http://www.youtube.com/user/pinballwiz45b?feature=mhee
Right now I'm doing Bejeweled and Luxor videos; when TPA comes out, then I'll be able to make longplays of them, too. Hopefully I'll get Timeshock in there as well. Thanks for watching (and subscribing)!
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Welcome Back to Digital Pinball Fans - please read this first
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Well, another league season is in the can. Finished 10th of 18 (despite having a 60 - 52 record), which I guess is OK, considering my league games this season have been collectively the worst of all the games I've played in 2013. When your high score on AC/DC is 182M, and you can't break 18M in any of 5 different league games on the same machine, you can't help but feel a little disappointed.
On the plus side, at least I'm playing consistently mediocre. The way the league is scored, you can get anywhere from 0 to 20 points each week, with 10 points being an "average" performance. Watch what happens after Week 3:
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10
Total
Score
17
5
11
10
9
11
10...
The short answer: Yes.
The not-so-short answer: This is going to be a lot more work than I thought - and I was expecting it to be a lot of work originally - and I've had a bunch of real life issues ranging from annoying to serious crop up lately. Add to this the fact that some of my limited free time goes to real pinball and another fraction goes to TPA. (This is good, because anyone who doesn't play a lot of pinball shouldn't be designing a table.) So there's not much time left to wrestle Visual Pinball to the ground, conjure up some primitive art so that a real artist at least knows what I'm trying for, try to figure out what to do with the right Gate of Hell spinner that seems to be in the way of at least one major shot no matter...
(Since it's been a while since the last one, a reminder that the [NP] in the post title means it's not about pinball. This is your chance to skip it if you're not interested.)
In 1986, the philosopher Harry Frankfurt first published the essay On Bullsh*t, which is as far as I can tell the first serious attempt to A) actually examine the origins and functions of bullsh*t, B) provide a rudimentary theory concerning the production and uses of bullsh*t, and C) write a scholarly piece containing the word "bullsh*t" about every other sentence. Reason C is enough by itself to buy the essay - it's too long to be an article and too short to be a book - and it actually is a thought-provoking read on its own merit.
Mr. Frankfurt wisely refused...
This review was kind of difficult to write, mainly because of the difficulty I encountered in separating the Pokemon license from the actual game. I myself have not played the Pokemon games in some time, but a license this big will attract some people and turn others off by its very nature. Does the game hold up on its own merits or does the Pokemon brand have to pick up a mediocre game's slack?
Background: Pokemon Pinball came out for the Game Boy Color in 1999. It was developed by Jupiter and published by Nintendo. The controls are quite simple; left on the D-Pad and A operate the left and right flippers, respectively, while Down, B and Select nudge the table left, right and up, respectively. The object of the game is similarly...
I'm flailing around after league yesterday (an average performance, although one plagued by mechanical failures: X-Men's flippers died on me mid-multiball and another player got shafted by AC/DC failing to return a ball it should have) on Dracula, and have a pretty mediocre first two balls, only about 50M, but there were 2 balls in the coffin and 2 loops.
I then proceed to channel my inner Tommy and somehow manage to get both Coffin Multiball and the pity Mist Multiball started together. Somehow in the course of all that, I start and finish Bats for 100M, collected some 2X Coffin Jackpots for 80M and 120M, and a bunch of Mist shots for "Twennnty Million!" each.
The most amazing part of all that is that I didn't even realize I had...
iPad Air 2 : iOS 9.3.4
TAF: 1,899,574,350
AFM: 204,854,843,240
Big Hurt: 1,514,080,150
Big Shot: 451,940 (478,290)
Black Hole: 5,433,930
Black Knight: 12,058,760
BK2K: 35,690,370
Black Rose: 1,027,131,130
BSD: 6,522,706,690
BOPB: 9,733,000,410
Cactus Canyon: 632,886,270
Centaur: 12,323,550 (12,687,230)
Central Park: 7,356
Champion Pub: 647,145,990
CV: 334,165,380
Class of 1812: 129,344,540
CFTBL: 11,057,979,110
Cue Ball Wizard: 4,099,840,100
Cyclone: 10,364,310 (16,698,360)
Diner: 102,050,570
Dr. Dude: 77,826,480
Earthshaker: 66,924,470
Eight Ball Deluxe: 3,215,100
El Dorado: 191,120
El Dorado: City of Gold: 4,207,570
EATPM: 33,867,420 (34,627,560)
F-14 Tomcat: 4,955,660
Fireball: 110,810
Firepower: 1,994,440 (2,753,250)
Fish Tales...
