in testing your software. Are there any instructions? Also what computer do you use, etc.

thanks for any information

[Rapidflipper]

I created an account just to say thanks for developing and sharing this software.  I picked up a 13’ Skee Ball Extreme bowler and plan to install your software package.  My family is going to love multiplayer gameplay.  I will post a followup once complete, and sharing a “before” photo now.

[nipsmg]

Awesome.  I've been insanely busy with work and a consulting job taking up 100% of my time, so I'm not always online and haven't had made any updates to the software in a while, but it works -- please feel free to reach out here if you have any questions and I'll TRY to respond when I can.

[Rapidflipper]

Awesome.  I've been insanely busy with work and a consulting job taking up 100% of my time, so I'm not always online and haven't had made any updates to the software in a while, but it works -- please feel free to reach out here if you have any questions and I'll TRY to respond when I can.

Hello NIPSMG,
The software is excellent, and my family particularly enjoys the Zapp game.  I’d love to customize the sounds a bit.  For the Classic game, I noticed there are scoring sound clips for each value but they aren’t used in the game.  Am I able to turn those on somehow?

I took a demo video to show a friend, and sharing here so you can see my setup.  I also want to do some cool things with lighting. Thanking addressable LED strips that react when you score.
https://imgur.com/a/gE2qExq

[Rapidflipper]

Side note, I’d also love a copy of the e-book on SDK development.  Would be great to learn!

[shimoda]

Finally found my old kadevice minimus 32 board and set it up for the default keystrokes but wondering how this software will activate a ball release and through what medium (what device will send the signal instead of receiving signals.  Haven't seen how activating the ball release solenoid is done with this software.

[shimoda]

Awesome.  I've been insanely busy with work and a consulting job taking up 100% of my time, so I'm not always online and haven't had made any updates to the software in a while, but it works -- please feel free to reach out here if you have any questions and I'll TRY to respond when I can.

Hello NIPSMG,
The software is excellent, and my family particularly enjoys the Zapp game.  I’d love to customize the sounds a bit.  For the Classic game, I noticed there are scoring sound clips for each value but they aren’t used in the game.  Am I able to turn those on somehow?

I took a demo video to show a friend, and sharing here so you can see my setup.  I also want to do some cool things with lighting. Thanking addressable LED strips that react when you score.
https://imgur.com/a/gE2qExq

One thing you can do is to use a different sound file - problem is they are xnb format.  Textract will pull wav files from the XNBs for you and you can use a wav to xnb converter (found one somewhere that worked) and then just rename the file to the original sound name.  I tried this out successfully to replace the SkeeBallSong.  Note - longer songs will just keep playing till they are done.  Waiting to get source code so I can make more changes.

[nipsmg]

Hello NIPSMG,
The software is excellent, and my family particularly enjoys the Zapp game.  I’d love to customize the sounds a bit.  For the Classic game, I noticed there are scoring sound clips for each value but they aren’t used in the game.  Am I able to turn those on somehow?

I took a demo video to show a friend, and sharing here so you can see my setup.  I also want to do some cool things with lighting. Thanking addressable LED strips that react when you score.
https://imgur.com/a/gE2qExq

Addressible LED lighting has been a plan for some time now.  I have already prototyped the hardware using an ESP32 and some custom arduino code along with the .net serial interface to control it.  I just don't have the time to add it.

[shimoda]

So I was getting multiple switch hits with the software on my custom game that uses mechanical switches for ball scoring.  Ball will only go over the switch for its point value but may bounce and get up multiple 'hits' within less than a second.  Set game mode to 'PhysicalSwitches' in the config.json file but still getting multiple switch hits.  Is there a fix for the multi0ple scoring?  Every target also only counts for 10, rather than 20/30/40/50.  I assume that's the mode but wondering if OpticalWithBallDrain is the better setting...

[Moleburt]

Can this all be played with a trackball?

[PL1]

Can this all be played with a trackball?

