clyde

Pinball Club

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The automaton-grandmother of computer games deserves a thread of it's own, does it not?
 

The gas-station arcade for which I am ever grateful (an obvious labor of love by the owner because I can't imagine it making much money) just got a pinball machine swap. They replaced the Stern Playboy machine with a Williams Junk Yard. The new machine doesn't play strip-poker or sound like it's getting ready to orgasm, but it's alright. By "alright" I mean "A fantastic improvement". I had never heard of or played Junk Yard, but it was fantastic. In my opinion, it requires higher than normal skill, but without easy drains. I play a lot of Zen Pinball 2 on the PS3, Pinball FX2 and Pinball Arcade on the Xbox 360, and Nena pinball-games on my iphone. Frequent play on digital platforms has given me enough familiarity with the terminology and the genre-rules to typically know what I am doing, even on a machine I've never played. It has also allowed me to develop a mental focus during multiballs, and not flinch when doing a dead-flipper pass. But wrapping my palms around those steel corners and shifting my bodyweight in order to successfully nudge a ball headed down the center-drain over to the opposite flipper is SO GREAT! Man I love playing real machines. So it was really cool to play a new one today. I won two free games on my second game and got second place on the leaderboards because I am a wizard. It was really fun. I haven't played many machines that have such a long, open playfield. Every called shot felt like a victory. Looking forward to playing more of it. It was a good day.

image-19.jpg

 

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I have absolutely no pinball skill, and lasted for barely 45 seconds playing Addams Family Pinball this past May at Ground Kontrol in Portland.

And just today I was looking at photos of Bill Paxton Pinball, a machine built from the ground up from someone who felt the actor deserved a pinball game of his own. The last time I looked the machine was still in progress, but now it is done and there are videos I must watch.

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My dad was/is way into pinball, so i grew up in a home with a PinBot machine that was kept in absolutely perfect condition, I didn't really know enough to appreciate it until after it had been traded off to a relative who treated it terribly.

Subsequently, there were a couple other pinball machines that came and went, but i never liked any of them as much as that PinBot machine. The last one that came through the house was a "The Getaway: High Speed 2" machine, but it was in pretty rough shape to start with and was always breaking down.


I was never particularly skilled at any of those machines, but i do have a certain fondness for them, and I don't think i've ever played a pinball Video game that even remotely captured the feel of the physics.
 

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My brother-in-law got my sister-in-law deep into pinball, they go to/host tournaments and play on a regular basis no matter where they go. To give just a little context, one of the 2-3 hour legs of my trip to visit them in Japan was to a local arcade where they proceeded to show me how to play pinball at one of that arcade's three machines at which they became masters in the year or so they've lived there.

 

So, after talking extensively with both of them about their experiences and opinions, I'm slightly soured on video pinball as I've learned that so much of the culture and fun behind pinball is set behind the physicality of the game and how variance between tables can make or break the game of the most skilled players. For instance, I never knew that some tables might have more or less sensitive tilt sensors installed so they have a much lower/higher tolerance for bumping, which can seriously extend the life of one of your balls or cut it short when you could have just used the slightest shift of the table to save yourself. That risk/reward drama doesn't really seem present in video pinball, when stimulus and response seems is programmed in a specific way.

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Yeah, there's a lot of physicality to pinball machined that I've never experienced in a video game version. With that said, today's consoles with their sensitive shoulder triggers could certainly do a lot better than, say, a keyboard and mouse.

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Dismissing video pinball because it isn't physical pinball is like dismissing racing games because they aren't cars. The tendency of people to expect such a high standard from video pinball, makes me think that it is much closer to it's physical counterpart than most activities represented in video games. It does take a little while to accept that video pinball lacks some of the best parts of the game, but at some point, it is nice to accept the limitations of video pinball and enjoy what it has to offer.

