Finally. It's great to finally get a confirmation so that we can actually decide which direction to go with that "fantasy" purchase.

Posted to IGN as well. Looks like they'll be revealing more details on Tuesday.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/09/04/sterns-game-of-thrones-pinball-machine-announced

In the teaser released today via the Wall Street Journal a pinball rolls around the interactive map of Westeros seen in the intro to the Game of Thrones HBO series.

Next week IGN will be revealing additional details about HBO's Game of Thrones pinball machine along with some awesome images of the machines, so be sure to check back on Tuesday, September 8 for that.

I agree. If they have a limited run of 500 or so like they do with most of their LE's this will probably sell out today.

I could see them having the playfield represent the map that we see in the intro, and all of the characters displayed on the LCD (which they could update with subsequent code releases)

I'm really interested to see the level of interactivity that exists with the dragon. Eating balls? Spitting balls?

I was wondering the same thing and finally found it. The Elevator from The Wall is a little sticker to the right of the Dragon..

The_Wall.jpg

I was hoping for the same thing; but The Hound?? of all the characters to narrate the gameplay. Give me Tyrion Lannister at least.

Couldn't agree more. The art looks like a rushed afterthought. I was honestly expecting a "artwork is still in development and subject to change" statement from Stern. It just looks hastily cobbled together; and some of the art looks like it's ripped from other games as placeholders that someone forgot to replace with actual art from the show.

It's interesting to me because the only people that seem to be ok with it--are people that haven't seen the show. I guess that stands to reason. If you have seen the show, it's so glaringly obvious that this has failed to capture any semblance of the mood and feel.

The game will probably play well, but the artwork is enough of a miss that I'm not feeling compelled to keep my pre-order. I can wait and see how the game actually plays and pick up a Premium down the road if the gameplay manages to change my mind enough to overcome the lackluster art package.

That's a good call. I went back and rewatched after you pointed that out. Clear plastic with decals on either side??

Yup. I think you might be right. What's your thoughts on this approach rather than a sculpt? Do you think it contributes to the lightshow somehow?

I actually thought that this was a really good catch. I didn't notice it initially while flipping through the pictures (I admit that I was distracted by the dragon and trying to figure out how interactive it was going to be) but that is the type of thing that would continue to stand out to me every time I walked up to the machine once I noticed it.

Perspective Shadow.jpg

Perspective Shadow is a really important component of any art. It gives the sense of realism, and reinforces the feeling that there is a cohesive or centralized light source. We see it naturally in everyday life, and when we see artwork get it wrong, it's a glaringly obvious lack of attention to detail.

I genuinely think that this game will play well. I excited to find out where it gets put on location so that I can give it a go, but I can't help feeling that there was a lack of attention to detail or perhaps a lack of quality assurance to make sure that the package was right before rushing it off to the printers.

I am by no means an expert on the subject either, but my impression based upon everything else that I was able to see in those photos was that the light source was similar to that of Example B:

Example B.PNG

And that the light source is in front of the viewer, to the left, and at a high angle.

Shadows.jpg

You get that sense of light source position from the left most red dome near the pyramid, the blue domes to the left of the orbit, and shadows beneath the gears and chains that are visible in this shot. One might argue that the pyramid casts a shadow on the right most red dome which would be consistent with the positioning of the light source, but it doesn't seem consistent with the shadow that is being cast by the metal ring surrounding the dome. If they were attempting to cast a shadow from the pyramid, I would expect the entire dome to be shadowed and would expect the shadow being cast by the dome and the metal ring to not be casting a shadow on the opposite side. Instead, this dome gives me the impression that there is a second light source--somewhere near where the plunger would be, but the concept of a second light source being present isn't consistent with the rest of the shadows being portrayed here (It would change our perspective shadow and eliminate the shadow being cast by the left most red dome as well).