While I'm sure the table will still hand me abysmal games whenever it feels like it, I'm pleased to announce that a personal quest of mine in the real pinball world has come to an end. I accept The Twilight Zone's surrender.
Started The Fellowship, The Two Towers, and Return of the King multiballs? Check.
Activated Destroy the Ring? Check.
Made required side shots? Check.
Locked the first ball in the Ring? Check.
Made final shot through the Ring for the win?
Well, I might have had not the ball gone airborne off the Palantir target and jumped over the flippers to end the ball and my game.
Let the record reflect that TPA is not the only pinball experience to feature game-ending bugs...
Sometimes it seems like it was only a few days ago. Other times it seems like it was bloody ages ago. But on February 9, 2012, one year ago today, The Pinball Arcade went live on iOS devices with just four tables. Today we have 22 tables on iOS, with #23 and #24 on the way soon. Unfortunately not all platforms have been able to get in on the fun, with the 360 publisher going bankrupt and the PC version in distribution limbo. Hopefully these complex issues will be resolved soon and we can welcome more players to "this thing of ours".
During that year, I've gone from playing practically zero pinball to probably playing more pinball than is good for me. I've discovered that I have access to a rotating collection of nearly 80 tables and...
Another league session tonight ended with 3 mediocre games, but a surprising 22M performance (replay is roughly 9M) on Avengers LE - I think I'm starting to get the hang of modern Sterns.
I normally don't do very well with Medieval Madness, both in real life and in TPA. Case in point: League game tonight - an abysmal 3.2M. But I decided to have one last go at it before I left for the night. Regular readers of this blog who are familiar with my after-league play can guess what happens next:
4 of 6 castles destroyed
Master of Trolls, Patron of the Peasants and Catapult Ace blue lights lit
4 of 5 catapult objects thrown toward Barnyard Madness
Multiball Madness played with 3 Madness lights for approximately 10M.
Royal Madness activated...
EDIT 11/07/2013: Updated rules can be found here.
GENERAL CHANGES
Sins no longer have individual timers. Instead, when a timed sin is started on top of currently running timed sin(s), half the new sin's time (but at least 20 seconds) is added to the current timer value and the new timer value is used for all the sins. This allows the player to not have to worry as much about inadvertently starting more sins than they can finish, gives him a method to extend sins that are about to expire, and also prevents him from having to go "OK, the DMD's saying I have 30 seconds left in Pride, but I have to remember I only have 10 seconds left in Gluttony and 45 in Sloth". Also makes the programming easier on me. :D
Playfield X now increases after...
While the AC/DC table includes many of their greatest hits, "Shot Down in Flames" is not among them. That's too bad, because it would have accurately captured my league performance last night.
Oh well, I said this wouldn't last long.
On the non-league front, some rules changes for Sin to break up some of the wood-choppy nature of repeating the sins 4 times each (and I may make it 3 times through instead), make the Armageddon wizard mode a little less anticlimactic, and generally spice things up coming soon. First playfield sketches to follow somewhat later on!
Bobby King of FarSight Studios gave an interview to WGN a little while ago (see thread here), during which he stated that the TPA tables are deliberately made a little easier so that more players can experience the wizard modes and other advanced features of the tables. A brief controversy erupted over whether this was a good idea and whether unmodified versions should also be available for advanced players. We won't revisit that argument here, but it got me thinking.
One thing that TPA doesn't do is give any indication of how difficult a table is. Of course, this is somewhat subjective, based both on a player's relative skill level and whether s/he has had the opportunity to play the table in question before, but it is widely agreed...
