How is this not being discussed *at all* ?????
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I know it's been a while since our last public update, and I apologize for the delay. I know many of you are anxious to see our progress, and I'm anxious to share it.
In November of last year, we organized a focus group to collect opinions on not just specific things about the P3 machine and the games we're developing, but also on the way we're releasing information and how it's been perceived. We have a number of other discussion topics planned for the focus group to address, but we've already gotten some very valuable feedback.
One of the more common responses by focus group participants was that the prototype P3 machine and 'software' we've been showing doesn't look polished enough. It's clear that while many people see our vision and are willing to follow along our journey to realize it, others simply want to see a final product with new innovations and amazing gameplay.
The unfortunate reality is that we can either reveal in-progress development in the form of our prototype machine and demo software, or we can remain silent until the machine is fully developed. I personally see a lot of value in releasing information early and getting feedback, but I also think that Multimorphic suffers from the vocal minority publicly expressing negative opinions on things that haven't yet been flushed out. The good news is we're approaching the end of our early concept days and can start showing real game developments.
Hopefully it's obvious to everybody that we are not just another traditional-style pinball startup. There are a lot of companies putting development teams together and announcing new single-themed traditional machines (many of them using our control system products, like the P-ROC and driver boards), and the industry is better because of them. I personally think it's absolutely great for the hobby to have all of these new machines on the horizon, but I remain firm in my opinion that the industry won't grow and advance by building traditional machines.
In order to advance the pinball industry and help it grow the customer base, we have to innovate. We have to design new playfield mechanics. We have to design new types of interactions. We have to design modern assemblies. We have to design new types of rules. We have to modernize the control system. We have to modernize manufacturing techniques. We have to make games easier to service. We have to improve the price-per-game value. We have to improve the customer experience.
That's what Multimorphic is about, and that's what we're doing.
As I'm sure you can imagine, the details in engineering an entirely new platform infrastructure to support our modular game configurations and the new features the games utilize is an involved process, and we're working through it. People ask us all the time why we aren't using an existing cabinet, existing flippers/slings, or a traditional ball trough configuration. The answer is, quite simply, it doesn't make sense to. We have to break the mold in order to advance pinball, and we're not afraid to do it.
It's important to emphasize that while we *are* breaking the mold on the engineering side, we're not breaking the mold on the gameplay side. The P3 can and will present games that play similarly to traditional games. However, it can also do and present so much more. In fact, our first game (Lexy Lightspeed - Galaxy Girl) is set up very much like a traditional game (intentionally), but we're enhancing the gameplay with a few of our innovations. Other games, such as Cosmic Cart Racing, will experiment with slightly different gameplay paradigms and further explore how diverse games can be with the P3.
Operationally, we've made a few changes. Because of the overwhelming desire of the public to actually see and play our vision, rather than being forced to imagine it, we've serialized development of our two games (LL-GG and CCR). We're concentrating first on Dennis Nordman's LL-GG concept, and we're doing our best to get it into a feature-complete (physical features) and playable game (2-3 modes) by the Texas Pinball Festival at the end of March in Dallas, TX.
We also hear the feedback on our pricing structure, and we've begun evaluating ways to alter the structure to make the platform more affordable. We've always understood that a $10k price tag was very high, but unfortunately it's just very expensive to re-engineer a pinball platform and deliver a product with the number of innovations we've designed into the P3. That said, we have some ideas on how we can hopefully lower the price and compete at parity (or better) with many of the traditional game manufacturers. Rest assured, if you've already pre-ordered a P3, we will absolutely ensure that the pricing advantages you received by ordering early remain, even if that means refunding part of your purchase price.
OK... now onto some game status! I'm incredibly excited to start discussing LL-GG in more detail.
*** LL-GG Playfield ***
As we've been saying, LL-GG is intended to be a mostly traditional-style game with certain gameplay enhancements. As you can see in the attached playfield image, the LL-GG playfield has mostly traditional features, but we've still put the Multimorphic vision into the design, and we're doing some things no production pinball machine has ever done before.
The design is a mixture of high-speed flowing features and features that give the player some time to rest and appreciate everything that's happening in the game. The left and right ramps are very smooth and fast and return the ball to the right flipper. Also, because of our unique trough design, we can 'create' flow to the left flipper (more details on that another day).
