SOME MORE LIGHT READING FOR THOSE WHO ARE INTERESTED!
On February 8th, we celebrated the Pinball Arcade’s ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY of our launch!
We started with just four tables on a single platform. With the Dr. Dude and Firepower Table Pack release, we now have 24 tables available on 7 different platforms. On mobile alone the Pinball Arcade has been downloaded over 5 million times!
We have also received a number of awards this year, with G4TV recognizing our game as their Mobile Game of 2012, PCWorld placing us in their Top 100 Products of 2012, Diehard GameFAN awarding us both Best All-Ages Game AND Best Digital/Downloadable Game of 2012!!! What a year!
The Pinball Arcade is currently available for:
All iPhone, iPads, and iPod touches (every Apple device from the iPhone 3GS and iPad 2 on)
Almost 2000 Android phones and tablets
Sony PS3 and PSVita
Microsoft 360
Mac OS
Our 2013 plans include:
Catching the PSN and 360 table releases up to the mobile offerings
Releasing Pinball Arcade on Wii-U, OUYA, as a Windows 8 app for desktop and Surface tablets, and as a PC game with cabinet support
Being a launch title in the digital stores for any next generation consoles released later this year
Continuing to release new tables every month
Adding support for more peripherals (like 3D TVs and the iCade) and features (more tournaments and online play)
Some other really cool stuff we can't talk about!
FarSight would like to thanks all of our fans! We can’t wait to grow this game into the dream game that we’ve always wanted to make for pinball fans everywhere!
Table Pack #11: Dr. Dude and His Excellent Ray™ and Firepower™ has just been released for iOS, Amazon and Android. These are two more awesome tables! The Table of the Month is Medieval Madness™ Pro, which can be played for free this month.
Dr. Dude and His Excellent Ray™ is a great design from Dennis Nordman. The player's goal is to raise their Dudeness level from Plain Dude to Super Dude through spectacular gameplay action, innovative scoring features and attention grabbing effects. Notable features include the Excellent Ray, Big Shot bully, Molecular Mixmaster and a Gazillion point shot.
Firepower™ is another classic design from the "King of Flow”, Steve Ritchie. It was the first solid state table to feature Multi-Ball and included many industry first features that would go on to become pinball standards. These include the first animated displays, first electronic Multi-Ball and the first use of a player controlled roll-over lanes.
Interview with Tournament Winner
(and professional player) Roy Wils
We are very happy to congratulate Roy Wils (currently ranked 20th in the world by the IFPA) for winning last month’s Pinball Arcade tournament.
This man knows how to play pinball. Last weekend he came in first in the classics tournament at the Dutch Masters and finished third in the main tournament. Roy will be representing the Netherlands at the 2013 World Championships in Germany in a couple months. We wish him the best of luck!
In our tournament, Roy beat out almost 5,000 other Pinball Arcade players to take the top spot! This is particularly exciting for us. Not only can we confirm that the scores he posted are legitimate, but we think the fact professional pinball players are winning our tournaments also indicates our pinball simulation is pretty authentic!
Roy’s unique combination of being a top IFPA Pro and one of the best players of our game will allow him to give us average players new insights into how to score better in the Pinball Arcade. Starting this month, he will join Josh and Zach Sharpe, Cayle George, and Keith Elwin in writing the Pro Version tips.
We recently asked Roy a few questions about the Pinball Arcade:
What do you like about our game?
I like Pinball Arcade a lot as it gives me the opportunity to play REAL virtual pinball everywhere I go. It brings up all those nice memories I have along with it as I played all those tables during my childhood - which is great!
What's your favorite table that we've recreated?
Star Trek: The Next Generation - hands down; the action, the lights, the sounds, the flow, the animations. It’s a truly amazing table!
Are there any general tips for scoring better on the mobile version of Pinball Arcade you can pass along?
First of all, be focused and rested, be calm and sit or stand still while playing - preferably play the game with audio turned on! I wear headphones/earplugs while playing. By that, you can understand the game better during gameplay as most tables tell you tips of what to do!
Also, there is a sort of rhythm of the ball within the game. After you play the game for a while, you will recognize that rhythm - and that will dial you into the game. Find it for yourself and you will play better!
Can you give everyone a tip or two for one of the tables in the last tournament?
I would like to give a Tournament Tip for Star Trek: TNG.
The key to getting yourself a very high score on Star Trek: TNG is NOT to aim for the obvious (which is modes and its final frontier end battle). It’s nice to pick those up along the way, though.
