title: Recipe: Rollover Lanes (with Lane Change)

Recipe: Rollover Lanes (with Lane Change)

This guide shows you how to build an MPF config for rotating rollover lanes, as found in Indiana Jones, Attack From Mars, Medieval Madness, and many, many more.

What are Rollover Lanes?

Rollover lanes are found where pinball machines have a series of parallel lanes the ball can roll through. These are commonly found at the top of the playfield, often above pop bumpers and accessed via the outer orbit loop. Some games, like Medieval Madness, also use the outlanes and return lanes together as a group of rollover lanes

Each lane in the rollover lane group has a switch and a light. To start, all the lights are off. When the ball passes through a lane, that lane's light turns on. When the player turns on all the lights, they are awarded some prize and the lanes reset to off.

What is a Lane Change?

Games that use rollover lanes usually incorporate a "lane change" feature to make the completion easier. Lane changes use the flipper buttons to rotate the lit and unlit lane shots, shifting them left and right according to which button is pressed.

If a ball is about to enter a lane that's already been lit, the player can use the flipper buttons to shift the lanes so that the lane with the ball is unlit when the ball rolls over. By changing the lanes ahead of the ball, the player can complete the lane set more frequently---and it also gives the player more to do while the ball is away from the flippers!

Step 1. Create a lane change mode

Lane changes are typically available at all times during a game, so it's wise to create a separate mode for them. This mode can be run at the same time as other modes (but stopped any time, maybe during wizard modes if you want).

The first thing our mode needs is shots:. Each lane will count as a shot, and for this example we'll use the I-N-D-Y lanes from the Indiana Jones pinball game. We'll assume that the machine has switches defined in the switches: config section for each of the top lanes, called s_top_lane_1 through s_top_lane_4.

#! switches:
#!   s_top_lane_1:
#!     number: 1
#!   s_top_lane_2:
#!     number: 2
#!   s_top_lane_3:
#!     number: 3
#!   s_top_lane_4:
#!     number: 4
##! mode: top_lanes
mode:
  start_events: start_mode_top_lanes
  stop_events: stop_mode_top_lanes, ball_will_end

shots:
  top_lane_i:
    switch: s_top_lane_1
  top_lane_n:
    switch: s_top_lane_2
  top_lane_d:
    switch: s_top_lane_3
  top_lane_y:
    switch: s_top_lane_4

Step 2. Creating a profile for the lanes

We can create a shot profile for the top lanes that starts with the light on, and turns it off after the shot is hit.

##! mode: top_lanes
shot_profiles:
  top_lane_profile:
    states:
      - name:
        show: off
      - name: hit
        show: on

Note

In common pinball parlance, a shot is "lit" if the player should try an hit it. In almost all cases this means the light for the shot is on (i.e. "lit"), but rollover lane shots are the opposite: the light is off when the shot is lit, and on after the shot is hit.

We can apply our shot profile to each of the shots we defined earlier. Each lane has its own light, which we can specify using show_tokens. This tells MPF that when it plays the show (in this case, the "on" show) for a specific shot, use the light that corresponds to that shot.

We'll assume the machine has four lights defined in the lights: config section, called l_top_lane_1 through l_top_lane_4

#! switches:
#!   s_top_lane_1:
#!     number: 1
#!   s_top_lane_2:
#!     number: 2
#!   s_top_lane_3:
#!     number: 3
#!   s_top_lane_4:
#!     number: 4
##! mode: top_lanes
#! shot_profiles:
#!   top_lane_profile:
#!     states:
#!       - name:
#!         show: off
#!       - name: hit
#!         show: on
shots:
  top_lane_i:
    switch: s_top_lane_1
    profile: top_lane_profile
    show_tokens:
      led: l_top_lane_1
  top_lane_n:
    switch: s_top_lane_2
    profile: top_lane_profile
    show_tokens:
      led: l_top_lane_2
  top_lane_d:
    switch: s_top_lane_3
    profile: top_lane_profile
    show_tokens:
      led: l_top_lane_3
  top_lane_y:
    switch: s_top_lane_4
    profile: top_lane_profile
    show_tokens:
      led: l_top_lane_4

Step 3. Creating a shot_group for the lanes

To tell MPF that the four lane shots are related to each other, we create a shot group with all the shots in it.

