Pinball is a game with a long, incredible history.The basic idea for pinball has been around for hundreds of years, so the design is polished and play tested more thoroughly than most computer games. The learning curve, in particular, is beautiful in its simplicity.
learning to play pinball
Written by:zach
"You swear, profusely." Too true!
Pinball was very important to my decision to study video games. Growing up, I never gave it a moment's notice: too hard, too complex, too inscrutable.
But years back, a coworker would spend his lunch breaks in the student union, which had a Simpsons table. I watched him play a few times, and it was a revelation. Some days he could play one credit for a solid hour, needing to return to his desk before his game was over. He dominated the high score board so thoroughly that he had to begin metagaming: his goal shifted from high score to seeing how many credits he could leave on the table for the next person.
It was amazing to watch him play, and it made me think about design and play mechanics in a way that I never had before. And I started applying that thinking to games in general and video games in particular. And here I am.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Pinball
I don't remember the exact first time I played pinball. I don't remember how I got my hands on the Epic Pinball shareware – oh, the days before the internet. But the Cyber Girl table was transformative for my life. I went through all the stages of learning pinball on that table. Now I spend most of my free time playing Pinball FX2. The global highscores are depressingly high, but the friends leaderboard provides a much more attainable goal. Most of the time, at least – one friend has beaten out my metascore with his 43m on Secrets of the Deep and 100m on Spiderman (!), whereas my high scores are about 10m on both.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Pinball
I don't remember the exact first time I played pinball. I don't remember how I got my hands on the Epic Pinball shareware – oh, the days before the internet. But the Cyber Girl table was transformative for my life. I went through all the stages of learning pinball on that table. Now I spend most of my free time playing Pinball FX2. The global highscores are depressingly high, but the friends leaderboard provides a much more attainable goal. Most of the time, at least – one friend has beaten out my metascore with his 43m on Secrets of the Deep and 100m on Spiderman (!), whereas my high scores are about 10m on both.
"You swear, profusely." Too true!
Pinball was very important to my decision to study video games. Growing up, I never gave it a moment's notice: too hard, too complex, too inscrutable.
But years back, a coworker would spend his lunch breaks in the student union, which had a Simpsons table. I watched him play a few times, and it was a revelation. Some days he could play one credit for a solid hour, needing to return to his desk before his game was over. He dominated the high score board so thoroughly that he had to begin metagaming: his goal shifted from high score to seeing how many credits he could leave on the table for the next person.
It was amazing to watch him play, and it made me think about design and play mechanics in a way that I never had before. And I started applying that thinking to games in general and video games in particular. And here I am.