For getting yourself those ultra-high scores, the best strategy is to start and play multiball all day long. If multiball is over, all you do is to try to enable those locks again by shooting the right orbit, and at lock number 3 start Multiball.
Those jackpots within multiball can be gigantic during the course of multiball action as the base jackpot value can and will grow to very high point levels.
For example, during my last big game during the Tournament, I had 3x jackpots worth an astounding 600 Million points! The jackpot scoop shot can be easy to shoot for once you are dialed into it!
Thanks, Roy! On behalf of the Pinball Arcade – we look forward to working with you to help us make our game as good as it can be!
Latest Playstation News
We are celebrating!!!
Twilight Zone was released on PlayStation3 and Vita on February 5 in both North America and Europe.
We have sent out the Kickstarter Redemption codes to the North American PSN accounts, and are waiting on Sony Europe to get us the European codes so we can send them out.
Table Pack 7 (including Scared Stiff and Big Shot) was released worldwide on PlayStation3 and Vita February 12th.
Medieval Madness Pro and Tales of the Arabian Nights Pro are scheduled for Febrary 19th.
We have now submited Star Trek:TNG as well as the January table pack to Sony. We anticipate this test cycle to be quicker now that the holiday rush is over.
Latest Nintendo News
The 3DS version will be called Pinball Hall of Fame. This version will contain all of the non-emulated tables from both the Gottlieb and Williams collection. More information will be made available as it gets closer to release.
The Wii-U version is almost ready for submission to Nintendo as well. This is the final step we need to take to get onto the eShop and into your hands on the Wii-U.
Latest XBox News
We promised our longsuffering Xbox 360 customers an update this week, so here it is.
As most of you know, the Xbox 360 is the only platform that requires us to have a publisher instead of dealing directly with Microsoft. Our publisher Fillpoint (aka Crave Entertainment) filed bankruptcy last year, and that has wreaked havoc on our plans for releasing new tables on the Xbox 360.
We’ve been asked many times “Why don’t you just find a new publisher?” It’s not that simple, unfortunately- our contract with Fillpoint is now an asset of a bankrupt company, so we need both the consent of the creditors and the approval of the court to move the game to another publisher. The good news is that we are VERY CLOSE to getting court approval on a transfer. We wish it was happening faster (and we’re more frustrated than you- we lose money every day the new tables aren’t available on 360). But it will happen!
PC Update
In a recent talk at DICE, Valve President Gabe Newell indicated that the Greenlight process might soon be discontinued, opening the way for more games to be available on Steam. We are very optimistic that the Pinball Arcade will be able to be released on Steam as a result!
We are still working on a PC beta build designed for our Kickstarter backers. We are also exploring options for delivery and security.
In addition, we are submitting our game to Microsoft for inclusion in the Windows 8 Marketplace. This version will be playable on all devices and desktops running Windows 8 (including Surface tablets and phones).
We're going to DALLAS...
The 2013 Texas Pinball Festival will be held the weekend of March 15h-17th, 2013 with a HUGE 45,000 square foot game room! The new location for this show is the Trinity Ballroom of the Hilton Anatole in Dallas. Their goal is to fill this space with more than 400 pinball machines, classic video games and other game room goodies set up on free play for everyone to enjoy the entire weekend, and FarSight will be there!
More information will be posted to Facebook and Pinball Arcade Fans as the date gets closer.
http://texaspinball.com/tpf/...And MILWAUKEE this March!
The 2013 Midwest Gaming Classic will be held on Saturday, March 23 2013, from 10:00am to 8:00pm and Family Day Sunday, March 24 2013, from 10:00am to 5:00pm at the Sheraton Milwaukee Brookfield Hotel in Brookfield, WI.
The Midwest Gaming Classic is the largest all-encompassing electronic gaming trade show in the Midwest! We're very excited about exhibiting there.
More information will be posted to Facebook and Pinball Arcade Fans as the date approaches.
http://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/Next Month's Tables- Here's a Hint!
We have a table pack coming in March we think everyone will be very excited about. Here are some hints- can anyone guess the tables?
One new table has a connection with an area of the country we’ll be visiting next month. The other table is a re-release, and is based on a specific location somewhere completely different.
Share your guesses on Facebook and we'll announce the tables once the screenshots are ready to post!
As always, thank you very much for supporting
the Pinball Arcade!