Shot groups are powerful because they control behavior of all the shots together. In this case, we'll use our shot group to:

Rotate the lit and hit shots
Trigger an event when all the shots are hit
Reset all the shots to be lit

#! switches:
#!   s_top_lane_1:
#!     number: 1
#!   s_top_lane_2:
#!     number: 2
#!   s_top_lane_3:
#!     number: 3
#!   s_top_lane_4:
#!     number: 4
##! mode: top_lanes
#! shots:
#!   top_lane_i:
#!     switch: s_top_lane_1
#!     profile: top_lane_profile
#!     show_tokens:
#!       led: l_top_lane_1
#!   top_lane_n:
#!     switch: s_top_lane_2
#!     profile: top_lane_profile
#!     show_tokens:
#!       led: l_top_lane_2
#!   top_lane_d:
#!     switch: s_top_lane_3
#!     profile: top_lane_profile
#!     show_tokens:
#!       led: l_top_lane_3
#!   top_lane_y:
#!     switch: s_top_lane_4
#!     profile: top_lane_profile
#!     show_tokens:
#!       led: l_top_lane_4
#!
#! shot_profiles:
#!   top_lane_profile:
#!     states:
#!       - name:
#!         show: off
#!       - name: hit
#!         show: on
shot_groups:
  top_lane_group:
    shots: top_lane_i, top_lane_n, top_lane_d, top_lane_y
    reset_events: top_lane_group_hit_complete
    rotate_left_events: s_flipper_left_active
    rotate_right_events: s_flipper_right_active

The rotate_left_events and rotate_right_events allow the lane changes based on the flipper events.

A shot group tracks the profile state of each shot, and will post an event (shot_group_name)_(state_name)_complete event whenever all shots in the group are the same state. In the profile "top_lane_profile" we said that the second state is called "hit", so we can use the top_lane_group_hit_complete event to know that all the shots are hit. The name of the state is up to you.

When the top_lane_group_hit_complete event is triggered, the shot group will reset all the shots to their initial state: the "lit" state of the profile with the light off. Now the lanes are ready for the player to complete again!

Step 4. Rewards for rollover lane completion

Presumably when the player completes the rollover lanes, they should get some reward: a bonus multiplier, a counter advance, some points... it can be anything.

In this example, we'll use the variable_player: to award the player 10,000 points for completing the rollover lanes, and also increase a the bonus multiplier for the end-of-game bonus.

variable_player:
  top_lane_group_hit_complete:
    score: 10000
    bonus_multiplier: 1

See End of Ball Bonus for details on bonus_multiplier.

The full mode config code

#! switches:
#!   s_top_lane_1:
#!     number: 1
#!   s_top_lane_2:
#!     number: 2
#!   s_top_lane_3:
#!     number: 3
#!   s_top_lane_4:
#!     number: 4
##! mode: top_lanes
mode:
  start_events: start_mode_top_lanes
  stop_events: stop_mode_top_lanes, ball_will_end

shots:
  top_lane_i:
    switch: s_top_lane_1
    profile: top_lane_profile
    show_tokens:
      led: l_top_lane_1
  top_lane_n:
    switch: s_top_lane_2
    profile: top_lane_profile
    show_tokens:
      led: l_top_lane_2
  top_lane_d:
    switch: s_top_lane_3
    profile: top_lane_profile
    show_tokens:
      led: l_top_lane_3
  top_lane_y:
    switch: s_top_lane_4
    profile: top_lane_profile
    show_tokens:
      led: l_top_lane_4

shot_groups:
  top_lane_group:
    shots: top_lane_i, top_lane_n, top_lane_d, top_lane_y
    reset_events: top_lane_group_hit_complete
    rotate_left_events: s_flipper_left_active
    rotate_right_events: s_flipper_right_active

shot_profiles:
  top_lane_profile:
    states:
      - name:
        show: off
      - name: hit
        show: on

variable_player:
  top_lane_group_hit_complete:
    score: 10000
    bonus_multiplier: 1

Something missing or wrong? You can fix it!

This website is edited by people like you! Is something wrong or missing? Is something out of date, or can you explain it better?

Please help us! You can fix it yourself and be an official "open source" contributor!

It's easy! See our Beginner's guide to editing the docs.

Page navigation via the keyboard: < >

You can navigate this site via the keyboard. There are two modes:

General navigation, when search is not focused:

F , S , / : open search dialog
P , , : go to previous page
N , . : go to next page

While using the search function:

Down , Up : select next / previous result
Esc , Tab : close search
Enter : go to highlighted page in the results