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Furry Pinball - Table Mechanics
Things are coming together nicely! Today I spent a few hours balancing the table with subtle changes to bumper forces, target positioning, and ramp shapes and angles. I also increased the maximum angle of the flippers so shots are easier to aim (and now there's a bigger gap for the ball to slip beneath if a player's got too hasty a trigger finger.) <w<
In the attached video you can see some of the loops, ricochets and reversals in action! There's quite an interesting variety -- some tricky angles that demand reflexive recovery flips, a bit of horizontal action, and some hidden holes and kickers that'll keep players guessing which way the ball will move next.
Knocking out the arch between the two middle toes in the paw print shape created a path all the way to the top of the table and greatly improved the play depth and ball flow. Design lesson learned going forward: it really makes a difference having shots that span the whole table! There's also now a little action area with two additional targets on the top left that you can reach via ricochets.
LEDs are still all over the place, will fix those soon. (Ultimately, they need to integrate with the table artwork, so I've been waiting to organize them until the ramps and missions were more or less finalized.)
There are a few little details I might change to make the table design feel more intentional. I don't like the bumper on the left; mechanically it works fine, but there's nothing connecting it to other parts of the design (namely the other two bumpers). Same with the hidden targets behind the leftmost bumper and to the left of the drop targets in the pawprint. It's a fun idea to sneakily hide targets behind other elements, but the strongest table design would make good sense both visually and functionally. I may be able to leave some of these elements as-is if I can find a way to tie them together via the table art... we'll see!
So, what's left to do this month?
In the attached video you can see some of the loops, ricochets and reversals in action! There's quite an interesting variety -- some tricky angles that demand reflexive recovery flips, a bit of horizontal action, and some hidden holes and kickers that'll keep players guessing which way the ball will move next.
Knocking out the arch between the two middle toes in the paw print shape created a path all the way to the top of the table and greatly improved the play depth and ball flow. Design lesson learned going forward: it really makes a difference having shots that span the whole table! There's also now a little action area with two additional targets on the top left that you can reach via ricochets.
LEDs are still all over the place, will fix those soon. (Ultimately, they need to integrate with the table artwork, so I've been waiting to organize them until the ramps and missions were more or less finalized.)
There are a few little details I might change to make the table design feel more intentional. I don't like the bumper on the left; mechanically it works fine, but there's nothing connecting it to other parts of the design (namely the other two bumpers). Same with the hidden targets behind the leftmost bumper and to the left of the drop targets in the pawprint. It's a fun idea to sneakily hide targets behind other elements, but the strongest table design would make good sense both visually and functionally. I may be able to leave some of these elements as-is if I can find a way to tie them together via the table art... we'll see!
So, what's left to do this month?
- Balancing mission details (eg how many spins or bumper hits to move to the next level?)
- Clean up the placement of LEDs
- Demo build on Itch! It'll have the default controls, audio and graphics you've been seeing in these progress updates. But it's hella important to start getting some player feedback now that enough of the foundation is there! ^w^
What's coming next?
- Naming missions (they need to match the table theme, of course!)
- Scoring (how many points per bumper hit, target drop, completed mission, etc)
- Additional artwork surfaces (I'd like to model a few 3d facades to maximize my drawing area! Gotta keep the ball as visible as possible, but there's some dead areas in the corners and edges that make for a good opportunity.)
- Sound effects Everything in the current setup is the default sounds shipped with this game kit. Sound is a huge part of the pinball experience, and has at least as many opportunities for theming as the table artwork!
- Table artwork (thisssssss is a big undertaking! ^w^; Super stoked to be trying my hand at this in March!)
