BM66 is one of the best pins for telling a story/making you feel involved in the episodes from the show.

Could definitely be more games that focus on telling a story/making you part of it, Lyman does one of the best jobs at executing the story driven immersion.

When I think story, I usually immediately think of TOTAN.

I've also thought that a game based on American tall tales & folklore could be interesting.

As someone who'd never seen either movie, I thought BSD and Tommy did a pretty good job of giving me an (incorrect, it turns out) feel for what the story was.

One time I pictured a game in a generic fantasy setting where the whole playfield (flippers to shots) was a big map with lights under each location, and you could navigate across the map, going to different cities, etc through your shots. Part way though you could get ambushed by bandits, etc.

Shrek.

There's already enough "story telling" in pinball. Sucks that this is what it has evolved into.

In fact I was considering starting a thread that there is now too much story telling in pinball,

that takes away from the actual playing experience.

This is my nightmare scenario with Pinball and it just sounds awfull.

If they want story telling, perhaps they should go back to playing video games where all this bullshit came from in the first place.

Often my friends and I mix it up by playing games just for number of modes (either completed or started, depending on the game, but you're not allowed to time them out). Seems to work just fine. Score is the tie breaker.

A pinball machine is and always has been a machine to manipulate in order to score points; I just don't want to get away form that and people are talking aboot it more and more these days. Losing the scoring dynamic just seems like the opposite of what it's intended to do.
A story telling element is already present in 99% of modern games. Haven't played a ton of TNA but there's some reactors blowing up and shit I guess which is a story...which leaves just Juicy Melons? Anyway I just don't get it personally. You have to do X number of things to advance the story? I mean sure, that's what modes do. What happens when i accomplish all the goals? Instead of a score I have a time?

Shouldn't be too long before someone posts one then and i can better understand.

Part of what got me into pinball is its immediacy. I was playing games that would require about an hour of your time at minimum to do anything worthwhile. I got my Flash and would plug at the start button when I had 5 minutes to spare. The beauty of it to me is that I can play a game in a short time and leave it, and I've still had a full experience.

I'm also the kind of guy that would skip cut scenes in games like Halo, unless the story was really engaging or gave a directive.

When I play pinball, I focus almost exclusively on mode completion. I have next-to-no awareness of points. I rarely try to beat my high score- I'm trying to get further in the game than before. (Of course that usually ties in with score at least partially). For this reason I don't really get into competitive play because I don't want a spreadsheet to figure out the complex rules and scoring strategy of each game.

Perhaps this is why I had way more fun with Ghostbusters than some players. Some people complain about how linear it is, but I enjoyed that it tells a story broken into three clear tracks, and you can essentially choose which track you want to work on after various modes. It was a clear form of storytelling that I really dig and I felt like I got it right away. I felt the same general way about Star Wars- modes are laid out clearly and you can progress through them in a pretty understandable fashion. Some other games take a lot of play to sort out how to start various modes and what you should aim to do next after you finish a mode.

That said, no Dragon's Lair! =P

Pinball is a game in which you use flippers in an attempt to hit targets with a ball. That's it. Anything beyond that is implementation.

It wasn't because it's a very finite rules/movements. But don't worry, Fallout is actually a worser eXample the other way.
No one cares aboot scoring in Fallout because it's a complete open world games with 100,000 story lines involved. Think the Stern crew can slap that together?

I know they made pinball machines without flippers, did they make them without points?

To cut to the chase, the problem with story telling in pinball machines is something Whysnow brought up yesterday.

Most of the time you get through the first few chapters and do that over and over again. It is rare that you get to the later chapters, so you are basically reading the beginning of the same book over and over again.

And I guess when you finally do finish the story, what do you do for an encore? Read the first several chapters over and over again? Sorry, but to me that is very futile and boring.

How does that work on you Fireball, Pinbot, Jokerz, & Earthsaker?