So I find myself tonight in the unprecedented and totally unexpected position of leading my league. This won't last long - there are too many players here whose skill greatly exceeds my own, as demonstrated last time around - but it's a nice way to start off the season. :D
What we're playing this season:
AC/DC LE (Stern, 2012)
Avengers LE (Stern, 2012)
Bram Stoker's Dracula (Williams, 1993)
Demolition Man (Williams, 1994)
Dolly Parton (Bally, 1979)
Elvis (Stern, 2004)
Fish Tales (Williams, 1992)
FunHouse (Williams, 1990)
Jet Spin (Gottlieb, 1977)
Junk Yard (Williams, 1996)
Medieval Madness (Williams, 1997)
NBA Fast Break (Bally, 1997)
Ripley's Believe It or Not! (Stern, 2003)
Transformers LE (Stern, 2011)
Wheel of Fortune (Stern...
League starts up again this Wednesday. Wish me luck; based on how I played Friday, I'm definitely going to need it. :p
Also, for your viewing pleasure, pinball eye candy both modern (Stern's Avengers LE (2012)) and not-so-modern (Bally's Spectrum (1982)).
On the Sin front, the table's preliminary full ruleset will be posted tonight. Comments and constructive criticism from the readership will be welcomed.
Being the programming type, it's very rare that I play any game without thinking "man, this is fun, but it would be just a little bit better if it worked like _____ instead". For some of the old NES (yes, the 8-bit system, I'm that old) and SNES games, a few intrepid souls have managed to reverse-engineer the ROMs and a very few have even provided little editor systems so that mere mortals can do things ranging from minor adjustments to complete overhauls of the original. For example, as previously mentioned, I have a version of Adventures of Lolo III with 100 new puzzles in it, and a version of Final Fantasy VI with various stats and AI scripts re-jiggered to make the game more challenging.
It's been the same with pinball. Yes, there...
So what I was not considering when I said I'd post Sin's ruleset here is that the ruleset is nearly 35,000 characters long, and that blog posts are limited to 10,000 characters. So far as I know attachments aren't allowed or even possible either - at least, I can't find the button that attaches things. But I promised you all a ruleset, and a ruleset you shall have, just in 4 pieces.
EDIT 11/07/2013: Updated rules can be found here.
SIN
RULESET VERSION 0.1
INTRODUCTION
Sin is designed to provide the complexity of Twilight Zone with the speed and flow of Attack from Mars, along with progressive difficulty and scoring features to help make the game accessible to novices yet challenging for experts.
LOWER PLAYFIELD
Starting from the...
If you came here straight from the forum, use this link to get to Part I.
SIN
RULESET VERSION 0.1 (CONTINUED)
SHADOW SALVATION (FINAL WIZARD MODE)
Shadow Salvation is only awarded when a Ninth Circle player successfully freezes Hell over. It is Sin’s final wizard mode, consisting of a 7-ball multiball with all sins, Cerberus, and Armageddon active simultaneously.
The mode begins by deadening the flippers and going through the following DMD sequence:
OUTLANES ARE LIT
PLAYFIELD MULTIPLIER +7X
STANDUPS ARE LIT FOR GREED
GREED SCORES (???)
HOLES ARE LIT FOR SLOTH
SLOTH SCORES (???)
RAMPS ARE LIT FOR LUST
LUST SCORES (???)
ORBITS ARE LIT FOR ENVY
ENVY SCORES (???)
SPINNERS ARE LIT FOR PRIDE
PRIDE SCORES (???) PER SPIN
SIN BIN IS LIT FOR...
SIN
RULESET VERSION 0.1 (CONTINUED)
SIN MODE DESCRIPTIONS (CONTINUED)
Wrath
The Wrath sin is a 2-ball multiball that involves hitting a certain number of switches in a frenzy, which then lights the Sin Bin for a Wrath Jackpot. This process then repeats with increased numbers of switch hits and higher scoring.
If Wrath is started when a multiball is already in progress, any balls lost in that multiball are relaunched and an additional ball is added, up to a maximum of 4 balls.
Level I
Goal: Collect 3 Wrath Jackpots.
Wrath Jackpots take 20+10 switch hits to light.
Wrath switch hits score 5000+2500, limit 50K (increments each jackpot).
Wrath Jackpots score 400K+100K, limit 2.4M.
Level II
Goal: Collect 4 Wrath Jackpots.
Wrath Jackpots...
