And you’re still a d**k

Game looks great!

The stream was a lot of fun, the lighting on the pops was great, loved the swinging ufo cow target.
Game seems to be shaping up nice.

I thought Jack looked tired and his body language was pretty subdued. He’s gotta be exhausted, getting his game ready to roll out…then the shows…then the stream tonight. With hindsight and a way to time travel, I’ll bet he would have asked the folks at AP if they could push back the stream by a week or two.

Game looks like it could be fun, but I think the giant tank in the center just kills it for me. It's a pretty uninteresting game mechanic that everyone is avoiding interacting with because it's dangerous. The entire game people were just shooting around the thing, so I think that should tell you to go back to the drawing board on it. I'll reserve full judgement until I can play one of course.

I love it BECAUSE it is different. It's not a cookie-cutter Stern, JJP, or AP and in and of itself that's a win for Pinball!

Thank god it's not a music band or Movie theme! It's fun in it's own way.. campy like White Water and brings an old-school stand-alone theme like we used to like them...

I was in and out of the stream, did they ever mention why Dennis Nordman wasn't there?? I was looking forward to hearing him explain this game to us, but he wasn't even there?

You could be right, could be in the bargain bin with Scooby in a year. Time will tell.

Why are you still here? We get it. You hate the game.

Borg wasn’t on the stream for Rush reveal either

For me, stream was hard to watch. turned it off after the 4th time they had to pull the glass.
They could hand pick a pin. just need to get it down the street to Jack's studio. Set it up. Play a game or two before the stream to make sure it's working. How do you miss that the tank targets don't work and the main multiball doesn't work?

The game seems hard. All of those people are way better than me. 3 of them have been playing this game for months, years. A lot of very short ball times / hard to watch drains. And what had to be a programming bug when Jack didn't get a ball save draining just 2 seconds after plunge?

They weren't even going for the tank because they knew it was death. Casual people who walk up to the machine are going to be inclined to shoot the tank. It seems to be the main point of the game. That it gets avoided at all costs during single ball feels bad.

I didn't see the atomic shield between the flippers pop up once (perhaps because they were avoiding the tank). Still don't know how well that thing works if it works.

Starting to have serious doubts about whether I want one or not.

Not feeling the Dub Step after seeing this. Seems off the shelf, generic and misplaced. No musical thematic engagement. Big guns, another outer space tank theme has way more of a emotive musical vibe and it’s from 1987! Game seems like a drain fest too.
I dunno. I’m not getting an emotional connection.. I think I fell in love with Franchi’s art. Also, seems like the collateral he made in addition was an attempt to steer the creative team in a direction that they just weren’t going to go. What a shame.

Yeah I’m good. Thanks…

So is that a no they didn't say why Nordman wasn't there? Was he in chat at least?

I watched the Rush reveal, Borg was in the chat answering questions. He answered several of mine in fact. There was a covid surge, everyone was masked up in that stream. If I remember correctly someone asked and that's why he wasn't there. But thanks for your helpful response

Yeah... the art, and the theme/promotional material is what drew me in. There's a few other things cool about the game. but not convinced $9000 and take up a spot in my house cool. I feel like I can just print off some of Franchi's posters, maybe somehow score a translite for my gameroom... and get most of the value out of the pin

instead of save the cows someone should make a spin off pin where the goal is to save Franchi's artwork from evil 3d printers and stand up targets

100% in on that idea.
Wonder if my deposit is transferable to that plan

Catching up on the Dead Flip stream, I'm up to the second glass-off moment. They somehow managed to make this feel rushed despite doing it weeks after people expected it.

The dubstep-lite is more grating the longer I hear it. It's all squiggle and no melody. Where's the theremin? They put so much work into those trailers making it seem like a love letter to Ed Wood and tin toys, when it's actually an indiscriminate mishmash of several different flavors of sci-fi. Not enough to turn me off the game, but I wasn't wowed by the trailers to begin with, just not my vibe.

Seems like a whooole lotta left orbit if you wanna play with any semblance of safety. Get used to hearing that spinner sound. I just can't get on board with a modern game where the center is that closed off. It's like if Iron Monger was up 100% of the time.

Yo dawg I heard you like fonts. Sooo many fonts, 5-6 different ones onscreen together quite often. Several different clashing art/animation styles, plus live video. Display is just an absolute mess, aesthetically. Thankfully I almost never look up there while playing, so it's really only an issue on stream.

All that said, I still wanna knock the ball around on it, play some dollar games.

