A lot of these ideas are straight out of Pinball FX 2...
Quoted from pezpunk:magnets or conveyor belts moving balls from place to place
Ms. Splosion Man has conveyor belts as kickbacks.
Quoted from flashinstinct:if a projector could use the glass to put an extra dimension on the playfield (kinda like pinball 2000)...(of course this is unrealistic)...but it would be awesome so see scores light up on the glass as you hit things.
Standard option on PBFX: arcade-style scoring where the scores pop up right over the scoring element/switch. I love it.
Quoted from flashinstinct:Some kind of death save helper.....a diverter pops up in the back of the apron to keep the ball in play
Not death saves, but their ball saves are often very creative. Rather than letting the ball drain and just launching a new one, it will actually save it in a creative fashion. Exploding barrel shoots the ball back up through the flippers, Wolverine claw throws the ball back, etc.
Quoted from OLDPINGUY:More "power ball" type usage. Whether the ball is white, non magnetic, anodized, chip inside, etc...
a visually different ball, not so easy to get, changes the gameplay for that ball....different shot order,
one of a kind shot, like gumball in TZ, etc. This makes a goal of getting that special ball even sweeter!
I'm not sure if it's possible (and it sure would be expensive), but how awesome would it be to do something like the PBFX Avengers table where each ball represents a different superhero and the game knows which ball is where (using a chip inside, or sensing the paint color somehow?). The implications for advanced rulesets are insane. They have stuff where stacking the right character with the right mission gets you double points, Hawkeye gets higher skillshot points, Hulk requires fewer hits to "bash" things open, etc.
Quoted from mnpinball:I was really looking forward to seeing memory resettable single zombie drop targets in TWD or a moving toy that advances toward the flippers.
Quoted from swampfire:I agree, zombie targets mid-playfield would have been cool. Especially if there was a series of them. Hit the farthest away one in X seconds, or it drops and a closer (more dangerous) one pops up.
Their Plants Vs Zombies table has zombies advancing down the lanes towards the flippers and you have to fight them off. Moon Knight has something similar with the "ebony energy".
Now of course that is just a video game, but it's funny how some of the same ideas are popping up. Obviously operating in a physical space with some sort of budget is a lot different, but I wonder how close you could come to emulating some of these experiences mechanically. The lines of drop targets to represent zombies advancing is a good example of one that seems feasible.
Also, although I've only played it on The Pinball Arcade, I thought the rotating cube on Lights...Camera...Action! that revealed different shots was a cool idea.
Quoted from dr_nybble:Since a lot of games are sold for home use, how about a campaign mode where completing the game is not done in one session but over days or weeks? Think missions, levelling up, etc.
I'm not sure about designing the whole game around continuous progression because these still have to work as quick games in the wild, but I wrote up my ideas for user profiles with achievements that I think could be great for home use: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/new-stern-os-suggestion-user-profiles