It might be a bad angle, but it looks like the plastic is sort of triangular shape and gets wider as it gets closer to the top of the playfield. I'm trying to envision the sheet of plastic that all of the plastics came from. I'm guessing that this is more of a case of trying to make the best use of the plastic, and that if we were to see the sheet in its "whole state" we'd see these two plastics side by side with the domes having the same shadow perspective prior to being cut out of the sheet.

EDIT: Good catch! The perspective shadow in the concept art is consistent. I think that this is what they were initially going for.

I'm just curious how that kickback is going to work on the Pro.

Kickback.PNG

This comment has the greatest upvote of this thread!

Jared!!.png

What is that stand up plastic to the left of the door? A torch?

I didn't say that it was a travesty, I just said that it was a lack of attention to detail (and let's be honest, someone forgot to click "Rotate Right" twice on this particular dome before pasting it).

And you are right, for you, and for a lot of other people that walk up to the machine, they may never notice the inconsistency of shadow placement. For me, and for a lot of other people, things like that will stand out as "something that probably should have been caught during the two year developmental lifespan" of this machine.

And for the opinion being just plain wrong? I'm sorry but that wasn't an opinion. I'm not just making shit up here.. What you see happening there is not how light "works".

I'm honestly not trying to jump on top of the dog pile here. I was thinking about this on the drive home and wondering whether or not I'm being too critical, or if I was going out of my way to beat this thing up. That's honestly not my intent at all. Based upon my past Steve Ritchie experiences, I think that I am going to love the way that this game plays. I'll also be the first one to admit that I am not an expert in the subject either (be that light physics or heck even pinball for that matter). I love learning new things and I live analyzing things. I'll sit and study a single infographic for way longer than I probably should. That's probably why I notice certain things.. I need to remind myself that not everybody does this, or views things in the same way. Cheers.

A nice view from the top of the dragon. Looks like there are more plastics around the door as well to give it more of a castle feel.

Top Down of Dragon.jpg

Some more detail of the battering ram as well:

Battering Ram.jpg

Interesting how they did that huh? I noticed that as well. Probably just a coincidence. There's another angle in a second shot that shows it.

Any thoughts on how the door works? Does it swing open to the left behind the torch?

I was thinking that maybe it would have a "death" effect similar to the crash effect on the Star Trek Vengeance.

Some interesting statistics about feedback: The average business does not hear from 96% of its unhappy customers. For every complaint received, 26 customers actually have the same problem. The average person with a problem tells 9 or 10 people. 13% tell more than 20 about their dissatisfaction. Pinside may be a small subset of their customers, but they are a pretty vocal subset. If Stern understand the statistics behind customer feedback (which I'm sure they do), they know that for every vocalized complaint that they received, there is a large unspoken portion of the audience that feels the same way.

This was one of the few things that stood out to me during the hour or so that I watched the stream. The flow looked great but I kept getting a bit distracted by the repetitive theme of the GoT Intro music. And full disclosure--I've watched almost the entire series twice On Demand, and I get excited about the Intro every single time I fire up a show. There a plenty of On Demand shows that I fast forward through the Intro, but GoT is not one of those shows.

Having said that, I couldn't help but think: "Man. 90 seconds of this while watching the intro to the show instantly sends me into "pretending to conduct an orchestra" mode.. an hour of this?? And I'm seriously hoping that they somehow remix this song into less of an earworm if this is the only track that they bought the license for.."

It was hard to see some of it, so I chalked a lot of it up to "This might translate better in person."

The only things that had me scratching my head were that a lot of the Dots/Code just didn't seem to integrate into the theme all that well.

The slot machine mechanic might be fun.. the cash collection/spending might be fun.. the video mode might end up being fun--they just didn't really look all that fun, and there just seemed like a lot of it that didn't come across as "Game of Thrones" to me. Some of the cut scenes drew me back in and I'd say to myself "Ok. I see where they're going.." but then there was just so much that felt like it could be on a different game and give me the same impression.. It's early code, so that's fine. I'm just hoping they reel it in a bit and really focus on integration going forward.