Nudging without tilting is a big part of the game, especially on machines made in the 1970's and before. As far as video game simulations go, Pinball Arcade has my favorite nudging mechanic (on the xbox 360) where you use the thumbstick to give a solid bump. Pinball FX2 and Zen Pinball 2 have a very different take on nudging than real pinball. You get three nudges before a tilt within 15 seconds. Because of that, nudging is only used as a save; whereas in Pinball Arcade and real pinball, it's used for finesse. A good example of nudging I like, is on that machine I mentioned in the original post. To start multiball, you have to shoot the ball through the lane in the center top which is really high on the playfield. A lot of tables don't have a ton of strength in their flippers so you have to actually push the table forward with your body while hitting the flipper to give it enough force to make that kind of shot. I love doing that.

I played a lot of Black Hole on Pinball Arcade before getting a chance to play the real machine. It was so funny when I tried to nudge that machine the way I was used to doing it on the video version. Black Hole is an especially heavy machine and I could budge it about an 1/8 if an inch if I could get in a position with leverage in time, but in the Pinball Arcade version, I could nudge it 1/2 of an inch to the right within a second of nudging it to the left. But my brain was so used to being able to do it that ai would unconsciously try the entire time. I felt as if i had just been skiing or something afterward.

I would love to have access to 50 machines nearby, but for now, 50 video pinball machines on my computer and consoles, and two real machines 20 miles away is alright.

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Dismissing video pinball because it isn't physical pinball is like dismissing racing games because they aren't cars. The tendency of people to expect such a high standard from video pinball, makes me think that it is much closer to it's physical counterpart than most activities represented in video games. It does take a little while to accept that video pinball lacks some of the best parts of the game, but at some point, it is nice to accept the limitations of video pinball and enjoy what it has to offer.

Nudging without tilting is a big part of the game, especially on machines made in the 1970's and before. As far as video game simulations go, Pinball Arcade has my favorite nudging mechanic (on the xbox 360) where you use the thumbstick to give a solid bump. Pinball FX2 and Zen Pinball 2 have a very different take on nudging than real pinball. You get three nudges before a tilt within 15 seconds. Because of that, nudging is only used as a save; whereas in Pinball Arcade and real pinball, it's used for finesse. A good example of nudging I like, is on that machine I mentioned in the original post. To start multiball, you have to shoot the ball through the lane in the center top which is really high on the playfield. A lot of tables don't have a ton of strength in their flippers so you have to actually push the table forward with your body while hitting the flipper to give it enough force to make that kind of shot. I love doing that.

I played a lot of Black Hole on Pinball Arcade before getting a chance to play the real machine. It was so funny when I tried to nudge that machine the way I was used to doing it on the video version. Black Hole is an especially heavy machine and I could budge it about an 1/8 if an inch if I could get in a position with leverage in time, but in the Pinball Arcade version, I could nudge it 1/2 of an inch to the right within a second of nudging it to the left. But my brain was so used to being able to do it that ai would unconsciously try the entire time. I felt as if i had just been skiing or something afterward.

I would love to have access to 50 machines nearby, but for now, 50 video pinball machines on my computer and consoles, and two real machines 20 miles away is alright.

 

If it sounded like I was dismissing video pinball, it certainly wasn't my intention. Your analogy is a bit flawed, though, as you really have very few opportunities in real life to race cars, so you just have to hope that the simulation of a video game is good enough. In the case of pinball, while machines may be rare in some areas (including mine, fwiw) they're by no means inaccessible or illegal like street racing or racing on a track may be. You can experience the real, visceral version of that activity with relative ease, which brings the contrast into sharper focus in my mind.

 

I also feel I should say that I have no expectation that video pinball would be anywhere close to as physical and satisfying as real pinball. I can still play Pinball FX and have a lot of fun or Williams Pinball and feel close to the real thing, both experiences being quite satisfying. It's just that coming off of the high of talking with people who take pinball seriously and competitive is almost impossible - it's easy to share their passion and feel cheated when real pinball is not easily in reach.

 

I love nudging and shifting the table in those situations that you mention, though as a relative newbie I can only make moves like that work to my advantage 1 out of 10 times. And I feel physically exhausted after a half hour of that, like the tablet beat me around a bit.