Clearly one of the most exciting two features on the playfield is the 8-ball physical ball lock. Yes, that's an 8-BALL PHYSICAL BALL LOCK, and as cool as it is, the way we're integrating it into software is even cooler. You'll have to stay tuned for that.
The other main feature is the 5" LCD in the middle of the playfield above the center targets. Multimorphic is all about dynamic artwork, and we love having the ability to vary the graphics above the targets and change what they represent during the game. Incidentally, the 4 insert lamps in front of the targets will be removed from the design after we implement the software to drive the small LCD.
*** LL-GG Gameplay and dynamic p/f artwork ***
At Expo 2013, we demo'd a concept for a static p/f image, complete with an image of Lexy Lightspeed surrounded by traditional-style inserts. The intention of the static p/f image is that it'll be on the LCD when no game mode is active. So it will contain the main game status, the mode inserts, etc. Since expo we've totally re-vamped the static p/f to achieve the same goal in a much more interesting way. See the two 'map' images, which both show our static p/f image in the in the context of the full machine.
The image is showing a map of the entire game setting, which is an alien research facility "area 53.1", hidden deep in the swamps of Florida. The upper half of the map details the facility. That's the 'bad guy' area. The lower half of the map is the 'good guy' area, where two local boys (Ronnie Earl and Little Larry) live. The overall game theme involves Lexy and Lookie (their saucer crashed while orbiting Earth) befriending the boys and working together to Escape the 'evil' facility and get back into space.
The first map image shows an unhighlighted view of the game features. Most buildings or regions represent a game mode. As you can see, there are no traditional style insert lamps on the basic map layout. We're using the benefits of our huge dynamic display to highlight and label things in a much more informative way. See the 2nd map picture.
The 2nd map image shows the 'Weapons Lab' highlighted. This is what you'll see when a mode is lit. Whichever mode will start next is highlighted with a short description. The mode start hole is the hole just above the upper right corner of the display, and you'll notice some arrows that will animated brightly to tell you to shoot that shot. Notice also the LITE LOCK letters over the agent barracks. Some of them are opaque, and some are transparent. We'll use these different presentation styles to inform you of your progress.
Incidentally, now that our static p/f design is nearly ready, we can start working on upper p/f artwork that will tie into it. That's why the upper p/f is still a whitewood. Once our artist finishes the cabinet artwork, he'll start working on the upper p/f artwork (including plastics).
Note also our 'apron LCD'. That's where we'll keep scoring and overall status information. In this game, there's a row of icons at the bottom of the apron LCD. These are the items that Lexy and crew are collecting in order to battle the facility and Escape. They therefore represent your overall progress through the game (similar to the blue lights in AFM). Note that this image shows two icons (engine parts and a fuel molecule), representing that you've completed the warehouse mode and the swamp mode. Because those modes are complete, both the warehouse building (to the right of the crop circles) and that part of the swamp (top part of the good guy section surrounded by trees) are greyed out (and can't be restarted until after the finale is attempted).
When you actually start a mode, the playfield image will change and become more dynamic. See the warehouse picture. In the warehouse mode, you're trying to navigate through rooms in the warehouse and collect parts to repair the ship. Because the game is a mostly traditional style game, ALL of the modes are based around physical shots. In this mode, the walls and scoops are used to create a set of doors. Your goal is to shoot through the doors necessary to navigate through the warehouse. The number of rooms depends on your skill settings. While navigating through the rooms, we're enhancing the gameplay with some virtual interactions, namely blowing up virtual crates with the physical pinball to uncover ship parts.
Because we're using the walls/scoops in the warehouse mode, play is confined to the LCD area, but that's the only mode where that's true. All other modes make heavy use of the upper playfield shots. For instance, the swamp scene involves shooting the pop bumpers, both ramps, and the side hole (though it's also enhanced by virtual interactions on the screen). Other modes like alien attack, will be purely physical, not involving virtual interactions at all.
*** Translite ***
Last reveal is our new LL-GG translite. This is not the final version, but it's pretty close.
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As I said above, our goal is to have LL-GG playable at TPF. We're playtesting the warehouse and swamp modes now, and we'll soon be integrating the static playfield concept and working on additional modes.
As always I appreciate all of you supporting our efforts. Feel free to email or call me with any questions, comments, concerns, etc.
- Gerry Stellenberg
Multimorphic, Inc.
