Put VR capability with it. Then you could program all kinds of fun graphics with the table. Have the video of what's happening in the glasses put up on the backbox screen so others can see what's happening as well. That's what I'd love to see.

I just don't see VR going commercial unless you can clip on displays onto some sort of disposable helmet. Think about how dirty joysticks and buttons get at arcades. Now imagine that same scum getting put on your head. You can wash your hands pretty easily, head not so much.

With that said, I still think a VR-like experience can be made without glasses. You can simulate 3d objects pretty well with a transparent LCD and head tracking. I've seen some technologies that can create basic laser objects in thin air (this could get better over time). Pinball2k was a step in the right direction (but still had flat images and a dark playfield because of the technology). I would love to see graphics augmented over real game play. Had hologram pinball caught on, we might even see virtual balls mixed in with real ones (or make the real balls different colors).

I've considered this in a two (or more) game format I considered building called 'hot potato' the idea would be that completing shots would block shots of the other play or limit access to ramps or shots and upon completing the 'pass off' they would switch roles. Both playing at the same time, but with different goals.

However I thought a physical connection was problematic. Instead you could do it digitally via signal or wi-fi, or even over the internet, which would be interesting, with activation of a ball transfer via subway or even just normal eject from a captive location.

This would provide for some fun tactics. For example, the 'hot potato' holder is flipping to pass, their score decreases as long as they hold the 'active ball' and shoot a series of shots to transfer. On the defender side, they are shooting to activate blocks (resetting pop up targets with a combination of shots, keeping the 'pass hole' shot blocked, or even making point in other combos to offset or gain on the opposition.

I'm not yet to the point of making a first game but think it has potential for fun.

The ability to enter your skill level, before staring a game. Give at least 3 options for players to choose from. Some choices could be Child, Novice, Average, and Skilled. The adjustments like Easy, Normal, and Hard could also be used.

Local networking is good for that over the internet lag / drop outs / etc will get in the way.

Novice (min timed play in a few varying ways) and Normal has been done as a choice / setting.

Sega and some stern games? have the hold down button when starting to get wizard mode.

I think it needs to be better than choosing. I think a pinball should adapt according to how you're playing in realtime. If you start playing really good, maybe the outposts are movable by servo control.. Or the coils on the slings adjust power to aim the ball towards the outlanes, or maybe a reverse kicker is inactive inside a gobble hole until you start having a good ball. Not saying this would necessarily work for tournament play, but for location pinball this would keep long ball times down (but give novice players a fair chance). this is how slots work, it makes you win at first, but then starts changing odds so you lose. It's what encourages gambling more. Imagine the same kind of adjusting difficulty on a pinball?

After completing all 7 levels on pinout app.. (below is a walkthrough, not mine)

I saw some cool things in there I've never seen in pinball. Yes, many of them could not possibly translate to real pinball (controlling ball direction without flipping, endless table length). However:

* I dug the power up mode (motion link) where the song slows to a stop, and speeds back up when you hit the flipper (almost as if you're pushing a turntable), then slows down again. It made it feel more real.

* I like the part where there's like 2 cross ramps that you have to shoot in order to unlock the wall blocking the next table. The ball also drains into the opposite side with great flow.

* I like the part where there's a ramped wall that's the apron for the next set of flippers. Would be neat to split a playfield into 2 even smaller playfields

pinout_ramp_apron (resized).png

Shakeup the design of the flipper, inlanes & outlanes. There's been variants in the past, like having no inlanes(going way back to EMs), but take it further.

Also an idea I had would be a rehash of Hyperball. instead of flippers, balls would go into the inlanes of 2 steerable ball cannons(not unlike AC/DC &T2) where flippers would normally be. . Shoot the balls around a standard pf. STDM would be a ball loss, but inlanes would queue up the balls for shooting again. So a bit of pachinko & pinball mixed together. Hyperball's gameplay with the lights chasing you didn't feel right.

This is a great idea but it is patented. I'm unsure of the patents current status but perhaps this is one example of why patents stifle progress rather than enhancing it?

* An enclosed small sub-playfield with overlooking camera. When the ball is directed there, the camera will broadcast the sub-playfield onto the LCD backglass. Also has possibilities with graphical augmentation while the player is playing the sub-pf, they look to the LCD to see what is going on and when they hit certain targets, graphics or animations are superimposed over the action

* A ramp with a low-level section in it where the player could nudge the game while the ball is moving on the ramp, using the correct timing the ball could be nudged off the ramp and it could fall and hit targets or a target hole beneath it

* the traditional plunger lane could be eliminated with more of the playfield freed up for additional targets/movement. Instead, the plunger is used to launch the ball into play but it travels underneath the playfield popping up through a hole or trapdoor in the pf surface

* tiny camera(s) on the bottom of the pf pointing upward towards the top of the pf; now and then the LCD backbox display shows the live gameplay and the player making shots. A great attract mode!

only the Category C and lower UK slots work that say. Other slots are full random.

Your idea on the plunger lane under the playfield I have been wishing for to get more in a standard games. Also wish they used the back of the pin cabinet like on IM, Nascar, LOTR, and TWD where ramps go through back of the game and back onto playfield to create more space.

Yes definitely. Many of us like a wide variety of shots/targets on the pf, and to incorporate more, there are of course wide-body pf games like Williams IJ and WOZ, however in both of those machines (and some others) the extra pf space created by the wide-body is... well, not 'wasted', but not utilized as well as it could be for extra shots. For example in IJ you have the idol taking so much space; on WOZ the upper pf's 'crowd' out much of the lower pf. Not that efficient a use of space, with all due respect to the many fans of those two outstanding games.

Conversely you have LOTR, a standard body pin but one of the absolute best layouts/designs and code schemes of any machine- just excellent use of the pf for all the shots with great flow and playing dynamics.

