[Deptheads] Pinball Arcade tournament - need some outside input

Tue Sep 30 16:24:43 PDT 2014

I don’t remember that game too well. Though it does have Elvira in it. If 
you eliminated Bride of Pinbot for similar reasons, I wouldn’t go with that 
table.

I would suggest Theatre of Magic, Monster Bash and Terminator II. If you 
want to appeal to a different audience, you could work in Star Trek: TNG 
instead of Theatre. It is too bad Addam’s Family isn’t out. I think that is 
the best game ever made.

We could do Xenon, Bride of Pinbot and Addams Family on the actual machines, 
but you have to show up to my house for it, because I don’t see getting any 
of those 200+ miles down to the con.

Troy

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Troy Weipert
(805) 756-2098 office
(805) 305-9312 cell
tweipert at calpoly.edu
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From: Deptheads [mailto:deptheads-bounces at strategicon.net] On Behalf Of 
Nekojin
Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2014 3:58 PM
To: Strategicon Dept Heads
Subject: Re: [Deptheads] Pinball Arcade tournament - need some outside input

A question: Would Elvira's Scared Stiff table be considered too racy for 
tournament play at the convention, even with the Family Mode on (which it 
is, by default)? It's a fairly high-quality table, all things considered.

On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 1:22 PM, Nekojin <nekojin at gmail.com> wrote:

Here's the list <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pinball_Arcade#Published> 
of tables that are currently available for Pinball Arcade. I expect that 
they'll have 2 to 3 more tables (starting with Phantom of the Opera) 
available before February, but I don't want to rely on tables that aren't 
available right now - ones released between now and then will be new enough 
that there might be unfixed bugs in the code.

And yes, I agree that even the best virtual pinball tables lack the feel of 
real pinball tables*, but it's getting harder and harder to find them, and 
more and more expensive to buy them. At this point, there's only one pinball 
company, Stearn, that is still making new tables (although there's a new 
up-and-comer called Jersey Jack that is apparently making some hot tables, 
starting with an awesome Wizard of Oz, but they're specifically targeting 
enthusiasts and run $8k and up). *Pinball Arcade comes pretty damn close, 
though!

Farsight, the guys making Pinball Arcade, have actually made some exciting 
announcements recently, including the fact that they've gotten in touch with 
some of the big-name pinball designers from the past, and gotten them 
interested in making entirely new virtual tables that may possibly be made 
into physical tables if there's enough interest/demand down the road.

On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 1:11 PM, Eric Aldrich <ealdrich at mac.com> wrote:

Ahh, that makes more sense. Is there a list of what tables are available for 
Pinball Arcade?

Darn -- there is no substitute for the feel of a real pinball game table. 
But yeah, I was wondering how you planned to move them, much less acquire 
them.

Eric

On 29 Sep 2014, at 13:06 , Nekojin <nekojin at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think we're having a breach here. I'm also talking about that same 
> Addams Family machine, but I'm not talking about bringing the original, 
> physical tables into the convention. Even getting the ONE table a few 
> conventions back was difficult, to say the least.
>
> What I'm talking about is Pinball Arcade, a computer program available on 
> pretty much every platform, that digitizes those classic pinball machines 
> and makes them fully playable, which is fabulous for people who can't find 
> their favorite classic games. A physical Addams Family machine in good 
> condition would cost upwards of $5k these days (and possibly much higher - 
> I haven't checked pricing in months), while getting the digitized version 
> is somewhere on the order of $10 (although I've pledged more).
>
> Pinball Arcade seems a good choice for Video Gaming tournaments, since 
> it's turning classic pinball into a video game (of sorts).
>
> Mike: Junkyard is possible - that's on Pinball Arcade's Season 3. I 
> haven't had a chance to play it myself, as I haven't bought Season 2 or 3 
> yet.
>
> On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 12:46 PM, Eric Aldrich <ealdrich at mac.com> wrote:
> I was referring to the Addams Family pinball machine -- it came out in the 
> 1990s.
>
> Eric
>
> On 29 Sep 2014, at 12:42 , Nekojin <nekojin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Thinking of mid 1980s at a minimum, moving onward. I'd love to have 
> > Addams Family involved, but the Kickstarter for that still has 12 days 
> > to go, and I doubt they'll finish coding it by February, even assuming 
> > the Kickstarter finishes successfully (it's at 76% right now).
> >
> > On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 12:33 PM, Eric Aldrich <ealdrich at mac.com> wrote:
> > How recent of digital do you want? 1970s? 1980s? 1990s?
> >
> > For some reason Addams Family comes to mind immediately, though I'm 
> > partial to older titles like Meteor and Spirit of '76. You could do 
> > something weird like Black Hole.
> >
> > And yes, we could do a slightly tweaked payout scheme. Say $5 for table 
> > high score.
> >
> > Eric
> >
> > On 29 Sep 2014, at 11:56 , Nekojin <nekojin at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I'm planning to run a Pinball Arcade tournament at Orccon (and further 
> > > on, if it does well). I've already figured out that, given the average 
> > > play time of playing pinball, the sweet spot for doing a tournament 
> > > would be an "Ongoing" theme for three tables. I have now have two 
> > > questions to resolve.
> > >
> > > The first, which I'm mostly going to have to do myself, is to find 
> > > three tables that are truly tournament-worthy. I'm going to be 
> > > avoiding the pre-digital tables (those with purely physical tables), 
> > > because there isn't any goal in those machines - the "goal" is simply 
> > > to keep the ball from passing the flippers. Beyond that, though, it 
> > > gets more complicated. I've already crossed Bride of Pinbot off the 
> > > list for a couple of reasons, but could use some more suggestions for 
> > > tables that are exceptionally good or bad for tournament play.
> > >
> > > The second, which I particularly want input from here, is whether it 
> > > would be appropriate to do a different payout scheme - in addition to 
> > > (or instead of) the classic First / Second / Third payout, would it be 
> > > worthwhile to also give per-table awards - say, give an extra 3 DD for 
> > > someone who was the top scorer of Table 1, even if they didn't end up 
> > > being the top overall player?
> > >
> > > Any thoughts or input are welcome.
> > >
> > > --
> > > "Would you like another drink, sir?" asked the bartender.
> > > "I think not," replied Descartes, and promptly vanished.
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> "Would you like another drink, sir?" asked the bartender.
> "I think not," replied Descartes, and promptly vanished.
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-- 
"Would you like another drink, sir?" asked the bartender.
"I think not," replied Descartes, and promptly vanished.

-- 
"Would you like another drink, sir?" asked the bartender.
"I think not," replied Descartes, and promptly vanished.

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