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I love nudging and shifting the table in those situations that you mention, though as a relative newbie I can only make moves like that work to my advantage 1 out of 10 times. And I feel physically exhausted after a half hour of that, like the tablet beat me around a bit.

 

I can't really use the nudge on the tablet.

If you could have any physical machine in your house, cost not being an issue, which one would you choose?

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I feel like I'd need to really do research despite cost not being an issue, as my experience is limited. If I had a gun to my head and had to pick right now, I'd make a split second choice between either Terminator 2 or The Sopranos. I'm also ridiculously interested in the Tron Legacy machine because it's just so cool, I love that movie, and all of the YouTube videos I've watched of it make it look awesome. But yeah, I'd really love to go to something like California Extreme or something to really fill out experience and have a better insight on what I'd like to actually own.

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There used to be a National Pinball in Baltimore, that was cool. I also went to the White Rose expo in Pennsylvania, that was cool. I'm not sure what machine I would want. I know I wouldn't want Mel Gibson's face in my living room, so that eliminates a lot of pinball machines.

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I think it's much more fun to figure out the rules while playing. I've been playing a bit of Pinball Arcade today. It's quite good, much much much much better than Pinball3D.

Of course virtual pinball is never the same as the real deal. But the fact that Pinball Arcade rebuilds actual pinball machines is great.

Also, pinball is a game which really can trigger rage in me. Instant death is so easy with pinball. It's really infuriating.

I'm not sure if I'm going to buy any extra tables for Pinball Arcade... it's sort of quite expensive. Then again, for 27 euros you get like 15-20 tables. I've put much more money in real pinball tables.

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I feel like watching you explain how I probably haven't really played pinball, and then immediately have the ball drain three times in a row, is really the core experience of pinball.

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I feel like watching you explain how I probably haven't really played pinball, and then immediately have the ball drain three times in a row, is really the core experience of pinball.

Haha, I think that's the exact moment I favourited the video. I did genuinely enjoy it though, made me realise my pinball play has largely consisted of wildly hitting the ball as hard as possible and hoping I get some pretty lights and sounds.

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Honestly the thing that pointed out to me that pinball has objectives was Space Cadet, the one that came with Windows XP. It has the flashing lights and everything and if you dick around on the table long enough or read the help file even briefly you discover there's missions, and you get promoted. I figured they probably did that because pinball tables do that, it's just that even with a home version of pinball I still can't prevent the fucking ball draining straight off the table, ruining everything. I guess that's what nudging's for.

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I feel like watching you explain how I probably haven't really played pinball, and then immediately have the ball drain three times in a row, is really the core experience of pinball.

Then you might really enjoy my "How to draw" videos too.

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Honestly the thing that pointed out to me that pinball has objectives was Space Cadet, the one that came with Windows XP. It has the flashing lights and everything and if you dick around on the table long enough or read the help file even briefly you discover there's missions, and you get promoted. I figured they probably did that because pinball tables do that, it's just that even with a home version of pinball I still can't prevent the fucking ball draining straight off the table, ruining everything. I guess that's what nudging's for.

Pinball FX2 and Zen Pinball 2 nerf the slingshots, make the ball heavier and put the flippers just a little bit closer together. I didn't get super into pinball until I played a lot of Pinball FX2. The combination of getting the experience of having control of the ball for the first time, and seeing what completing modes is like, hooked me. You might want to check them out. On Steam, Pinball FX2 offers "Sorceror's Lair" for free which is an excellent table. One cool thing about it is that you don't have to achieve the objective in the modes in order to get to wizard-mode. But if you do manage to achieve the objectives, you light pieces of Obsidian which puts multipliers on the wizard-mode. Another interesting difference with Pinball FX2 is that nudging is much more predictable. You can make 3 nudges every 15 seconds, any more and it's a tilt.

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I've always been fascinated by pinball, but too inept to ever uncover how any table is "supposed" to be played. Pinball Museum is really fun, I can see it being a good gateway.

