After reading through the TPF responses here, I, too, would like to throw my opinion into the ring. Before I do, I'd just like to preface my opinions by stating my experience and involvement with Multimorphic/P3:
Experience: I've had the pleasure of seeing/playing the P3 at the past 4 Chicago Pinball Expos. Quick impressions:
- 2012: Asteroids in a pinball cab w/o a backbox. Interesting experimental piece, but I didn't think much of it, honestly.
- 2013: Wildly improved with color graphics and a functional/flipping prototype, although there weren't a lot of rules programmed at the time.
- 2014: LOTS of rules. Fast, fun, and truly innovative gameplay experience. The highlight of my '14 Expo experience.
- 2015: I had a hard time not thinking about the P3 as I tried to make myself play other games during the long weekend. All I wanted to do was go back and play Lexy. The game was polished, shot great, understandable, and deep.
Involvement with Multimorphic: I interviewed Gerry Stellenberg for the final issue of the Drop Target Zine. Over the course of the interview, I was impressed with Gerry's intelligence, dogged determination, honesty (completely self-funded and isn't taking pre-order money), and down-to-earth attitude. He subsequently asked me if I would illustrate the official P3 shirt, which you've seen him and the team donning this weekend.
P3shirtMock_(resized).jpg
I say all this to disclose what thin ties I have with the company. Really, not many to speak of. I speak mainly from my four expos of experiencing this platform first-hand, closely following the information released about it in seminars and Multimorphic threads, and several conversations I've had personally with Gerry and his team of developers (the aforementioned interview, and pulling them aside to chat one-on-one each Expo I attend). With this said, I'd like to address a few comments.
Quoted from sd_tom:Wondering if they did something that DID look like a traditional game, like AFM or something fairly wide open til the back 1/3. With a traditional playfield look.. I.e., mostly static with inserts. And it's just when mode starts that some animations kick off overlayed into the playfield image.
Hi sd_Tom,
I think you're describing Lexy Lightspeed pretty closely here. Ha-ha!
I appreciate you saying...
Quoted from sd_tom:Will fully admit I haven't seen one in person yet, so maybe I'm missing something.
...so it sounds like you'll be pleasantly surprised when playing Lexy for the first time. To address your comments/suggestions about having mostly static inserts, the "inserts" (or directional instruction or whatever we're calling them on the P3) basically stay in the same place on the LCD, but sort of pulse AND INSTRUCT the player where to shoot and why. The instructions for each directional "insert" can also change dynamically based on what has been achieved. Honestly, they're THE most intuitive pinball instructions I've ever seen, and one of the (many) things that made me really excited about the platform when playing it in 2014.
For the right theme, that's a really great idea. I'd just reiterate...
The screen is HD, so from my understanding *ANYTHING* can be displayed there. ...creepy crawling insert goblins included.
I'm struggling to understand this assertion, but I'm all ears for an explanation. From what I've heard Gerry mention over the years, the initial price will include 2 games for the P3 platform (Lexy and whatever is next...I think Cosmic Cart Racing). If I'm correct in my thinking, this recent announcement of releasing 5 games upon initial production does not negate the fact that you also get the second game along with that initial purchase price. You simply get 4 additional games (the redemption game and the 3 mini games) with the purchase price. (Gerry, please correct me if I'm wrong in this line of thinking.) So, if you were in for two games for the purchase price of the platform, then I guess I'm having a hard time understanding why one would not be in for more games at the same price of entry.
Just to piggy back on the subject of the 4 additional games that were unveiled this weekend, while they may not be designed for "us", the pinball community, I think the diversity of offerings is incredibly smart.
1) Cannon Lagoon: An approachable redemption-style game with a great hand-drawn art package! (Scott Gullocks, if that's you on art duties, you knocked it out of the park.) That'll go great in family fun centers. There hasn't been a viable pinball redemption model yet. I can't say I'm all that interested in winning tickets by playing pinball (I won all the Chinese Finger Traps I needed as a kid), but A LOT of people are interested in tickets-for-play or else the family fun centers and bowling alleys wouldn't keep filling valuable real estate with redemption units (that are far less interesting than the P3, IMO).
2) Barnyard: A really simple and playful animal "shoot 'em" style game. As a new parent, I can assure you my little guy would go nuts for this. He's at the age where you could even point out the animals and have him name them, then develop hand-eye coordination by helping him time the flip. It's brilliant as a gateway into the hobby for young kids. It's not for us. But it's brilliant. There hasn't been a pinball product on the market in decades (ever?) that's been geared specifically toward a young audience.
3) Lexy Lightspeed Secret Agent Showdown: I don't fully understand this yet, but it looks like it's a practice game. Personally, I would love this option on a game in my home. Inevitably, there's a shot in clutch situations, usually during multiball, that is needed to really reach higher scores in games. And, inevitably, I usually choke on those shots. Ha-ha! How cool would it be to hone your abilities on a particular shot in order to boost your scores during regular gameplay? It's like an exercise routine for pinball-players!
4) Rocs (Thinnly-veiled Asteroids): Who doesn't love Asteroids! If that's you, I'm not sure we can be friends. 
Plus, combined with pinball? Very cool.
Quoted from ezeltmann:The infrastructure is solid, if not amazing, but we need the community to rally around this product to make it as great as it can be.
There really hasn't been enough time for second-party developers to create anything yet. However, I've hung around the Multimorphic booth enough to hear about community support in the way of non-Multimorphic development teams cropping up.
Holt, MI
