done.

Used several tools, one of them (UniScribe) gave this : 

 "今の僕は 何をするべきだ" which means "What should I do now?"

but i'm not sure about the accuracy

That's an odd size, the standard size has been maintained for over 60 years for consistent playability.

A ball that is heavier than a standard ball weighing approximately 80 g increases the impact on beaters, drop targets, bumpers, and plastic components, accelerating wear and tear and potentially breaking certain parts ! 

If the ball rolls less freely (greater contact with the table), it can leave more marks on the decor, varnish, and inserts, especially if the surface of the ball becomes pitted over time. It slower the playing speed, gives less lively trajectories, and provokes unexpected behavior compared to the original design 

VERY WEIRD. A youtuber tested it (go to 15m29sec) and wasn't able to use it either, but worst it did something strange to its computer (something with noises / mono / stereo etc etc) 

The corrupted ito file has been updated on 2012-08-07

And the iceberg thread already mentionned this date... 

I tried to ask calcium_chan about this iceberg, where all those informations came from but I had no answer...

I'm digging the newspapers to see if something related to our case happened during that day in france , usa and canada, but I didn't find anything usefull yet.

The more we dig for answers the more we find questions ! (have a close look to the date !!)

I removed most of the noise, crop to let the voice only, put an EQ, tried to repitch it a little bit, but as a non english speaker, I can't figure out what the voice said

We need the whole community to give a ear on both version

what happened to Mike ? did he moved to Indianapolis around 2012 ? 

sorry to ask and i hope pls pls its Just me being paranoid, its been almost 24h without anyone posting, is everyone… okay ? Like no one has been hospitalized or disappeared or worse ?? Answer me guys im worry 

edit : nvm people are posting again lol i guess i'm just a bit ... worry about this whole pinball situation. 

Sorry for freaking out. I have received several threats from a pro-pinball-is-just-a-VR theory guy (whose name I won't mention, but I think he/she will know who they are). I think they know my address, and since then I haven't been sleeping very well. 

@calcium_chan : Please, what happened on 2012/08/07 ???  

(I installed it, I still try to figure out how this plugin works on Reaper.
I'll let you know you if I succeed in anything)

I wrote to the VST's dev on discord. Waiting for his answer. Also tried to catch his attention on youtube. (10 FEB)

I created a shared doc here on draw.io.

tried to put every relevant information I had in a coherent timeline. May update it after we do more research.

Note : I received some rather aggressive DMs from supporters of the VR theory (who believe that physical pinball machines never existed), so I apologize if this timeline does not sufficiently reflect your point of view, but IMO there is a lack of evidence for now

(Last update : 10 FEB)

You mention "There were three Junji Ito pinball machines made. Well four but we will get to that.", but I read carefully, and maybe I missed something, but there is no further mention of a fourth machine. Is it possible to develop this part ?

edit : oh maybe you are talking about " the re-skinned cabinet from another game with Ito style graphics to show the executives his vision."

Okay, I'm at work, I'm in the break room, and I'm taking five minutes to write down what I was thinking yesterday after finding this video:

TEXT

- First, the text cropped at the top of the screen. I tried to figure out what letters it was, and I found : 

H or M / I or T / O or S / again I or T / again S or O / maybe an M ? (but the second word seems to have an M and doesn't look like it / an O a C or a G / 

for the second word : Definitly an F (very far from the other letters) / I or T / E or L / M / S or O

- No idea what the time and "AR 34" stands for

VIDEO

- I don't understand why the video is so low quality, even for 1994 video (but i'm not an expert) - maybe a really amateur footage ? with an old camcorder

- the pinball doesn't look like the pinballs describedby you and several testimonies (no spiral involved, no strange design) BUT what caught my attention was the sound

SOUND

- someone is speaking. Not sure if it's american or japanese -> is there anyone that could confirm ?

