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ultrasuperexplore · 2 years ago

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i've been wondering how a homestar runner pinball game would work, too!

one big inspiration to me is Stern's 'Guardians of the Galaxy' table. each of that game's major shots has a character associated with it, and each of the main missions / multiball rounds centers on a particular character. typically, that character's shot will be given special treatment in its associated mode, and completing a character's mode will make their shot more valuable for the rest of the game.

i think something like that would also fit for H*R, since it's got a strong ensemble cast of characters. stuff i've been spitballing in my head:

many different modes, categorized around different types of cartoons on the site, like "sbemails", "holidays", "character intro tapes", etc

start the different types of cartoon modes from different shots, or "go rando" to start one indiscriminately

one of each different type of cartoon mode can be stacked to run simultaneously

each shot / major feature on the table is associated with one of the main characters

each cartoon mode is associated with at least one of the characters that "star" in that cartoon, and those characters' shots are made more valuable in those modes (e.g. a mode based on "Do-Nut Unto Others" would light up shots for Homestar, Bubs, and the KoT, maybe Strong Bad too just for the "finish" shot)

stack several modes that feature the same "star" characters to multiply scoring for the character(s') shot ("go rando" with another mode already active, and the game will try to pick the best 'random' mode to stack with already-active characters)

a "The Cheat" button that can be qualified to have The Cheat instantly spot a valuable shot for you... but with him keeping around half of the points, until they are recovered later by (somehow) Kicking The Cheat (or, in a more kind fashion, by offering a bribe of pencil shavings)

so yeah, i think there's a lot that can be done with an H*R-themed table!

anywho im back to thinking about a h*r pinball machine and might want to draw one up?? ethan and i were trying to figure out how the mechanics of the game would work and i keep bouncing back and forth between something similar to theatre of magic and something really simple and old school hm

#pinball #homestar runner

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ultrasuperexplore · 3 years ago

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A new playfield layout that I've been sketching out over the last couple of days!

The left ramp was originally just going to curl back to the left return lane, but I realized there was plenty of room to extend the uppermost portion and add some extra paths for the ball to take. I had already swiped an idea from Steve Ritchie's games with that wall of targets by the left ramp, which is straight out of 'Terminator 2'. Only natural that I'd borrow a page from 'High Speed' as well!

This left ramp has two diverters along the top that can flick down to redirect the ball. The first diverter guides the ball to a wire ramp leading to the left return lane, like my original plan. The second diverter makes the ball cross a small bridge to drop into the apex of the right ramp, eventually landing in the right return lane. If neither are active, and the ball is moving fast enough to not fall into the other paths, the ball will reach the end of the ramp, which slopes down and dumps the ball into the right orbit, leading down to the upper flipper.

With this setup, the ramp can drop the ball above any of the game's three flippers. Since the ramp is designed to accept balls from the upper flipper, this also means that continuous loop shots are possible from both right-side flippers!

I don't have much more than this thought up at this point - I'll probably be thinking of different goals to shoot for in this layout over the weeks and months to come.

#pinball

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ultrasuperexplore · 3 years ago

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SKETCHES & THOUGHTS - LET'S TRY THIS

Alright, lemme peel myself away from XIV for a bit and do something a bit more self-driven!

I've loved to doodle pinball playfields ever since I was in elementary school - I'm sure a lot of other folks can recall sketching new levels for their favourite games, at some point. These days, I still prefer using pencil-on-paper to design new layouts, as opposed to figuring everything out from within Visual Pinball. Curved walls, in partucular, take some time & finangling for me to construct in CAD software, but curves come easily when drawing by hand.

Recently, I had the bright idea to make simple card stencils in the dimensions I most often use for these sketches. I also cut some notches at a couple of key points, which are meant to mark where the flippers ought to go. They're... okay, but I think I should have had a couple more notches for the flippers & the inlane guide leading to them. Something to keep in mind for the next go around at making stencils, I guess.

Here's 3 sketches I made today:

And here's some words on my thought process creating them! I'll mention details in roughly the order I sketched them in.

#1: Started with the U-turn on the left that leads to an upper flipper, then added some shots for the upper flipper. Next, added a center ramp above the entrances to the upper flipper's shots. The center ramp drops the ball above the upper flipper. Tried to make a 2-bumper nest (an increasingly common trend in modern pinball) but I'm not fond of the design I came up with there, at least not on paper. Very strange 'reversed' left inlane/outlane setup - the idea is that a ball can be shot into the semicircle on the left, and it will quickly whip around towards the Left Flipper. A captive ball placed between this semicircle and the U-turn can steal the in-play ball's momentum, ideally making the ball drop here and bounce around in the inlane area, a dangerous situation.

