Yeeeeep. I almost wonder if autolaunch is a bad idea. Then again half the people I've watched didn't even get the concept of a ball save.

- Lane change: very hard to explain to people, and even once they get that there's something to do they ignore it.
-multiball: I've had quite a few people say they don't like it, too stressful.

If you really ant to see non-pinheads be confused, get a Hyperball machine.

Chris

I seriously thing the hardest part about pinball for new people to understand is the start button. Assuming they can even find it.

I wish there was an option that you need to hold the start button for 3 seconds to add players.

I'm surprised that pinheads don't get that Roadshow has a creepy vibe to it. Same with Funhouse. Ventriloquist dummies and things that look like that--they creep people out.

Lots of friends and family over and accidental 4 player games happen most every time. Along with several "I don't get it...you just whack the ball around randomly. What skill is there in that?"

I've learned to have no expectations, not get offended and drink a lot.

I'm surprised that pinball hasn't picked up on some of the game design patterns from other types of games. All new game should have a tutorial mode to train the newbie. If you want to get people sucked into the pinball hobby or even just lure them into losing a few more quarters, you have to make them aware that there are rules and objectives.

Yeah, auto ball save is hard, especially when you have a collection that spans eras where they don't have it; people get the hang of it and then expect all games to have it!

Lots of four player games and slapping both flippers at the same time at my house during parties.

TBH, when I play a game on location that I've never played I really don't care about lane change and just want to see how the game plays. If I don't know the rules I just try to hit all the ramps/shots or try to hit where the arrows tell me to. Most people would just like to keep the ball alive rather than have a high score. I can totally see why people try to just keep the ball alive. The best games are the ones that appeal to Pros and Joes.

We hosted the holiday party for work this year - 150 people and the game room was open. I saw a bit of everything: 4 player games started then walked away confused, people pushing on the coin slots to try to operate the flippers, people madly flipping both flippers together and having a great time doing it. My favorite a guy that put up a 100M+ point score on ST. He'd never played it before, but played a lot 10+ years ago in college, and was happy to get back into it.

There were some games that had a tutorial in the attract screen. Instructions would be displayed on the DMD and a light corresponding to the shot would flash. I can't remember any examples right now or the manufacturer.

The reality is that newbs need shallower, immediately satisfying games to get them to see how fun pinball is. Older Bally SSes or Gottlieb EMs are good ones. Cheap DMDs like LW3 or Cue Ball Wizard are great starter games with their obvious shots and easy to obtain multiballs. My parents came with me to LAX and spent most of the day playing CBW.

Now that's funny.

This wasn't my experience. A lot of the nonpinheads were drawn to games like WOZ and Hobbit due to the big displays and colorful lights. They didn't know what they were doing but still had a good time watching the toys and movie clips while they tried to keep the ball in play. My only early SS game - Xenon got only a few plays.

Dont try to explain the rules to them. Just let them flip and if they are one shot away from multiball tell them which shot to hit. If they hit the shot and start multiball they feel like they semi-accomplished something and are happy about it and I feel the same way.

Let's see, no nudging or any body english, not having a clue about a replay knocker or a "match". Trying to play locked balls that are kicked out when the game is over. Double flippers are annoying........

+1 on the replay knocker.
It actually startles guests and they tend to apologize as if they did something wrong or simply jump.

I must admit its a bit of a guilty pleasure for me.

I just had a friend over last weekend trying to do that, he said "something's wrong with the machine, the flippers aren't working!"

I just happened to be moving a pin from one room to the other that same day, and that same friend said "you'll have to remove the back legs to get it to clear the entryway". I proceeded to fold down the back-box with a grin and stated "this will probably be easier".

I also love it when guest's feed quarters into a game.

Upper flippers don't exist

+1000 on the auto launch thing. Every single time.

Also when I finally get people to understand how multiplayer games work they just get all confused again and lose track of which player is who as soon as someone gets a ball save.

They don't get ball save.

They don't get multi player games.

They hit both flippers at once, always.

They don't get upper flippers / upper playfields.

They REALLY don't get magna save, if it exists.

It's confusing that 1 mil can be a decent score on one game, but 500 mil is a decent score on another.

