Deems the thread a cesspool, then commences shitting all over it. I respect folks who say what they mean.

Lets make this thread fun again!

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Played the deluxe yesterday and really enjoyed it. Great looking game and fun.

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I think it can become fun when we hear something from AP that addresses or dispels the current problems with game play. The alleged problems keeping the game running on the few locations who have it. That not a single game will be boxed and shipped to those of us who have $$$ down until these machines have been gone over and addressed. I’m not trying to be negative but they have a problem and those of us who took a leap of faith, throw us a bone. Look I’m going thru with the purchase either way. It will either be a great game or will be in the corner to look at and shake my head. Again, I’m rooting for them and I put my money where my mouth is.

This is the post that sparked my post below.

I just spoke to my pinball buddy that had an issue. It was a communication issue with the one person he was emailing at American Pinball. He did get a hold of someone else at AP and they forward the case to David Fix. David Fix got back to him the same day and came up with a solution and a resolution is currently being worked on.

The problem was resolved. My buddies game is actually the first GTF Deluxe game made. It did have an issue. David Fix did contact my friend and it only affects his game they believe. AP is going to swap out his game with a new game.

The problem was with the playfield and AP believes it is because it was a very early built game. My confidence with American Pinball has been restored seeing how they handled his situation. I am placing an order next week for my own personal game.

Thanks for the update, @tommy-dog.

I hope you and your friend both love the game. Thanks for your support.

Whew. The Scoopin’ Missile Crisis is over

Thanks for the update. - No use crying over spilled milk.

Take a picture of the unboxing and say cheese.

What if the player drained after an inlane without flipping and the game gave a ball save while saying “here’s a drain freeze for your brain freeze”

First 15 of the stream posted by Method_Own was hilarious.
Starts by saying it’s a fairly easy shooter and gradually watches his ice cream melt.
The expression on his face when he drains and hears “stop fudging around” is just priceless.
Good stuff AP!

That’s just part of the suit.

Thank you for reaching out. My friend did say you also offered your help. Thanks!

Thanks for the update. My confidence slightly wavered but I am moving forward.

I am looking forward to your feedback. Thanks

Absolutely !

Pictures of what? A new GTF in your collection?

Are they actually sending these out to home buyers? The transparency by AP has been bad or just bad miscommunication. I speak with a few distributors and none of them have any communication with AP in regard to when these games are going out. I don’t care how long it takes but it would be nice to have an estimated time frame.

Who is in charge of customer communication / marketing?

For me:

-Speed/flow of the game
-Audio package
-Animations and quality of animations
-Rules and how they are incorporated
-If there's any quality issues that happen during a live stream (see Jack Danger's stream of GTF)
-Lighting and how well that's incorporated

So in other words, quite a bit. Not sure how that's hard to understand.

A gameplay stream is in no way a substitute for actually playing the game, but it is the best way to judge it, short of playing it yourself. Much better than just looking at a picture of the playfield.

Its not hard to understand, if you look at that guys posting history he's just another one of those guys who thinks hes enlightened because he drops a constant stream of bad hot takes. More thumbs down than ups tells all you need to know

Walked into Roanoke Pinball Museum in VA one day and into Flippers Arcade on another. Boy, does my head hurt. These are top notch places, but Flippers in NC is my all-time favorite. A close second is Pinball Palace in GA. 3rd place is a tie between Game Terminal in TN and Pinball Lounge in FL. When I visit one of these places, I get to play all day long. I’ll try arcades and mechanical games too, but pinball is my focus. Every place has new titles and for most that means Bond, FF, CCr, TS4 and TGF. That does not include: SD or GTF! Oddly most places prefer to carry LE’s, in contrast to conventional wisdom.

In all locations above their pins are well maintained. Games work fully unless down for a few hours/days for repair. Out of 90 pins, 2 were down @ Flippers. Imagine if you put a GTF! in these arcades. Will it be down all the time? Will it throw balls down the drain? Accept that there is no way to fix physical flaws in game (avoid tank in center to survive). Do I miss playing GTF! - no. Do I have the need to find and play one - no. What could AP do to overcome current problems and make GTF! mainstream? Can’t think of anything as it would take changing almost everything. Overall, I like AP’s other 4 titles and own two.

People whining about a center target bank when attack from Mars is #5 on pinside.

Nice.

People continuing to say that when it’s apples and oranges.

Lower the AFM bank a few inches and make it twice as wide and let’s talk.

THIS.

It's still the same concept and risk levels.

First of all you could have said move it back UP the playfield, but your eagerness to try to own me got in the way.

But it's still the same thing flat or not, the same risks and rewards are their
With the two games.

Both need multiball to attack the center bank but with attack from Mars has a bit of a higher risk of SDTM because, the ball is basically blocked and has to head back down this is a risky shot with even with nudging.

Multiball are both needed here to attack the centerbank with GTF and AFM.

You can try harder.

This was supposed to be hype thread. It's turned a whine feast. the owners thread is way better this flaming pile of a train wreak.

Hey guys, I'm Casey one of the programmers for GTF. Not service, or sales, or marketing, or the company spokesman. All I do is make lights blink and fry fuses (and I'm all outta fuses ) - but I know who to pester in person

Ideally, the defense shield should block the ball from draining down the center. If the "defense" insert is lit, tank hits will cause the defense shield to come up. We have adjusted the timing and how long that it is qualified in the next update. It is qualified about twice as long and will requalify upon destroying tanks. There are settings to allow the defense shield to be qualified longer if so desired by the operator.

Of course this is air ball aside, which the revised support and deflector will address (currently testing the samples for those).

