Zaccaria Pinball - update v2.2.1

[Zsolt]

This is going to be a quick update that addresses missing flipper on Winter Sports. But it would be great if you could write some issues and/or comments/suggestions that you would like to see in this update. Thanks!

 

[TripleT]

Fire Mountain, after third ball drained, nothing happened. No ball #4.

 

[Flipper bump]

Thanks for this update Zsolt, the new ones are great and the enhancements on the lights have a very nice fx on the tables, and great
to notice that the bugs on EWF and Blackbelt are fixed.

One thing you would make me very happy with are enhancements on the physics, i posted a short video of the Farfalla table in the update 2.2 topic, and personally, it would be great to experience this kind of performance on all the ios Zac tables,

It would be nice to hear youre view on this, thanks in advance.

 

[night]

Yes, physics. I wrote this before, but I think that we need more rubber bounce. I wish I could set that physics slider higher! It's a bit too stiff now. Look at this video from Space Shuttle and see how much bounce there is on the slingshots. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeMFLA_SACE TPA has a lot of bounce on their tables.

Ball rolling sound fx could be improved, the ball sounds too much like a small marble now.

 

[Flipper bump]

http://youtu.be/z3w6ooJj6iE

 

[Flipper bump]

Thanks Night, let me put the mentioned Farfalla video in this topic.

 

[Flipper bump]

Would be great to see the actual performance of real Zac tables simulated.

 

[Zevious Zoquis]

I don't think the physics are that far off. When I watch videos of most of the real tables on youtube, I see a lot of balls down the drains, not a whole lot of "strategic" play in terms of aimed shots (it even seems like the shot up the center of the table is tough on the real tables too), short ball lives, just like in the ASK versions. I do think the rubber and the bumpers need to be livelier. It seems like the ball on the real tables will bounce around amongst the bumpers a lot more than it does in the ASK versions.

These are all very "old school" pinball tables that are not built for long rounds. Games are brief and scores are low - and I actually like that to be honest. I think the whole nudging mechanic needs work though. My ability to influence the ball should be pretty much limited to how it bounces off table elements. I shouldn't be able to have so much of an effect on the ball's path when its just rolling along the surface of the table. It shouldn't feel like I'm physically pushing or pulling the ball. It should feel like I'm pushing the table and changing it's effect on the ball.

 

[night]

http://youtu.be/z3w6ooJj6iE

At 0:27 and 1:12, see how that ball bounces off the top of that slingshot, that's what I mean. More elastic or so. Great vid btw.

 

[night]

Fire Mountain, ball got stuck 2 times; left and right at the dropdown targets, could not get it out anymore.

 

[Pavig]

Awesome work on the new tables. I suspect the nudge physics has changed again.

 

[Pavig]

Fire Mountain, ball got stuck 2 times; left and right at the dropdown targets, could not get it out anymore.

You weren't able to nudge the ball loose? I've had the ball stuck in the same position several times and have nudged it out. I actually quite like the ball coming to rest in a dip in the table, as long as it can be nudged free. Feels lifelike.

 

[Zevious Zoquis]

heh, yeah except I'm pretty sure the tables are designed such that balls can't get stuck like that - at least not so easily anyway.

 

[kendickson]

It'd be great if high score entry worked better when I'm playing in landscape. As it is, the actual gameplay is o.k., but when I'm asked to enter my name at the end of the game, the keyboard shows up sideways.

 

[night]

Winter Sports: left dropdown target bank does not drop down when hit!

 

[TripleT]

I don't think the physics are that far off. When I watch videos of most of the real tables on youtube, I see a lot of balls down the drains, not a whole lot of "strategic" play in terms of aimed shots (it even seems like the shot up the center of the table is tough on the real tables too), short ball lives, just like in the ASK versions. I do think the rubber and the bumpers need to be livelier. It seems like the ball on the real tables will bounce around amongst the bumpers a lot more than it does in the ASK versions.

These are all very "old school" pinball tables that are not built for long rounds. Games are brief and scores are low - and I actually like that to be honest. I think the whole nudging mechanic needs work though. My ability to influence the ball should be pretty much limited to how it bounces off table elements. I shouldn't be able to have so much of an effect on the ball's path when its just rolling along the surface of the table. It shouldn't feel like I'm physically pushing or pulling the ball. It should feel like I'm pushing the table and changing it's effect on the ball.

I'm the opposite. The short games, and my inability to aim at targets reliably (or at all, really) is what prevents me from playing these tables more. I find I download the new tables, play for a few minutes, and that's about it. I keep hoping for new physics.

 

[night]

Please add a deadzone (option in the menu) for no-nudging on all tables! When using the flippers I unintentionally nudge and shake the tables more than I want too..

 

[Flipper bump]

Same situation here, i didn't play Zacc for quite a while because the physics on the tables were a dissapointment everytime, and i got pretty tired of tweaking in custom mode, also because every table responds quite different on the tweaks.

After downloading the new tables i played them and the older ones a couple of times and thats about it,

When i watch the videos of the Zacc tables, the interaction between the flippers and bumpers and the flexibility of the ball running on the table give me a clear impression of how the actual gameplay is supposed to be,

Experiencing this gameplay on ALL the a.s.k Zac tables based on the physics characteristics of the real tables, for me, lifts this collection to a topclass ios collection, and for sure results in playing this collection just as much as the TPA collection.

 

[Zevious Zoquis]

Please add a deadzone (option in the menu) for no-nudging on all tables! When using the flippers I unintentionally nudge and shake the tables more than I want too..

This is a strange one to me. I just never have this problem. In fact, I have difficulty activating the nudge. I actually have to hold my finger down and pretty forcefully slide it to get the nudge to work. I often can't seem to do it when I try to, let alone accidently nudge when I don't. Not discounting what you are saying, I'm just curious as to why our experiences would be so different with this function...

 

[Zevious Zoquis]

Just further to the physics, while I like the general feel of the ASK engine, I do think there is something fundamentally not right about how the tables play. I played a bunch of Blackbelt last night and then compared my experience to what I see in the one video of the table on youtube. What I notice is that there is (in the ASK version) a very pronounced tendency for certain things to happen the same way over and over again. I'm not sure how to explain it or account for it but its sort of like there's not enough "granularity" in terms of how the ball interacts with the table features. Just as an example on Blackbelt when you pull the plunger and shoot the ball, if you watch the video you'll see the ball ring up around the top to the (newly added in the game) one way gate and then bounce back and usually bounce off a couple of the little top bumper things before settling and dropping down through to the main area. There's a fair bit of randomness in terms of which of the four slots the ball drops through. In the game, it seems like no matter how hard you shoot the ball, it bounces off the one way gate and then drops down through the left-most slot almost every time. That sort of lack of variety is evident all over the table including how the ball comes off the flippers. It almost feels like theres only a handful of different angles that the ball can leave the flipper no matter how you attempt to aim it.

I guess what I'm saying is that the physics lack dynamics. There is a rigidity and a bit of a primitive quality to how the tables feel. To some extent that actually works as the tables are simple and somewhat primitive to begin with, but it ends up feeling like the tables aren't quite working properly and the physics don't feel convincing...