I’ll probably get some heat for this but stern can we please get a game with a simple easy to understand rule set?

BSD is one of my all time favorite games and it’s because of how basic and rewarding the rule set is.

Easy to start multi ball and for the advanced the challenge of staking all 3.

As an operator I’m afraid that the casual player has no idea what’s going on and if their doing well or not. Leaving the experience unrewarding.

I've said this before (as have others) and will continue to do so... I have to think Stern is looking at trying to do Nintendo themed machines. May be a difficult license to obtain, but it's been done before. The popularity of Mario, Zelda, Pokemon is just too much to ignore.

I'm not into Pokemon but I would think it's theme would be perfect for pinball gameplay.

BKSOR was just that, don't know how well it sold.
Musters seems to be that way as well

Pokemon....LE right away. Just take my money.

I think it would be interesting, i mean Stranger things is a Netflix show.

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Casuals don’t pay attention to even the most basic instructions. For example, time and time again, on Scared Stiff, the spider hole:

Visual Queue: PF goes dark, DMD displays arrows pointing up and instructs player to use flippers to stop the spider.
Audio Queue: “Look up! Stop the spider!”

You know what they do? Don’t look up, stare at the PF, they think the game broke, and start mashing the flippers. There is no saving these people. I think even the most complicated rule set on a modern pin is easier to understand than solid states — but I didn’t grow up on those so might just be lack of experience. Hobbit can fuck off though.

Would love to see a SLE Back to the Future!

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Oh Jesus don’t weebify my BTTF.

Gross

How about a National Lampoons pin? Like Vacation movies?

007 Vs Spectre ?

Munsters was pretty simple and I don't think it did well.

Casuals don’t pay attention to even the most basic instructions. For example, time and time again
Visual Queue: PF goes dark, DMD displays arrows pointing up and instructs player to use flippers to stop the spider.
Audio Queue: “Look up! Stop the spider!”
You know what they do? Don’t look up, stare at the PF, they think the game broke, and start mashing the flippers. There is no saving these people.

It’s not really about “Casuals” or “newbies”. It’s about people who don’t want to pay attention to the topic they are involved in. People in general don’t want to learn about whatever topic they are doing. They pretty much just want to be spoon fed the easiest way to do it. Reading the play rules or even rules in life are too much for them. You can see the same people in regular life doing the same things. Whatever product they buy or use isn’t maintained or isn’t working the way it’s supposed to is “broken”. It’s always everyone else’s fault.

Beatles, Munsters, PBR, Star Wars Home.

How the fuck could you consider Star Wars simple?

If Stern or anyone else for that matter releases a Pokemon machine it would be my first NIB machine. No doubt about it. Call me a nerd but I'm a huge Pokemon fan. I even caught them all. For now!

-Nerd

I also would purchase my first NIB if Pokemon dropped.

He said SW home. That’s like each character has a specific shot and repeat that x many times.

I personally didn’t find munsters to be that simple however i haven’t played it in years so maybe code has changed.

I remember playing and getting a low score and playing a similar game with a crazy score must have been multiplayers that i didn’t realize we’re going on.

I understand that the super super novice players won’t care but for anyone semi interested in the hobby a simple rule set is enjoyable.

I’m obsessed with pinball but I’m sorry avengers is over my head i don’t understand 50% of the game and i feel that it hurts the overall experience. Had a similar feeling with JP.

Maiden however is my favorite but that could be because of how in-depth they were with the reveal videos.

AFM/MM those rule sets are perfect for an intermediate player in my opinion.

Beatles/PBR/SW home pin I’m sure are simple rulesets but also very bland playfield‘s

Just my amateur opinion

Minus the heart thobby anime style please

I’m in for Godzilla if it is Toho Godzilla. I really hope the rumors of Stern giving Elwin more BOM money and cool mechs for his next pin is true.

Yes, like mecha Godzilla or King Kong rising up out of the middle of the play field, and you are Godzilla playing the game.

Probably a contributing factor for why there's a bigger than usual Stern price bump in Sept.

I really doubt it's actually Godzilla, though. Godzilla-sized theme (harry potter, back to the future, etc)? Yes. But Stern supposedly has the Toho Godzilla license, so who knows?

Stern has already had their yearly price bump. What do you mean a price bump in Sept?

Everyone is hearing from trusted sources a large price bump is coming soon.

I mean a large, out of cycle price bump. Aligning it with Keith's next game in Sept makes sense as people will line up for it regardless of the size of the full-line bump.

That sux. I sold my AIQ pro with plans to add a small amount to it to get Keith's next pro.

Pulp Fiction is CGC

It's Godzilla. Designed by Keith.

I sure hope this large price increase thing is a rumor or meant for the next kapow title which would make more sense. Still Stern has had their annual increase and should leave it as is till next year.

It's "Godzilla" designed by Keith.

I agree with you. Avengers and Maiden both have deep code and interesting shots, but the way they are presented to a player is way different.

My take on maiden is that any random player, whether total novice or an experienced pinballer, can have a lot of fun from the start without knowing any of the rules. The highlights and callouts are clear and the shots intuitive enough to get rolling and feel like they're making actual progress on the game after a few plays. Optimizations like how to stack different modes, time different collects and ride the multipliers to get crazy high scores and unlock wizard modes are everywhere, but if you focus on playing good pinball you'll learn them naturally over time by playing and have a good time doing it. When I watched a few videos of top tier players, there were a lot of comments like "oh that's a good idea" as far as shot orders or how to stack something, but nothing that stood out as "I never would have figured that out ever."

First time I played avengers, after 10-20 games I was hitting more shots than the first game but scores were low and I didn't feel I was making progress, and following a lot of the callouts/indicators actually felt like it was making matters worse. So then I went and watched a few videos of that and it was all about ordering the extra-action-button modes and making shots that the callouts/lights weren't drawing attention to. I don't want or expect the callouts to guide me through an optimal play strategy, but following them should feel rewarding and it certainly shouldn't feel like a *bad* approach.

