5000+ designs later, it's gotta be tough to come up with an original playfield layout. It's such a small space to design for. You need a device to shoot the ball, the ball needs to drain somewhere, and you gotta have something cool to hit.
Have you ever spotted a copy or 'near copy' of another PF layout?
Today, I was browsing a few PF layouts on ipdb, and I came across a layout that looks almost identical to the layout of my favorite pin! I was very surprised. Start with games in your collection, and see if you can figure out what inspired them.
1) If you can think of a game that borrows its layout from another pin, then name it. Let's figure it should have an 80%+ match to another layout (Sometimes there are ramps instead of orbits for example.)
2) If you know of a toy or gimmick that is was borrowed from another game, name it.
3) Use some sort of wording or symbol to show that one game leads to the next game, such as A --> B (A leads to B) -- so newer members don't have to look up release years after reading your post.
4*) You get bonus points if you take an extra 5 minutes to grab the operator manuals (or ipdb playfield pics), and take screen captures of the two playfields you think are so very alike, and post them, so your viewers can see your point better.
It would be very cool, if when the thread is over, we can find a few games that are NOT mentioned at all. Those would be games that possibly have very original designs. Likely we'll find many? I don't think so...
I'll name a few to get started. But first, here's a good post to help jar your memory to check on some "Firsts"
http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pinsiders-christmas-quiz-on-pinball-history
have fun!
-mof