Pro Pinball

[mmmagnetic]

You know what I think the coolest idea for the new Lawlor table would be?

Another disaster table. Earthshaker, Whirlwind, and ...? I think that these two tables could use a third machine to round up the trilogy - or maybe that´s just the Whirlwind-fanboy in me speaking Maybe the time for disaster tables is over, given that the world has lived through many more very real natural disasters in the years since those two tables came out.

On a sidenote, I´m REALLY impressed with Ancients Beckon, which I just got on my 3DS XL, and even despite the upscaling the game looks really great. The prerendered style works very well, the mechanical sounds are meaty and satisfying (the flippers and the bumpers in particular!), and the physics really surprised me - I guess I just was keeping my expectations low for a DSiware title

I kinda liked Metroid Prime pinball, but it was too much non-pinball action and to little actual pinball feeling, but Ancients Beckon is very well designed. I love the Funhouse-style talking heads (rotating between the two gods is a very clever idea!), locking balls with the horizontal flipper, the neat "don´t flip - flip!" magnet idea (has this been done on an actual pinball machine before? Again, very clever), orbits, saucers, ramps, loops...

You guys must play a lot of actual pinball, because this table feels like a well designed, actual machine. It´s a shame this wasn´t a proper cartridge release with two or three more tables, but in any case, I´m enjoying this a lot more than Zen and Marvel Pinball on 3DS. In pinball, it´s all about the right feeling, and this title really nails it. The touchscreen-only nudging is indeed a bit odd, but otherwise I´m really satisfied with it.

So, yeah, I´m really pumped to see where this is going!

 

[Kolchak357]

Maybe the ultimate disaster table, based on the end of the world. A spinning backglass of the Mayan calendar. Have earthquakes, twisters, floods, fires etc. Go all out.

 

[Gord Lacey]

Tsunami

 

[mmmagnetic]

Good ideas!

And I somehow completely missed PiN WiZs pro pinball news thread!

 

[Richard B]

I'd personally prefer if they use the money to hire a professional sound and music designer like Chris Granner. If there's one area where I've seen almost every fantasy pinball severely lack, it's sound design. Or add John Youssi for the playfield art in the mix! Licenses have to be renewed, and I wouldn't want this new table to be pulled in the future if something with a potential license goes awry.

I said the same thing myself, since this, not table design, was the area most lacking in Pro Pinball. However, Silverball Studios steered me to their latest effort, Pinball Pulse, for Nintendo 3DS and DSi. If you have either of those systems, play it. If you don't, go to Youtube. You'll see there's a big improvement in this area.

 

[Richard B]

Maybe the time for disaster tables is over, given that the world has lived through many more very real natural disasters in the years since those two tables came out.

There have been natural disasters since the Earth came into being. We had them before and during the time ES and WW were released. In fact, disasters were much worse back then, since technology has improved the structural integrity of buildings, as well as providing communications for faster, more coordinated, responses. I'm all for another disaster table, and if they go that route, it needs to be something big, something so amazing everyone would take notice; something that screams to the world in thunderous declaration that PINBALL IS BACK AND IS HERE TO STAY AND KICK ASS!!!!!!!!!! Kolchak's End of the World idea would perfectly fit that bill. Another interesting idea would be another alien invasion table, like AFM, except you play as the aliens, crushing puny humans beneath your superior technology. The first two All Humans Must Die! games (avoid the crappy third entry) showed just how much fun invasion can be from the other side.

 

[Bonzo]

Another interesting idea would be another alien invasion table, like AFM, except you play as the aliens, crushing puny humans beneath your superior technology.

Awesome idea, love it! It wouldn't even matter if the theme was really dark (like Alien), on the lighter side (Mars Attacks!/Attack from Mars) or somewhere in between (Starship Troopers).

 

[mmmagnetic]

I said the same thing myself, since this, not table design, was the area most lacking in Pro Pinball. However, Silverball Studios steered me to their latest effort, Pinball Pulse, for Nintendo 3DS and DSi. If you have either of those systems, play it. If you don't, go to Youtube. You'll see there's a big improvement in this area.