- This kind of relaxing music playing in the background doesn't seem to fit with the atmosphere described at Joypolis

- the sound of the flipper could match the space Invaders pinball machine 1980 vfx (have to confirm this soon)

- in the end the intonation of what seems to be a girl talking sounds very japanese to me (but again not a specialist in japanese language)

Well, I really have to go. I'm running late, and my coworkers keep saying I seem distracted. I almost caused a pretty serious accident, and I really don't want to get in trouble with the boss.

hmmm I tried to dig into the joypolis website you mentionned, and in the 1994 archive... i founda video there. 

After I saw Elvana's post

I went to the 1994 archive of Joypolis (there) and found a video, without any article.

As more and more links seems to be dead as soon as we want to share them, I downloaded the video, cause I dont want to talk about thing without having anything to show. I went back to check the website few hours later : the 1994 archive was gone. 

I'll let you watch it, but I have several comments to make, I'll post them tommorow morning I guess (I live in France so we are not on the same time slot I guess) 

(Note before I go to bed : I don't believe it's Ito's Pinball BUT there is something strange with this footage, including the sound !!!)

https://imgur.com/gtdJcI0/embed?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fitch.io%2Fcategory%2F5653541%2Fnew-topic&w=540

 

(Had to make a second post because apparently I reached itch.io limit of 20480 characters, it's been 3 hours I'm doing this, I'm too tired to continue today, see you tommorow, hope this attempt is not absolute garbage and that it will help)

yeah just noticed it. I reported it in my attempt to summarize this investigation 

LET'S GET SERIOUS HERE. 

The goal of this post is to ensure everyone is on the same page, and prevent us from drowning in the flood of data. Obviously, I can't do this alone, so I'm counting on you to correct me if you see any errors or omissions...

If we trustArchFeyuk's informations : there is only 3 Junji Ito Pinball produced and 1 prototype. Some of them may have been rebranded.

(It would explain why so many people have seen those machine approximately at the same time even when it seems they were at different places)

the timeline that I have been able to construct based on the information available here

(WORK IN PROGESS !! I'll try to organize better the datas during the next days)

LAST UPDATE / 10 FEB

speech synthesizer ! I remember this creepy video with a computer repeating "she saw me", i'll try to find it, it would have been really plausible that Junji Ito would have convinced Stern to use it for the pinball's audio (sry for bad english, not a native speaker)

Edit : found it ! 

Yeah I agree !  the standard size of a ball is 1-1/16 inches (approximately 26.5 mm), but some pinball machines used different sizes (for example, Bally Truck Stop). if OP could measure the size and if the balls happens to be outside the norm, we could perhaps narrow down our search.

Found this very interesting article of 1999 : https://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/20/style/IHT-cuban-music-made-in-japan-takes-on-...
It would be very likely that your father's band played with the Orquesta de la luz, THE japanese reference in cuban music 

found his contact ! I'll write him in the afternoon and I'll let you know if there's a lead

not sure it's related, but as I stated in my post I found this

Ok, it may seems weird, but there is this game that happens in Junji Ito universe on Steam (not sure why I bought it, I didnt play a lot)  https://store.steampowered.com/app/3633250/Junji_Ito_Maniac_An_Infinite_Gaol/?l=... , it's not very good as you can see on the comment  sections 

BUT i checked a little bit the folders and there was a file named "gameball102.png"

When I try to open it, it tells me that the data is corrupted, and I'm terrible with computers. I tried to take a screenshot of the preview, but it looks awful. If anyone who knows what they're doing wants to try to open the file, I can make it available (no virus, I promise!).

sry I didn't translate it in english yet !

hi ! I used your font and some of your textures in this tiny epilogue (in french) : https://benydanette.itch.io/sweet-unrest

thanks again its amazing.

Il a écrit ce message il y a un an, toujours pas de réponse, est-ce que le projet était un vaste scam ?

I gave up the curfew (Even with your precious help it didnt work as I wished), but it was as small detail.  Anyway, thank you for giving it a try !

Hi ! I used some of these symbols in this game : https://benydanette.itch.io/amok

I credited you of course.

