6 ms·

Aren't there pinball games any more? I remember spending a lot of hours playing Pinball Fantasies and Pinball Illusions in an Amiga 1200.

CharlesW 4y ago
There are! Digital/virtual pinball is huge. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/07/atgames-legends-virtual-pinball-review-the-better-pre-built-choice-mostly/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/07/atgames-legends-virtu... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Pinball https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Pinball
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  But they are physical devices with screens for playfields. I think OP means for laptops/desktops.
  - CharlesW 4y ago
    The first article focuses on form-authentic cabinets, but the software that powers those (like the open-source Visual Pinball, the freeware Future Pinball, the commercial Pinball FX3, etc.) work on ordinary laptops/desktops too.
adamrezich 4y ago
Pinball FX3 (available on Steam, and other platforms) is pretty good if there's specific real-world tables you're interested in playing. Volume 1 has Medieval Madness, which I have logged far too many hours in.
- agentwiggles 4y ago
  Medieval Madness is my all time favorite table. I recently bought the version for Pinball FX3, and it's not half bad. I could complain about all kinds of things about PinballFX3, it's very emblematic of the problems with modern gaming, but the tables themselves are pretty good recreations. It's nowhere near as fun as real pinball, but the one thing that I found really cool was that I was able to play the game on "training mode" and get a better sense for the different things I could do and how to set up certain situations. My best Medieval Madness score is something like 50,000,000... the table I play on has a high score of about 190,000,000 so I have a long way to go to have a chance at putting in my initials. But I can generally go for a pretty long session on a single credit. Even still, I hadn't ever seen half the stuff that I got to see while playing the virtual version, and I've taken some of that knowledge into the real world when I visit the bar where that table lives. So overall, digital pinball is cool in my book, if flawed. Quick edit/addition: Medieval Madness is unique among nearly all the tables I've played in that it doesn't bullshit you much. Most of the time when I lose balls, I know exactly the wrong thing I did (in particular, trying to hit the castle gate or the trolls without multiball is pretty dangerous). Most tables I've played will suck up a credit in a few flips in ways that seem pretty unfair, but Medieval Madness seems pretty fair. I would love to own a table but they're shockingly expensive, maybe someday!
  - adamrezich 4y ago
    this is exactly why I bought Pinball FX3, my local barcade got a Medieval Madness table and I remember liking it as a kid, and I wanted to learn more about how the game works beyond "put a few quarters in and hit some flippers until stuff happens", without having to keep pumping fifty cents in time after time. I think the depth that pinball tables (I'm not enough of a buff to feel comfortable calling them "pins" ...yet) have is hugely underrated. I remember learning about the objectives you can go for in Space Cadet but I was blown away by all the different systems/table features/etc. in MM! so much to learn and keep track of at once, but once you start to get the hang of it, playing & learning more is incredibly addictive. my MM high score in PFX3 is somewhere around 50M (with the hugely unfair default, not "realistic" physics—though I play both), but I haven't been able to get anywhere near that irl just yet. it is interesting just how much irl pinball physics differ from their virtual counterparts, there really is nothing quite like it. also, for those unaware, some Medieval Madness trivia: - a pre-famous Tina Fey voices of some of the princesses - Tim Kitzrow does his NBA JAM shtick as the joust announcer, and even BOOMSHAKALAKAs sometimes - there's very occasional "Toasty!" and "FATALITY" samples from Mortal Kombat (Dan Forden, the Toasty Guy, did sound for both games) really, if you're a fan of pinball/arcade history, it's just a real treat, sort of a culmination of the Williams/Midway arcade scene, in some ways.
