Be Excellent To Each Other

They are not - Android got Harley Davidson and Taxi last month but issues stopped them releasing them for iOS until now (when we get them + No Good Gophers and Elvira Party Monsters) so we got 4 tables yesterday instead of 2)

*Next* months tables are Scared Stiff and Big Break

iOS and Android both have the full sets of tables , the consoles are way behind and the PC hasn't even had the first one released

I see thanks for the explanation.

I was playing it on my PC yesterday using Bluestacks. Very nice just a shame that you have to click to touch which makes pinball tricky.

Not sure what other android apps I would like running on my PC but Bluestacks certainly works.

The Pro Pinball Kickstarter is at $120K, an impressive figure but waaaaay short of the ridiculous $400K target, and certainly not a chance of them making it in the four days that are left.

To me this is a textbook example of how NOT to do a Kickstarter.

The key mistake they've made is to muddy the waters, by combining 'Pro Pinball updates' with 'New Pat Lawlor table' - they should have kept the two things separate, try a reasonable figure for Pro Pinball updates first ($50K or $100K or whatever), which they'd almost certainly make, and get that done on however many platforms they wanted.

Off the back of that, and with that momentum, they could have tried for the New Pat Lawlor table, as a separate entity.

They've also spammed me with near-daily updates, we're now up to 17 of the bloody things, and the last few have been nothing more than technical renders of playfield components, which are (a) Quite boring, even for a fucking nerd like me and (b) Suggest they're actively developing the game anyway, which is what the Kickstarter is supposed to be funding.

I think they've really missed the boat on this one, and possibly torpedoed the chance of any future Pro Pinball updates in the process.

My bestest chum ever is over for his annual visit, and when he's not demanding we go to the pub to watch football, or watching Match Of The Day here, or checking his fucking Fantasy Football scores or basically doing anything fucking football related, we are playing games. (Be it pool/darts/table football in the pub, or videogames at the house.)

Fired up Pinball Arcade yesterday and I honestly told him that I was pretty well practised at all the tables EXCEPT Monster Bash, which I'd deliberately left as a 'virgin' table and not played at all, so we could have a fair competition at it.

He beat me quite comfortably at Monster Bash, (it's years since I've played it and I had no fucking idea what I was doing), and with the scent of victory in his nostrils, said he remembered Theatre of Magic and would like to play me at that.

I suggested he get some practice in first and then decide whether or not he wished to commit a valuable point to it (we track wins/losses at everything over the course of his visit and maintain a 'master score', not for any reason other than we've literally been doing it for about sixteen years and we're quite competitive with each other and always have been).

He said 'No that won't be necessary, fire it up.'

He then watched morosely as I scored 2.9 billion and he bombed out at about 75 million.

'You can lead a horse to water.....', I said to him.

He was also quite excited to hear about Twilight Zone, although he'd never heard of Kickstarter and had no idea what one was. Then again he couldn't believe I didn't know who Jennifer Ennis was, to the extent he bet me a point that Mrs AE would know who she was. 'It'd be like not knowing who David Cameron is!', he exclaimed.

Mrs AE had no idea either, and the point was mine.

Hnnnnngh, this has just dropped into my mailbox.

Well, that and the fifty million different tiers, which managed to piss me off in a big way. $50 for all the tables? OK. Wait, what's this a few days later? A 'touchscreen' system tier for $35, when I only give a crap about the iPad anyway. Oh. Hrng. Wait, what's this a week later? A 'touchscreen system without all the added shit I never wanted anyway' tier for $20. HRNG.

I'd still love these tables on iOS, but they've made it astonishingly clear it won't happen without the funding, so fuck it. Pinball Arcade's churning out the tables anyway.

Er, so is Harley Davidson meant to have a stupid orange button floating over the right-hand side of the table edge? Really horribly distracting UI.

Man, she's going to be brilliant forever.

Dagnabbit! Finally broke 100m on Arabian Nights, and was generally having an excellent game and thinking I could probably beat the genie a couple more times and start chasing MrC's score, but then lost all of my balls within seconds of each other. Easily the most irritating way for a game to play out.

If there was an achievement for losing balls immediately after earning a multiball, I'd be doing really well at all the tables.

No huge shock that Pro Pinball didn't make it. They really fucked this up with the 18(!) tiers and also not doing a better video, to show people what they'd have gotten. The tiers really should have been something like:

$5: Free PC tables
$15: Lawlor's table
[$30–$50]: All tables, any platform
[$100–$150]: Swag combo
$2500: Adding you to the game
$10,000: Lunch with the gang

Curious comment at the end of September though:


They ended up with $174,010. I wonder whether a lower target ($200k) might have been achievable. Oh well.