Nipsmg's software is for a physical SkeeBall build.

If you're looking for a videogame version of SkeeBall that uses a trackball controller, check out eds1275's Ramp & Roll.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,140795.0.html


Scott

[Rapidflipper]

We are still loving the software.  I asked this question previously, but wanted to try again. I was able to swap in some different game start music, but want to enable sounds when the ball scores each time. I noticed there are scoring sound clips for each value but they aren’t used in the game.  Am I able to turn those on somehow?

[nickels]

Wow I've been asleep for a while and missed a lot of fun. I will catch up on this thread, but if you need any more game ideas I have so many and I'll never get to them as I've been making Skee Ball games in Adobe Flash for about a decade now. I almost started over and redid them all in Unity, but it is too much work so I am still doing Flash games for my machine. I just added full color lighting to mine, and am currently updating all my games to work in full color. I added high scoring on some of them as well. I'll post when I have enough progress for it to be worthwhile. This looks great keep up the good work. Here is a teaser of my full-color set-up in progress with the first game made specifically to use all the lighting to the fullest. 
https://imgur.com/a/0E1pfQ0

[nipsmg]

cool man .. I'm hoping I can get back to it this summer, and DEFINITELY plan on doing LED integration-- I wrote a ESP32 program that was serial driveable via C# -- I'll have to get back to it.

I'd love to talk about game ideas and see some of yours.   I always wanted to learn Unity as well -- this is done in MonoGame, but I might pivot to unity-- who knows.

This is IF i get spare time-- which is not likely now -- working 2 nearly full time jobs AND taking flight lessons. :-/

[Rapidflipper]

If there are any new releases for custom software, I would love to be a volunteer tester.  Happy bowling all!

[ddgreens]

This is awesome, I bought 3 Xtreme Skeeball machines last week and then found this thread.
I have one of them up and running on this software and I love it
A couple of questions
How do i get a copy of the ebook? When I click on the link from the front page it takes me to the summary of chapters but I can not find a download link
Second, when I run the software there is some information in the top left of the screen (resolution, number of players, etc) How do I get that turned off
Great software, I am really enjoying playing with it
Thanks

[ddgreens]

Well I figured out how to get the information off of the top left of the screen.
It looks like this is not being worked on anymore
Thanks for the software, it really is a lot of fun
I would still love to have the ebook if it is still available
Thanks again

[nipsmg]

I still have it, I actually found it this weeken.  I’ll put it somewhere today for download.

[nipsmg]

So, I decided to pick this up and do a little work on it.. and I've made some interesting progress:






I've fully upgraded the project to the newest version of MonoGame, and have it running successfully on a Raspberry Pi.  This was really one of the original intentions, to get it running on SBCs for installation in a skeeball cabinet-- and that dream is now a reality.

I've got a little momentum here so there may be more to come..

[ddgreens]

That is awesome!
Let me know if you need any testing done
Love the software

[pnut146]

Hello   
I have been trying to get the software running on a rpi3 for weeks now.  I am interested in how you have gotten it to work.  Is there a github that has the complete image to get it up and running?

[RobPatton]

Just found this project and am love the app so far.  Lots of questions:
Is this still under dev?   
Is an ipad-2 the best board?
Is there an pi-3/4/5 image to run this?

[nipsmg]

Just found this project and am love the app so far.  Lots of questions:
Is this still under dev?   
Is an ipad-2 the best board?
Is there an pi-3/4/5 image to run this?

1. No, not really under active dev--  I don't have any time to do anything at the moment -- am working 2 jobs.
2. Board doesn't matter, as long as it's a keyboard encoder / can be mapped to keys.
3.  I did recently create version updated to a new version of MonoGame and got it to run on a Pi4, but I don't have an image yet.   Maybe someday in the next few months but I'm not promising anything.  For now it's windows only.