    - agentwiggles 4y ago
      I honestly can't think of another table that's close to as fun as MM, it's got the perfect vibe and so many neat little table features. MM was also the first table where I started to learn the objectives (I can get the multiball with pretty decent consistency now). And again, it's probably the fairest table I'm aware of, I very seldom say "that was bullshit!" when playing MM. Most of my prior pinball experience was just "bang in a few quarters and watch the lights flash until you lose." Imagine my surprise to find that those little cards on the tables actually tell you how to play :) My 50M play was a magical one, I lucked out in all kinds of ways. My average is around the 25-30M range (on good runs, I'm still not good enough that I don't occasionally flame out near 1M haha)
    - toast0 4y ago
rzzzt 4y ago
One or both of these had an MS-DOS port with VGA graphics (smooth scrolling!) and excellent MOD playback using PC speaker output.
compsciphd 4y ago
Epic's shareware pinball game, paid for the development of the initial version of unreal. Epic as we know it today doesn't exist without pinball.
- 1123581321 4y ago
  I’d heard it as ZZT paid for Jill of the Jungle which let them afford Unreal’s longer development cycle while releasing other games (like Epic Pinball.) Epic Pinball and ZZT were two of my favorite games from the 90s.
  - compsciphd 4y ago
    see quote here - https://web.archive.org/web/20001006000731/http://www.gamesdomain.com/gdreview/depart/dec99/de.html https://web.archive.org/web/20001006000731/http://www.gamesd... The next game was Epic Pinball, and it was a huge hit. We estimate that it was the 3rd most successful shareware game ever created. Epic Pinball basically funded the startup of Digital Extremes as well as funding a lot of the development of Unreal. and here https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/from-the-past-to-the-future-tim-sweeney-talks https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/from-the-past-to-the-fu... Jazz Jackrabbit was your highest selling shareware game at the time? What was your highest selling shareware game overall? TS: Of all time? That was Epic Pinball.... (and more cut)
    - 1123581321 4y ago
      Very cool. Thanks!
gwill 4y ago
i recently discovered demons tilt and enjoy it a lot: https://store.steampowered.com/app/422510/Demons_Tilt/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/422510/Demons_Tilt/
bayofpigs 4y ago
syntheweave 4y ago
Phone apps are close to ideal for a quick game of pinball - touchscreen controls are not perfect, but they are "good enough." The best "originals" on phone are in Pinball Deluxe Reloaded, which sticks to a flat 2D design. Pinball FX(Zen Studios) is the runner up and has a series of apps dedicated to its originals and licenses. It tries to have a 3D camera, which isn't the best experience on a tiny screen. Pinball Arcade and Zaccaria both have apps. The content is pretty good but they haven't been maintained properly to work well on the phone. I still sunk hours and hours into Pinball Arcade despite it having a broken camera implementation in vertical aspect.
prawn 4y ago
One that I play is PinOut - it's more of a pathway than a table though, in case you're a purist. Looks great and decent music also. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pinout/id1108417718 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pinout/id1108417718 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mediocre.pinout&hl=en_AU&gl=US&pli=1 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mediocre.p...
- NetOpWibby 4y ago
  +1 for PinOut, looks great on a large iPad. I’ve managed to reach the end several times, in one sitting. Lovely game.