In other news, I grabbed Wolverine on Zen Pinball and it's… OK. Doesn't make me want to bother trying any of the others though. That app *really* needs demo versions, like Pinball Arcade.

pinball world champions in amsterdam yesterday

http://www.at5.nl/artikelen/88002/mondi ... -amsterdam

I don't know if this is true of the other versions, but you can download a demo of any Pinball FX table on the Xbox, Craig. They end after you score a certain number of points, though, which quite often happens long before you have an idea of what's going on.

On the iPad, you literally get a short text description of the game and that's it. No screen grabs, no video, and certainly no demo. Perhaps they just don't think the tables are good enough to warrant the risk, and are hoping people will buy on the basis of the Marvel licenses. By contrast, I've bought everything in Pinball Arcade, but only after playing the tables first (which on iOS gives you a full demo until the point you hit the first high score, whereupon you pay up or quit).

Where did they get $240K from to re-release Timeshock?

I think they got (and continue to get) a bit too carried away with the 'quality of the assets' they want to use, the fact is that the original PC version had incredibly high-res artwork for the time, could be played at 1600x1200 even though there were only about six people in the world who used such a monitor for gaming in 1997, and also contained a load of bonus artwork content on the CD that was clearly derived from even higher quality assets than were present in the game.

Considering that the 360/PS3 versions (and thus most likely every other version) would be rendering at 720p (far LESS than the 1200p that the original PC version could be run at), what are they dropping the $200K on?

They're all arse about face on this one IMO. They should have simply done a pretty straight port of Timeshock to the various major platforms, a downloadable version of the PC version through Steam, and taken it all from there.

Tsk.

Gameplay footage from Scared Stiff

Looks like the Pro Pinball lot are considering having another go. I'm still not sure they understand why their Kickstarter failed, and in part they're putting it down to not defining what Lawlor would create and trying to support too many platforms. No mention of the insanely confusing tiers they ended up with, the lack of showing off the games in the video, and so on.

Thinking about it, I reckon they should attempt to rip off Pinball Arcade's system, combined with the Carmageddon Kickstarter, if that's viable. Set a lower target, get funding, and put the app out free for 24 hours, to 'repay' the Kickstarter people. Then charge a bit for it. Add new tables to it as IAP on a schedule, making the app with a default table (Timeshock, presumably) free while doing so. Or they could just shoot for quarter of a million and go splat.

Well I'll pledge again if they have another go at it, but I agree they don't quite seem to have grasped what was wrong with the first Kickstarter yet.

As much as I'd like a new Pat Lawlor table to play, IMO that's a completely separate thing to remaking the Pro Pinball series, split the fucking things out into two distinct entities!

Quite. And create a business model that will fuel the entire series going into the future. The Pinball Arcade model is clearly the one to rip off, with occasional 'free' days when you release a new table via IAP.

Incidentally Craig, the high point of the Pro Pinball series was definitely Timeshock, and that still runs perfectly well on all modern Windows operating systems (XP through to 7), plus it actually still looks pretty damn good due to it supporting 1600x1200, which was a batshit crazy resolution for 1997. (It also had some pretty advanced lighting and shader effects, which brought PCs of the time to their knees during a multiball.)

I've still got the original Timeshock CD, I can run you off a copy if you want. (Same goes for The Web, Fantastic Journey and Big Race USA. However, The Web just point blank refuses to run as it's an ancient DOS game, and Fantastic Journey + Big Race USA don't come close to Timeshock in the brilliance stakes IMO.)

I realise this doesn't answer 'I want to play Timeshock on my iPad' (or your Mac, as I believe you are a Mac-type), but certainly three of the Pro Pinball series are still entirely playable on any modern PC.

Many thanks for the offer, but I'll hang on for a possible iPad version, I think. I could easily enough play the games on my Mac via Fusion or Desktop, but I spend enough time staring at the bloody thing of late, and so I'd sooner get away from the office whenever I can!

Scared Stiff and Big Shot are now live on iOS (£2.49 for Scared stiff or £2.99 for both) - and a pro mode opened for Arabian Nights (not really sure what it entails)

Enjoyed a go on Scared Stiff last night. Big Shot was a bit meh, reminding me a lot of why I don't play Age of Pinballs very often. I still bought it though (50p!). That front end really desperately needs a major overhaul now though. Swipe. Swipe. Swipe. Swipe. Swipe. Swipe. Swipe. Just give me a sodding alphabetical list of tables!

