Pinball and 'Playability'

[mark jackson]

Greetings to all pinnie lovers, ... I'll attach an article that I have just written. I hope it is interesting and informative. I also hope it provides 'food for thought' on the general topic of pinball machines. Thanks very much to all who have helped/are helping me achieve a completion to the madness of making a pinball machine by starting from a blank playfield. I'll put more pics and chat up soon under the heading 'Kings & Queens' in the restoration section. Have a great day guys .... only about 3 months to wait for the AFL season to start again.....'cheer cheer the red and the white' etc. Mark

[pinnies4me]

Great read Mark, I enjoyed the thoughts you shared. I'm ten years your junior, and was therefore exposed only to the last of the EM's, and the advent of solid state and the extras it brought really eclipsed their older cousins. But as for games of the 60's of which you write, I have little exposure, but now I want one! Nice writing style too, been a while since I read something four pages long that wasn't work related - thanks for the article!!

[ajlaird]

Interesting thoughts. My experience has been mainly with 80s plus machines, and I just haven't played many 60s machines.

The idea of playability is important not just for pinball machines but for all sorts of games including computer games. The classics all have great playability.

To me the ultimate test of playability is the 'just one more go' test. If the pinball machine (or game) makes you want to have 'just one more go' you know it is good in the playability area.

[Strangeways]

Thanks for posting that piece, Mark. I agree with your thoughts and Gottlieb certainly were KING back in that golden era. Machines were a lot more challenging back then, they did not need toys or gimmicks to attrack players as Pinball was part of the culture past WWII. It was something the Americans were very proud of, and the best designers come from this era. I can understand why younger players don't appreciate EMs. Simply not part of their upbringing.

Playability - I find Drop A Card to be an immensely challenging game. There's a sense of achievement with an EM.

[goodolddays]

Thanks for posting your article Mark .
I enjoyed reading it .
I was born in '62 so didn't see or play many 2 inch flipper games in my youth but I recently restored one (my '68 Williams Lady Luck) and find the 2 inch flippers a great challenge .
Looking forward to restoring my '65 Gottlieb Thorobred next year some time.
Then I will have another 2 inch flipper game in my collection to play   

[Pop Bumper Pete]

This piece I agree with totally

A good game on a 60’s machine might last for about 5 -7 minutes. On the ‘Indiana Jones’ machine, a good game took me about half an hour. This was fun for novelty value, but after a while this happened. I’d look at the machine and think “will I have a game now?” And often the answer came back ...”No, I’ve only got about 15 minutes.” So in the end I would not play the game ONLY because I knew that to have a good game, I’d need to devote my concentration and energies for maybe over 30 minutes.... and in the busy world we all live in, I often couldn’t justify the time, or didn’t have the time to spend. ... I still prefer to play a game that takes less than 10 minutes, and do not want to spend lengthy periods of time banging a pinball around.

When I finish work, I just want to relax. With an older game, I can have a quick bash of the ball and walk away. With the games that have a ‘deep ruleset’ you have to play through all the modes, and I am left with a ‘Why bother?’

One point you missed is ‘innovation’
Games from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, there was always something new, always a reason to try the ‘latest game’
Once DMD’s came in, this stopped.
Place a game from the 90’s next to the latest Stern, not a lot of difference
I suppose too much money involved, must stick with what works

[mark jackson]

.... I also reckon that Drop A Card is a challenging game. I remember when I was restoring mine (before I had played a game on it).... I first thought that it was going to be a problem that the game didn't reset the targets. ... As it turned out, this was no problem at all. Usually, you only get all the targets down by about 4th or 5th ball. Then you are busy trying to get 'Specials' at top Left and Right of playfield. The game also goes into a 'faster' mode, as the ball now rebounds off the rubbers which are behind where the drop targets were. It's fast and furious, and the targets, once down are of no 'interest', as you are trying to keep the ball alive, and get a few 'Specials' before the game ends. ... this is one of the harder games to succeed on, and hence it makes an ideal home game. The worst games for home use are the ones which are just too easy. This gets stale very quickly. No worries about this with the old 'Drop A Card'. ... a handsome looking game too.