#2: Wanted to make an upper playfield that was 'split in two,' as opposed to having one continuous arc running along the top. One side would have a common bumper nest, the other would have a set of drop targets with stand-up targets behind them, inspired mainly by Cybernaut. Orbits surround this combination bank. The right orbit around the bank throws the ball over a jump ramp leading to the bumpers and lanes in the left half of the upper playfield. The left orbit brings the ball down an isolated alley along the right side of the table, below the flippers, to a kicker that throws the ball past two one-way gates to arrive safely in the right inlane. (Probably not a good idea.) A hook lane with a spinner target, on the left side, throws the ball across the table and into the combination target bank. 3 drop targets, just above the spinner lane's typical shot angles, add another obstacle on the left side of the playfield. Lots of room is left over, but I decided to end that sketch there and start fresh.

#3: Once again, I wanted a playfield that was effectively split in two at the top - this time, I decided to try a symmetrical layout. The outer orbits, with walls running along the top of the table, are designed to throw the ball at a bumper. Stand-up targets fill in the upper gaps created by the orbits' guidewalls and protect the bottom two bumpers. Inner orbits run between the bumpers, allowing the ball to pass through the 5 bumpers at different angles. A saucer at the top-center of the table, guarded by the center bumper, would be difficult to hit intentionally, but could add some more beneficial randomness to the ball's behaviour in the upper playfield. Ruleset would probably need to involve going thru particular lanes at particular times. Simple lower-playfield with a discrete "lower orbit" and target banks (this may be extending too far down the table to work as a proper shot.) This table would not use a traditional plunger to launch the ball; it would instead kick the ball up from the drain area, similar to 'Big Hit' and other plunger-less games.

So, I think I've got some interesting ideas here, but nothing I'd want to flesh out further right now. One thing I noticed while writing these explanations was the lack of consideration for the game's overall theme - not just in how the game looks, but in how the game progresses & how different accomplishments are weighted when awarding points. I often think about interesting shot layouts before thinking about appropriate themes for them, as opposed to coming up with layouts that reinforce a pre-established theme. I think it's important for a game's shot layout to be at least somewhat coherent with its theme - a familiar theme will give players clues as to how they should approach different targets. (Consider the many, many playing-card-themed games that were made before the rise of video games! Many of them demanded that players shoot labeled targets to form poker hands, like pairs and straights, combinations that the layperson of that time would be likely to recognize as valuable.)

Hey, this was kinda fun! Maybe I ought to elaborate on my sketches more often.

#pinball #design

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ultrasuperexplore · 3 years ago

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DESIGN THOUGHTS: OFF THE WALL

having spent a lot of time both playing a bunch of pinball machines and messing around with pinball table design software (which i'll talk about another day), i'm frequently thinking about how slight changes to one part of a playfield can greatly affect other aspects of the game. a good example would be that "fork" scoop protector on 'Rush' - by closing off the entrance to a scoop from the sides, the game becomes slightly more challenging overall, but the gradual physical wear around the scoop entrances is greatly reduced.

in a couple of my latest designs, i've had to rethink sets of stand-up targets that seemed to only ever cause bad experiences in my (far-too-frequent) playtesting. by doing those adjustments, i think i've gained new insight into what i need to think about when adding any sort of static target to a pinball game.

this starts with 'Fastpitch', a game i started this summer and one that i am trying to push to 'completion' state with fully-written scoring logic.

this is probably the earliest screenshot i have of Fastpitch. early on, i kept this bank of 7 spot targets perpendicular to the wall, since i figured it was the natural thing to do. a little later, when i added some placeholder indicator lights (the red circles), i decided to have the row of lights bulge out a bit from the wall, since i thought it'd look neat - perhaps i was also subconsciously floating the idea to change those targets' layout...

later in the summer, i doodled a table layout in my graph paper notebook, and the next day, sketched out the design in VP.

in this layout, the left ramp's entrance is fairly close to the flippers. two narrow targets flank the ramp's entrance, acting as 'guardposts' of a sort, and just below this cluster would be a set of 3 spot targets.

in my original doodle, those 3 targets were simply perpendicular to the left wall. (now that i think about it, i very often tend to place targets like that when designing tables, just to have *something* to hit above the inlanes...) upon playtesting, a problem with this setup became clear: when shooting for the targets from the right flipper, balls would ricochet off the targets, continue up the board, and crash into one of the ramp's guardpost targets.