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Been loving me some Pinball Arcade recently, really got back in to it, so much so i'm looking at getting one when i move in a few weeks (if i have room!!).

I used to play the Data East Star Wars machine at the place we always stayed when i was on holiday as a kid, reaaaaaally want to get that!

Think my favourite on Pinball Arcade is Scared Stiff, mainly because it's a bit easier than a lot of the others and it's has fairly simple rules :)

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Tangentially related:

 

Why was Pinball removed from Windows Vista?

 

Windows XP was the last client version of Windows to include the Pinball game that had been part of Windows since Windows 95. There is apparently speculation that this was done for legal reasons.

 

No, that's not why.

 

One of the things I did in Windows XP was port several millions of lines of code from 32-bit to 64-bit Windows so that we could ship Windows XP 64-bit Edition. But one of the programs that ran into trouble was Pinball. The 64-bit version of Pinball had a pretty nasty bug where the ball would simply pass through other objects like a ghost. In particular, when you started the game, the ball would be delivered to the launcher, and then it would slowly fall towards the bottom of the screen, through the plunger, and out the bottom of the table.

 

Games tended to be really short.

 

Two of us tried to debug the program to figure out what was going on, but given that this was code written several years earlier by an outside company, and that nobody at Microsoft ever understood how the code worked (much less still understood it), and that most of the code was completely uncommented, we simply couldn't figure out why the collision detector was not working. Heck, we couldn't even find the collision detector!

We had several million lines of code still to port, so we couldn't afford to spend days studying the code trying to figure out what obscure floating point rounding error was causing collision detection to fail. We just made the executive decision right there to drop Pinball from the product.

 

If it makes you feel better, I am saddened by this as much as you are. I really enjoyed playing that game. It was the location of the one Windows XP feature I am most proud of.

 

What one Windows XP feature am I most proud of?

 

Of all the things I did for Windows XP, if I had to choose the one feature that I'm most proud of, it's fixing Pinball so it doesn't consume 100% CPU.

 

The program was originally written for Windows 95 and had a render loop that simply painted frames as fast as possible. In the checked build, you could tell the program to display the number of frames per second. They reserved room for two digits of FPS.

 

When I got to looking at Pinball's CPU usage, I built the checked version and took a peek at the frame rate. Imagine my surprise when I saw that Pinball's frame rate on contemporary hardware was over one million frames per second.

 

I added a limiter that capped the frame rate to 120 frames per second. This was enough to drop the CPU usage from 100% to 1%. Now you can play Pinball while waiting for your document to print without noticeably impacting printing speed.

 

:tup:

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I just found out that a laundromat around the corner from my girlfriend's place has Medieval Madness, Twilight Zone, Addams Family and Arabian Nights among others. Holy shit, right?

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I just found out that a laundromat around the corner from my girlfriend's place has Medieval Madness, Twilight Zone, Addams Family and Arabian Nights among others. Holy shit, right?

That's not a laundromat, that's an arcade where you can do your laundry while you play.

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You know when you have spent a year of your life obsessively playing a specific game and then it goes on sale and you are like "Oh man, it would be so great to do it all again at that super-low price." but then the reality hits you that you can't do it again; you already done did it? I'm feeling that right now.

I've had so much fun playing these tables. Even though the PS3 versions are preferable (because of 3D support), I'll be buying all these on Steam if anyone wants some freindly competition.

https://www.humblebundle.com/weekly

For those who don't know, Pinball FX2 has well designed asyncronous play. As you are playing, notifications pop up to inform you that you are approaching a friend's high-score. It sounds dumb, but man alive! When you are about to complete a mode and that thing pops up, it adds a lot of tension to your next shot.

I should also mention that Pinball FX2 has a much different design philisophy than Pinball Arcade. The ball is much more managable and the playfield animates.

Oh and just so y'all know, Wolverine is my table. If you beat my high-score on Wolverine, I will make it a priority to take it back.

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