It is a cool concept and I like the idea of swappable designs. I had a chat with Gerry a few weeks ago in regards to designing a swappable component / game and game theme for fun for them to then programme and manufacture. He said that the design parameters will be released soon and he encourages pinheads to come up with their designs BUT there lays a bigger challenge which will limit this potentially massively of what he is hoping people will do:
- yes I can or you can design the rear third layout layout though need experience in solidworks or the like and some cab art (illustrator or Coreldraw)
- but then you need skills to do playfield art - moving animation graphics
- and then on top you need skill to work with complex programming beyond that of dmd and game rules programming for the playfield programming and sensor tracking. All this then means that a very very small and select market of potential designers would even contemplate this.
Personally I think he is very innovative and stepped up pinball design up in a cool way as the playfield looks cool but would of been great to see this game done in 2 playfield styles to win people over, and to show the potential as many people will think it has gone too much to the video game side.
- playfield style 1 - as per the current with the video animated playfield and how it looks like a video game
- playfield style 2 - very similar to playfields that we know with the typical playfield art and inserts and the inserts light up or could have small cool animated explosions in the insert and flow beyond the in theory insert when a physical target is hit, flames from a car exhaust insert showing a car getting away if you reach a certain goal. Then when a set of goals is achieved a modified playfield with relocated inserts is shown with new goals - game advancement. Of if the game proceeds in time - ;like ball 1 is morning, 2 is afternoon and 3 is night and if you are lucky you survive the day you are awarded a 4th ball and it is morning again with the playfield lighting changing on each ball.
Having these 2 styles say at Texas pinball show with the same game rules but with the 2 different visible playfield styles (video game v's classic insert) could of captured what the market likes best or analyse what age groups like which version.
For me I would prefer the playfield style 2.
Sadly unless P3 do the programming for your game design I can't see too many people issuing them with designs & programming to manufacture and be part of the P3 selection.
