There's this certain hubris to a lot of commentary about #pinball every time something I post goes a bit viral.
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There's this certain hubris to a lot of commentary about #pinball every time something I post goes a bit viral. The most typical comment is seeing some mechanism and commenting on how stupid it is because the commenter's tech bro expertise would have replaced it with a one cent part. This is what happened with the tilt sensor video where I compared 70s and 2020s tilt sensors.
People were fist fighting each other to tell that it should be replaced with a MEMS sensor. I tried to explain the issue to some, as in the deeper soul of the game there are some things that have always remained no matter how much the technology has progressed. One obvious is the purely mechanical playfield and a ball, which to this day have not been simulated anywhere near satisfactory level. This other example is the tilt sensor, which many just see as momentary switch and completely miss that it actually keeps its momentum and forces the player to "cool it off" after some noticeably strong save move. So, it'd require simulating all that movement, not just the "indicate if the game was pushed beyond this force" information alone. It's also always "simple", but I see no one actually implementing it.
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There's this certain hubris to a lot of commentary about #pinball every time something I post goes a bit viral. The most typical comment is seeing some mechanism and commenting on how stupid it is because the commenter's tech bro expertise would have replaced it with a one cent part. This is what happened with the tilt sensor video where I compared 70s and 2020s tilt sensors.
People were fist fighting each other to tell that it should be replaced with a MEMS sensor. I tried to explain the issue to some, as in the deeper soul of the game there are some things that have always remained no matter how much the technology has progressed. One obvious is the purely mechanical playfield and a ball, which to this day have not been simulated anywhere near satisfactory level. This other example is the tilt sensor, which many just see as momentary switch and completely miss that it actually keeps its momentum and forces the player to "cool it off" after some noticeably strong save move. So, it'd require simulating all that movement, not just the "indicate if the game was pushed beyond this force" information alone. It's also always "simple", but I see no one actually implementing it.
That being said, we've been discussing about the solid state tilt for some time now and it'd be very curious thing to get right. One obvious benefit would be resetting it between players, as the real thing is left swinging if the previous player tilts the game. Another interesting thing would be some kind of an indicator of just how close to the limits the game is taken. A skilled player typically has some kind of a mental model of what's going on, so the simulation would have to match that image pretty closely, or else we're just getting the same reaction as a skilled pinball player playing any of the old simulations and just laughing when the ball does something physically impossible.
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That being said, we've been discussing about the solid state tilt for some time now and it'd be very curious thing to get right. One obvious benefit would be resetting it between players, as the real thing is left swinging if the previous player tilts the game. Another interesting thing would be some kind of an indicator of just how close to the limits the game is taken. A skilled player typically has some kind of a mental model of what's going on, so the simulation would have to match that image pretty closely, or else we're just getting the same reaction as a skilled pinball player playing any of the old simulations and just laughing when the ball does something physically impossible.
@apzpins Two ideas in this space: Taking the "tilt-o-meter" mechanic from the simulated games for the digital one, rather than fully emulating a pendulum, and for physical pendulum mechanisms having the sense ring attached to a solenoid: Between players, the ring can be pushed upwards to "grab" the pendulum and stop it from swinging around, as it's not doing anything useful in attract mode AFAIK.
(Another idea would be putting the tilt pendulum behind a window in the back glass so players can see it swing? But not sure if that would be encouraging or discouraging tilts...)
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@apzpins Two ideas in this space: Taking the "tilt-o-meter" mechanic from the simulated games for the digital one, rather than fully emulating a pendulum, and for physical pendulum mechanisms having the sense ring attached to a solenoid: Between players, the ring can be pushed upwards to "grab" the pendulum and stop it from swinging around, as it's not doing anything useful in attract mode AFAIK.
(Another idea would be putting the tilt pendulum behind a window in the back glass so players can see it swing? But not sure if that would be encouraging or discouraging tilts...)
@becomethewaifu I think the tilt pendulum physics are the similar "holy" part of the game as the ball physics. When you master the game, people can pull insane moves because they can technically do manual resonance compensation when moving the game. This enables one or two insane save moves per ball, which without the skill involved would mean the pendulum would just hit both sides and instantly kill the ball.
