The Pinball Adventure
Journey into the darkest dungeons in search of monsters, bosses, treasure, and.. clinky tinkly sound effects? Yes, this is The Pinball Adventure, a pinball game with an RPG theme that wins today's prize for unlikeliest genre crossover. Made by Michael Gribbin (maker of Pyro) and David Robinson, the game pits your tiny white ball and flipper manipulation skills against the pixel monstrosities of Hades itself. Better bring some extra quarters.
Controls are pretty much what you'd expect for pinball: [left arrow] or [W] for the left flipper, [right arrow] or [D] for right flipper, [down arrow] or [S] to control the plunger. [Space] pauses. Your aim, of course, is to score as many points as possible. The board is on the left, containing clusters of enemies and other areas such as ball locks. As you kill clusters of enemies, different enemy groups may spawn, and once you have cleared a certain number of waves (counted in the center in the board) a mini-boss will appear. Keep going, and you may even get to fight a real boss. On the right side of the screen you can check on current bounties, which are random and include quests such as killing 20 skulls or finding a path to the treasure chest.
The Pinball Adventure's developers consider it to be more of a proof of concept than a full-blown game, and they are actively seeking ideas for improvements and a sequel. The most glaring issue is probably the lack of tilt. It would be great to see them expand the RPG elements into an all-out RPG/pinball hybrid, perhaps by gaining levels and abilities through enemy killing, giving enemies the ability to attack your ball, or even a storyline. I for one am eager to hear the legend of Ballie, the little Spheroid that could. In the meantime, The Pinball Adventure is a brief but fun coffee break game.
Thanks to Michele for sending this one in!
I don't like this.
The ball mechanics are far too jerky: the ball will often hit something at low speed and rocket off in a completely different direction that makes no sense considering what and where it hit, and it clings to surfaces with no visual suggestion that it should. It feels like a prototype to me, not like a finished game.
Hey guys--it turns out we have the wrong version uploaded. Please sit tight, I just messaged Jay about it and hopefully we'll get it squared away before too long!
New version is up!
This is the first pinball game I've actually enjoyed. Having a series of specific objectives was a great addition.
The way the game works reminds me of the pinball game that used to come with windows. It had random "missions" for you to embark on and colorful lights in a circle at lit up as you progressed too. ^^
The monsters are an interesting addition though. ^^
This game lacks the important features of an RPG or of a pinball game, and that's why it disappoints.
If it's an RPG, it should have a sense of advancement - a storyline, an increase in your abilities or at least some variety in the scenery! Maybe they could take a cue from Arkanoid and give you a +5 Flaming Multiball with Lasers.
If it's a pinball game, it needs either something to aim at, or something to do while you wait for the ball to come down. For example, most pinball games have a "tilt" feature, so you could move the ball around a little as you played. Space Cadet (the pinball that came with Windows XP) also let you shuffle around the lights in the rollover lanes so that the ball could light them all up.
Space Cadet's missions, while similar to this game's bounties, had something to aim at, such as "Hit the bumpers at the top!" "Enter the black hole and go up the hyperspace ramp!" A skilled player could try to aim at these targets for extra challenge and points. However, almost all of the bounties in this game just required you to send your ball into the thicket of enemies and wait for enough of them to die. It needs more "Open a huge treasure chest" and less "Crush 20 skulls."
Aegeus's comment made me picture a Pinball/Break-Out mashup ...
@BCS - I would definitely play that!
The physics are a HUGE problem. At first I thought I was somehow lagging because of how jerky the ball's movements were, so I closed as many things as I could. But as this is a brand new computer and I've been able to play much more graphics intense games than this, I doubt my computer is the problem. On the JIG website, the ball sometimes freezes completely on my screen, only to appear at the bottom of the screen after it catches up. I continued playing at another website, though.
If not for the physics, pretty enjoyable. I know pinball-RPGs aren't completely new, but they are very uncommon. The quests sound kind of like grindy MMORPG quests though. I mean "go kill 20 fairies"? Well it isn't as huge a deal as the first problem.
Can't wait until they make a better version, reminds me of those pokemon pinball games but much more informative and also like that Space Cadet game, though I was too young to really understand it back then.
[I can only duplicate the freezing problem in Firefox when I have lots of tabs opened (Firefox is not multi-threaded, use Chrome instead). Otherwise, I don't experience any freezes at all when playing Flash games (including this one) at JIG on my computer, which is about 3 years old. -Jay]
Fun game. I have like three levels where my high score is around the 5.7mil mark, i dont know if i suck or the achievement was well balanced. :) hey, anyone find a way to unlock the pig boss in level 3?
(mentioning the boss cant be a spoiler, it's right there in achievements.)
I still need to hunt down the necrowizard too.
A Free Play option would be cool too, even if you had to unlock it. Level 3 is my favorite.
Oops! Looks like I already defeated the boss I was talking about in level 3. The red shading looks dark on some of those Achievements icons.
Still need to get 6mil and the Necrowizard though. Anyone get to him?
Better music when the real thing comes out, please D:
I like the idea, and pinball's always pretty addicting. Other than that, what Aegeus said.
Interesting. I liked the look of it, though the placement of bumpers and ramps could use a little tweaking.
Performance really needs to be optimized. Even with the quality turned down, the ball seemed to crawl around the table. Once in a while, it would seem to catch up a bit, which means that (for me at least) the ball's movement was highly variable.
The physics side needs some work, too. It felt, I dunno, mushy.
[Hmm, I didn't experience the same thing. For me the ball zipped around the table with ease and the physics felt real and precise. No doubt a Flash performance issue determined by how much of your CPU is available while playing, and how fast that CPU is. -Jay]
Ooh, cool proof of concept. I can imagine a few good ways to develop it.
Besides 3D Pinball: Space Cadet, the other game this reminds me of is Pinball Action. But mostly Space Cadet.
"3D Pinball for Windows: Space Cadet" (apparently the official name for the pinball game packaged with Windows - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Tilt!_Pinball#3D_Pinball_for_Windows:_Space_Cadet) is one of the few things I had to spend my time when I was in India. I actually got kinda decent at it... :P Question: is there any version of that available for download for current Mac systems? Just curious.
As for this game itself: kinda fun, I guess, but the lack of any real goals (other than "hit the things floating around on the screen") and the lack of anything else outside of the levels themselves made it kinda boring. It has potential, though.
Very interesting... kind of reminds me of Pokemon Pinball. Definitely a bit bland, though, but good as a proof-of-concept.
This is a pinball game. The RPG element is a very thin coat of paint on a very standard pinball.
I think the two genres are very difficult to merge. Pinball is all about the moment, RPGs about the story.
It is also a very "physical" game, in that it tries to emulate the action of a real pinball machine as close as possible. (But not doing a very good job of it)
In an electronic game, you have many possibilities that a physical game lacks. Use them!
Look at Ballrooms from the fourth JIG contest for ideas.
Actual first time commenting so I must have seen potential in this.
Agree with others about the physics and lagging issues.
Other than that;
1) The gold you collect, surely you should be able to spend that between levels. Extra balls, special balls, tilt, etc.
2) This is a fantasy RPG. Give us magic.
3) Expanding on that, give us classes. Magic users cast fireballs, fighters hit bosses harder, thieves find traps and secret doors.
4) Yeah, traps and secret doors.
5) If the graphics were roguelike that would be a nice old school touch.
6) The bosses felt pretty weak. You either need to break out the crazy or maybe go to another mode. Need to hit bumpers to activate attacks, specials, etc or something.
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