Mode progression is or is not story telling? I guess it is a personal opinon thing. The OP says MMR is a story-telling pin. In that context, so is LOTR, IJ, GB etc. Removing scoring is something separate and I think scoring is what I like about it. Just like being a runner. Do you run to look at the scenery around you or try to beat your best times? Probably a little of both or more of one than the other, but IMHO they go hand-in-hand.

The original Super Mario Bros on the NES told a story, and you didn’t have the ability to save your game.

Pinball machines could absolutely be more story driven. Add clever shortcuts in the rules that can only be discovered by getting good at the game and gaining a deeper understanding of the rules—like the warp whistles in Mario 3 or the pipe shortcuts in Mario 1.

True, but i'd rather play an intense game of Robotron 2084, than sit for hours and stare at a TV screen reading dialogue.

And I was a video game kid from the 1990s, when 'storytime' started becoming the norm.

Certainly, video games have evolved, but there is a reason why the classics still hold their own.

I'm an on-the-go, working class father. For the most part, I like my games and pins quick and brutal.

Earthshaker has a great story-

It's sunny drive time... here's your fn earthquake.... bitchin'!

And there's a reason new types developed as well. People like different things, amazing.

I know! So cool!

They sure do! And it would be great if we had more different things than all these story telling pinball games.

Story, the sequential (and there is the problem) telling of events is the problem. However there are elements of 'story' that any interaction can exploit: character, sense of place, activities. There is nothing necessarily sequential about having a character in an interaction. The more you interact with it a character can become more interesting in a non-linear manner. So imposing a linear progression on an interaction based on 'the ball is wild' events is not a good thing. That doesn't mean a pinball can't evoke a place and have interesting interactions with characters and do interesting things. You should not constrain the design "to tell a story". There are plenty of mediums more suited to telling stories, interactions need to invent ways to take elements of stories and make them engaging in interactive ways.

or so I have been saying for a long time....

I'm a Video Game kid from the 80's. And 90's. And 2000s and on.
I would have no interest in Robotron or most the 80's arcade staples outside of once in a blue moon trip to a place like Galloping Ghost Arcade.

And while video games have evolved an awful lot, new games done in the style of "classic games" has always been available.

Which almost gets to the real issue: Pinball has a content delivery problem.

The fact that these expensive boxes nearly always have only one game on it.

What we commonly see now as a combined "modes and score" type game. That could still be the default game type on new machines... But what if one could select a "scoring only, no modes" game, or only mode progression with no scoring (you made it to level X), there could be a "stopwatch mode" (complete goal as fast as you can). There could be a "countdown mode" where you need to score or progress as far as you can in X amount of time, then you need to do it again in less time, or maybe a more difficult goal in the same amount of time. A game type where they whole game is played withing on of the modes of the default game - like a multi ball only mode. Or only playing the wizard mode.

If pinball modernized to the point where one could purchase and download additional games for their home machine, it wouldn't matter if a given individual disliked 90% of the game types, as they could just not purchase them. People who just want to hit shit and see a number increase would be satisfied. People who like variety would be satisfied.

Home theater aficionados are not forced to buy a projector and screen for each movie they want to watch or a dedicated box with speakers for each album they want hear. Video games sloughed off the one game per box model decades ago and exploded in popularity and left pinball nearly dead and in a ditch.

Now we just need pinball manufacturers to stop complaining about how expensive software is and realize that it is actually their largest profit potential. Most people want variety, most people also want to Not dedicate hundreds of square feet of their homes to get that variety.

This is why I play mostly pinball instead of video games. And why I wish the video game culture had never infected the pinball culture.

If they want to take anything from the video game culture then why are video game themes cutting edge and pinball themes are not?

I understand there are new games with classic style. I have a blast playing Pac Man Battle Royale. Believe it or not, I can beat Link to the Past without help. There are games from each decade I enjoy, but my main thing is there are games that people enjoy playing a quick round without devoting an entire afternoon to them. I don't commit as much time to sitting down an playing video games like I did when I was a kid. Same applies to pinball. I don't want to stand at a machine and have the playfield go dark so I have to read a story.