Oooohhh oooohhhh OOOHHHHH.

#video">http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/106 ... ay=1#video

Watching the video actually made my tingly, I'm so goddamn looking forward to this.

The Pro Pinball guys finally seem to get it.

I reckon a second Kickstarter focused properly on just getting the tables done again will succeed handsomely.

Reading the one comment from the team on that thread, I'm not convinced they do. They clearly realise their Kickstarter failed badly, and they have some inkling why, but really going back down the road of keyrings and posters? Really? What a fucking massive waste of time and money. Just get the damn game out.

Well it's a step in the right direction, if nothing else

As a backer you'll probably already have seen this but :

I'm practically wetting myself for this one, just the music alone sends shivers up my spine.

I spent a lot of time in a darkened room playing my own TZ for many, many hours - can't wait to play it again, even if 'only' in Pinball Arcade form.

The new Itunes is taking ages to download it but the update for today adds Twilight Zone !

When's the next Xbox table out, again?

I have not played Twilight Zone before in any form so I loaded it up with a lot of anticipation. So far I am not really getting anywhere.

I know it is really complicated but any chance of a few top tips to get me going?

In essence you're playing to get the door features completed to trigger the main end round, and for multiballs, everything else you can sort of 'do along the way'.

Remember it's YEARS since I've played TZ in anger but IIRC:

1) Left ramp shot lights a door feature, then it's into the piano or the slot machine to collect it.
2) Left and right ramp for GUM and BALL lights a lock.
3) Don't worry about other stuff too much, just play it to the maximum when it turns up. (For example don't play to get the powerball out, just play it to the max when it shows up, same for Battle The Power and so on.)

In essence you can bring the table down to being able to reliably hit those two ramp shots, jackpot values increase the more multiballs you get, and you need to complete all the door features to get LOST IN THE ZONE (think it's called that), on a good game you'll be getting loads of multiballs, and probably clock the door features twice. (Think I managed three loops on my own table.)

All the various features are just a question of practice and familiarity, there's no point going into too much detail on them on an individual basis.

Hang on, there's a really comprehensive guide here:

http://pinball.org/rules/twilightzone2.html

Although having had a scan down near the end it effectively says what I've just said

As for Battle The Power, I never found a reliable way to beat him on my real table!

Thanks, just what I needed.

I will hopefully be able to get somewhere with it now.

Todays iOS update adds Star Trek (£2.99) , and a new front end (still looks to be the same swishy back and forward between tables but its just the top glass) instead of the whole table and you can click on the top glass for items in view to have it jump to them

Ugh. What a mess. These guys desperately need an interface designer.

It also doesnt size the boxes correctly for my phone now (looks like they are too big so probably tested on a 5?)

When's the fecking 360 version out?

Grrrrr.

Presumably. It's a total mess on my 4GS. Some bloke on their forums provided an excellent UI redesign. God knows why they stay put with swipe bollocks when that makes it a huge pain in the arse to find your tables, if you buy all of them. In fact, if anything it makes it so you'd want to buy fewer of them. Bonkers.

Ugh. This is just dreadful. It's practically broken on the iPad, where you have to twist the device like a loon to 'force' a table into portrait—every single time. I'm hoping I can rescue the old version and data from back-ups, because I'm already sick of this 'update'.

360 news:

40 tables by the end of the year?

That would be amazing!

Yeah! There must be far more tables already out on iOS than I'd thought...

There's 20 available on iOS right now so 40 by the end of the year sounds do-able

I'm now shuddering at the thought of the iOS app having 40 tables with the current really shitty front-end. Bleh.

Twilight Zone and ST:TNG now live on Android, iOS and Mac!

Where are the fucking 360 versions! Or the PC versions!

Fuck!

So is it just me or have we had no new tables whatsoever on the 360 version since, er, was Gorgar in the last pack? I certainly can't buy any more. What the chuff is going on? That must be four months without an update. At least! I haven't turned my Xbox on for anything other than Sky since I started my new job and that was over three months ago... Assumed there'd be a load of new tables to buy!

Isn't there a post a few back explaining that their 360 publisher went bankrupt and they have had to sort a new one before they could put new tables out?

I do not remember reading such a post.

*insert pic of Farcry3 man*

How odd!

viewtopic.php?p=732106#p732106

I must have been hungover when I read that and it didn't go into my brain, or something.

January, hopefully.