ALL the steins you collect stack for the entire game. There are huge strategic options around choosing steins wisely based on whatever game plan you want to pursue.

So, honest question: why? I hear this criticism from time to time, but don't really get it. Obviously it's trivial for us to multiply all the scores through by 10, or 50, or 100, or 1000, or whatever factor we want to nudge the typical scores into a particular range, but none of that really changes anything.

FWIW, the overall scoring levels of Oktoberfest were designed so that 1 million is a "very good" but reasonably achievable score for mere mortals. This just felt like a good conversational breakpoint... you can humblebrag to your friends "yeah, I got a million on Oktoberfest last night". Just seems a little smoother than the equivalent, perhaps, "yeah, I got two hundred million on Maiden last night". Using lower scoring ranges also has a nice side effect of being able to draw score values on the screen in larger font so they're easier to read.

Tons of strategy in the game. Biggest strategic element is the steins: there are 14 of them, and each stein boosts some playfield feature globally (e.g. higher spinner value, easier roller coaster locks, longer playfield X timer) and also boosts the value of a specific tent. You can collect as many steins as you want, including multiples of the same stein, and all of their abilities stack.

Plenty of other strategic choices as well: which tent features (modes) to play, and when. Caution around locking balls in the beer barrel in multi-player games, because those locks can be stolen by other players. Even stuff like whether you want to use your MagNabs to catch the ball at the top lanes (advance playfield X) or to catch the ball at the UR flipper for easier shots at the bartender or the beer barrel lock ramp.

I love the strategic elements of pinball, and I've made sure there's no shortage here... while, I hope, still keeping the game approachable and fun for less experienced players.

Once (ONCE!) I got the perfect 7-at-once sweep on the OKTOBER bank. First shot of the game, I was so surprised when every light lit up. It’ll probably get a little easier as a machine ages a bit and the target foam softens some.

And yes, scoring is progressively higher for bigger target sweeps, that was one of the first rules I coded.

One thing to be aware of here is that we intentionally left some pretty generous software settings with regard to ball save timers and outlane save rules... I think the outlane posts were also generous. We knew that people would probably be waiting in line for a long time to play, we didn't want anyone to come up and get a 1 minute game and be sent on their way unsatisfied. Accordingly, you should consider the ball times on the Oktoberfests at Expo to be somewhat longer than you'll be likely to see on a default-set route game.