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26/01/16 The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy -


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- So it might be time to explain myself here -

 

This has been a long project , 5 years so far , 3 years on / 2 years off .

I have had to take regular breaks from this project , if I didn't I would have fallen out of

love with the THHGTTG itself and I didn't want that ( hats off to designers who have to work on a theme they don't like to start with ).

 

I made some other games in those yearly breaks - Lawman & Airplane! some very popular games with players especially Lawman

...a simple game ,with simple objectives but a long winded game that's not stingy with Multiball.

THHGTTG when standing in a room next to Lawman didn't get the #1vote

 

Anyone who's tried knows "Making a Pinball is hard" and making it fun is even harder.

For three years this Pin went to Aus Pinfest and I learnt - what people liked - and did - and looked at - when they played the game.

 

For a start THEY DONT LOOK UP !!! The rear Backglass Monitor is a FAIL .

 

I found even with a ball locked in sight players would look into the

trough rather than look at the animation on the rear screen.

 

The rules were great for a Pinball however not great for this Pinball , I had lost sight of telling the Story - Just tell the story!

 

The Playfield is -toast- it suffered a major structural fracture and whilst it has been repaired I cant live with it.

There is also the matter of the flipper and sling geometry that I've never been completely content with.

 

So Bear with me...hopefully we shall see the completion for Pinfest 2020 in September

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So Bear with me...hopefully we shall see the completion for Pinfest 2020 in September

 

Love the insight and thought you put into your pins.

 

Already cleared my diary for Pinfest, don’t want to miss seeing the new and improved version [emoji3]

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Mate, I love your work and the inspiration your posts provide for people like me. I agree with the player never looking at the animation on the backglass. I do however think it is an asset in attract mode to actually draw people to the machine in the first place. When the Pinball 2000 project was announced, I honestly thought it was the wrong path pinball should go. No pinball that incorporated video ever did well and that was sort of proven with the Pinball 2000 program itself.

 

Who knows exactly how far the concept of incorporating video on the playfield was going to go. We will never know but I personally think it was limited and to get it to work was restrictive on other aspects of the pinball such as shorter playfields and being able to see the playfield clearly enough in sun and bright light situations.

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No pinball that incorporated video ever did well and that was sort of proven with the Pinball 2000 program itself.

 

Thinking about it today I don't think your statement is true of P2000

 

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Thinking about it today I don't think your statement is true of P2000

 

 

“We have to get everything right there is no second chance” - George Gomez

 

Entire devision gets sacked anyway. George gets second chance at stern. :)

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They did produce 6800 RFM and 3500 SWEP, so not to bad seeing they got out of the pinball business at the same time

 

Agree pin2000 didn't fail sales wise. 5k was the bench mark in those days as being successful. Swep1 was disappointing sales wise but had not been given the time to run its course. Next title would have told the true story had it been released.

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Agree pin2000 didn't fail sales wise. 5k was the bench mark in those days as being successful. Swep1 was disappointing sales wise but had not been given the time to run its course. Next title would have told the true story had it been released.

 

Pin2000 was sold to operators as a machine design that had one very interesting feature. It was the first style pinball to have interchangeable playfields, update-able software and stickers to allow the one machine to be converted to later models as the machine become unprofitable as part of the design. Exactly what operators had been doing on video machines for years as a means to upgrade.

 

This is the part I would have liked to have seen taken further. Pinball's biggest problem these days is it's cost VS revenue ratio. If however you were able to cut the cost of buying a totally new pinball by reusing parts of what you already had using major parts from previous an now unprofitable machines, you are able to get this cost VS revenue ratio to a much more exceptable figure.

 

I suspect if Swep1 was the first machine of this series of machines, it would have had the 6800 units figure.

 

As soon as operators heard the chance no more playfield "kits" were being offered to suit the PIN2000, sales dropped.

 

This feature doesn't really effect the home market but the operator's market, it would have made a massive difference but unfortunately Williams pulled the pin probably 3 or 4 games to early to see. It's a bit like the car market with operators not really wanting to jump at the first model of a run and by the time Swep1 was released, it was pretty well known in the industry Williams were contemplating closure.

 

Sales were cancelled and the rest is history. That is the part that makes me thing the video concept had very little impact on these machines acceptability other than adding cost to the initial purchase of a "full machine".

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Got the Backglass Monitor and Topper mounted Tonight

Deciding on the 'look' it will have from the front.

 

Chrome edge / White timber / Black Screen Frame seems to work

 

IMG_20191011_205002.thumb.jpg.184bc3b0aa7b4a4b06895251581e8428.jpg

 

 

 

 

Edited by kress
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

TEST RIG FOR 7 MAIN SHOTS

 

Slowed down to compensate for phone camera

 

I built this as a way to watch TV and still work on the

game rules / Sound / video animations

 

This Program is running 'standard play' which counts 4 x completions on each shot.

This is the core of Marvin Multiball

 

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