Pinball

[T-hawk]

I'll throw this in here.

I've been playing The Pinball Arcade, recreations and emulations of lots of real pinball tables. I'm pretty good too, in the top 10 on the leaderboards on most tables, and by some ranking measures #1 overall.

I'm trying some streaming for the pinball audience tonight, about an hour from this post. http://www.twitch.tv/vikingerik78

[NobleHelium]

Interesting, but $30 for a set of tables seems very hefty for something that is ultimately a niche genre in today's world.

[Gustaran]

I'll throw this in here.
I'm trying some streaming for the pinball audience tonight, about an hour from this post. http://www.twitch.tv/vikingerik78

Oh, that's great! Are you a pinball aficionado? But why did you not save your stream so it can be watched later?

Interesting, but $30 for a set of tables seems very hefty for something that is ultimately a niche genre in today's world.

Sorry, but that sounds really funny to me.

If you are a pinball fan and want to buy some popular tables like "Medieval Madness" you are probably going to have to pay 5000$ and up. In "Pinball Arcade" tables are emulations of the original real tables, so for many people this is the only way to ever play certain tables at all. Season 1 features 22 tables for 30$ which makes this probably the biggest bargain around if you are interested in pinball but lack the money and space to buy the real deal.

With the help of one of my friends I got a USB-Controller made of real pinball parts and some arcade buttons:



And if you grab a ~46 inch TV at a sale and use it vertically you basically have a virtual Pinball Arcade with 22 tables you can choose from:




And while I lack the funds, time and carpenting skills, some people actually build a real virtual cabinet:

[T-hawk]

Oh, that's great! Are you a pinball aficionado? But why did you not save your stream so it can be watched later?

I am totally big on pinball. I own a Terminator 2 machine. But I am a Twitch newbie and didn't know you had to check that box ahead of time to save a stream. Don't worry, there will be more. My challenge went down in flames on Gorgar so I need to try again anyway.

[Jowy]

That clown table freaked me out, I had to stop watching

[Gustaran]

I am totally big on pinball. I own a Terminator 2 machine. But I am a Twitch newbie and didn't know you had to check that box ahead of time to save a stream. Don't worry, there will be more. My challenge went down in flames on Gorgar so I need to try again anyway.

I am not a big fan of Gorgar anyway...

What are your favourite tables? Did you ever think about doing Guides/Let's Play videos explaining the rules and best strategy for certain pinball machines? I would be very interested.
(I know the basic rules are listed inside the software, but some tables have 500+pages you need to flip through and certain ones like Twilight Zone are not exactly self-explanatory).

[sunrise089]

500 page rulesets for a pinball table is one of the wilder facts I've heard recently.

[T-hawk]

TPA has instructions built in that are very well done, read those. Yes the presentation format is awkward with 500 "pages" of one sentence each, which is really more like 10-15 pages of regular text. But all the information is there, just slow down and read it for 15 minutes.

Also, papa.org has text rulesheets and videos for lots of real machines. Check around the pinballarcadefans.com forum and you'll find some for TPA as well.

And Twilight Zone's complexity is somewhat overstated. Its reputation comes from being an outlier for its time of 1993, but plenty of machines since have been as complex. Each of TZ's individual rules aren't complicated, but it's so well loved because of the emergent complexity in how they interact and stack up.

Favorite table is Monster Bash, and I own the #1 score for it on TPA.

[Gustaran]

500 page rulesets for a pinball table is one of the wilder facts I've heard recently.

Like T-Hawk said, it's not really 500 pages, more like 500 sentences/important points and you need to single click through each one to read everything (Twilight Zone has actually 728 "pages"). My problem is that around fact 278 I start to forget what exactly information 125 was.

I personally just learn much better and faster when watching someone do something, especially on a pinball table.

TPA has instructions built in that are very well done, read those. Yes the presentation format is awkward with 500 "pages" of one sentence each, which is really more like 10-15 pages of regular text. But all the information is there, just slow down and read it for 15 minutes.

Also, papa.org has text rulesheets and videos for lots of real machines.

Like I said, I'm not really a fan of TPA's tutorial style, but the Papa.org videos look exactly like what I am looking for, thanks for the hint, I will watch those.

And Twilight Zone's complexity is somewhat overstated. Its reputation comes from being an outlier for its time of 1993, but plenty of machines since have been as complex. Each of TZ's individual rules aren't complicated, but it's so well loved because of the emergent complexity in how they interact and stack up.

Just because I like pinball does not mean I'm any good at it. If you have been playing for 20 years on real machines then I guess it's not that complex, but when you grab TPA on a sale and start playing for the first time I think Twilight Zone is not the table I would start out with.

Favorite table is Monster Bash, and I own the #1 score for it on TPA.

Holy crap, you are the #1 player in the world with 41 billion points? How long did your game for that highscore last ? And are you playing tournaments against other people on real machines as well? How close would you say is playing TPA compared to a real machine?

Anyway, I would appreciate it if you would announce and record your next streaming session.

[v8mark]

Anyway, I would appreciate it if you would announce and record your next streaming session.

Me too! Looking forward to it.