Brian's just doing this as a proof of concept for his python based pinball framework. If this Demo Man project ever got released, you'd need a PROC board (or similar) and a computer to run it on. Just like any existing PROC style project.

And Brian, call it whatever cute name you want, but that claw control 'mode' is python code. Games take code. Config files (which is really a new programming language you made up, too) alone will end up with boring, linear, flat games. Quickly built, sure, but dull.

I should point out that I think the MPF project is great. It's no small feat to write a whole framework to build games on. Hell, I couldn't do it, and I've written a whole game in a different framework already. I just think it's being oversold a bit.

To be fair, there's always been pyprocgame, which is extremely accessible as well. MPF is just taking a different tactic on some things, but procgame has a lot of the same built in parts, comes with a 'starter' game that you can have up and flipping very fast, etc. You may not be able to make an EM clone in it with just a few config files, but you could do it with pretty simple python in very short order.

So it's not that "There's now somehing .." more "There's now another option to join the existing ..."

Nah. Not at all.

I realize reading it back that I may have come across more harsh than I intended. I think MPF is a fantastic project. People are absolutely going to do cool things with it. I just worry about the hype part. I mean, look at the config file Brian posted above. That's a programming language. It's pretty complex, because it has to be. Pinball code is complicated.

If you spend too much time telling people how super easy it's going to be, they'll be irritated when it's not.