Just to preface, I never played arcade video games when I was younger. I never liked the “here’s a task, beat the level, and do the same thing over again but faster and with more enemies” feel that they had.

My argument is that Pinball could really learn a thing or two from more modern video games. Probably the best thing I could think of would be a pinball machine that takes cues from Star Fox.

The game is linear, but with branching paths. In the video game, everyone starts at the same planet, and you can advance to the next planet by simply getting through it by not dying, however, the more advanced player (or a player who has played the first level a bunch of times and figured out some hidden clues) can advance to a more rewarding/different planet by, say, shooting down all the satellite towers AND not dying. The game actually will actually say “Mission Accomplished” instead of “Mission Complete” when you’ve completed the extra, harder tasks, and moves you to a different and inherently harder path each with their own unique subset of “hidden” objectives.

Pinball could definitely use some of that to lift up their story telling. Finish a mode by timing it out? Nice. You did it, sorta. Here are some pity points. The next mode is another easy generic one. But instead, you finish the mode while getting 5 loops, or comboed something or other, or reached a certain contained score threshold, then the next mode is a different one, with harder objectives and a different subset of advanced tasks. Then you get to the final wizard mode (and there could be completely different ones depending on the path you take to get there, each with more rewarding point values based on the path you took to get there).

That’s the kind of video game inspired ruleset Pinball needs to produce a game that’s highly replayable and has a story driven experience I think has been lacking.

Paths.png

I did. I spent a lot of time on Asteroids, which really didn't tell much of a story, just blow up rocks before they hit you.

But moved onto Time Pilot and Scramble, which both had level after level you had to complete to advance thru the game. But what was really refreshing about the arcade that had them was there was also a Black Knight pinball in the back which was total score the most points game with no real levels to start over.

I preferred when they were two separate styles of game play and had no idea at the time we would be having this discussion today.

In the 90s when they started adding more themes with stories it was kind of novel and worked in it's time, but hard to believe that is now the standard 20 years later.

And what could be more modern than Star Fox ?

Pinball without flippers

Ha, ok. Bad example. But it's still a modern game. Star Fox Zero released in 2016 and had a more complex branching design. It would've been brilliant had Nintendo not added the shitty motion controls in. Star Fox 64 is still the standard at which all Star Fox games should be held at. But I digress

With pinball, the only story it needs to tell me is with the artwork and the score.

I think it could be done... And it could be fun... But, it also I think more often wouldn't work, and would get too old too fast.
It would make it more linear than possible or than you would want.
Honestly I like the pin WhoDunnit. You could expand upon that a bit. Get real clues. Make it a bit more random and find out who the killer really was. have a penalty for making a false accusation. And a bigger reward for solving it and capturing the killer.

That could work... And similar games like that. But, would need to be mode based and would/could at times feel like you're chopping wood to get on with teh gameplay.
Also, it could really slow the game down a lot.

Some games play so fast you don't have time to look at the animations. So just imagine taking a 30 second breather and waiting to play...

One of hte things I hate about modern games. It generally takes about an hour before you can actually play the damn games.
There is the stupid opening scenes. Then the tutorials. Then finally when you think you can really play. More plot, and then finally, finally you can play.
So I think this idea could work... But, would be tough, and even then it might be just better to play something simple like a sorcerer. And I think more than likely most games with this idea would be slow/plodding/ repetitive and suck...
Just remember... Most people dont get to wizard modes. So you'd be stuck playing the same storyline and plot over and over and over again.

I never really answered the question in OP before slinging some TL;DR BS.

So to condense: The amount of room in pinball for other types of games is limited by the amount you can put on one machine.

Almost no-one would want a story-mode only machine. It would have to be a choice along with the current standard mode of game.

You are making assumptions of the rules of this imaginary game. There is no reason it would HAVE to be that way.