Yeah, just bought it yesterday night, instead of going to bed like I planned I wasn´t expecting much for some reason - usually DSiware isn´t exactly a pool of quality - but man, this game is a very overlooked gem. Physics are incredible for a DS game, and the prerendered look works surprisingly well. I kinda liked Metroid pinball, but I found it too videogamey, but Ancients Beckon flows like a Ritchie and flips horizontally like a Lawlor. Mechanical sounds are also fantastic.

I still think the music on Pinball Pulse is a bit generic, just like Zen Pinball, it lacks the punch a good Williams table has, but the little jokes from Zeus and that other goddess are quite amusing, "Gotta go, things to do!" being my favourite. Sometimes I just turn the music volume down completely, at which point it almost sounds like a EM table, with the rather monotone, one-note harp sounds.

And yeah, table design is already fantastic with these guys, the Pro Pinball tables look very tasteful, they really know what makes a good table work (something that, by the way, the guys at Zen Pinball seem to completely miss, aside from some kinda okay tables like Excalibur). Hitting loop combos and the multiball modes are way more fun than I ever expected from a DSi game, and the physics blow PHOF out of the water.

I hope whoever at their team designs these tables doesn´t let Lawlor completely run the playfield design, because I think that Silverball and Lawlor working in tandem could be highly interesting.

 

[mmmagnetic]

Another interesting idea would be another alien invasion table, like AFM, except you play as the aliens, crushing puny humans beneath your superior technology. The first two All Humans Must Die! games (avoid the crappy third entry) showed just how much fun invasion can be from the other side.

Or maybe even be able to pick sides at the beginning of the game, making for two very different playstyles. Maybe one mode could focus more on flowy loop play, while the other mode could be more about careful shots. If they pay this duo, I want them to make an absolutely bombastic table, like you said: Pinball is back!

...and yeah, you´re absolutely right, disasters have been with us all along, don´t know where this thought came from

And I hope he crams references to all his old games into that one. I know some people find his self-quoting annoying, but I loved the shrunken head say stuff like "It´s not plugged in yet".

...

I would love if Silverball continues to make new, brilliant tables. I love TPA for bringing us real classics, but I think we also need some solid "fantasy" pinball as well, but with realistic physics and real pinball layouts.

And if this Lawlor/Youssi/Silverball collab results in an actual machine, made after the virtual design... I mean, they certainly are having this in the back of their minds, right? Imagine telling this to someone in the arcades back in 1993: "I´m from the future, and one day, videogames will kill pinball, but in an ironic twist pinball will turn into videogames that we will play on our tiny telephones that don´t have any buttons, and then a videogame pinball will get made into an actual pinball", and at exactly this point you´ll get asked to kindly leave the premises.

Crazy times to be a pinhead.

 

[Bonzo]

Or maybe even be able to pick sides at the beginning of the game, making for two very different playstyles. Maybe one mode could focus more on flowy loop play, while the other mode could be more about careful shots.

Please Silverball, don't hesitate! Two completely different gameplays with different objectives, skillshots, videomodes etc. That would be most awesomest!

 

[Ade]

I hope whoever at their team designs these tables doesn´t let Lawlor completely run the playfield design, because I think that Silverball and Lawlor working in tandem could be highly interesting.

I'm glad you are enjoying The Ancients Beckon, we are certainly very proud of it. Have you got to the Wizard Mode yet?

All the best pinball games are a collaboration and the new game with Pat will be no exception. Pat, myself, everyone at Silverball, other Ex-Williams people behind the scenes, and our Kickstarter backers will all have input.

 

[jhamdotme]

I'm glad you are enjoying The Ancients Beckon, we are certainly very proud of it.

Is the Ancients Beckon a Nintendo exclusive? Or are you able to bring this table to other platforms?

It could be a nice stretch goal in the Kickstarter campaign, maybe.

 

[Brandon Debes]

Wait, that DSiWare table was you guys too?! No way! I loved that. When I first bought my 3DS and did the system transfer, that was the only thing that refused to depart my DSi, and it was the only thing I really cared about keeping through the transition. A sad day indeed. I'd like to +1 the previous poster: is there any chance of seeing that on other platforms?

