[Deptheads] Pinball Arcade tournament - need some outside input

Tue Sep 30 17:11:03 PDT 2014

The Machine: Bride of Pinbot isn't being included because it's too simple
of a table, and the highest scores rely too much on luck (whether or not
you spin the Billionaire Club when you spin the Big Wheel). Scared Stiff,
on the other hand, is a strong, varied table, but has a degree of racy
innuendos. With Family Mode on, it's PG-ish. With Family Mode off, it's
PG-13-ish.

What I'm presently wrangling on for the tournaments is this:

Table 1: Twilight Zone, always (because it's a brutal, unforgiving table,
which makes it good for a tournament).
Table 2: Roll D6 before Con: Medieval Madness, Attack From Mars, Star Trek:
TNG, No Good Gofers, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Cirqus Voltaire
Table 3: Roll D6 before Con: Junk Yard, Tales of the Arabian Nights,
Theatre of Magic, Fun House, Ripley's Believe It Or Not, Fish Tales

Once Addams Family becomes available, we'll use it to replace either
Ripley's or Fish Tales.

Those lists may change before I lock it down and finalize the tournament in
the Registration list.

And as far as the real tables go - Addams Family is truly one of my Top 5,
probably #2 (after Twilight Zone). I earned many free lunches by being the
best Addams Family player in Laughlin, when I lived there. ;)

On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 4:24 PM, Troy A. Weipert <tweipert at calpoly.edu>
wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
> ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
> Troy Weipert
> (805) 756-2098 office
> (805) 305-9312 cell
> tweipert at calpoly.edu
> ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
>
> *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.
> > _______________________________________________
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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.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Deptheads mailing list
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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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