CharlesW 4y ago

There are! Digital/virtual pinball is huge. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/07/atgames-legends-virtual-pinball-review-the-better-pre-built-choice-mostly/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/07/atgames-legends-virtu... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Pinball https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Pinball

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
But they are physical devices with screens for playfields. I think OP means for laptops/desktops.
- CharlesW 4y ago
  The first article focuses on form-authentic cabinets, but the software that powers those (like the open-source Visual Pinball, the freeware Future Pinball, the commercial Pinball FX3, etc.) work on ordinary laptops/desktops too.

adamrezich 4y ago

Pinball FX3 (available on Steam, and other platforms) is pretty good if there's specific real-world tables you're interested in playing. Volume 1 has Medieval Madness, which I have logged far too many hours in.

agentwiggles 4y ago
Medieval Madness is my all time favorite table. I recently bought the version for Pinball FX3, and it's not half bad. I could complain about all kinds of things about PinballFX3, it's very emblematic of the problems with modern gaming, but the tables themselves are pretty good recreations. It's nowhere near as fun as real pinball, but the one thing that I found really cool was that I was able to play the game on "training mode" and get a better sense for the different things I could do and how to set up certain situations. My best Medieval Madness score is something like 50,000,000... the table I play on has a high score of about 190,000,000 so I have a long way to go to have a chance at putting in my initials. But I can generally go for a pretty long session on a single credit. Even still, I hadn't ever seen half the stuff that I got to see while playing the virtual version, and I've taken some of that knowledge into the real world when I visit the bar where that table lives. So overall, digital pinball is cool in my book, if flawed. Quick edit/addition: Medieval Madness is unique among nearly all the tables I've played in that it doesn't bullshit you much. Most of the time when I lose balls, I know exactly the wrong thing I did (in particular, trying to hit the castle gate or the trolls without multiball is pretty dangerous). Most tables I've played will suck up a credit in a few flips in ways that seem pretty unfair, but Medieval Madness seems pretty fair. I would love to own a table but they're shockingly expensive, maybe someday!
- adamrezich 4y ago
  this is exactly why I bought Pinball FX3, my local barcade got a Medieval Madness table and I remember liking it as a kid, and I wanted to learn more about how the game works beyond "put a few quarters in and hit some flippers until stuff happens", without having to keep pumping fifty cents in time after time. I think the depth that pinball tables (I'm not enough of a buff to feel comfortable calling them "pins" ...yet) have is hugely underrated. I remember learning about the objectives you can go for in Space Cadet but I was blown away by all the different systems/table features/etc. in MM! so much to learn and keep track of at once, but once you start to get the hang of it, playing & learning more is incredibly addictive. my MM high score in PFX3 is somewhere around 50M (with the hugely unfair default, not "realistic" physics—though I play both), but I haven't been able to get anywhere near that irl just yet. it is interesting just how much irl pinball physics differ from their virtual counterparts, there really is nothing quite like it. also, for those unaware, some Medieval Madness trivia: - a pre-famous Tina Fey voices of some of the princesses - Tim Kitzrow does his NBA JAM shtick as the joust announcer, and even BOOMSHAKALAKAs sometimes - there's very occasional "Toasty!" and "FATALITY" samples from Mortal Kombat (Dan Forden, the Toasty Guy, did sound for both games) really, if you're a fan of pinball/arcade history, it's just a real treat, sort of a culmination of the Williams/Midway arcade scene, in some ways.
  - agentwiggles 4y ago
    I honestly can't think of another table that's close to as fun as MM, it's got the perfect vibe and so many neat little table features. MM was also the first table where I started to learn the objectives (I can get the multiball with pretty decent consistency now). And again, it's probably the fairest table I'm aware of, I very seldom say "that was bullshit!" when playing MM. Most of my prior pinball experience was just "bang in a few quarters and watch the lights flash until you lose." Imagine my surprise to find that those little cards on the tables actually tell you how to play :) My 50M play was a magical one, I lucked out in all kinds of ways. My average is around the 25-30M range (on good runs, I'm still not good enough that I don't occasionally flame out near 1M haha)
  - toast0 4y ago

rzzzt 4y ago

One or both of these had an MS-DOS port with VGA graphics (smooth scrolling!) and excellent MOD playback using PC speaker output.

compsciphd 4y ago

Epic's shareware pinball game, paid for the development of the initial version of unreal. Epic as we know it today doesn't exist without pinball.

1123581321 4y ago
I’d heard it as ZZT paid for Jill of the Jungle which let them afford Unreal’s longer development cycle while releasing other games (like Epic Pinball.) Epic Pinball and ZZT were two of my favorite games from the 90s.
- compsciphd 4y ago
  see quote here - https://web.archive.org/web/20001006000731/http://www.gamesdomain.com/gdreview/depart/dec99/de.html https://web.archive.org/web/20001006000731/http://www.gamesd... The next game was Epic Pinball, and it was a huge hit. We estimate that it was the 3rd most successful shareware game ever created. Epic Pinball basically funded the startup of Digital Extremes as well as funding a lot of the development of Unreal. and here https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/from-the-past-to-the-future-tim-sweeney-talks https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/from-the-past-to-the-fu... Jazz Jackrabbit was your highest selling shareware game at the time? What was your highest selling shareware game overall? TS: Of all time? That was Epic Pinball.... (and more cut)
  - 1123581321 4y ago
    Very cool. Thanks!

gwill 4y ago

i recently discovered demons tilt and enjoy it a lot: https://store.steampowered.com/app/422510/Demons_Tilt/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/422510/Demons_Tilt/

bayofpigs 4y ago

syntheweave 4y ago

Phone apps are close to ideal for a quick game of pinball - touchscreen controls are not perfect, but they are "good enough." The best "originals" on phone are in Pinball Deluxe Reloaded, which sticks to a flat 2D design. Pinball FX(Zen Studios) is the runner up and has a series of apps dedicated to its originals and licenses. It tries to have a 3D camera, which isn't the best experience on a tiny screen. Pinball Arcade and Zaccaria both have apps. The content is pretty good but they haven't been maintained properly to work well on the phone. I still sunk hours and hours into Pinball Arcade despite it having a broken camera implementation in vertical aspect.

prawn 4y ago

One that I play is PinOut - it's more of a pathway than a table though, in case you're a purist. Looks great and decent music also. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pinout/id1108417718 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pinout/id1108417718 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mediocre.pinout&hl=en_AU&gl=US&pli=1 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mediocre.p...

NetOpWibby 4y ago
+1 for PinOut, looks great on a large iPad. I’ve managed to reach the end several times, in one sitting. Lovely game.