As for tank strategy, go for the tank is during multiball, where you can beat up the tank with little risk outside of wasting multiball progress.
Killing a tank activates ball save for a bit. That should save any ball draining down the center. This is helpful if you are one hit away and don't have defense shield qualified. Or if you have methane qualified, which will one hit kill on the blinking red/blue insert.

I will usually destroy one or two tanks early. I will take a couple shots at the tank to bring it down a bit when ball save is active or defense shield is lit. Maybe wait for methane kill shot (worth more anyways). For the later tanks if (and if I want to progress trough the tanks) I tend to go for them during multiballs. Air Strike is pretty easy to qualify, so if I don't care about those points, I'll just beat up the tank. Usually my main goal is to start Ice Cream Sundae mini-wiz (which is a 3 ball MB with 5 potential add-a-balls - max of 6 on playfield). If I make it that far, I am usually at least on tank 3 anyways. It is a great time to try to finish off the rest of the tanks.

If anyone with a GTF has an issue where their game is down all the time and you haven't gotten an answer from service - reach out to me via PM (AFAIK this isn't the case). Remember to always register your game and put in a service ticket if there is an issue (paper trails). There were a couple issues - right VUK balls jamming and lock mech not behaving in some games. The lock mech was a small mechanical adjustment. Ball jam was an issue on specific games, logic for clearing/identifying a jam was revised. Service is aware of how to instruct the mechanical adjustment needed, but the next update will also compensate for both issues. Otherwise I will work with service and try to reproduce your issue.

Next update is to be released this week (if no issues), expect full release notes soon.

I played both the same day. AFM is way way further back than this.

That being said, that part doesn't bug me like it does some others.

Read my response to crazy levi

And if my basset Hound had wheels he’d be a Wagon.

If you're going to talk about objective data, use the correct objective data.

AFM's "force field" bank is several inches farther from the flippers than GTF's tank targets, no question.

However, the width of AFM's 3-bank of "force field" targets is almost exactly the same width as GTF's 5 tank targets. I just measured them both -- about 3.75" wide. A quick look at playfield pictures immediately shows why this is: AFM's force field uses 3 square targets, while GTF's tank uses 5 narrow rectangular targets. Works out to be the same overall width.

If you include AFM's "T" and "I" targets as part of that "wall" (which is reasonable since they're in a line with the "force field"), then AFM's "wall" is much wider than GTF's.

Ok. Galaxtic tank force is exactly the same as AFM.

Now that this is established, sales should really pick up!

You forgot your /s and keep it classy.

For some reason Levi is going crazy over GTF. Looney tunes. Just plain ole loopy.

I’m out of adjectives.

On a more upscale note: great to see AP posting here. Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for posting and adding some insights on GTF. Wanted to thank you and programming team for the work put into this original game so far, to ME, a huge step forward for AP. Integrating the lighting, clips, sound at the right time is starting to pay off as the last stream demonstrated.
All the best bringing it to completion!

Technically true. Now someone put both layouts on top of each other and show it in terms of shot angles available from the flipper.

I’m not complaining. I’m just a nerd who isn’t in front of their CAD program of choice.

Which stream are you referring to?

He secretly a GTF lover and tries to hide his love for American pinball behind a tough exterior.

He can put all that angst out on a deluxe model GTF and AFM and get some good scores on that GTF. With the AFM Thats right next to it.

As Ferret stated above, same approximate width. And it's not *way* further back, AFM is only about another 20% further.
afm gtf distance.pngafm_vs_gtf.png

I think it's hilarious that we are debating the exacting distance when Jack and his bros..great players...would do anything NOT to shoot at the tank.

We continue to tune the score balance (i.e. the risk/reward factor) to make sure that attacking the tank is a fun and rewarding thing to do.

It's true, there's no real point in measuring dimensions of playfield elements. PLAY THE GAME. Learn the angles. GTF will feel fast and furious. If you like a fast and furious style of play, great, please enjoy! If you'd rather play it safer -- you can charge up your Methane Blaster by making other shots in the game. When the Methane Blaster is charged, you can shoot for a one-shot insta-kill on the tank. Obviously still not "risk free", but what is in pinball? (Pro tip: a Methane Blaster kill is more valuable than a kill by attrition ... so the big risk, big reward strategy is to pummel the tank targets until it's close to death, and then Methane Blast it for bigger points.)

And if you've played GTF and it's just not for you... we're sorry to hear that. Hopefully you'll enjoy American Pinball's other games, past and future.

Why would hang my hat on what Jack Danger does or what Keith Elwin does on a live stream.

People generally don't care that Jack Danger blew up bond 60th, cool but I should go back to the car commercials.

Not everyone is going to have the same experience Jack Danger does with the game. No casual is going to look at a pinball throught the lens of Jack Danger .

I don't need their blessings to play a beeping pinball game the way I want to. So what they don't go near the bank, Is that going to effect my pocket book at the end, no.

Is Jack Danger spending my money, no. It's my money, I don't need a streamer determin I buy a pin or not.

Welcome to pinside!
Great first post.
Thanks for sharing.

Keep doing what American Pinball is doing go with unpaid themes.

I might sink my teeth into a GTF credit and possibly a playfield to hang up.

Iceman is that you?

Anyway, you don't give a shit about Deadlip, that's fine..but the 3 guys with him were American pinball employees, you missed that one small detail. They had a huge platform to show what a cool toy/feature the tank is, but instead they avoided it like the plague, choosing instead to shoot into the rear vuk which by the end they had to have known would have been yet another glass pull..but must have still been more fun than shooting the tank, if we go by how these 3 AP employees chose to play!

Btw appreciate Ferret and the other guy being here in the lions den with us.

I'm doing my part !