i saw a video of that the other day, thought the playfield insert layout looked really good. Not so sure about the 90's pseudo-3D graphics from the screen though. REminded me of Donkey Kong Country on the Super Nintendo. And the local Bowling alley which still uses CRT monitors and cheesy animations for Strikes, spares, splits etc...
Back to the subject;
Strangely, as a lover of the retro 90's machines, i'm really interested in what PL can do working with JJP's platform and no licensee. I'm still playing catch-up on all this stuff, but it seems that the last 10yrs have been a bit creatively stifled, because most Pinball stuff that you can do with a table, steel balls and gravity have been done already, really well too. Refinements and small evolutionary steps have become the norm. JJP's platform seems to have some real potential, but is also trying hard to remain a Pinball machine with an updated score board.
Wikipedia states:
Pinball is a type of
arcade game, usually coin-operated, in which points are scored by a player manipulating one or more steel balls on a play field inside a glass-covered cabinet called a
pinball machine. The primary objective of the game is to score as many points as possible. Points are earned when the ball strikes different targets on the play field. A drain is situated at the bottom of the play field, protected by player-controlled plastic bats called
flippers. A game ends after all the balls fall into the drain. Secondary objectives are to maximize the time spent playing (by earning "extra balls" and keeping the ball in play as long as possible) and to earn bonus games (known as "replays").
So if Pinball as we know changes into something more than this what will it become? Pinball-vision? iPin-TV? #
Downloadable content, however annoying it might be in videogames, might be on the cards.
Internet-enabled scoreboards and updates should be the norm nowadays - other coin operated machines use it. Posting scores to Facebook even. Maybe multi player concepts should be further explored? So the high score isn't necessarily the main aim anymore.
There's some real potential with that JJP machine, but it has to work seamlessly with the play-field and add to the game, not distract from it.
Dunno. Rambling now.