Let's think of a way, disregarding how much "fun" any one individual might think it would be.

Story mode: You play until its done, unlimited balls. Once you reach the end of the story, it tells you how many balls you used.
Story mode done.
Want More? It also tells you how long it took.
You would never have enough free time to beat the game in one session? Add a "checkpoint" shot that can be qualified. Hit the shot and you can choose to continue playing or to save your progress and quit, enter your initials and a PIN or something, and you can turn off your machine.

Almost all of the objections in this thread can be eliminated by having choice of game type, and smart design.

My objections are more to how it's implemented, or the fact that it never will be. I wish these games had 4 or 8 diff'rent ways to play; I mean why the hell not? Because it takes a lot of work, and there's a lot of risk with it.
What if the story, like plenty of videa game stories, just flat out suck and buyers don't like it (ha pinball peeps pissing and moaning!)? Then you've spent a lot of time and monies making something that is pointless. True the game still has "regular" mode, but the company has "lost" monies using people towards Story mode.
And once again, whenever we're talking aboot vid & pins, it kind of is apples and oranges. I'd like to be a person that believes Stern can just come up with some kick ass multi layered story in an awesome choose your own adventure type way, but I doubt it.
Lest we also forget Stern is maybe/allegedly going to dip their toe in the non-licensed pool so maybe there's hope there, but how are you going to make an amazing deep and immersive *shit in my mouth* story revolving around Aerosmith exactly? Or changing the script on Disney movies? Can we do that? The company that wont even let you show a person speaking the goddamn lines they spoke in the movie on a screen?

Oh wait, it's all like super easy to do probably.

Haha- it took me a minute to realize why you were citing these particular games. My profile's games list hasn't been updated in about 4 years.

Generally, it works well even with older games like you cited. While newer games have modes that are more defined, Pinbot, Earthshaker, and Jokerz do have various modes of play (multiball, anyone?). Maybe I think of modes more loosely. To me, a mode is a particular objective made up of individual targets that generally must be completed in a particular order/particular timeframe (though not always). So to me, even completing all rollovers on an older machine is a sort of 'mode'. I go for these objectives when playing instead of chasing the score. This is a method I use when playing games I'm not familiar with- develop these objectives for myself until I figure out what the game wants me to do. Even if I watch tutorials, I'm trying to learn how to unlock features/modes, not how to maximize scoring potential. To each their own.

Game of thrones is the counter to this. Many different starting points that all lead to the same goal. The story is in how you get there.

You're right, no-one makes money selling software now-a-days /s

But enough snark.

Odd to complain about how a thing that was never implemented has been implemented. Add the latter is lazy prognostication; the easiest bet in pinball is that things will only be how they've been.

Why would any manufacturer have to? Does Microsoft or Valve or Sony or Nintendo develop every game for their platform? No. They charge 3rd parties to "certify" their software and/or take a cut of the sales.

What a manufacturer would have to do is:
1) Develop system software that can accept additional games to be added to its menu.
2) Ideally a certification system so the consumer has a reasonable expectation that they software they bought wont blow up the machine.

If anything this system could be used to make it less risky, a manufacturer could choose to ship rulesets of "Hit X get Y points", No Callouts, No video, No Animation. I get the feeling some people here may love that. Super cheap, low risk, easy to be "code complete" on the shipping date. Or just the same type of game they are doing now.

The above is all bare-bones, but all we need to consider here is software development and sales. The amount of risk is such that there are an uncountable number of software companies that are able sustain themselves. How many pinball manufacturers do we think are sustainable?

If the rumours are true about Beatles being a modern take on an EM style game, no ramps etc then it might give you exactly what you want @o-din.

Don’t know if you tuned into the lastest H2H podcast but George Gomez hints at the fact Stern are looking into their catalog of classics, could be something for everyone in the near future.

Bingo pins have no points or flippers, just credits awarded. Which depending on the establishment can be redeemed for cash

Wow, now I'm actually missing carguments.

man that would be awesome!