Anyone seen Ballys Truck Stop?

[dave950lam]

It has a cool layout... How good is it?

Here's a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W199L0J_Je8

The dark room really helps a game pop.

 

[wolfson]

Dave never seen it before , looks great , it has the look a bit , of a Zen table !!!

 

[Blkthorne]

Few reviews on Pinside for it: https://pinside.com/pinball/archive/truck-stop/ratings

 

[Fungi]

Looks like a Mark Ritchie design.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

From IPDB:
Design by: Dan Langlois, Steve Kirk, Jim Patla

 

[Fungi]

From IPDB:
Design by: Dan Langlois, Steve Kirk, Jim Patla

Ah. So I was wrong.

 

[shutyertrap]

Artwork clearly inspired Whoa Nelly, right?

 

[Trackball]

There's just one problem with this game, and yes, it relates to how it can be ported to TPA--it may be impossible.

According to TV Tropes: "Due to an engineering mistake during design, the wireforms in the upper part of the playfield were smaller than normal, causing the balls to get stuck in them. The workaround was to replace the standard 1¼" balls with smaller ones, making this one of only two pinball games to use 1" balls."

This means they may have to come up with different physics...and before anyone says anything about the lighter golf ball and the heavier Hurricane Irene ball DLC, those balls still use the same standard size for collision purposes. That's why the Irene balls clip together in the TZ gumball machine, and why the golf balls seem to float in the same.

Anyway, anyone know what the other one-inch-ball game is?

 

[FarSight_Matt]

Could just make the entire table 20% larger than it is, making the ball 20% smaller than 1.25" in relation to the rest of its world

 

[Citizen]

I did quite a bit of searching and here are my findings:

-No one ever specifies what the other supposed table was
-I found multiple instances of the "one of only two tables to use 1" balls claim"
-I also found multiple claims that 1" balls were only used by Truck Stop and "some 60s EMs" (which no one ever names, either)
-Even sites that sell 1" balls only mention Truck Stop, or Truck Stop and "some 60s EMs"
-The Database mentions nothing about the production error or 1" balls
-According to a few people I saw who claimed to have owned one, the manual supposedly does not mention 1" balls
-A few people claimed they used industry standard 1 1/16th" balls with no problem (not sure why the TV Tropes article says 1 1/4th"; that's wrong)
-I also saw 15/16" balls mentioned several times as working in it

Basically, I couldn't find any good info. Just anecdotal, second hand, or otherwise unsubstantiated and sometimes contradictory information. The "one of only two" thing may well be nothing but complete bs that people just keep repeating.

If anyone here ever gets the chance to talk to Dan Langlois, Steve Kirk, or Jim Patla, this whole mess might be worth asking for more info on.

 

[FarSight_Matt]

That's interesting!