The theme doesn’t suit the super brutal gameplay IMO. TNA works mostly because of the kick ass music and the gameplay whilst brutal, has some interesting elements and cool moments - it keeps you on your toes but it’s workable. Iron Man works because it’s Iron Man, and you could combo those ramps for days. Plus the monger comes and goes.

Love a tough game but I’ve got to want to fight it. That tank is so in your face, and even the ufo target is brutal. I’m not seeing such satisfying shots to balance it out or good music and I don’t really care about fighting a fictional tank for ice cream and fudge.

This gam looks like a real ball buster…..which is why I’m in.
The more difficult…the better.

Yeah... Unfortunately I agree with this.

If you are going to put a giant toy right smack in the centre of the playfield, you've really got to make it a focal point of the game and have it do something interesting or exciting. I know on AFM the saucer is kind of more at the back of the playfield, but when you destroyed a saucer you got a fantastic shaker/light show and believe me - after owning one for a year that part of it never got old. On this, the tank does absolutely nothing (i know yes a robot pops out of it) its just a stationary obstacle blocking everything, and when you destroy a tank you simply get an animation. It really doesn't need to be there at all.

I still think it looks like a really fun game - and this stream was by FAR the best at showing it. However, I'm trying my damn best to love it and the game's just not doing enough for me, it could have been so much more. A shame - I was really betting on it being the best and most interesting pin out of all the recent releases, but it just hasn't had any "wow" factor for me. Perhaps one to pick up and try later down the track - if any actually make it to OZ.

Does anyone know what the “missile strike” at the outlines means? This game really needs code to add/earn an outline ball save.
Also, sounds like there will be code eventually to earn more ‘defense’ center post use.

Friends, just keeping it real: "any semblance of safety" is really not the motto of the Galactic Tank Force. If your idea of a good time in pinball is every shot returning for a clean feed and clean trap on a flipper, GTF is probably not the game for you.

On GTF, to make real progress in the game, you'll need to make dangerous shots. Attacking the tank can be lucrative, and quite fun, but those rebounds can be vicious. Protecting the cows from UFO abductions can be lucrative, and quite fun, but those rebounds can be chaotic. The side target banks (Flank Advance) boost features all around the playfield for the duration of the game, but you're not getting a clean feed from those shots either.

Dennis Nordman was very clear from day 1 that he did not want this to be a game dominated by encyclopedic rules knowledge and wood-chopping ball control. He wanted it to be about crazy and fun pinball. I think we've delivered on his desires. The knowledgable and skilled player is still going to have an edge, of course, but players will be reacting to chaos much more than in many other modern games. This also means that when you fire this machine up for a game, it's not going to be a predictable and methodical progression. Sometimes you'll kick the game's butt, but sometimes -- perhaps a lot of times -- the game will kick your butt. And that's pretty fun.

I'm sorry that I was unable to participate in tonight's Dead Flip stream -- it was league night for me! -- but huge thanks to Jack Danger for hosting... he is a great guy and a true ambassador for the game of pinball, and I'm delighted to give him props for Foo Fighters, which is a super fun game. Hope y'all enjoyed the stream, and please fire away with any questions!

I’m pro chaos and shooting dangerous stuff for big points.

Nope, no one knows.

Completing the central left and right "Flank Advance" target banks award a bunch of good stuff, including advancing the Missile Strike awards on the outlanes and under-flipper lanes. As you keep making progress on those target banks, the outlane/under-flipper lane awards advance from point awards to ball save + feature awards to ball save + feature + multiball. Some of this code is "coming soon". Observant fans of The Walking Dead should see hints of how this will be going down ... I think people will be happy with the final results.

Then they need to increase the value for destroying tanks. It appeared tank #1 was worth only a couple million points, while you could get similar value from single mode shots and multiple times as much from regular multiball jackpots.

You heard the doctor, Ferret. Buff them points

We are aware that there are currently some score balancing issues. These will be fixed.

American Pinball is fortunate to have several people on staff who really, really care about competitive pinball, including Steve Bowden, Ryan McQuaid, and myself. We won't finalize games if we're not happy with the risk/reward.

(I don't even wanna talk about whatever happened towards the end of the stream with Cow-a-Bongo ... it's basically a mini-wiz, it's meant to be valuable, but I have no idea where the sudden eruption of billions of points came from. That's not the plan. We will figure that out. Sorry.)

(Oh, right, I should be saying: ALL SCORES 10X TO CELEBRATE NATIONAL FERRET DAY THIS PAST WEEKEND!)

Center tank targets are just too damn close to flippers. Brutal sometimes=fun. Think TWD. Sometimes=poor choices. Think Rick and Morty too narrow upper ramp. This could go either way.

