Not for me. The more rules, the deeper the game,more challenging..
Rush, you have 29 games and you don't know the rules of most of them? Interesting

Is he counting the machines he has in video form?

EDIT: Just work on the basic rules then go from there. Spell FILM, find Creature etc. The other stuff will come.

I think the best games combine depth and strategy for enthusiasts with a simple, primary goal or toy to attract beginners.

It is way more difficult to figure out the rules on video pinball (Pinball Arcade) than on a real pin in my experience. It's too hard to see what you are doing on video, especially on some pins with multiple clear ramps that you need to see through.

Deep rules are fine as long as the player can understand them!! I agree once a game is figured out it can be a whole lot more enjoyable, but a "great game" that is deep will be informative enough for the player to understand it... TAF is a classic example. Deep enough for the expert to not get bored and simple and informative enough for the novice to understand.

No, but as RGR said the rules need to make sense. TSPP is maybe the deepest game ever, but all its rules make sense.

Yeah like ACDC, sure this is something that has never been done before in terms of WIZ mode/ MB strategy but hell if the internet was not around or you didnt own this game it is possible that you would never have figured it out. Now that I know about it the MB is one of the best out there.

Of the pins you mentioned, Rush, MM is actually quite simple. For starters just focus on making a particular shot three times (each time you make a shot one of it's three lights will light up). Completing a set lights a multiball madness mode that can be started from the Merlin hole. Ideally you want to complete as many shots as possible, lighting (but not yet starting) the multiballs for each shot so that you can do as many multiball madnesses at once as you can. This alone is a fun goal for the table.

The castle is even simpler: keep hitting it. Each time you beat it you earn more points and it requires more points to beat.

I agree that the way The Pinball Arcade explains the rules can be overwhelming. You really need to watch a video tutorial or, better still, ask someone to show you.

Those two 'simpletons' are actually quite deep, if you look back through pinball history. Two ramps, multiball, timed modes, electronic displays. All those things pretty much didn't exist 20 years earlier. El Dorado was the badass game when I learned how to play. Didn't have any of those things.

Games had to get deeper to keep player's attention (and quarters). So no, not over the top. AC/DC has taken it in a whole new direction. On a number of levels. With new hardware on the horizon for both manufacturers, the possibilities seem endless. Can't wait to see where we go from here.

Now that I've got most of the DMDs that I want, I've started focusing on getting a few wedgeheads and, I gotta tell you, those games may be simple, but they are fun and addictive!

Going back to my LOTR after playing one of those can sometimes feel like going from Dr. Seuss to War & Peace!

Players have different tastes when it comes to the complexity of rules.

Checkers: 5 minutes to learn properly
Chess: 1 day to learn properly
Warhammer: Several weeks to learn properly...

I also have pinball arcade (but on the XBLA) and find 'Bride of Pinbot' and 'Monster Bash' to be my go-to tables for the same reasons you were explaining. I 'get' what I'm supposed to be doing on those tables, and it's do-able and not over whelming. Other tables like 'Arabian nights' is so complex I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing.

Some day once BOPB and MB become too worn out for me and I'm looking for a greater challenge I'm sure I'll find myself wanting more complex tables like arabian nights. But right now I'm enjoying straight forward tables.

I feel that the pinball arcade has the best explanation you can get without having the actual designer tell you the rules.

It is basically a matter of record that games with too many rules are one of the factors that killed off the industry.

Book long rule sheets begets table design that favors long games... bad for ops and bewildering for casual players (who in theory should make up the bulk of your business).

Spiderman is a decent example of this: an experienced pinballer can play for hours on 50c it seems, a total noob might not know how to even start anything (the sandman target/figure is less appealing than the martian saucer or MM castle).

Depends on the player. For hardcore pinheads, I think most of us want more rules, deeper games. I differ from most hardcores because I really don't like games that take like an hour to play (TSPP, I am looking directly at you).

For non-pinheads, over complicated rules annoy them. My wife, for instance, hardly looks at CV because she doesn't get the rules. However, she LOVES CFTBL because she gets it - she has to spell out FILM.

So yeah, it's different strokes and all that jazz.

TOTAN is one of the easiest DMD rule sets out there.

They do a good job of being unambiguous and thorough, but they are certainly overwhelming. They make even the simplest goal seem complex.

Exhibit A your honor... even pinheads dedicated enough to post here admit that they can't figure out the rules to their own games (this has happened waaaay to often for it to be a rarity) and even the butt simplest rulesets like Whitewater and TOTAN apparently are too complex for many people to organically figure out.

You wonder why the players dried up in the 90's? Case closed.

I have trouble with the rules for the newer Sterns while the WMS/Bally ones I find to be much easier to follow. I'm on the list for a Predator and am a bit concerned that the rules will be too complex - nothing to base that on, just a concern.

W/B pins of the golden age had near perfect rulesets people could easily grasp.
Most Sterns nowadays are so complicated , it can be pretty frustrating trying to figure them out.

Xmen is my best earning pinball to date and
People on here think its too difficult yet the general public
Gets enough excitement out of it that they truly enjoy it

My favourite is TSPP. The game actually has to stop the ball, flash lights at you and even flip the appropriate flipper a few times so you know where the shot is coming from a where to put it

Hey,

I'll chime in. I think you're partly right on this one. I'm a fan of complex games, but fully understand why people go to the simpler, "I can see everything right in front of me" style of games. I heard a podcast with Pat Lawlor saying that The Addams Family toed right up to the line with complexity vs. understandability, and games thereafter went over that line and were too complex for the average person who isn't actively interested in pinball to figure out.

On the flip side, I would say that part of the problem might be the Pinball Arcade versus the physical machine itself. I have absolutely no problem with the computerized versions of pinball games, but there is something lost in translation when you're playing on an iPad. Take MM, for example. On the iPad, you smack the ball into the castle, you see a castle on a screen shake a bit and fall apart. On an actual machine, the ball hits the castle, the physical castle shakes and breaks apart, and if there's a shaker motor, the whole machine shakes. It's an experience. On a computerized version, you're missing the "wow" factor that you can only really get when you have your hands on the machine itself. I would equate it to watching fireworks on TV.

Where this leads is that if you don't have the "wow" factor to keep you interested, you focus on other things; in this case, that happens to be the rules. If the rules are super-complex, and there's none of that physical impression made upon you, then yeah, I can definitely see why you fall back on the simpler games. There's nothing wrong with that at all, but I will say that if you ever get the chance to play a MM in real life, take a ball and hammer away at the castle for a while. I think your impressions of it will probably change a bit. Just my two cents...

Luke