What pinball game would YOU want?

Way back in the day, I was pretty much addicted to pinball. One machine that stands out in my memory is Gorgar - the first machine that had speech - as far as I remember. I still like pinball better than video games - I just can't afford to buy any of these machines.

For a modern machine how about an IoT programmable theme pinball machine? It is connected to the web and displays iconic images or possibly You Tube snippets off the web from whatever theme you select - but in response to bumper activity and reward system of course. Also it would need to grab  musical ditties or riffs or famous phrases or sound bites or exclamations off the web for appropriate sound effects and rewards. Maybe you could load your own mp3 songs . Maybe the whole reward system could be based on a file of internet URLs so anyone could make a custom reward system by simply organizing a bunch of web links into a config file. Each link would correspond to a descriptor such as: "bumper number 3 sound effect 400 ms" or "1000 point star target audio-video reward 3 s"

Something related to the 1950s-1960s horror movies, with giant atomic monsters that needed to be destroyed, at first a small number would "walk" around a city appearing at random locations that you could kill using "simple" guns (level-1 shots), and then more and stronger monsters would appear, which would require either more shots or stronger shots (they'd have more hp, basically) which you could kill more easily by upgrading your shots by activating different parts of the playfield. At one point you'd have to disable a big death ray weapon, which you would be able to reactivate and use against one huge monster at the end.

The game would give you tips of what to do through its sound board, and it would also set the mood for the universe of the game.

There could be structures that would be slowly consumed by the monsters, like buildings that you would have to protect, otherwise they'd sink into the playfield. So you'd have to juggle between trying to get better weapons and keeping the city standing.

One thing that I do not have an exact idea for at the moment but I always wondered why I never saw in a game was an LCD screen under the playfield, in between the slingshots in a somewhat large area (thinking on the layout of Gorgar or Centaur), with some parts blocked so it wouldn't look like a rectangle, but basically to make a more dynamic looking board, with things changing there or the illustration on the board "coming alive". Not as virtual targets, though.

I would self reference two things: you're selling this to makers, and this is a quarter sized table. The story would be that you're a scientist who accidentally shrunk themselves, so you'd have to go around the lab to assemble a Giganto-Ray to restore your size.

Parts of the Giganto-Ray would be earned by completing certain shots. I also like what Ricardo P said; this could take place in a 1960's lab. In between collecting items you could be fighting off laboratory mice, etc.

I launch an idea that maybe totally silly but if I have it available I will use it.

As a new theme (series of themes) should be done from scratch, why don't use the best challengers images (some are fascinating with good videos and good sown material, differing very much one from the other) and create challenge themed for the pinball kit?

In addition if this is not too complex (if it is it is the same I suppose) why don't give a specific set of information on how users can theme theirselves extra pinball theme?

Enrico

An engineering project pinball theme - that's different.

Perhaps you could have a set of 8 knock down 'flags' and you get bonus points for knocking them down in a specified binary pattern.

Alternatively bring some of the Ben Heck Show logic puzzle game into it and have three 'flags' which have to be knocked down as per a specified truth table entry for some bonus points.

That's what I was trying to do with the scientist / collect Giganto-Ray parts. There needs to be some sort of story for the engineering theme.

I'd like to create a table based on MythBusters, where you would actually test real science experiments as part of playing the game. However, that's probably far more than the allowed $80 budget.

Knocking down individual drop targets is hard. Knocking down a sequence of drop targets in a order is very hard, and probably out of reach of the average player.

Pinball tables of the 1970's were all about knocking down a row of drop targets. Now tables are designed around combos, which means that one shot leads to another shot, typically in the form of loops or ramps. That doesn't mean that a row of drop targets can't be fun, but most pinball players today expect some sort of 'flow'.

Some of the simplest games were the best!  I loved Pinball in the 70's and 80's and Eightball Deluxe and Odin were some of my favorites.  To bring things up-to-date, How about a game called "Smartphone?"  You probably get the idea.  Try to take pictures, selfies, make texts, choose apps, and, oh yeah...send and answer telephone calls!

So it connects to your phone - tweets your high scores and posts selfies to your Facebook....