i generally consider "guardposts" to be targets pinball players want to avoid, in most situations. in a modern pinball table, completing a shot - especially a ramp shot - usually means that the player gets a short rest period while the ball travels through the table, letting them prepare for when the ball comes back to the flippers. by contrast, hitting guardpost targets straight-on typically means the ball will immediately rebound back towards the center drain, which could very suddenly lead to a lost ball.

so, i had a situation where a deliberate shot to a valuable target is followed by an inevitable rebound that crashes into an undesirable target - not good! that's the sort of thing most pinball nerds like me would call an "unsatisfying" shot. i wanted to make sure that a player could take direct shots at the 3-bank without having to deal with such nasty rebounds, so i made a couple of simple changes:

the 3-bank of targets is now angled inwards, so balls that ricochet off of them will now travel much more to the right. additionally, i altered the ramp entrance, pushing the right entrance guardpost back to allow these ricochets a clearer path towards the right side of the table. these changes actually had a great knock-on effect, as now the ricochets naturally head towards the lanes on the right side!

after setting that sketch project down and returning to Fastpitch, i realized that the wall of 7 targets on its left side had the very same issue. shots from the flipper would usually hit the bottom pop bumper, sending the ball back down to the flippers at high speed. i also recognized this as being "unsatisfying", and likely, even harder for the average player to deal with.

thankfully, i had already figured out a solution!

by changing the targets' shape from a straight line to a curve - matching the way i initially laid out the indicator lights - a ton of variance is added to direct shots to the wall. the bottom pop bumper is still a likely destination, but by hitting the inward-angled targets, the ball tends to rebound further to the right, and the ball is more likely to get between the bumpers to score a bunch of hits. having the ball enter the pops at such an angle also makes it more likely that the ball will hit the Advance Pops rollover star, which is above the center loop, a spot that is near-impossible to deliberately aim for.

best of all - the lowest target on that wall happens to be placed & angled just right for a direct shot to rebound straight into the center loop! hell yeah!

as a hobbyist pinball designer, going through this review & revision has helped me realize how important ricochets are to consider for any pinball shot, not just static targets. it's certainly something i'll be taking into account going forwards!

i think this has also helped me improve my own pinball play - lately, i've been paying more attention to how the ball will rebound off a shot when it's attempted from different angles. sometimes, making shots from awkward angles on the flippers, like "backhand" shots, can have favourable properties compared to a shot from the flipper that has more direct access to the shot's entrance. for instance, backhand flipper shots are usually less powerful than direct flipper shots - while a shot may be harder to actually complete when the ball is moving slowly, a *missed* shot would also be slower, and therefore, easier to respond to.

#pinball

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ultrasuperexplore · 3 years ago

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RUSH (Stern 2022) - THE SCOOP(S)

something rare has happened: a pinball manufacturer has had to send out a *physical* update for their games, in order to resolve a major & widespread issue with an important part of the machine!

the game in question is Rush, Stern Pinball's latest release, and the culprit here is the lower of the game's twin scoops.

in particular, the part that keeps breaking is the "scoop protector", a thin piece of metal that is meant to reinforce the area where the ball will (repeatedly) enter & exit the scoop.

i believe scoops are actually relatively new as far as pinball components are concerned - i may be wrong, but i believe the first game to prominently feature them was Whirlwind (Williams, 1990). compared to a standard 'saucer' sitting in a divot, or other types of kickout holes, a scoop has the ball drop below the playfield's surface (and potentially travel beneath it, through a 'subway' track) before being kicked back out. this means having to drill a hole in the wooden playfield that the ball can pass through, and ideally, routing the area around the scoop's entrance down to a smooth, rounded edge.

however, that edge will still be subject to a lot of abuse - balls that enter a scoop at an angle will likely hit the wood edge before it falls into the metal assembly, and each time the ball gets kicked out of the scoop towards the flippers, it's liable to nick the edge of the hole along the way. over many years of play, this results in the edge getting "chewed up", creating chips and divots around the scoop entrance. (i frequently see this kind of damage around the 'Electric Chair' scoop in the middle of The Addams Family (Bally, 1992), a very wide-spread game - see here for examples.)

