A question/favour - pinball related!

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A question/favour - pinball related!

Postby Phlum » Sat Apr 19, 2014 10:36 pm

I was wondering if it'd be alright for me to ask for some feedback on a pinball table I'm designing for my final major project at college. I've mocked the thing up in Visual Pinball and I figured it would be a good idea to get some advice from people who have more pinball experience than I do :P

When I say "would it be alright" I mean would people be happy for me to request feedback on my designs?

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Re: A question/favour - pinball related!

Postby Lio » Sun Apr 20, 2014 8:28 am

I don't see why not... just post a screenshot :-)
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Re: A question/favour - pinball related!

Postby Phlum » Sun Apr 20, 2014 1:55 pm

Okay...here goes...

http://imgur.com/Zknzvzg

A few things:
1. this is the very first version. I admit it's nothing special at the moment but it's going to get better - that's why I came here ;)
2. the round things are both ramps; I wanted this sort of layout for a very good reason. Hopefully when it's finished, the ramps won't look so wonky and horrible.
3. the red circles are bumpers, and the yellow circles are lights. The white circle with concentric circles is where I plan to put a kickout that is similar to Timeshock's crystal - but in a very different shape.
4. this is for my final major project at college, and I have not planned to make this a fully playable table - what I'll be presenting at the end will be the playfield redrawn in Inkscape.

Any questions or comments would be accepted and very much appreciated :)
Be as harsh as you like. This is the first time I've done anything like this and I'm not expecting an absolute game-changer but I want something that would at least be fun to play.

EDIT:

I've reworked it a bit, because it was missing something. I feel that there's enough to work with - almost.

https://imgur.com/P76dRJF

It's a bit wider and has a few things moved around a bit. You'll notice there's a big hexagon at the top - I have no idea whether this has done before or whether it'd even work, but that's supposed to be a roundabout-type device. There's no real way to render it in Visual Pinball, so it's just a hexagon for now.
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Re: A question/favour - pinball related!

Postby nonfamousd » Mon May 05, 2014 3:04 pm

First thing that comes to mind is that there isn't any way to feed a shot to that upper flipper. Without some kind of lane or habitrail to set up shots to that flipper, in practice it's only ever going to be used for volleying shots. That may be your intent, but if there are any key shots to hit in the upper part of that playfield they are going to be very difficult to hit reliably, which could make the game frustrating.

Also, are those U-turn ramps? Balls will come *screaming* out of the exits to those ramps, which will also make things very difficult.
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Re: A question/favour - pinball related!

Postby Phlum » Mon May 12, 2014 7:54 pm

Hi, thanks for your reply.

I've tested the table out while designing it through Visual Pinball, and there isn't really a good reason for that flipper to be there. At the far end of the table is the roundabout; getting the ball around the orbit should be enough to send it spinning.

The ramps are not U-turns; they were originally, but I added in habitrails for the very reason you pointed out. ;) The habitrails lead to the inlanes, much like Timeshock.

Unfortunately, while I'd love to tinker with the table some more, the deadline for this project is in just under two weeks so there really isn't any time to tweak it. Although, it's entirely possible I could do it after the project's over. Visual Pinball is a lot easier than I expected to use and does a fairly competent job of the physics (it's obviously not up to Pro Pinball standards but it's not terrible) so I could work on that aspect of it and make something cool to play before Timeshock Ultra comes out.
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