I have had this simple pinball game feature in mind for a bit and I don't believe it has ever been used in a game before.

The idea come to me from playing Williams Grand Prix. The one thing that stands out to me on that game is the gap that is in the corner of the in lane wire ball guides. This makes it so the return lane acts as normal when a ball is roll down through them, but if a player catches a ball on the flipper with the intentions of controlling it (by letting it roll up the in lane) the ball goes out the gap into the out lane and drains. To me, it's the stand out feature in the game even though it is a bit evil. A player has to be mindful of how they try to get the ball under control compared to most other games.

The rest of the idea springs from a lot of older games using controlled ball gates to divert the ball to either the shooter lane or into an in lane from an out lane. These gates don't seem to be used in games much and from EM / SS / AN / DMD the number of games that use them seem less and less with each era. Capcom's Airborne seems to be the only DMD game that has a gate like this.

Anyway...my idea is to have a gate that is activated by doing something in the game. The gate would be under the wire ball guide between the right in lane and out lane. The gate would have the pivot at the top of it. At the game start the gate would be down so the right in lane and out lane would behave just as they do on most modern games. When you do whatever you need to do to activate the gate it swings to the right and makes it so a ball going down the right out lane will be diverted back to the shooter lane and saving your ball. Yeah!

BUT, with the gate being activated and moved to the right it will also make a gap in the right in lane like Williams Grand Prix has. So the player will have to be careful of how they control the ball with the right flipper.

This would make a nice punishment / reward when it comes to activating the gate. It would save out lane drains, but you would also have to stay on your toes a bit more concerning controlling with the right flipper. I'm not sure what technical / design limitations this might have. If done in a faster modern game, I'm guessing the gate would have to be much more sturdy than a lot of the wire gates were in older games.

So can anyone think of any games that have this simple feature? Do you think it would be a nice (even if slightly punishing) feature?

Conundrum_Shooter_Gate.jpg

Yeah...a gate that changes an out lane to an in lane is pretty common, especially on older games. There is no risk when activating that type of gate. It simply makes the out lane a safe place.

Games with that type of in lane / out lane setup always fascinated me too. The lane toward the flipper is actually riskier than the one on the outside.

I've never had one of the older games with the gates, but by the look of them...they seem like they are more suited for games with slower gameplay. They also seem to usually be in a direction or resting against something that keeps the gate physically where is should be, even if a faster ball would get to them. It's usually the direction the gate is going or it is up against the shooter lane or even a nail put in the playfield in some cases. I figured if something like this was designed for a newer / faster game it would need to be a stronger and more heavy duty type gate.

Nooooooo. That's too evil.

There were 2 Flip Flops at the Cleveland show last weekend. I don't believe I had ever played it before. The playfield was a bit to symmetrical for my liking, but it was still a fun play. I don't remember getting any saves off of the lower side rubbers, but I'm not much of a nudger.

300 is as close as I've seen because it has both of these elements, but it's not really the same. 300 has the out lane to shooter lane gate (as many older games do). It also has a gap in the right in lane, BUT they aren't connected. The gap is in the right return lane no matter how the gate is positioned. The gate position and the gap are not affected by one another.