to deal with this problem, a small plate of metal can be cut to shape and installed over that edge, to give the ball something more firm to hit than the comparatively-soft wood - hence, the use of scoop protectors. for years, pinball machine owners have been installing aftermarket steel protectors on these and other high-wear areas, to help their machines last as long as possible.

while Rush is not the first game to have a pre-installed scoop protector, this game did use a uniquely-shaped protector for its twin-scoop setup, intending to protect both entrances with a single piece of fitted metal. however, it was quickly discovered that Stern's original protector design was flawed - many players reported that the protector would warp out of shape from the ball entering from the scoop from the sides, often after an very short time in action. Stern was surely flooded with complaints, and it wasn't long before the same aftermarket manufacturers were offering their own replacements. eventually, Stern did create a revised scoop assembly & sent it to everyone who had already purchased a Rush machine.

the original appearance of the scoop on Rush at Phantom Amusements, before replacement:

note that the bottom-right corner of the protector is missing. i am """proud""" to say that i did that! the metal had already warped up at that corner, and i must have been the one person to shoot a ball in the exact right location and angle for the base of the ball to nick that upturned corner, causing a piece to snap off. me & the arcade operator couldn't find that broken bit, which is... a little scary. i don't think people who buy pinball machines new-in-box would want to have mysterious little steel flakes rattling around after only a few months of play!

also, the upper scoop's protector seemed to be showing some warping as well - consider that in Rush, the ball gets kicked out of the top scoop much less often than the bottom (balls that enter the top can pass through to the bottom scoop, to be ejected there.)

the replacement scoop from Stern:

the structure of this new scoop is radically different: rubber-block "wings" on either side, similar to what might be found at the entrance to a ramp, prevent the ball from entering the scoop from practically any angle other than a direct shot from a flipper. contrast this to the original scoop design, which was much more open, especially from the right side.

this was definitely a necessary change to prevent further physical damage, although i find that the change has made Rush a bit harder to play overall.

with the original design, the bottom scoop was able to accept balls that were moving laterally, which is a huge benefit to any player! a scoop catching such a 'floaty' ball means the ball is certain to be launched towards a flipper, as opposed to the ball drifting further sideways towards an outlane or bouncing off of a post, situations that may be difficult to survive. therefore, with the more-open scoop, missed shots and wild rebounds had a slightly better chance to end up in that scoop, and back in the player's control. however, this is also the main reason the scoop protectors on Rush got deformed - balls impacting the side edges of the scoop as it comes in from awkward angles at high speeds. (though i have to ask, why the hell was Stern using such soft steel for these?!?!)

with the new scoop setup, apparently called 'the fork' by folks who post on pinball forums, only shots from the flippers can be expected to make it into the hole - and that direct shot is a little bit more difficult now, too! it's far from impossible, but the additional rebounds are tricky to deal with.

so, that's the 'hardware' side of things. but there's also some effects with regards to 'software': in Rush, this scoop is what lets the player collect Mystery awards, small bonuses that players usually want to be collecting as often as possible. with the 'open' scoop, it wasn't uncommon to collect a Mystery award by accident when the ball fell in after a rebound - something not likely to happen now that the sides are blocked off.

while this means less-experienced players will collect a Mystery less often, this could actually be a benefit for more-experienced players when dealing with multiball. the first Mystery of any multiball mode in Rush (and most other modern pinball games) is guaranteed to add another ball into play, and to keep the situation from getting too chaotic, savvy players will wait to use that power until they absolutely need it to keep the multiball mode active. however, the chaos inherent to multiball means that a ball may fall into the scoop while the player had wanted to avoid it! with the new, 'protected' (or 'extra-protected?') scoop, players can be assured that the 'Add-A-Ball' feature won't be set off until the player makes a deliberate shot to the scoop.

again, physical revisions to a pinball machine from its original manufacturer, like this instance, are rare. i'd imagine folks wouldn't be happy about having to replace parts of their new pinball machine, especially if they're on their own without expert help - i heard it took a few hours for the arcade owner to install the new scoop assembly on Rush. after reviewing forum discussions on this problem and the different ways pinball machine owners have tried to deal with it over the past year, i've noticed that 'the fork,' while widely considered detrimental to the game, is still appreciated in its effect on limiting damage to the scoop, especially in arcade settings.

personally, as an arcade player, it's been interesting to see how a physical change like this can have ripple effects elsewhere in the game as a whole. plus, these new parts are going to get battered by pinballs just as much as the old ones, if not moreso - i'd like to check on how they hold up structurally in the months and years to come.

#pinball #stern #rush #wear and tear #strategy

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