One of the reasons that I think that this thread in particular is so polarizing is that this is such an important theme for so many people. There are people that just troll threads because they get a rise out of it or whatever, but I'm not seeing that from most of the people commenting here. I think that in general, most people have a lot better things to do with their time than to spend 15 minutes per post drafting a well thought out response articulating their concerns.

That is one of the reasons why I keep coming back to this thread. I'm not trying to call anyone's baby ugly. I just want this pin to be good because it's on my short list of dream themes.

My list of dream themes really isn't all that long: Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Lord of the Rings, Battlestar Gallactica, The Hobbit, Aliens (Aliens moreso than any of the other movies in the series), Star Trek (The Next Generation in particular, but I enjoy most things Star Trek), X-Files, and Firefly. There's a ton of things that I could care less about. I'm indifferent to most music pins, and there are a ton of themes that I can understand peoples excitement, but I just don't get the appeal. To each their own--but if something is on my short list, I can't help but be passionate about it. In a perfect world I want my perception of the finished product to live up to my expectations. There's nothing wrong with that.

I think that there is definitely some potential here as well. I was mulling over the video mode last night and wondering why I wasn't getting that "Game of Thrones vibe" from that mode with as much sword fighting is in the actual show/books. I'd venture to say that there is a sword fighting sequence (even if it's just practice sparring) in every episode.

I think that if they can code scene depictions from the show, I think there there is a lot of potential for that mode to be cool. Rather than take the "You don't haaave to play the mode if you don't want to.." approach and just dismiss it as people will never play that mode--code it so that people want to pick that mode every time.

Imagine if that mode was coded to depict the sword training between Jon Snow and the rest of the Watch at Castle Black.

Jon Snow Sword Training.jpg

Or better yet, what if you code many different sword fighting sequences that spawn depending on what house mode you are pursuing? Say for example, the sword training between Ayra Stark and Syrio Forel?

Arya Start and Syrio Forel.jpg

Or when Jamie Lannister battles Ned Stark?

Ned Stark and Jamie Lannister Sword Battle.png

We could probably pick 3 good examples from every house (whether you are playing as that particular house, or whether you are trying to complete that house mode). If they were to sort of take the sword fighting scenes and make it "stop motion" and add in some custom animation to the sequence, this mode has the potential to be pretty awesome and one that people would opt to play more often.

In a lot of the release announcements they keep describing the video mode as "There are video modes controlled by an extra button on the lock bar which Dankberg describes as "8-bit ... kind of a throwback thing ... almost early '80s retro-looking." So I think that the "retro look" was what they were initially going for, but this could theoretically be updated in a code release.

I was thinking the same thing. The same is true for the other side with Jon Snow. I like the idea of the side art for the backbox with him and Ghost, but having him positioned right around the corner on the backglass as well seemed ill-thought out. And I'm fine with him being on the backglass--I just would have thought that he would have been moved to the opposite side in this instance.

Left Side GOT Cab.jpg

The biggest surprise of all however was the inclusion of the Lord of Bones character.--twice no less. If I had to list my top 50 favorite characters to include once--I'm not sure the Lord of Bones would have made the cut, let alone twice. Ygritte alongside Jon Snow seemed like the top two must haves--no?

And maybe our usage of the term "shield" was a bit of a misnomer when we were discussing the metal gradient in the past, but my first thought of the new playfield was "Just how does a Chain Mail Shield work anyway??" It's better than the gradient for sure, but it still left me scratching my head. I envisioned an Iron Throne here with each of the houses trying to take control of it.

Chain Mail Shield.PNG

Missed this post before commenting on another--but this was one of my first thoughts as well. "A chain mail shield eh? How does THAT work?" I chalked it up to "Maybe the shape was just a coincidence and they weren't really going for "shield" in the first place."

I actually thought they were going all in on House Stark with Jared's comments of "Winter is Coming" (which is their house motto as I understand it). I can see what he was eluding to now with the redesigned playfield art, but I wasn't anticipating a recap of the last episode at all.

Is this Peter Cushing? I swear he looks like a young Grand Moff Tarkin..

Grand_Moff_Tarkin.png