Cayuga, NY
awaiting gameplay video and higher res backglass picture!
(Topic ID: 224963)
Linked Games
Oktoberfest
American Pinball, 2018
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Quoted from jawjaw:JJP has only produced 4 games in 8 years. AP will have two in a fraction of that. Not a fair comparison.
what is your point ? quick is better than good?
Quoted from benheck:Did they fix Otto's broken wrist?[quoted image]
not sure this is absolutely anatomically correct but artistic license is ok with me as long as it pleases the eye.... from what I see I would fix the elbow being cut off by the sleeve on the blonde side first !
I will await pictures of the final backglass but the one shown has" areas that could be improved"
lots of potential cool options for mods to put on top of the bumpers, particularly if you are not wed to the bumper cars concept , ( to me the bumper cars need the drivers , at the first glance of the playfield without the drivers I thought why do they have glitter clogs there?)
maybe a nice replica of a mug of frothy beer on a bed of orange yellow and red leaves like they are in Oktober?
weiner dogs too!!
Quoted from PinMonk:Go the Zingy Bingy route and make them boobs.
Boobs in the colors of oktober leaves? You sir have a very creative mind!!
3 weeks later
Quoted from LTG:American Pinball does a very good job of that.
LTG : )
At 7.5 k it's not like these are cheap!! At this price point it does not make sense for AP to aim for " a good pin at a great price" vs a " great pin"
I think the general consensus is that AP would be smart to invest in some art direction and animation talent. if they need to tack $ 500 onto the price to do most buyers will not balk and still feel like it is a deal for a " great" pin.
AS an example of what some art direction could bring to AP is input on what to leave out!! , look at the backglass the foreground is good ( other than it looks like the blondes forearm is cut off by the bottom of the sleeve?) but the upper background is a hot mess! like 6 layers of clutter( random strings of blue flags!! hang glider with german flag colors! mallard ducks! balloons! maypoles! blurry people on roller coasters!! whereas plain blue sky with the maybe the ferris wheel and coaster , a few clouds or fall colored trees would have been so much effective at drawing the eye to the name and foreground .
Quoted from Ferret:The Oktoberfest game team is here listening. Josh and I are regularly engaged in this thread, we're not running away. As I've said before, people shouldn't expect the entire animation package to be scrapped and redone. That's not realistic. But if there are reasonable things we can do to improve the presentation, tell us exactly what those are, and we'll see what we can do.
Several critics here have mentioned fonts. There is one font that is primarily used throughout the game, a Germanic typeface. Do you find that hard to read? If we hear a lot of that, we might be able to select another font that preserves the general style but is easier to read. Or do you have a problem with the color contrast of the text against certain backgrounds? That's something we can work with. Back around Expo, someone here posted a screenshot of a tent total screen, and said that they had a hard time reading it because of the contrast of the text against the background. That was very specific and constructive feedback, we agreed, and an improvement was checked into the code base minutes later. No problem. So go ahead, if you have access to the game, send a photo and tell us exactly what you'd like to see changed. Heck, if you don't have access to a game, watch one of the streams and send a link and a timecode with your explanation. Even feedback that can't be incorporated into Oktoberfest can help advise the team for future games.
Even something like "the dachshund walks like an anxious goat!"... well, OK, that just made me laugh, and frankly I personally have no idea what that means, but then I'm neither an animator nor an anatomist. But at least it's something specific, and thus more helpful than "the LCD sucks, booooo!"
Thanks!
It's great that the a programmers are accessible for updates and receptive to feedback, the code and gameplay look they it will be fun! , but I am not sure why general comments( boo!) about the lcd graphics would be viewed as whining, , positive feedback from uncritical sources might feel good but might not lead to long term success.
All the specific feedback about the how to improve the animation ( fonts. colors etc)can be useful but at the most basic level if the ap animation team can critically look at the screens on their competitors ( lets' say last few sterns and jjps) and say that Oktoberfest graphics are at that level , then they either do not have an eye for the graphics or the skills to get there.
Based on you and rosh's presence I assume you two do the graphics as well? just doing the game coding would be a tall order!
I hope the machine is a success and even if released with something close to current graphics consider releasing "visual update " package down the road that rivals jjp! ( personally just super nice looking non animated screens would suffice for me)
1 week later
Quoted from rosh:with both Houdini and Oktoberfest we have tried to be true to the subject matter, but, yes we will take some literary license. I don't think there are monkeys at Oktoberfest, but then again, would not shock me. And as you indicated and has Ferret posted, there is a lot more than polka and oompah music, I think that ties into the same preconception most of us have that it is just about Beer and beautiful woman.
It is funny how some can some adamant in their position around some aspects of the game, like the music, when in reality they are just totally wrong. Now I get that some would like the whole game to be polka and others would like it to be rock n roll, but we felt variety was both true to Oktoberfest and what would work best in a pinball machine, where you want to set different moods at different times.
I would say it would have been better to take more literary license . I am not sure anyone feels that strongly that Oktoberfest the machine needs to adhere in any strict way to what is or isn't at the festival . it is a pinball machine not a documentary! , . It was ambitious to add the amusement park aspect to what could have been nice simple theme of otto and his beer hall during a certain time of year .
A nice coherent theme that would fit our preconceptions of Oktoberfest could have evolved around Otto and his beautiful 5 daughters all with different color hair ( for guidance see outstanding post by tuna with possible outfits above.) they have 5 pets (4 weiner dogs and ok a monkey), there is a broken cuckoo clock so no one shows up to work on time and you have a vast amount of material to construct varied modes etc. . throw in some fall foliage art work , put some wooden beer kegs, the cuckoo clock and some beer steins as toys on the playfield and it is done!
Being too literal seems like it detracts from the fun of the game- does anyone really care about calories while drinking giant steins of beer?
Quoted from rosh:well, I am pretty confident if made it just about beer, this thread would have hundreds and hundreds of posts complaining about how it is not remotely close to being reflective of Oktoberfest. Especially our German friends. And even with us being as true to it as we could, I've had folks come up to me to point out things that were not quite accurate.
To be honest the game would have also been a lot less interesting to develop and probably a lot less interesting to play, and suspect the sales would have been less as well.
as you know someone will always complain about something! given that the vast majority of potential buyers have probably not been to Oktoberfest in Germany if the worst complaints you get are that "it is not reflective of Oktoberfest " that would be a bad thing?
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