Hello ! I used your pictures for this project, I credited you of course : 
https://benydanette.itch.io/amok 

AND NOW IT WORKS 

thanks everyone for your infinite patience 

Aaaah I answered too quickly it finally doesn't work :( 

I'm about to give up, I don't understand what I'm doing wrong...

Here is my actual code :

for the hour as you suggested 

on change val do   
end  
on view do   
p:"%p" parse "%e" format sys.now  utc_offset:1  
p.hour:24%utc_offset+p.hour  b:(p.hour)   
me.text:"%f:" format b      
end

and for the button : 

p:"%p" parse "%e" format sys.now   
o:() o.tfont:"f10x20" 
o.border.image:windoid.copy[] 
o.fcolor:colors.white 
o.bcolor:colors.transparent 
o.size:500,0 dd.open[deck o] 
dd.style[o] 
dd.say["+ + + + + INCOMING + + + + +"]  
if (p.hour=12)&(p.minute=13) 
dd.say["EASTEREGG"] 
dd.close[] 
go["card1" "Dissolve"]  
elseif (7=10%p.second) 
dd.say["HACK#7SECONDS#DONTGETCAUGHT#"] 
dd.close[] 
go["card1" "Dissolve"]  
elseif ((p.hour) <10) & ((p.hour) >20) 
dd.say["###ACCES AUTORISE ENTRE 20H ET 10H###"]    
dd.close[]    
go["card1" "Dissolve"]  
else dd.say["###ACCES INTERDIT ENTRE 10H ET 20H###"] 
dd.close[]  
end

AMAZING.

It's crystal clear, and it works ! thanks !!

after 1 hour of attempt I can't figure out how to do it :/
The second works, the special easter egg also, but the curfew from an hour to another doesn't

sorry I feel stupid, but could you save me with a piece of code ? 

is it possible to export / to play in on browser ?

It's weird, the "easter egg" and "second 7" restriction works perfectily, but the curfew between two specific hours doesn't... 
Here is the code I wrote with your indication :

__

p:"%p" parse "%e" format sys.now 
if (p.hour+1=12)&(p.minute=13)  
dd.say["EASTEREGG"]  
dd.close[]  
go["card1" "Dissolve"]  
elseif (7=10%p.second)  
dd.say["HACK#7SECONDS#DONTGETCAUGHT#"]  
dd.close[]  
go["card1" "Dissolve"]  
elseif (p.hour+1>10) & (p.hour+1<20)  
dd.say["###ACCES AUTORISE###COUVRE-FEU DE 10H A 20H###"]  
dd.close[]  
go["card1" "Dissolve"] 
 
else  
dd.say["###ACCES INTERDIT###COUVRE-FEU DE 10H A 20H###"]  
dd.close[]  
end

__

you can check the project here : https://benydanette.itch.io/amok (password : curfew)
(note : i set "p.hour+1" to have the right time in my country)

Hi everyone.

I would like to be able to allow or deny access to the content of the game I am creating based on the time of day.

More specifically, I want to impose a curfew that would prohibit going to a go to a card game between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m.

So far, this is how I've done it:  I created a field called “hour” with the following content:

"on change val do

end

on view do

p:“%p” parse “%e” format sys.now

b:(p.hour)

end"

Then a button that checks the content of this field:

"if

home.widgets.hour.text=21

dd.say[“ACCESS DENIED”]

dd.close[]

elseif

home.widgets.hour.text=22

dd.say[“ACCESS ALLOWED”]

dd.close[]

go[“card1” ‘Dissolve’]"

In this situation, only two hours are checked...

I would also like to be a little permissive, allowing the button to go to the next card as long as the seconds contain a “7.”
And finally, I would like to add an easter egg if players click on the button on a specific time (combination of hour and minute, for example 12:13) 

Could you tell me how to do this? I don't know how to code this in an elegant and logical way. Thanks :)

Hey ! Thank you for playing. It is indeed short as it was written in less than four hours, but a point of rule forbid me to compete in « la petite mort » : the added translation time from french to english puts this game in the « grand guignol » category. It seems absurd to me but I dont make the rule ! 

Have a nice day 🌱

hi it’s translated if you want to give it a try !