Scorbit v1.1.4 - Announcing the Scorbit Open Achievement Platform
Today Scorbit launches
Achievements! This is a free, open platform that works across hundreds of pinball titles from the 1970's to modern games. It is compatible with any manufacturer, from any location, across 50 years of pinball. No, really, that's what we said! Let's start with a video!
Achievement FAQ
What's all this about achievements?
I know, we talk a lot about achievements, and have for many years. Let's start by explaining what we mean:
Achievements are easter eggs. They are magical little bonuses or badges that you receive for doing fun things that you discover. Sometimes, achievements are simple, other times, impossibly hard. They can be fun to collect or share with others. Sometimes they can motivate a certain type of play, even with a game that you've grown tired of twenty years ago.
To cook up an achievement, you have to decide what triggers it, and how complex it is. Is it something you an unlock while playing a single game, or does it require many games to achieve it? Does it require playing different titles, from different eras? Do you have to be in a specific location? Are scores involved, or specific people? Is time a factor?
Scorbit spent years thinking about these things, considering how to make something like this really open. Today, we're launching our achievement platform. We say "platform" because that what it is, it's a foundation on which game designers, developers, operators, venue owners, players and others can create and express ideas that transcend what is possible from plunge to drain.
Why an open platform?
For the scope of this to work, the platform has to be open to anyone who wants access to it, and that is what we have built. We needed great game designer minds to come up with the first ones, so it's not a surprise we're launching this with Jersey Jack. To do so, we gave them access to our API (application programming interface) to play with and figure out how they wanted to start using it. What one game designer dreamed up was different from others, and will likely change and evolve over time. Other manufacturers are already coding against it with plans to launch achievements on Scorbit.
After Jersey Jack, the team at Scorbit will release achievements for game titles going as far back as there are electronic machines. The more sophisticated the game, the more opportunities for fun achievements.
Remember, the Scorbit Achievement Platform works across hundreds of titles. It isn't limited to JJP, it works with solid states from the 70s and 80s, DMDs from the 90s, and even LCD games currently manufactured. It works on any manufacturer's games.
On day one, Jersey Jack did the work over the past year and came up with some fun ones on their entire catalog of games, and will roll each one out successively starting with Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. You'll soon see them on all JJP's titles.
In the future, we will expose the Achievement creator to not only manufacturers, but also venue owners, operators, and other users who can craft unique achievements associated with the games they have on location. Achievement unlocked, free beer at the bar! When we said open, we meant fully open! First we will get the mechanics well tested, then release it publicly.
What kind of achievements can you tell us about?
At the highest level, achievements can be real-time, or be calculated post-game, depending on the ingredients. Ingredients are what we mentioned previously, scores, targets, modes, time, titles, locations, speed, tournament participation..
Achievements can be permanent, meaning once you earn them you have them forever, or trophy, meaning you can lost them to someone else.
Some require completing tasks within a single game, others across multiple games. All are stored in your Scorbit profile, so it travels with you.
How can this work on a game that was made 30 years ago?
When Scorbit is installed in any vintage game, we have real-time data. For example, in a DMD game, we can optionally change the display, so in some cases we are able to display these achievements and other messages right on the DMD. We know the game state, the modes, and scores, all in real-time. That being said, there are hundreds of game titles out there. Our challenge is to create these achievements over time, in a respectful way working with as much original design talent as we can.
You mentioned tournaments above, how does this relate?
Match Play and DTM have taken advantage of the Scorbit open platform and have released integrations with Scorbit that are fairly extensive. They rely on the platforms being open and span across machines of any manufacturer to work. The people behind both of those software platforms plan much further integrations as we continue our strong partnerships with them. The more these systems use our API, the more we can do to use them as triggers.
You can learn more about Match Play here:
Also the next generation of Match Play integrations here:
About a year ago I started working on the next version of Match Play in earnest. Progress hasn’t been as fast as I hoped for two reasons: This past year has been quite stressful due to… the world and it turns out Match Play is a complicated app that can do a lot. Back in May I shared a couple...
tiltforums.com
Drain Tournament Manager information can be found here:
How do I unlock achievements?
To access achievements, all you need to do is download the free
Scorbit app, log in, start a game and claim a player slot by tapping the player number. A fully integrated game will respond, especially in the case of JJP. Once the game and cloud knows that you're playing, your actions begin to count towards earning that achievement.
Not all achievements are awarded for game play! Scorbit also is aware of venues, people, time, blood alcohol level, and shoe size.
Where do I view achievements?
When you unlock an achievement, it may be displayed on the game, or sometimes just in the app. You receive push notifications (which can be muted) for achievements you receive. For major achievements, your followers on Scorbit will also be notified.
You can see what other players are scoring or achieving via their profile. Clicking on the "stats" button for any player allows you to see all their vital information, including a machine-by-machine listing of achievements and scores they have earned.
Anyway, there's a lot to unpack here, so we'll leave some to mystery.
Release notes and press release below.