Other ideas:

* This one is a bit more 'out there', but how about the first-ever self-playing pin. Picture the 'Thing' flip on TAF. If something like that could be incorporated into the lower flippers with optics/sensors or whatever technology (if it exists) that could sense where the ball was on the lower pf, then automatically flip the appropriate flipper when the ball was flip-able to keep it in play... this could be used in the game at some point as a partial mode, or it could be used as a heck of an attract mode- the game would launch a ball into play by itself and the flippers would flip on their own. The first robo-pin. Don't know if something like that could be done by a camera perhaps mounted on the backbox pointed at the pf, detecting where the ball was at and calculating through algorithms, the trajectory/velocity of the ball.. it would be complicated. But something, if not now, we would soon be capable of doing.

* A new type of pf target that would resemble a spot target but would be different. Underneath the pf, the target would attach to a small mechanism sort of like a 'pendulum' that would be L-shaped and have a weight on the bottom. The intention would be that when the target was hit, instead of simply bouncing off, the target would 'recoil' back an inch or so, then propel the ball forward again, in the same (or even different) angle at which it was hit. This would give the player the added satisfaction of the target 'reacting' to the successful hit.

* A 'bash' kind of target that would rise up out of the pf surface during certain modes. It would be rectangular in shape and the front of the target would be an LCD screen displaying the target graphically- it could be a monster the player needed to hit with the ball, could be a human character with a weapon, etc. The objective would be to repeatedly hit this target which would display the 'enemy' as well as the enemy's 'energy' or stamina bar, which decreases with each hit. When the enemy's hit points/stamina are depleted, the enemy is defeated, represented on the screen. The target would then sink back into the pf, or another such enemy would appear. With each hit, the enemy would be depicted on the screen recoiling/reacting to being hit. Adding detail if such a feature would be possible, the target could be sensitive to being hit in various areas from left to right, with an indicator on the enemy showing exactly where to hit it to inflict the most damage. Accurate shots to this area of the target would decrease the enemy's stamina the most, where less accurate shots would still damage it but not as much. Would be a fun target to repeatedly hit like Drac in MB.

Matt's Doom machine https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/doom-custom-pinball-machine does away with the shooter lane. He made his own trough mechanism and it shoots the balls out a scoop mid-playfield. Flipper/slings area looks very nice - fast, clean, balanced, symmetrical.

Reliability.

Plastics trimmed in titanium.
Playfield toys made of aluminum and coated using a PVD process.
Thicker clear coats.

One would think you would make a Mick target(in TRS) entirely out of metal or anything but plastic since it's designed to get smacked around, and has no backing behind it. Instead we get poor limbless Mick struggling his way across the stage.

I am a fan of the F1 too, so maybe a pinball machine about F1, with some cars of the 2016 season and this Fernando Alonsos's helmet replica would be just amazing!!!!

I have a feeling the time is intentionally NOT displayed so people forget what time it is and play longer. Same reason casinos don't have clocks or windows. Not that watches and cell phones aren't things, but people do forget to check.

I swore I saw this on modern Stern DMD machines(one of the numerous slides it shows) & even pre-DMD machines. Time and the date.

and a higher bit rate even if game data needs to be 1.5-2GB+

It would be cool if there was a mode (maybe that you tried to avoid), that released other balls onto the playfield that were not the standard steel ball, and were meant to make you lose your ball (the one that counts). They could be similar to the powerball in TZ so the machine knows when/if you lose your actual ball you are trying to keep alive. If you have played the PinOut app, this is where the idea came from. Here is a screenshot to better explain. Your ball is the black one, and these red balls are released making it difficult to keep your ball alive.

bfb4da4cf2a8161ce270a020a1ce95c7bf188920.png (resized).jpg

You can do even more like balls that score X2 X1.5 etc or other balls that are needed to be shoot into X area / ramp / hole to score an jackpot.

Ideas from some old VP tables.

http://freegamechoice.tripod.com/visualpinball/dungeonmaster/

http://freegamechoice.tripod.com/visualpinball/splatterhouse/

http://freegamechoice.tripod.com/visualpinball/ghouls/

Agreed. I would like to see use of other balls as well. Different balls could have different objectives.

Similar to TZ where you have to get the Powerball out of the Gumball Machine, then complete a certain objective. There could be say 3 different trapped balls in different areas on the playfield that you have to release and then do something with them. That would be cool.

Check out post #71 on this thread. I agree with what you're saying.

A beer tap!

That's crazy talk...

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/lionman/page/125#post-3374667
faz

...also used in slot machines.

Can't think of any game that has ramps that move horizontally but I like that idea. Doesn't STTNG have diverters in the habitrails?

Waterworld has a moving habitrail .
Xmen Le has the moving iceman ramp exit .

That is actually a feature in Stern's Kooky Carnival redemption game. In order to clear the playfield of quarters, the playfield vibrates every so often in order to nudge the quarters down into the various holes. However, all the vibration causes a lot of problems, such as shaking parts & screws loose, and cracking solder joints. It's not a feature that would work well long-term on an electronic-based game.

A way to insert pinballs into the game via coin door access. You know, instead of having to take off the lockdown bar, place it somewhere, then slide down the glass, the drop the balls into the top area of the playfield, slide the glass back up, pick up the lockdown bar, lock it back into place, etc. I don't know how many times I've serviced a pinball game, buttoned it all up and then realized I forgot to put the pinballs back in the game.

I miss the animated backglasses. Would love to see someone bring back a game with that.

what about save and load for the very long games like TSPP LOTR and others.

im no programmer, but i dont see why this isnt feasible? logic today is smart enough to save the state (current score, whats currently accomplished, what ball number its on, how many extra balls, how many virtual balls are locked).