Extra ball.

be glad you we have games from the mid 60s on
I was at an venue that had older games that had the ball lifters. very few people could work that out

i stopped explaining rules to friends, cause they never listened.
they just flip away.

i just point out the high scores, and then they ask, how did you get that much?
i say read the card and watch the screen and shoot for the blinking lights on the playfield, theyre like missions.
then they find out much more, i think maybe because its there own discovery then???

Once I had to take the ladies hand and make it into a
point position and manually guide her hand to the start button.

Weird, the opposite happens at my place - new players are "scared" of the newer games and they tend to play the older, less flashy games.

I have this happen to a point as well. All my machines are solid state ot DMD, but Breakshot seems to get a higher number of plays. In fact, people often think it is the oldest game in the collection (Black Knight is).

CHris

When I'm explaining pinball rules to non-pinheads I stoped calling them rules. People instantly shut down and don't want to be bothered with "rules". I always get "I don't care about the rules". Now I call them objectives. I believe it's a more accurate word and people don't get intimidated. People don't like rules.

Non pinheads all think the coolest thing about any of my pinball machines is the wear around the flipper buttons on my Tommy. I shit you not. This gets commented on ALL the time. They love the authentic "vintageness" of it or something. I just want to fix it, haha.

Yes, but when games explicitly tell you what to do, the bread and butter pinhead buyers complain. (SHOOT THE PYRAMID!)

Get rid of auto plunger and you have to rely on physical locks... And the tourney guys complain.

What Pinheads like in games (and catering to that) is what's making it harder for new people to get into them.

It's like a restaurant that serves cheap, bland food to old people. If they change it the existing customers will complain. But if they don't attract new people, they're out of business once the old people are dead (see also newspapers)

Funhouse is SUPPOSED to be creepy. Roadshow isn't. That's why RS is weird and a little lame as a theme, and Funhouse is a stone cold classic. those heads work way better as creepy mannequin heads than as friendly construction worker heads.

My observations.. had 26 for Christmas day at my house..and all are non-pinheads.. all the games were on and almost all played the newer sterns. most popular where tron, ironman and metallica. they loved tron and ironman because of the speed. I could see it was the just one more game on those two.. It was blast too watch them play and how many times they said these are cool.. that made my Christmas day.

OMG - this. Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang go the flippers even when the ball is no where near them. By far my biggest personal OCD issue. I usually take time to explain to flip only when the ball is near the flippers but my suggestion usually lasts about 10 seconds.

People think the Start button gives them a single ball so they keep pushing it or they don't understand a ball is served or where it is when they push it the first time.

Some people get rules others do not or do not care.

AFM is always popular. Obvious bash toy in middle with instant understanding of what to do and reward/feedback for doing it.

yup, thus my idea of programming 2 completely different catered games into 1.

The need to sell to both the home playing pinhead and the route playing noob.

I think Stern had a great idea with the 2min demo game on Mustang when they first showed it at car shows. They obviously did not have enough code and this was a way to get the game out there, but it worked really well.

If I remember correctly they took the most obvious feature, hit the center drops down, and once you did then you got a 2 min multiball.
Great way to bring in new players, they feel like they did something and perceive it as they rocked.

Just put 2 start buttons on your next game Ben. "Novice" and "Expert". Make it simple for people to choose the game they want to play.

Another option I can think of is on WOOLY you can select to go into the minimodes or even wizard mode to practice those. These are fun for a casual person.

It's been my observation that most people don't really care to learn anything about how the pinball machine works. They just want to bang on the buttons a little bit and move on to something else. Trying to explain the start button, auto plunging, rules, or whatever else just makes people less interested or intimidated.

What I notice is that while a non pinhead will enjoy the game and maybe even state how they would like to have a pin its forgotten very quickly and that its important to realize we are thriving right now but to me anyway I think that's why prices are high and the manufacturer's are going to capitalize as much as they can because another decade, maybe 2 and its over if not sooner, I think pinball will move to the VR realm once that tech comes into its own with the companies will give up on building actual machines, so enjoy it while you can, maybe a little less complaining? I think so. I'm sure many of you will disagree but the young folk of today are not going to embrace pinball. JMO

The first thing I do when introducing someone is to tell them, before they even walk up, that my number one hint is that hitting both flippers at once is a trap that will hurt you even if it seems like a good idea. They usually nod like they get it, and try to always use one flipper or another, but within a ball or two they'll instinctively do it anyway... and immediately lose their ball between them. Most don't need it to happen twice.

