KING OF THE REALM!!!!!!!!!!

Well people, TODAY I FINALLY BEAT MEDIEVAL MADNESS!!!  It was, without a doubt, the craziest game of pinball I have ever played.  Below you can read all the details...

For most of this summer, my schedule has been thus: From 9am - 1pm I work on Basewood, then I go home, eat lunch and answer emails, and then at 2pm I go play pinball for about 30 minutes (or an hour if I have a good game!).  Today I was puttering around the house for a bit in the morning, so I didn't get to the studio until 10am.  I worked until noon, and then on a whim decided to play pinball BEFORE my lunch, instead of after.  Oh what a difference a few hours made!

I booted up the machine and put three credits on it.  On my first game I got 122 million, lighting all of the blue lights except for Castle Crusher - I died with just a few gate hits left to complete.  A few weeks ago when I was doing some circuit board repair work on the machine, most of the high scores were reset (all except for my Grand Champ score of 215 million) so this was the new #2 score.  Usually if I have a good game, I stop playing, because I usually can't top it.  But it was my FIRST game, so I decided to play another.  Little did I know it was going to be the game of my LIFE!

Ball 1 lasted FOREVER.  When it was over I had a 42x bonus that cashed in at something like 25 million points, which left my score at 96 million.  On that ball I had the best castle multiball I've ever had - completing all five ramp shots AND the super jackpot with all three balls still in play.  I hit all of the subsequent jackpot shots except for the left joust by the time it was over.  With that extra ball I got into my first Royal Madness, which I screwed up pretty quickly.  Little did I know it would be the first of FOUR Royal Madness rounds for this game.

I kept making shots and kept going for the castle gate.  I got video mode and successfully killed enough vultures to get the extra ball, and soon thereafter I lit Royal Madness again - this time I cleaned up.  Every time I hit a shot, the corresponding blue light came on.  I completed all the shots (for ANOTHER extra ball) and by the end of it, all the blue lights were on except for Castle Crusher.

I only had the King of Payne's castle left to destroy, so I built up the SECOND Castle Multiball, and then when I started it, I used all three balls to attack the gate, which worked great.  I didn't win the round, but I did blow up the last castle.  When the multiball was over, I was all set for Battle for the Kingdom.  I sank the center shot and the final mode started up.

Now, I have made it to Battle for the Kingdom half a dozen times at this point.  The first two or three times I had no idea what was going on, and I was so terrified I would lose immediately.  The last couple of times though, I figured out what I needed to do.  So when the four balls started launching, I immediately set to work hitting shots.  I was on FIRE.  I cleared all of the jackpots in short order (because I KNEW there was a timer running this time!)  All I had left was the left joust.  I hit that (STILL with THREE balls in play!) and then the two trolls shot up and all the blue lights started strobing.

I have died here at least three times, but THIS time I had saved some troll bombs.  BLAM!  BLAM!  Those suckers were gone, and I still had three balls and plenty of time to get my six gate shots.  The multiball attack worked wonders and I got my shots with plenty of time to spare.  The gate opened and I hit the final center shot.

Suddenly, the flippers went dead and thunk thunk thunk my three balls drained.  I was like, "HUH?!" and then the King of Payne started screaming, and I was awarded FIFTY MILLION POINTS.  There was a cool animation with all of the peasants celebrating the King's downfall, I managed to snap a shot of it with my cell phone:

Then the game entered some sort of crazy victory lap mode, where all the jackpots were lit and each one gave me some ungodly amount of points (5 million?)  I only hit three of them before the ball drained.  At this point my score was something like 275 million, SHATTERING my previous high score.

But the game was not over!  I still had an extra ball, and was miraculously, somehow still only on Ball 2.  I went back to work.  I got the extra ball for blowing up the "second" castle (though it was really the EIGHTH), and another for completing my 10th hurry up, which somehow I had not done up to that point.  I lit Royal Madness again, had another Castle Multiball, had another video mode and then lit Royal Madness AGAIN.  At the very end of the game I realized that I only needed one more catapult item to start barnyard multiball.  I started that (which was CRAZY) just before my last ball finally drained.  When the dust settled, my final score was 377,204,710 points.  Which means that even AFTER I had beaten the game, I put up another 100+ million points!?!

Not only did I set the new Grand Champ score, I got the first King of the Realm ever entered into the machine, and records for 11 Castles, 7 Jousts, 7 Catapults, 7 Peasants and 7 Damsels.  I suspect it will be some time before I touch those records again!  I've never beaten a pinball machine before - this is the first time.  It is a pretty amazing feeling.  I've now seen everything this machine can do, but you can always get a higher score, right?  Well, here's to trying!