I posted this elsewhere (in a thread about pindemption), but I thought I would repeat here for people who are considering pindemption:
Just to report back after playing with pindemption for a few days:
* It's fun, but obviously not very deep. It definitely won't be the main way I play, and in fact, I played more on regular rules than pindemption rules even though it was new.
* Still, it's great for a quick fix. Last night, I only had a few minutes to play and didn't want to get sucked into a long game, so I played with the pindemption rules. I have it set to 3 minutes and sudden death. I had a blast. I'm trying to melt the witch in that amount of time (more about that below), and I loved trying to complete the objectives in a short time period. It was fairly addictive.
* The objectives are simplified but kind of cool. For instance, to melt the witch, you first have to spell each of the characters via the roll overs and also advance 10 times down the yellow brick road. It's pretty difficult to do that in 3 minutes, but I only have average shot accuracy. I finally did it last night with 20 seconds left. The witch shot is then red. If you hit it, it seems like you go into an abbreviated BTWW mode. The BTWW music comes on, the playfield turns green, and the winkie shot is lit. That's as far as I made it before time ran out, but I assume you have to shoot that shot and then the ramp followed by the witch. But, you only have one ball in play, so I'm not sure. Again, it is pretty addictive to try to do this in 3 minutes.
* The animation for the ticket awards is cool, and it is fun when you get a large pay out like completing the castle objective. That involves lighting the monkeys, getting Dorthy captured, spelling RESCUE and bashing the doors. Since you only have one ball, once Dorthy is captured, you are immediately up in the castle playfield and can start trying to spell RESCUE.
* As expected, it is good for people who are less familiar with pinball. My daughter had a friend over yesterday who had never played a pinball machine. (I had to show her where the flipper buttons were and what they did.) Her game would have been over in seconds on normal settings. But, she got to play for a full 3 minutes and really enjoyed collecting the tickets. At the end, I heard her tell my daughter that pinball was fun. Again, she may have had a completely different experience on normal settings. Even my wife prefers it. We had a mini pindemption tournament. (She won with 57 tickets.) She liked taking turns and not having to wait a long time for me to finish a really good ball.
* So, overall, it is a good compliment to regular play, though most of the time I will be playing regular rules.
EDIT: The BTWW mode in pindemption actually puts two balls in play and starts with the winkie shot being lit. I guess when I got there before, time ran out before it could put the second ball in play. Kind of nice that they give you a multiball mode.