Flow, flow, flow.

We already have tons of pinballs where the ball returns the flipper on nearly every shot. It's just not that interesting anymore. I'm glad Steve Ritchie is trying other things.

And if you don't agree with me it looks like you're in luck with the Pro, and you save money!

I'm just saying, Star Trek was a super smooth flowing game with tons of flipper return shots. Let the man break out into other things. He was once known for upper playfields you know.

Sometimes you take a risk and it doesn't work. WWE's theme pretty much guaranteed I wasn't going to like it anyways.

I'm not saying Steve went crazy daring here, it's still a smooth shooting game. But I just get tired of people complaining about anything that will affect how fast the ball gets back to the flipper. I like pinball for lots of reasons, not just hitting ramps over and over.

Well then luckily for you that the Pro model not only exists, but is also cheaper!

He just shows them his selfie from inside his yellow Vette and they melt, it's amazing.

Last I heard it was coloring great!

Me too, it's the last uncolored DMD game I own.

I've reached the point where I can no longer tell what's a subtle joke about flow being overrated, and what people are really serious about.

It was never that they couldn't be done, just that it's an enormous PITA. Tron has shorter clips, and they're more isolated against black, not as gnarly.

Doesn't mean the other games won't happen, there are always new ways to tackle problems.

Bottom line is they've already announced Tron, I'm not leaking a secret. And when it is, I'll buy another ColorDMD!

That would require more technology and engineering than ColorDMD currently possesses, right now the only way to do that would be to FAST or P-Roc the game, and recreate the rules from scratch, and play movie clips off the embedded PC. Someone was trying that with Iron Man, but it's a huge pain too.

Thing is even if you did an add-on that was more like ColorDMD in functionality, as far as not needing to redo the rules and intercepting and replacing the dots on the fly, it would be a ton of work, and then you wouldn't legally be able to sell it without the rights to the movie clips. And good luck getting those.

So you're right, technology wise it's not impossible. But practically speaking I can't see it ever happening.

Stern has been admitting video is coming for a while now. It's not a question of if, just when.

I actually kind of hope Ghostbusters has dots, I don't want ripped movie clips for that one. Please, please no ripped movie clips dots! Metallica level dots would be cool. Custom color animations on an LCD would rule of course, just hard to see that happening.

As for the stand ups being dangerous on GOT, definitely agree. They'll end your ball quick from my short experience playing.

Recoding the game isn't a ridiculous suggestion, it's the only way to do it right now. It's easy for someone to say "not a significant task", but actually what you're talking about is nothing at all like what ColorDMD and SmartDMD do right now. Utterly different software task, utterly different hardware requirements. Impossible with the kits/products currently being sold and built.

No need to believe me, ask the developers of either product. Simply impossible with the current state of things. Both ColorDMD and SmartDMD do some smart things with code, but replacing frames with high resolution video and overlaying dynamic information over them (score etc) with no access to the source? Tricky shit, and would need more powerful hardware too. Where is this video playback coming from?

Well the issue is it's utterly different work. More or less I couldn't say. Very few games have video caps (thankfully) so it's not really something with a lot of upside as far as putting the work in.

Well I guess that's a matter of opinion. If I was going to spend a ton of my time developing something that I couldn't legally sell I'd be pretty concerned about it, personally.

I'm not saying it's not an interesting idea. Just saying it's not a trivial problem to solve, the existing coloring solutions are not capable of it, and the work it would take plus the small market and the legal challenges make it unlikely anyone is going to tackle it.

I think we'll see ColorDMD take on coloring movie dots. And there are ways to go about it that are interesting. But that doesn't mean replacing them with high rez video.

I have a feeling you have seen the same thing I've seen.

I saw it on someone's phone, obviously it made the rounds. I don't have a picture of it, so don't bother asking me for it!

Actually no, I'm right about what I was saying, that's the only way to replace the dots with high rez video. It seems you're not talking about that though, but instead are proposing an alternate way of playing back 128x32 colored dots.

When did SmartDMD gain the ability to store frames and play them back? Seriously, if that's possible then link up the announcement, I missed it. That's not how it works now as far as I know, and it's not how ColorDMD work. So if I'm wrong then I'll admit it, just please show me where that is.