With each new release, I've had a growing ire for the extra action button. It's feeling more and more like a solution in search of a problem, rather than a desirable feature that makes the game better. The first few games that had it felt like a tacked on novelty with barely any purpose at all and in some games literally didn't in early code. The only instance where I've felt like maybe they found a truly novel use for it is stealing balls from the TK lock on stranger things premium/le.

Now on avengers it seems to have swung the other way, where the path to feeling productive is memorizing a bunch of non-intuitive extra shots in the modes that you select and rearrange with the extra action button. It's certainly made the eab a core function of the game, but is that good when trying to learn? It feels like I'm taking shots at random and not learning as I go. Pre-learning the rules feels more or less mandatory to feel any progression at all.

This is the essence of pinball.

Back in the day there was no internet with collaborative wikis to compile rules. You played good pinball, watched the lights, and from Gorgar and beyond, you listened to the callouts.

I think Elwin keeps a great balance between casual fun and complexity. Can’t wait for Godzilla.

Beatles just looks like a rebuild of a solid state pin, simple rules does not mean an empty playfield....
Munsters to me looked great, even though I've never heard of the theme, but the music and callouts are so annoying that I just couldn't convince myself to buy it, it looked like a fun and simple to understand game to me

Isn't the rumor that its primary purpose was to help casuals start a game? You'd be shocked by how many people can't figure out how to start a pinball machine; blinking start button be damned. I generally like the extra mechanic. Tacked on, sure. But it's a nice little "extra thing to do" while playing, and some strat involved on when to use it + when it's safe to take your hands off the flipper buttons. Deadpool does a good job with it.

It's hard to discuss without coming off a lot angrier/ranty than I really am. I agree with your point about it being a potentially cool decision about whether it's safe to take a hand off the flippers, but the way it seems to be playing out is they've just made it part of the standard cab design and attach something to it whether it improves the game or not (or makes it worse).

A perfect example might be the magna save on SOR. Love it or hate it, magna save is tradition on BK and it would have been fine on SOR as a second button near the flipper button. Moving it to the center on SOR means that it's out of reach the one time you need it as your hands are glued to the side trying save a drain with flipper tricks/nudging.

I'll give them credit for the TK lock steal on Stranger Things, but it's only on the Premium and only came in a later code update. I've pointed it out a few times to players far better than I am as an actual cool feature and each time they didn't even know about it. The base functionality of killing a single gorgon as well as the super tranq on JP are basically a free spot when you brick a critical shot rather than an interesting decision.

AIQ it feels like they actually thought about it from the start and I know some people like that one but I find it breaks me out of the zone scrolling through menus mid-game. AIQ has other issues in my book, so its hard to pin down how much of it is the eab vs the other issues. It at least doesn't feel tacked on but it still feels like it was dictated by it's presence in the existing cab that they designed around rather than being inspired by the game it's in.

I'll take your word for it on Deadpool as I failed to find one before corona shut down everything and now that it's lifiting every time I go to a place that has one it ends up being out of order.

I'd never heard that about the start button but it makes sense. Whenever I go to some random location to play for a few hours there's always a few people putting a few quarters into a game without one then hunting around for a minute trying to figure out how to start the game before someone points it out to them or they go looking for a mechanic.

Ive had Maiden pro for 3yrs. Never leaving.
Had AIQ premium for 7mo. Love the shots. Not my style of code i guess.
Got JP pro about two weeks ago. Love the shots.....pretty much ready to sell it already.
Maiden code is a hit with novice and pro alike.
Other Elwin titles have evolved into elite level code. I can see why some people want this in a home game but its still a bit much. He is easily my favourite layout designer but im getting bummed out by the code i think. We got JP and Mando on the same day and Mando has been getting all the play. Im still excited for the next Elwin titles but they arent instantly on my wishlist anymore.

Nice like MB. It looks like Stern is putting more into there new pins, now days, except Led Zeplin. They need to they have more competition now days. I really hope Godzilla nocks it out of the park, for Stern. As I am really hoping get one.

For me it's sound packages.

Maiden has an awesome one, AIQ and JP, not so much.

Nothing Keith can do about that unfortunately.

Stern please make this.

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Admittedly I'm not much of Godzilla fan. I do understand the huge cult following the franchise has and thats great, to each their own!

I am having a hard time seeing classic Toho Godzilla translating to modern stern pinball. Spooky did have a successful launch of smaller franchise with similar type art, although spooky numbers and stern numbers are on vastly different scales.

If I am understanding it right, toho godzilla also encompasses the modern Godzilla universe (king of the monsters/ vs Kong). Is that the rumored direction? I could see that working for a Stern Elwin theme.

Honestly i guess you can throw any theme on a Elwin design and people are gonna buy the heck out of it.

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I agree that would make for an awesome pin. Already saw the film twice really enjoyed it.

As far as sound goes. The orchestra music in the background from like the Toho Godzilla. Is epic! As you play Godzilla himself.
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Universal Studios is the defacto owner of King Kong today, so if Kong was part of a Stern Godzilla, they'd have an additional licensor to pay and please. This is why I believe the game will be based solely on Toho stuff not involving Kong or other studios.

Yes, I can see that too. I also think that toho is also better as is has a more campy or fun theme.
Stern bought license for both, new and old. First or second week of September, we will know.

True. There is so much story to go with. If they would just stick with KANTO and perhaps some bonus side missions like mewtwo, ho-oh ect. I think they could make a rockin pin.

Some people are swearing it’s Godzilla, some people are swearing it’s Rush. I guess come September we’ll see which one, if either, is right.