@dev_ric@gilesgoat Yeah for a really good table you want it to be relatively brutal so that games don't go on to the point of tedium, but with the possibility to get a decent ball that stays long enough to get the bonus up.
That's a rare combination to find. I have a lot of respect for designers who can make that kind of a table!
@dev_ric@gilesgoat gotta say it's been a month now and I fucking love the atgames pinball we have. It's not the same as a real table, true, but it injects sufficient physicality back into playing virtual pinball to make it incredibly fun to play. The fact that you can shove the table around and it responds to that in the gameplay is just excellent.
Love that thing, and both of us have been using it every day and really enjoying it. Worth every penny!
@dev_ric@gilesgoat Honestly it's night and day. Good physics is just baseline, but actually planning out a table to feel engaging, harsh but fair, is difficult (and something I can empathise with viscerally as a game designer myself). Magic Pixel do some cool looking "modern reimaginings" of some of the zacc stuff and whereas they are technically great they just don't have the same feel as tables designed by actual pinball designers.
It is absolutely nontrivial to design a good pinball table.
@dev_ric@gilesgoat heh I do love the idea of that but I utterly lack any kind of pinball design experience so I suspect anything I came up with would be utter smeg :D
@dev_ric yeah bollocks to all that, our basic criteria for a hoover are "does it suck up stuff well" and "does it not clog up too often" and a good old Henry is all we need for that :)
@The4thCircle maybe it's that, could be possible, I didn't pay that much attention to the advert except to tut at what seemed like a clear case of AI-bandwagon-jumping.
@dev_ric I had a Dyson, got one at my mum's recommendation when I first got back from the US. It was an early model and it just didn't cope well with bits of hay and stuff, and when it clogged up you had to take a screwdriver to it to open it up to de-clog it.
A much wiser domestic engineer than me told me to bin the Dyson and get a Henry and since then the little red chap has always had a home here :D
@brokenscholar the sequel to Hover Bovver was originally planned to be a game where you were Gordon's wife trying to get the hoovering done in the house while Gordon and the dog got in the way, hopefully amusingly.
Bit sexist to modern sensibilities, no doubt, but back then it might have fit the intended Terry-and-June-style comedy well enough. Plus I am sure I could have come up with a variety of amusing ways for Mrs. Bennett to get her own back on Gordon :D
@jakesimpson yeah it's the atgames legends virtual pinball table, I got the HD one and they just brought out a 4K one (twice the price mind). Both of them come with the ability to bypass the built in systems and drive them from a PC just using their displays and controls.
Still enjoying studying the bovine artwork from that "Dogies" EM pinball. Just look at these three cows, all swooping curves on their backs, tails and horns, almost veering into Picasso territory. And contrast them with the angular cowboy who's all straight edges and looks like he wouldn't be out of place on the cover of a Frankie Goes To Hollywood record.
Just look at this guy here, a delightful and unusual direct overhead view, still wonderfully curvy (look at that spine and tail!) and with his hooves splayed out so it looks like he's skidding to a stop. Absolutely delightful! Even of the somewhat odd colouring makes him look like he is wearing suspenders :D
This from the German release of the table it seems; looks like he's sliding into Oxen Canyon 🐂
@Farbs those flippers are particularly weird in that they can move towards each other, effectively closing the drain. One target on the playfield closes them together, a couple of other targets it's almost impossible not to miss opens them up again. These were called "zipper flippers" and apparently there were 17 tables (iirc) that used them.