I happen to believe that there is no new announcement about that, that you're wrong and accusing me of being out of my technical depth when it's the opposite, but I will totally eat crow and say I'm wrong if you can show me.

Until then I'm going to drop this line of conversation, it's totally off topic.

I don't really agree. It's a great movie, I'm a fan. But it's not really an action flick, it's a relationship comedy with props. It's not really ideal for DMD-style quick clips, IMHO. I'd rather see original animation to go with the art package.

GOT is sort of the same thing (not so much comedy) but because there's so much more material you can cut out all the relationship stuff for action okay. I wish it was LCD and not DMD, not a fan of ripped video dots.

For Ghostbusters I'd actually love to just have colored dots from the factory. Or maybe double rez ones like MMR. With simple animations in color. I suspect if it does have an LCD we'll get movie clips, just saying I'd prefer not to.

It's one of the challenges for sure. And I think we're up for it. But I'm not sure that moving to high rez LCD screens is going to automatically be awesome, it's easy to play too many movie clips.

Anyways, we'll see what Ghostbusters looks like on shipping, no point in pre-emptively complaining about something before even seeing it.

Alien will be all about the atmosphere for sure.

I dunno, we'll just see on GB. This is new territory for Stern, no point in second guessing them before we see what they're up to. They hired 3D artists, maybe they're going to try and do more original stuff.

All I know is that I'm utterly over red video clips. Here's hoping GOT is the last time we see that.

So just remove some of the flashers, or put a filter over them, or point them in a different direction, or replace them with weaker bulbs, or whatever else might work. Doesn't seem like a big deal to me. It's not like everyone here doesn't mod game lighting to suit their tastes.

okay. I preferred the scores Stern had previously been using, this feels inflated to me. But it's all relative so who really cares. I don't have more fun with any particular point scoring. If a billion is easy it's no more fun than a million.

The LE backglass blows the Pro translite away in person, in my opinion. I've seen them both next to each other, zero contest to me. And the cabinet art looks way better than the Pro, because that dragon flame art is great. Hand drawn > stiff PR collages every time!

I think though that the LE art doesn't photograph well. It looks like overtouched PR photos on the computer screen. Lit, in person, it's way nicer, has a real painterly feel, almost a colored pencil softness that just doesn't photograph well.

Plus Stern was only showing 3D renders, and there was some uncanny valley aspect to those that didn't present any of the art in the best light. Everything looks better in person on this game compared to the release photos, not how I would have chosen to reveal the game. I'm sure it was a time pressure thing, but just not a great first impression.

I guess my point is see it in person if you can. And make a decision after that. I'm not sure this is the game for me, but if I were to ever own one, it definitely wouldn't be a Pro.

I can confirm this!

I do think that good players are going to find the ball times on the long side though. More Spider-Man than ACDC perhaps?

Keith Elwin has apparently instead managed to kick GOT's ass.

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TJ, who operates a lot of games up in the Bay Area, also put his GoT next to a SoF, so I'm guessing it was probably his games.

More proof that the ratings system is useless!

Keith Elwin is putting up 20 billion scores now.

I dunno man, these games are getting ridiculous. I think I'm starting to not like the flow ho era as much now. Too smooth, and too easy for the good players to just keep it going. That's not gonna be me, to be clear! But I know that if I had to play Keith Elwin I'd rather it was on Flash Gordon than GOT. At least he's gonna have to take some of that game's lumps as much as I will.

I am not one of those players myself, but the problem is that you don't need a firm grasp from what I can tell. My friend tried the Pro (at Button Mash if you're in LA) for the first time, he told me he walked away with two free games left, he just got bored. He's a lot more of an accurate shot than I am though. Just not enough risk for good players.

This is why Keith Elwin is putting up 22 billion scores.

Not sure how you fix that in code. Might just be a better causal player game than good player game.

Yeah, but how long did that BDK last after the ooh shiny wore off for you?

Sorry guys, Keith Elwin has spoiled me, your 3 billion scores just aren't impressive.

You know Keith, he rubberbands the outlanes closed.

I don't know what his high score is, but he can crack 20 billion.

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Yeah, well, now you know how I feel when I play with you.

Don't let Eskaybee get away with being modest, he's a very good player.