Thanks,
-Jay, Ron & Brian
Scorbit v1.1.4 Release Notes:
- Achievements
• You can unlock achievements based on real-time game activity or other combinations of factors
• Some achievements are displayed, some more mysterious
• Trophy achievements can only be held by a single player at any time
• Achievements can now be viewed in your user profile or other user's profile as they are achieved
• Achievements details screen describes the achievement and how it's been achieved
• You receive a notification when you achieve something, and it appears in your profile and activity feed
• You receive a notification when someone you follow achieves a major or trophy achievement
• You can mute notifications from individual players on their profile with the mute button
• You can turn off all achievement notifications in the Account Menu > Settings > Notifications
- User Profile
• User profile now has Scores / Achievements / Challenges tab
• Mute button added to stop notifications from a single user
• Initials and full name added to profile
• IFPA Player Number added to Profile Edit screen
• Stats view added with player Statistics and Scores/Achievements tab
• Statistics tab includes various fields about a player's performance, including IFPA Rank
• Scores/Achievements tab allows you to see all saved scores or achievements for a specific game title
• Challenges now can be accepted on score details screen
• Challenges now will notify you and appear in your Activity feed
• Save to Leaderboard screen now correctly locates score ranking on machine leaderboard
• Improvements to manual score submission flow and photo upload
• Improvements to Community tab performance
• Fixes incorrect aspect ratio on some manual score photo library or camera images
• Fixes tool tip text for notifications regarding top scores
Scorbit official blog post:
https://scorbit.io/scorbit-announces-global-achievement-platform-for-pinball/
Press Release:
Scorbit Announces Global Achievement Platform for Pinball
Jersey Jack Pinball Releases Integrated Support for Entire Catalog of Games
SAN FRANCISCO - Sep. 23, 2021
Scorbit, the leader in connected pinball, is excited to announce Achievements, the latest in a series of features compatible with hundreds of games across thousands of connected pinball machines around the world. Jersey Jack Pinball continues their long history of pinball innovation with full support of Scorbit achievements, launching first on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, followed by the rest of the Jersey Jack Pinball game library. Achievements on Scorbit for more games from other manufacturers will follow shortly thereafter.
Since launching in 2020, Scorbit’s open platform has welcomed thousands of pinball players who have posted hundreds of thousands of scores to the Scorbit app. Arcade owners and pinball operators have embraced the platform, allowing players at locations to connect to Scorbit easily and utilize the advanced tools provided by Scorbit. With an established platform, the latest addition of the Scorbit Achievement Platform API is fully open to all game manufacturers and connects with Scorbit’s already existing global network. Achievements work with the Scorbit app, ScorbitVision and other software integrations already available. The platform bridges all of these features from games manufactured over fifty years of pinball, right up to modern machines today.
Jersey Jack Pinball is also excited to launch full support of the achievement platform as the next step in their partnership with Scorbit. With deeply integrated achievements designed and implemented by the creators of each game, Jersey Jack Pinball games will be even more competitive for players. Achievements appear in real-time on the game displays as well as within the Scorbit app, and are visible on Scorbit user profiles.
Achievements are new goals for games that can be set up by the developers of a game, a venue owner, or an operator. There are a variety of goals that can be used, including real-time achievements that appear on the game displays, meta achievements that can transcend between games, locations, or titles, and trophy achievements that are only held by one person in the world at a time. Achievements can be based on game play, time, location, people and other users, or a number of other ingredients at the discretion of the game designers. Using Scorbit, games from the past have an entirely new twist when achievements are added to the platform.
As you play, supporting games will tell you if you have unlocked achievements on their own display, including vintage games and DMDs from the 1990s and 2000s. In addition to this real-time display, players are notified of their achievements by the Scorbit mobile app and visible on player’s feeds and profiles.This is all side-by-side with Scorbit’s already existing automated leaderboards, challenges, and real-time scoring.
“Scorbit’s open platform API makes it easy for companies like Jersey Jack Pinball to integrate their games,” said Jay Adelson, Chairman and Co-Founder of Scorbit. “They are being joined by most of the pinball manufacturers, designers, and creative community to enhance game play everywhere.”
“We chose to work with Scorbit to launch achievements because we believe in open, accessible platforms,” said Jack Guarnieri, Founder of Jersey Jack Pinball. “Players like being able to put both their old games and their JJP games on the same system, and since our launch of online support, Scorbit has proven they are the platform to do this.”
Combined with Scorbit’s in-app Challenges, Leaderboards, and exciting visuals from ScorbitVision, pinball is way more fun with Scorbit.
ABOUT SCORBIT
Scorbit (Spinner Systems, Inc.) is a first-of-its-kind, wireless and real-time platform that connects solid-state, DMD and LCD pinball machines to the Internet. With the Scorbit Mobile App and the Scorbitron device for pinball machines, Scorbit has been connecting machines and tournaments since 2015. The implications are nothing short of a pinball revolution, bringing pinball machines and players into the digital age – while increasing plays and revenue for operators and fun for collectors.
ABOUT JERSEY JACK PINBALL
Jersey Jack Pinball (JJP) is the industry leader in quality and technical innovation, creating groundbreaking pinball machines for seasoned players, collectors, and newcomers to the game. Designed and manufactured in the United States, JJP’s state-of-the-art games are conceived on a foundation of pinball’s rich history and engineered with an unflinching eye toward its future. Easy to play – difficult to master, their award-winning games feature several industry firsts, including the use of LCD screens, RGB LED lighting, Bluetooth and Wi-fi connectivity, interactive camera, rich audio, and innovative industry leading technology. JJP brings Pinball machines into the 21st century, designed to provide an enhanced player experience, engage hardcore players and draw new players to the game.