[nipsmg]

We are still loving the software.  I asked this question previously, but wanted to try again. I was able to swap in some different game start music, but want to enable sounds when the ball scores each time. I noticed there are scoring sound clips for each value but they aren’t used in the game.  Am I able to turn those on somehow?

No, it was the original intention,  but it got annoying pretty quickly so I removed it. 

[rick_bungle]

Maybe a dumb question, but is there a place to edit the text?  As an example I noticed it says "2rd" place.  I don't know anything about programming but I can edit config and XML files!  I poked around but didn't find anything.  I saw it was mentioned in a post from 2021.

[nipsmg]

Maybe a dumb question, but is there a place to edit the text?  As an example I noticed it says "2rd" place.  I don't know anything about programming but I can edit config and XML files!  I poked around but didn't find anything.  I saw it was mentioned in a post from 2021.

that's a bug.  I'll have to fix that this spring when I get a new final release out.

[nipsmg]

Got my Pi5 in and had to at least get a POC running.  Still have a ton of billing work to do so I wont' have a ton of time to work on it, but I'd like to get to it this spring.

[Jstgilstrap]

im loving the software but Im having a issue. For some reason the 40 and 50 will double hit. I dont think its the switch double hitting since I can use my fingers and it still does it. I have tired different switches too with the same thing. Also if I have one ball left and hit the 40 or 50 it will make the software go all crazy. The balls played will start  counting up. I will get a video of it and post it.

Not to sure what to do to fix this issue.

[Jstgilstrap]

Here is a video of what it is doing

https://photos.app.goo.gl/WERNbARvNvRPsRQT7

[Jstgilstrap]

Well I figured it out. turns out something was up with the ports on the ipac 2 i was using. swapped the ports and it all works fine now.

[rick_bungle]

Just wanted to say thanks for this software!
I ended up building a machine and using your software to run it:
https://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,168734.msg1773129.html

It works great, even with the "2rd place"!

[nipsmg]

Wow, that machine looks incredible.  Glad you like the software. 

Wish I had more time to work on it / improve it.

[IceBalls]

Is it possible to get this to run on an older IceBall machine by tapping into the existing optical sensors? I just lifted off the target play field and noticed the sensor configuration looks a little different than I was expecting. There is an individual sensor for each 10, 20, 30, 40. Then at the top, there are only two more optical sensors that look like they cross each other right under the 50. My guess is that scoring a 50 trips both sensors, but hitting a 100 in either corner will only trip one of those sensors - due to how the balls roll. So basically it looks like there are only two sensors for 3 ball holes. There is also an additional optical sensor in the ball drain.

I suppose I could install separate physical or optical sensors, and put one on every hole, in order to have it work with this software.

[nipsmg]

Could you take a picture of that and send it to me? I’m having trouble visualizing how that would work

[IceBalls]

Here's a photo and I added the red lines showing the 6 opto sensors for the 7 targets, plus one additional opto sensor at the entrance to the ball drain.

As mentioned, my best guess is that the center ball breaks the beam on both top opto sensors, whereas the left or right 100 balls will only pass through one of those beams.

[Jstgilstrap]

Any one have an issue with the program closing its self. If I keep the program up for a bit it just will close. its even closed during a game play.

[nipsmg]

Any one have an issue with the program closing its self. If I keep the program up for a bit it just will close. its even closed during a game play.

I think that's a memory leak -- It happened randomly. I might have a build that fixes that, I'll have to check.

[nipsmg]

Here's a photo and I added the red lines showing the 6 opto sensors for the 7 targets, plus one additional opto sensor at the entrance to the ball drain.

As mentioned, my best guess is that the center ball breaks the beam on both top opto sensors, whereas the left or right 100 balls will only pass through one of those beams.

So I could PROBABLY swing that somehow... but I have no spare time to address that at the moment.  Let me see if I can swing some time to play with it this weekend.

[rick_bungle]

I have the random crashing issue too, but it isn't often.  I was thinking about putting a button on the cabinet to relaunch the program if there wasn't an update to fix it.