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Pro Pinball • View topic - Short game settings? Good games are SO LONG

Short game settings? Good games are SO LONG

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Short game settings? Good games are SO LONG

Postby Alex » Sun Oct 13, 2013 6:44 am

One of my pet peeves with popular epic pinball games is that success can be predicated more on endurance than remarkable achievements. If you get far enough to start hitting the late-game extra ball gravy train, then you'll do well because you'll have enough resources to hit the risky shots the requisite number of times. Medieval Madness is probably the worst offender I can think of -- it's basically bash everything n times, and all the clutch moments are just about getting enough extra balls to grind through it. Twilight Zone can play out this way too, even though the ostensible rule set is much broader. Pound those ramps and start enough modes, it will be a good day, regardless of how much you put into the modes.

This is my one and only problem with Timeshock. To get to the Unknown, you're going to have to beat eight Explore modes (a LOT of side ramp shots), fill the time drive four times (even more treacherous left/right ramp shots) and win a mess of multiballs. All that is stitched together with some of the best moments and rules in pinball (it's obvious where Simpsons got its reverse flippers from; google will tell you that Keith played Timeshock back in the day). But dang, the best games I've had all had insane extra ball counts in common, and it was basically just obscene play time that got me my one legit (IIRC) trip to the Unknown.

I'd really like to see a preset in the reboot that caps the extra ball count and tightens up the busy work -- something tournament-setting-ish but with the big payoff reachable by mortals. Maybe make Tachyonium requirements and fragment locks tougher but empty continents and time drive charging easier. I tried to do this back in the day with the old operator's menu settings, but I couldn't ever quite get it right. Maybe score balance that emphasizes solid mid-game play over story progress would be nice too, but I never really dug deep into the scoring balance.

For reference, games that I think do a great job of rewarding setup and virtuosic clutch play would be Cirqus Voltaire, Doctor Who (shallow but it does shallow good), Black Knight 2000 (ditto), and Safe Cracker. (Safe Cracker is the only pinball machine I ever bought. It is much, much better than it seems at first. It is probably Lawlor's finest game by far.)
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Re: Short game settings? Good games are SO LONG

Postby insx » Sun Oct 13, 2013 1:35 pm

A while ago I was thinking that it needed an 'arcade mode'. If T! was ever going to be made into a real machine there is no way that games could last several hours on a credit.
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Re: Short game settings? Good games are SO LONG

Postby ErikM » Sun Oct 13, 2013 2:39 pm

Timeshock already has a tournament mode, what's wrong with that?

The time drive busywork is important: that's what prevents you from getting to Dawn of Time too easily. If the time drive wasn't needed, it's just four multiballs and you're playing the semi-wizard mode for a billion points. That said, the best way to handle the time drive is to exploit Time Warp Frenzy and Reverse Frenzy. You can work on the time drive during either of those. And Reverse Frenzy also allows relighting TWF for another go.

I do agree about the balance that the Explorations are too hard for their rewards, and that the empty continents just get in the way. 100M score is peanuts. End of Time really isn't worth enough to justify them. Global Domination is supposed to be the intermediate payoff but that's also poor risk/reward. (Maybe if Global offered a ball saver or credited the Time Drive for you?)

Other pinball games make winning the modes optional (The Web, STTNG, BRUSA) or untimed (AFM, Medieval, RFM, Fantastic Journey). But that would be a really big change in feel for Timeshock. My best suggestion to fix the Explorations would be to allow resuming an exploration where you left off instead of starting all over each time. Then at least we wouldn't spend twenty minutes and three balls failing Dinosaur Stampede five times in a row.
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Re: Short game settings? Good games are SO LONG

Postby nudiustertian » Sun Oct 13, 2013 6:11 pm

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Re: Short game settings? Good games are SO LONG

Postby insx » Tue Oct 15, 2013 7:09 pm

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Re: Short game settings? Good games are SO LONG

Postby frederikjurk » Wed Oct 16, 2013 3:16 pm

Or a way to reliably save and resume my progress.

Games of Ripleys Believe It Or Not on TPA can get very long as well, but there is no way to quit the app and continue later on, and 9 times out of 10 it just resets the app when I switch to a different app (on iOS, that is).

To be more precise, these could be "suspend saves" that get erased after you load them, to avoid just save-stating your way to high scores.
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