The old times virtual pinball concept would just completely ruin this skill aspect of it and understanding just how much of an art the nudging and sliding is often escapes the commenters who'd just put some modern solution there.
When it comes to "resetting" the tilt, a common trick is to put an earplug from where the pendulum hangs from. It won't affect the sensitivity that much, but it pacifies the excess movement faster.
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There's this certain hubris to a lot of commentary about #pinball every time something I post goes a bit viral. The most typical comment is seeing some mechanism and commenting on how stupid it is because the commenter's tech bro expertise would have replaced it with a one cent part. This is what happened with the tilt sensor video where I compared 70s and 2020s tilt sensors.
People were fist fighting each other to tell that it should be replaced with a MEMS sensor. I tried to explain the issue to some, as in the deeper soul of the game there are some things that have always remained no matter how much the technology has progressed. One obvious is the purely mechanical playfield and a ball, which to this day have not been simulated anywhere near satisfactory level. This other example is the tilt sensor, which many just see as momentary switch and completely miss that it actually keeps its momentum and forces the player to "cool it off" after some noticeably strong save move. So, it'd require simulating all that movement, not just the "indicate if the game was pushed beyond this force" information alone. It's also always "simple", but I see no one actually implementing it.
Just to demonstrate how bad the ball physics in pinball sims were, here's a slight nudge in PInball dreams 2. This would require an insane amount of force to happen on a real game.
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Just to demonstrate how bad the ball physics in pinball sims were, here's a slight nudge in PInball dreams 2. This would require an insane amount of force to happen on a real game.
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@apzpins I have to admit, I played enough pinball on my PC that I tried it. I was not successful. That said, I do think if you're not too married to realism it's a good gameplay mechanic.
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@apzpins I have to admit, I played enough pinball on my PC that I tried it. I was not successful. That said, I do think if you're not too married to realism it's a good gameplay mechanic.
@hunterking I used to play a lot of pinball sims at home, mostly because I ran out of allowance to stuff into the real games and the comparison of driving a real sports car and a car race game would be very close to the truth. I enjoyed most pin sims after they got a bit more complex than those on NES and C64, but the ball physics was always the immersion breaker, it was always like playing with a rubber ball than a 80 gram steel one!
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@hunterking I used to play a lot of pinball sims at home, mostly because I ran out of allowance to stuff into the real games and the comparison of driving a real sports car and a car race game would be very close to the truth. I enjoyed most pin sims after they got a bit more complex than those on NES and C64, but the ball physics was always the immersion breaker, it was always like playing with a rubber ball than a 80 gram steel one!
@apzpins I know what you mean. I'm not as immersed in it as you (obviously) but I live three blocks from a movie theater with five or so Stern machines and have been putting more time into the real thing than I used to.
But that comparison is good. Lots of great racing games are nothing like a car. I like the pinball games that go way beyond the realm of the real. Yoku's Island Adventure, Odama.... loved Pokemon Pinball back in the day.
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@apzpins I know what you mean. I'm not as immersed in it as you (obviously) but I live three blocks from a movie theater with five or so Stern machines and have been putting more time into the real thing than I used to.
But that comparison is good. Lots of great racing games are nothing like a car. I like the pinball games that go way beyond the realm of the real. Yoku's Island Adventure, Odama.... loved Pokemon Pinball back in the day.
@hunterking @apzpins It‘s a good comparison cause in both pinball and racing people to simulate the real thing
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@hunterking @apzpins It‘s a good comparison cause in both pinball and racing people to simulate the real thing
@boink And like in racing, I have nothing against the sims. I'd love playing the realistic ones with a good set of pedals and the wheel. But if someone would question owning a real sports car because it can be simulated easily, we get to my problem with the "what's the point of mechanical parts in pinball".
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@jellycrystals This hobby isn't the only one where outsides drop in to give their uneducated takes, but I do seem to get the funniest at times.
To this day people seriously ask why real pins when the game code can be 100% emulated in Visual Pinball or any of he commercial ones. Many claim to even have played the virtual ones and "it's the same".
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@jellycrystals Ain't that a fact of life!
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