(Topic ID: 321818)

Worst playfield design decision in modern pinball?

By westofrome

1 year ago


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    #127 1 year ago

    At this point most modern games have been mentioned in one way or another, so I'll go with something a bit older:

    Gladiators is up there with all time worst playfield designs.

    I really like the idea of the shots on the playfield. But anyone who has played one eventually realizes the physical exploit. Hold the upper left flipper up, and endlessly shoot the upper u turn with the upper right flipper. Very easy shot. It will always safely come back to the upper right flipper while holding up the left flipper.

    Literally breaks the game and ruins an otherwise very imaginative layout.

    #136 1 year ago
    Quoted from koji:

    Only thing to happen with these flippers is something actually different to the default italian bottom stern template... Nope.. people complained so back to the usual.

    There is a lot more subtle variations in the Italian bottom than people realize if you start overlaying playfield layouts on top of one another. Like I've noticed Elwin sets his slingshots much further to the side than most other designers.

    Here is an example of Godzilla overlain on Led Zeppelin

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    #139 1 year ago
    Quoted from Rdoyle1978:

    That's pretty fascinating! Where did you find those layout graphics?

    Just download the Stern manuals, load up photoshop, put the layouts on top of each other on separate layers, and tweak the opacity for the layer.

    #165 1 year ago

    I feel like if the point was to prevent SDTM from the magnet then Lyman would have just coded a temporary ball save instead of hiding some complex rules for the user controlling the magnet. Also more people would be aware of it and surely it'd be in the patch notes if it was added later.

    The magnet throwing it down the center occasionally seems an accepted part of the design. It's supposed to be a hard game and Borg designs a lot of his games with magnet features placed by risk/reward areas

    #172 1 year ago

    There are definitely games that are very particular about how to be setup or they don't work as intended. Halloween/Ultraman jumps to mind in terms of needing just the right pitch and minimal cross slope, otherwise there are subway issues and the butt pretzel is just butt.

    #175 1 year ago

    Iron Maiden's cross field plunge that also loads balls for Trooper is extremely dependent on how the game is setup. Thought I remember hearing Keith said he'd never design another ball launch like that again.

    #191 1 year ago

    Beatles is an amazing playfield design and ruleset. Sea Witch but better (and they added an option to play OG Sea With rules which is supper cool)

    Though I can see why a Beatles fan may not like it.

    Beatles one of my favorite Spike 2 games though. It's such a fantastic tournament game.

    #196 1 year ago
    Quoted from pinballkim:

    Can this be done via the flippers or is it a setting?

    Hold in the flippers before starting a game, like other Sterns. Not sure if it has to be enabled

    #222 1 year ago

    Some people don't like how the ball can drain from the lower playfield on Black Hole, while I think that's an excellent feature. Light your re-entry before going down or complete the lower playfield goals for re-entry. I think it's a good way to deal with a player spending too much time "out of danger" in a lower or upper playfield.

    Different strokes for different folks

    1 week later
    #244 1 year ago

    I hate Whoa Nellie because it probably poisoned Stern on the idea of simpler single level gameplay for years. Between the art, sounds, and meh playfield design...no surprise that layout didn't sell too many copies.

    Beatles though? Excellent. Next Elwin as a single level? I'm super hyped

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