I had the chance to play a bunch of games on WOZ, thanks to the
open house Rick of Bay Area Amusements held.
Here are a few thoughts.
At this point I was just trying to see
how the game felt to shoot since there is so much yet to be
incorporated into the rules, lighting effects, display effects etc.
I found WOZ to be very fun to shoot. I thought the main shots were
satisfying to hit. I especially liked the smoothness of the ramp shot
and the orbits, and that the Wizard shot did not bounce out when hit.
I did not get much opportunity to spin the house, but the witches
castle playfield was fun and challenging to get all the letters.
One thing I really liked was the nudgeability of the game. I tend not
to be a big nudger, but the state fair pop bumper begs you to push the
machine around, and once I started it was very fun to do it during
regular game play. The outlanes can be killers, but sometimes they can
be avoided with appropriate nudging.
I thought the game had a good balance of randomness versus
skilled play.
The flippers were not as powerful as the BBB right next to it, but
they didn't feel bad to me, just different. I had no problem making
any of the shots and it was easy to cradle the ball, bump pass, etc...
The rear leg levelers were about half way out. The speed of the game
was okay, but I would probably raise the rear legs a little more.
Shot wise, the upper right flipper is one thing I question as the only
unique shots it seems to have is the skill shot target through the pop
bumpers and opening it to create a return lane to the shooter . I
imagine it can be made more useful if hits made by it count more than
similar hits by the lower flippers or at random. I'm sure Keith will
find interesting ways to use it.
In all, I was very pleased with the game. Can't wait to see future
developments.