If tank dropped into pf via Iron monger, this would have had ‘Nordman flow’ like DM. . Center banks 12” from flippers make airballs? Yeah, we didn’t play it enough. Here’s a quick fix?

I’m not feeling 3 years to make this. Playfield design additions, software bugs, ruleset unfinished.

Finish code. Flesh out those rules to balance this beast. Get that damn center save pop up working to help with 1000 mph drains. Make this live up to the artwork and original teaser trailer you gave the world. Make dubstep minimal. No Dennis, We don’t love dubstep most of the time. That orchestral music is awesome!

This isn’t Dennis’ world anymore. It’s all of ours. That changed when these went for sale.

Score balancing: yes, we're focusing on that.

Center save pop up: already works. It's a fine line between "helping you out" and "almost no risk attacking the tank"... and I think we're already pretty good there, though we will still tune more.

Dubstep or not: not my universe. Rock on, Dennis...

The stream was fine, although it was pretty shocking how broken the game appeared to be with all the constant glass off moments. There were some excuses like they just set the game up and turned it on and went live, which is a head scratcher really. Fewer airballs than TPF so thats good, but nothing I saw on the stream was telling me that my experience at TPF was some anomaly from an overall gameplay perspective. Not a lot of satisfying shots besides the one ramp. I didn't find it SUPER brutal, but I basically avoided the tank shots until multi-ball. Artwork, lighting and sound effects (when they are not distorted) are great and fun.

Jack for the most part just stepped aside and let the AP guys lead the discussion, which is what I expected of course. Code looks super deep and Ferret looks like he is all over it. Lots of items that still needs to be cleaned up at this point, like font sizes and how the mode score summaries are presented for one example.

I'd advise everyone to play this before buying, so you know what you are getting into.

The tank moves… there is slso ghe magnet grab… plus tons of choreography of lights and sounds. Is it a highly animated toy? No - but the show is there.

Center risk targets are as old as time in pinball….

Youtube just went up, its still rendering.
Right now at 360 still, Ill wait unit HD is ready

Do you have to hit each specific target or does a hit to any register as a hit to all?

I think I'd rather just play Firepower for my center targets in your face chaos fix. Sorry. Seeing the glass off so much is just embarrassing. Too many back ordered Sterns coming off the line this year for me to use my limited cash on GTF with its lack of cohesive theme. And yeah I know Stern isn't perfect either after replacing my Godzilla coil stops after 500 games....

I may have missed the other times, but I saw the glass only off once. While they adjusted the game they stated that 2 (!!!) mechanical fixes are already available to customer free of charge which will remedy the problem completely.

Now, I am wrong or are you here just to stir shit up?
I dont mind being wrong but shame on you if you are just here to stir shit up

the glass was off round abour five times, watched the whole stream

But the tank being the main feature of the playfield, yet 3 AP employees completely ignoring it over several games? Even during multiball they were not really trying to destroy tanks. Its almost as if they were given instruction "don't shoot the tank on stream" (was it because boss was worried about airballs, pop up save not working, it just showing how even MORE brutal the game is when you do try to shoot the main thing?)

Center pop up save already works. Too bad in all the various footage I've seen including the ocelot stream and the deadflip stream it very very rarely pops up. I don't recall it saving the ball. Again very prominent feature on the playfield, kind of deceiving.

The Ocelot machine seems way easier than the one that was on Deadlip. I remember watching that steam and feeling good about the machine. But the Deadlip gameplay was a total turn off. Any comment?

Nordman likes dubstep. We get it. Do you want to sell pinball machines, or just jerk Nordman off? Does he run AP? Sign the paychecks? Here, I've written a press release:. "there will be multiple music options available via the menu, here is a clip showing it". You may want to wait until 200 people tell you they hare it though, only at 100 so far.

I appreciate how passionate the people who worked on this game are who step into the lions den to defend it. But you guys just come off as defensive and submissive. "that's the game! All the things you don't like about it, that's the best part!!" I'm surprised no one has claimed that Dennis Nordman punched someone for even suggesting scrapping the 3d prints for injection moldings

Oh and props to Jack for not talking about airballs on chat (even though Franchi or someone with similar name was repeatedly screaming in all caps for him to do so). Until he showed Ryan a message on his phone asking him if they could talk about it. Classy and professional

Literally every time someone started multiball, they had to pull the glass and take the balls out of the locks. Which happened a lot because there's not a ton of other shots they were willing to try for!

The stream, for me, cemented my decision that I don't want this. I went from super excited to disappointed.