If they don't know that what they're doing is bad, they're just gonna think pinball is hard or unfair. If you tell them it's their fault before hand, they learn.

If only that worked for telling people to cradle the ball whenever possible. Instinct just takes over too much for most without a lot of practice at that point.

man, you have some rude friends and family. everyone that's played my games has said nice things even when they don't really get it.

yeah, i've definitely noticed anyone over 45 gravitating towards Black Hole (my oldest game). the newer games do probably look more intimidating, but also i suspect they might feel a little bit sillier or less mature playing the newer games because of all the toys and the DMD or video display (regardless of theme). the older games might seem less embarrassing to them.

when i have non-pinhead guests, i set the games up so that multiball is a little easier to achieve where possible. for example, on STTNG, i have it set up so you can select "light lock" from the plunger on all three balls, which guarantees Borg Multiball on your third ball if you remember to select the same "skill shot" all three times (even this is a challenge for non pinheads!). it gives them a nice show and lets them see what the game can do, and gives them a taste of how hectic and fun multiball can be.

you really can't get rid of auto-plunge. modern multiball rules, ball savers, add-a-ball modes, and ball search all rely on it.

nooo. players hate tutorials. even new players. most miss what tutorials are saying anyway because they are too busy mashing buttons to figure out how to skip the tutorial. worst gaming trend. the best thing a game can do to be friendly to new players is to have obvious, intuitive first-level objectives and have difficulty and complexity that ramp up linearly. this is tricky to do in pinball because the playfield is generally static, but it's certainly not impossible. there are a lot of great games where newbies first instinct of what to do is actually correct -- things like cool looking ramps and big bash toys that build towards something cool like a multiball or a jackpot. obviously most advanced players need layers of complexity beyond that. Look at Metallica, though. It integrates both simple and more complicated ideas simultaneously pretty well. you can just bash the electric chair guy 5 times to start a neat multiball mode, or as an advanced player you can work on progressing through "crank it up" or whatever. The inline drop targets are super intuitive as well. I wish more games used them, they are way more fun than the much more common usage of drop targets -- a bank that spells a word. spelling is boring! always has been!

when i first tell them what good players play like, about half of my guests want to argue that nudging is cheating, haha. and yeah, they come to me a little sheepish and scared and say they think they might have broken something if they encounter the replay knock.

I admit it's quite funny to me on the auto launch sequence they grab the shooter rod,the machine kicks the ball out(faster than they are) then they pull the shooter rod back and let it go for it to hit nothing.The ball is already headed for another drain as they don't understand what just happened.

You don't get rid of the mech, you just don't auto shoot it on ball save

seems like a good idea.

Heck--*I* still do that.

Surprised games don't turn the gi and lights off while they drain the balls or something. Even older Gottliebs at least have a special sound and light pattern while they drain. Newer games just drop the balls with no warning.

My friends go crazy for my games when they come over. I think I what helps draw them in, is they all love the themes of my machines.

I definitely see improvement in how they play too, which in turn, makes them more fun.

Yeah, I like that to. It always gets the new players who like to play my AMH and they look so dumbfounded when they see the ball go down the drain again in less two seconds because they weren't ready for it. It makes for some good laughs for everyone else.

Sure, but the OP was surprised that non-pinheads didn't play it. On topic, no one ever chooses a song on Metallica, so it's always the annoying default song that I probably need to change to something else. Also, Shadow lane diverters...people just want to knock the ball around to some decent music accompanied by a good light show and possibly a familiar theme.

The hitting both flippers at the same time drives me nuts.

Haha my kids do it all the time and then their friends and their friends parents copy them

When I first started playing pinball, when my dad first got into the hobby and exposed me to pins I used to do it, once you play more and start getting a feel for the ball and the way its going to move and react I think its something that naturally stops, its kind of like a babies first steps, watching my son I thought this boy is never going to stop walking on all fours like a wild animal but one day he realised its a lot faster using 2 limbs than 4 and off he went