Multimorphic Teases Open Source Multi-Game Pinball 40
New submitter ghops spotted Engadget's coverage of an interesting gaming machine at SXSW, writing: "Multimorphic shows off the P3, an innovative multi-game pinball platform. With a 27" 'touchscreen' LCD in the lower playfield and modular shot layouts comprising the upper playfield, the P3 delivers a 'one machine, many games' system where the physical pinball can interact with graphics on the screen as it rolls towards traditional, physical objects (ramps, loops, targets, etc) on the upper playfield. The system will ship with two games, one designed by famed pinball designer Dennis Norman, and it's an open platform allowing anybody to develop their own shot layouts and/or software. Because of its ball tracking technology, it can even play itself!"
Fun (Score:1)
That sounds fun.
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Because of its ball tracking technology, it can even play itself!"
me too!
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Surprisingly fitting username
I was wondering if he was one of the Boston Felchers.
Wantwantwantwantwant (Score:3)
ZOMG pinball.
ZOMG touchsreen.
ZOMG programmable.
ZOMG PINBALL
*nerdgasm*
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ZOMG pinball.
ZOMG touchsreen.
ZOMG programmable.
ZOMG PINBALL
*nerdgasm*
Very Funny, and yup, Very True!. Thing is, the only people who would be interested haven't got 15 grand for a pinball table,and either already collect old machines, or have built one of those visual pinball tables, which are pretty damn hard to beat, especially with a good playfield monitor.. Also, EVERY pinball project has gone bust from lack of wider appeal.. leading me back to the original quote ! ;-)
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Yeah, the fine print does rather spoil things. That and my partner's likely reaction to me blowing 15 grand on something like this...
Ah well, fun while it lasted. Still need to find a really good pinball game for my Android tablet, though.
Meh (Score:3)
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exactly what I was thinking, its a boring pinball game with a lame video game attached in the middle
yay
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I think you'll be surprised by the end result. Gerry has been into pinball for years and has owned many of the best pinball machines, so I'm sure he'll end up making it a fun game. He has been thinking about this platform for 15 years, so I believe it'll surprise a lot of people.
10 grand... (Score:3)
According to the article, "targeted at the home user" for $9,500 to $10,000 unit... Yes, I can see this thing really taking off!
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means it's built like crap and has limited appeal
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As opposed to those big ass tv screens that can be a magnitude more expensive ?
Which TV sets? Because Costco has an 80 inch TV for around $2,500. I'm wondering how big the $10,000 set is?
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Try 110 inch for $300,000
http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/09/westinghouse-110-inch-4k-hdtv/
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Not to mention for a couple bucks, one can download one of several Android or iOS pinball apps with multiple layouts, excellent sound and graphics, and spot-on physics. A couple seconds to load a different table vs. loading a new ROM & replacing the upper play field for this system.
If you gotta have an actual full sized pinball in your game room, you can probably find the machine you dumped countless quarters into during your misspent youth for sale online, probably for around $2K in decent condition.
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Your hatred is so great and unthinking as to automatically perform s/Android [and|or] iOS/iOS/g on everything you read.
Fascinating.
and for less can also get a full size pc cab with (Score:2)
LCD screens and it can run rom based tables and other tables
The android / ios ones are too locked down and the screen size is too small for pinball.
http://virtuapin.net/ [virtuapin.net]
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I've played Zen Pinball on Android thought the game was cool, but it needed a bigger screen.
As for buying an old pinball machine. Those things need a lot of maintenance.
Jr Pac-Man (Score:2)
Sounds sort of like Jr. Pac-Man [wikipedia.org], except in reverse, along with "touch". I think I'll reserve judgement for now...
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Problem is there is no reward for playing pinball well, but if you play pinball bad, they take away power pills.
It is a penalty system, not a reward system. It made you feel bad if you didn't have perfect pinball play, and if you had perfect pinball play you didn't get any noticeable reward. This makes a person go,"Hey, I'd be better of playing the original Pac Man where I won't get screwed with less than 4 power pills." Then t
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This is what happens when I try to multitask. You're right, I was thinking Baby Pac Man...
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I played this at expo last year and it felt like (Score:4, Informative)
I played this at expo last year and it felt like a little to much was put on to the screen part also the lack of scores / displays on the head seemed out of place.
Layout did not seem as good as other games.
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because it has real elements that don't remind you of any good pinball games?
Pinball Construction Set! (Score:2)
That would be neat to use with this. I don't know about physical parts. That might be hard? Maybe you can do it like Lego does?
Ew. (Score:3)
I love pinball. Some day, when I grow up (if this is a thing that will ever occur), I will dedicate a large room in my house to nothing but pinball and perhaps a pool table. I like pinball games because they are tend to be visceral and real, and not at all related to modern video games, and that they're self-paced: I can hold a ball and plan a shot for as long as I want, at least until the machine resets after a half-minute or so of inactivity.
But I don't like many incarnations of modern pinball: Anything with a video display that I have to divert my attention to in order to score detracts (or distracts) from the physics of just getting the shots right.
The more I have to take my eye off of the ball to understand the progress of the game, the more the game tends to suck. I don't want to hit fictitious targets on a display; I want to hit targets that are mechanically interactive with the ball. Bumpers, pop-ups, magnets, traps, ramps, that sort of thing.
If there are cues that enable better scoring with different targets, then those should be plain so that they can be seen at a glance (such as playfield lamps) instead of on a twitchy-feeling, ever-changing video display with zero mechanical interaction.
I really don't want video eyecandy, at all: I just want physics, scoring, and cues. The big orange dot-matrix LED scoreboard display on seeming every pinball game released in the past twenty years is a nuisance that I never even see unless I'm waiting for the next ball to drop. (I'll check my score when the game ends, thanks, and I'll stuff my first quarter(s) in based on how the playfield looks, not based on how fancy the signage is.)
Otherwise, I might as well fire up the PS3 or 360, which I also enjoy, but not enough that I'd be willing to dedicate a room of my house toward gaming with one (or several). So when I grow up, I'm not getting one of these machines described in TFA.
(On the other hand: If there were a video-based pinball with a good basic mechanical layout and a way to bounce the ball around with non-distracting video targets (grids of electromagnets making linear motors of arbitrary orientation?) and predictable fake physics, I might be fully sold on the concept. But nobody seems to be doing that.)
What is the point of pinball machines? (Score:2)
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they're fun because the ball is wild :)
videogames are predictable, pinball machines always have some random element no matter how skillful you are