It was annoying watching Steve B adjust menu settings. So many settings, so many changes. While that is administrative type adjustments, it was very distracting and it made me wonder wtf AP can’t set up their F&king game before the stream. Saw 5 times the glass had to come off to clear an issue. That is unacceptable for a game in production.

This game is nowhere near finished. The current state of GTF! has many unresolved issues and yet, it is being manufactured. Or is it? Maybe AP needs another six months to modify the physical game, balance scoring, replace dubstep and add storyboards to explain game’s perspective. Fine, but AP should not be shipping games until they have a stable and unchanging final product.

The second I saw the tank dead center down low I knew it would be brutal. Like left ramp in Shadow. I'm surprised Dennis did this......Should have been back 8 inches. On POTC the ship is back and to the left and it sinks into pf. The only way this should have been this close is if it rose from below for battles like the Iron Monger. Almost 20 years after POTC I would think mechs could do this.

Sound and music are pretty important to me on a pin. I like the intro music on the game before the ball is plunged but when the "braw bu bu brawww" kicks in is when my ears want to shutdown. I'm guessing that is the dub-step part of the music and the intro is more techno/electronic dance? Love the spinner sounds and music when they are in the modes. I'm puzzled because I like some dub-step music, maybe it just doesn't fit this universe or theme for me.

Don't type that. You live in New York, you're American, and you've never said seriously said that out loud in your life.

On the tank? It depends on what's going on. It has a sweeping target light (think like T2) that you have to hit at times or it won't do anything. Other times all of them are lit and the amount of damage is determined by which target you hit. I think one game I played I destroyed 3 tanks.

I'm reading through these and while the code certainly needs work (saw some bugs on the ones over the weekend, but no idea what code was on them) a few things I noticed.

The game for the most part is not 'fast'. Yes if you hit the tank, that's going to throw some balls right back at you, but in most cases, for me it was coming back to the flippers and I could hit it over and over no issue. The center thing did pop up..but not all the time. I do not know what triggers it to pop up. I noticed someon talking about it not releasing MB balls, maybe that was on the stream, but I saw it happen multiple times when I got it. MB is fun on it. On the 3 different machines I played, I mostly had issues with it draining out the right out lanes. They were brutal as set up.

So what do the lanes below the flippers do? It seems like nothing? What will they eventually do...

I love the idea of encouraging a strategic drain. Williams Lady Luck is an EM with an interesting blackjack gameplay mechanic where in certain situations you want to purposefully drain to get a lot of points and a free extra ball. I loved Scott Danesi explaining the nuke weapon in Final Resistance (it spots all lit shots on the playfield, but kills your flippers)

oh my goodness - that light show ! - for those who’ve seen it live - is the game as gorgeous as it appears on the stream? I could buy one just for the light show!

The game really looks like a ton of fun. Music and animations sound and look great - I have no idea what dub step is - I’ve only read about it here.

It is interesting about no one going for the tank - maybe it’s just not as much fun - so the code will determine how necessary it is. The tank reminds me of MM, where the castle is also kind of separated from the rest of the game.

Just a comment on the lighting on the side rails - on this stream I never see the side rail leds directly - they just illuminate the playfield. And it seems they are always all on or all off and all of the same color - this seems to work very well. When I watch the Godfather streams it seems the individual leds on the side rails are visible and changing color and going on or off in some pattern - I find this unattractive on GF - maybe it’s just a characteristic of the video.

Are gree about the stream. Someone with AP should have been playing the bejeezus out of that game prior to the stream with Steve Bowden taking notes and making menu changes well before they ever went live. Maybe it was a scheduling issue and there were hiccups in logistics. Maybe the machine didn’t even show up until just before they were set to go live? They get a hall pass from me on all of that BUT if the game wasn’t leveled properly…that’s inexcusable. I understand that it might look unprofessional to stop gameplay midstream and take the time to level it up, but in my opinion that’s better than letting people think that the game is super difficult or that there are frequently stuck balls.
Maybe JD wouldn’t recognize that the game wasn’t properly leveled since it’s not his game, but surely someone with AP (on site or viewing) would recognize that the angle needs adjustment?

I hate to say this, but in my short experience, all they really did was cause the ball to get hung/caught behind the flipper and one of the rails. And then it would either dribble down the center, or maybe go through the lane and get you some points. I'm guessing there's options to tell what the bonus is you get for going through them, but they do tend to make the ball play kind of clunky there.

Just randomly speculating on how it could work....maybe the post could come up, then you can trap a ball, raise the other flipper, and then purposefully shoot into those lanes with a super late flip? But the risk/reward needs to be appropriate for purposefully giving up a ball.

(Or maybe during multiball with a ball save you should be cheesing those lanes?)