 

[Ade]

Is the Ancients Beckon a Nintendo exclusive? Or are you able to bring this table to other platforms?

It could be a nice stretch goal in the Kickstarter campaign, maybe.

It was Nintendo themselves that commissioned The Ancients Beckon, so the chances of it appearing on non-Nintendo platforms are close to zero. Which is a shame as I'd love to be able to play it higher resolutions. That said, a Wii U version could be possible...

 

[Brandon Debes]

a Wii U version could be possible...

Killer app.

 

[mmmagnetic]

Yeah, it really is fantasic. Is there a in-depth ruleset somewhere? Because the integrated manual doesn't explain all of it. And yeah, I have yet to get to the wizard mode. I'm at 3.4 million, and as someone mentioned, the low scoring really makes it feel more satisfying. On some pins you've barely done anything and suddenly have 20 million or something absurd like that...

I'm also really loving Metroid pinball after playing Ancients, at first it felt too fantasy-like to me, but it's actually very well done as well. Phazon multiball with the two color balls is especially clever.

Oh, and I'm enjoying the whole prerendered look of your games as well. I used to think that prerendered stuff was only a temporary crutch before more detailled polygon graphics came along, but it looks very lush even on the very lowres DS screens. Given that pinball has about 90% static parts, prerendering makes a lot of sense, and I assume frees up a lot of resources for the ball physics calculations. And given that I play with fixed cameras almost all the time in TPA, I don't miss zooming and panning in your games either.

And again, the physics, just... wow. Even on Metroid they feel very right, everything has just a very convincing weight to it. The feeling, or, as Pat Lawlor says, the kinetics of the game is something a lot of developers, who think they can just push out a simple pinball game like that, don't get right at all. But that right feeling makes or breaks a good pinball game.

Really, I'm super excited about that whole project (both the classic tables and the new one), and I've seen it mentioned on several pinball sites now, I just have to believe that this will actually work - and if it doesn't at the first try, that you will work something out. (And to think that a few months ago I wasn't even into pinball at all. I have this weird talent to join a genre just a short time before cool stuff like this happens )

 

[mmmagnetic]

All the best pinball games are a collaboration and the new game with Pat will be no exception. Pat, myself, everyone at Silverball, other Ex-Williams people behind the scenes, and our Kickstarter backers will all have input.

Good to hear. I guess that's what's called a "supergroup"

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

Man, Timeshock! is WAY HARDER than Williams Pinball Classics. I could only get like 1 crystal fragment and then game over (and maybe a piece of tachyonium or two). Best game is like 1.3b without buy ins; got any tips to share?

And I have a question: How did you guys get into making the Pro Pinball series?

EDIT: I did nail Fantastic Journey and The Web (hence my 45b score) and almost nailed BRUSA (one shot off completing Really Big Race). It's just that Timeshock! is so different to me.

EDIT 2: Did a bit better; got the 2nd fragment

 

[Andreas Grabher]

Man, Timeshock! is WAY HARDER ... got any tips to share?

Hard to say without seeing you playing the game But one of the most mistakes people make is shooting the ball uncontrolled (as you can see in almost every video on youtube...). So if you try to handle the ball with more care, you can improve your score dramatically! Look into my recorded video from Pro Pinball Fantastic Journey. There you should see enough what I'm talking about. But to get better and better or perfect, the only thing you can do is practise, practise and practise!

Cheers, Ante.

 

[mmmagnetic]

I was just randomly browsing the Pinball Archive, and found this video of Rollergames:

http://pinball.org/videos/gameplay-videos/rollergames/

The "elevator" scoop that kicks the ball upwards plus the "Don't flip!" - "Flip!" is just like in Ancients Beckon, as well as the three drop targets that light the locks. Made me smile when I saw this. Usually I don't like this sort of copying ideas, but it's integrated very well in Ancients Beckon, and the whole theme is completely different otherwise, so I don't really mind - it's not like the Buccaneer table in Pinball FX2 that copies the whole of TAF but without any of the presenation, physics or fun.