Stately Balls Of Steel

Ok, for a test-run, why don’t we pick a table for the remainder of the month. I’m almost sure I’ll claim executive privilege and simply proclaim that March’s table will be one of Zen’s Jurassic Park tables, but for a starter table, we could go with either of the two main starters on iOS - Zen’s Sorcerer’s Lair or Pinball Arcade’s Tales of the Arabian Nights. Or has everyone played these to death? I’m open to suggestions.

I think what I will do is post a big, bold text post with current players and scores and update it as scores are reported. If you are participating, you can simply edit your posts with your current high score for the month, as seen below:

February 2018

Table: Sorcerer’s Lair (Zen/Pinball FX)

Leaderboard:

@Mirefox: 0

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Enjoy a ridiculous trailer for my favourite physical pinball game.

The frankenstein multiball was an event of epic proportion.

When I lived in San Francisco, there was a pinball museum across the bay in Alameda. Every Saturday afternoon through evening you could go there, fork over $10, and play as long as you want on any of the machines (they had rooms themed by era, with machines from the 50s all the way to the 2000s and about 10 machines or so per room).

Haven’t found a decent replacement for that place over here in London yet.

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Hahaha…“Let me mesmerize you with my semi-circular movement…bleh.”

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Monster Bash is a great table. Never played the physical version, but played it a ton on Pinball Arcade.

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Those are fine for me. Whichever you decide. Probably a good idea to have a free table for the first month, and I believe both of those are free?

I believe Arabian Nights is .99, but I could be wrong. I’d be up for that one since I plan on a Zen table next week, but does anyone else have any input? I’ll let the question stand for a day or two.

I’ll join under whatever format you guys decide. And I don’t mind buying a few tables.

(But we have to play Black Knight soonish … )

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Ok, I think we will start with Sorcerer’s Lair in Zen Pinball (iOS)/Pinball FX (consoles). It’s probably been played to death by a few of us, but it is absolutely free and may be good as a jumping off point for anyone who is interested but has no tables and/or experience.

The format is simple. Play as much or as little as you want and post your high score from now until the end of the month. It’s all honor system-based. I will try to maintain a leaderboard in the above bolded post.

@TheDukester, your request is noted and unless anyone objects before then, we can probably make it our April table. I’m always up for buying new tables and I have little interest in dictating what table we play each month other than wanting one of the new Zen tables next month.

I’d encourage anyone who doesn’t regularly play pinball to join us and give it a shot. Zen tables, in particular, have fairly accessible missions which, in my opinion, help newer players to understand the game beyond just scoring points.

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So that they don’t get lost in the thread, I have edited my original post to be our current leaderboard.

I had a quick blast and got 114.5mil. I’ve played this table a few times on Xbox so I kinda know my way round it. Pretty sure this is the best I’ve ever done though. I managed the entire story/mission cycle on my first ball which is absurd for a warm up game. I’ll have to try it on Xbox when I get home and see how I do there

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Okay, I have no idea what I’m doing, but I like the idea of trying out some digital pinball … I’ll be a “participant” with no illusions of being competitive but along for the ride for some Stately Play fun. :sunglasses:

February 2018 Table: Sorcerer’s Lair (Zen/Pinball FX3): @Falkenstein 35,082,390

Last edit for score update: 12 Feb 2018

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Sorry to set the bar so high this early, but I just about quadrupled my previous high score. I got wizard mode on my first ball and managed 2 extra balls. On top of that, I completed quite a few of the mission and I think they multiply the wizard bonus because when I got wizard mode the second time around, I got a bonus of about 250M. It’s an aberration of the extreme order, but I scored 592,342,777.

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After scoring a whopping 10k, I came back with 939,894,013.

I don’t know if it’s the spirit of competition or the Wheeties I had for breakfast but I’m hitting scores 10x better than my previous best of 3+ years. One thing I did notice is that there is, indeed, a multiplier bonus for midnight mode based on the obsidians you’ve obtained. However, after you reach max obsidians, the count starts over. Therefore, my bird midnight mode actually scored significantly less than my third. I was a bit bummed because I had 1B in my crosshairs.

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Wow! Congratulations! :+1:

I’m enjoying the Sorcerer’s Lair table. What platforms do folks prefer for their digital pinball? I’m thinking my iPhone is too small, for me, an iPad is a better fit, but the table looks gorgeous on my Windows PC (I just have to be sure to choose the correct “Classic” single player mode for Pinball FX3, looks like FX3 introduced leveling up tables, RPG style, to increase the scores on subsequent plays of that table).

Guide Jake and his sister through an ever-changing labyrinth of twisting corridors, secret passageways, and terrifying encounters with the castle’s denizens.

For those who, like me, are trying to figure out what’s the deal with “Obsidian Stones”, spiders, ghosts, skeletons, etc., I found this PDF guide to the Sorcerer’s Lair table on the Zen site: http://blog.zenstudios.com/press/assets/table_guides/Sorcerers_Lair_-_Pinball_Guide_By_ShoryukenToTheChin.pdf

On my iOS friends high score list, while @Snotty128 is way up there, it has me chasing @athros on the Sorcerer’s Lair table. @JammaTal is also listed, but his score looks like more of a drive-by test drive than working on the table.

I’m looking forward to acquiring new tables for this group journey. My initial thoughts are along the lines of weekly may be too short, monthly too long? Perhaps every two weeks would be a good fit, for me, but am up for whatever schedule and tables folks prefer. :sunglasses:

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Yeah, monthly might be too long. Maybe 2 a month? 1-15th, then 16th-end?

Of all my devices and consoles and PCs, I prefer my iPad the best for digital pinball. My phone is decent in a pinch, and it is great for travel, of course, but I usually only play tables I know fairly well because the screen is a bit too small to learn the ropes of an unfamiliar table.

The really cool thing about pinball is that there is a whole lot more to it than keeping the ball alive. Pinball is really a whole bunch of flow charts that award you for progress. I am often more interested in beating a mission than I am in overall score. He subtle depth is also nice because it comes with an element of mastery and one table can last you a long, long time.

Each table you play will have a guide somewhere out there. You don’t need to memorize the guides, but they can help you figure out some of the inner workings of he table. Practice and familiarity will have you understanding the ins and outs of most tables, even when you struggle to make your shots.

As for Sorcerer’s Lair, my advice would be to learn how to activate missions. You need to hit he three targets above the spin table to raise the table. Sink a shot in the hole to activate the mission. Sorcerer’s Lair is forgiving because you get credit for the mission even if you fail, and after all 6 missions, you will enter wizard mode, which will net you most of your points very easily. Other table elements will certainly award you some good points, but work on those missions.

Another way to get some decent points with little risk is to learn the table’s skill shot. Skill shots are shots off your plunger that hit a specific target and will get you 1M or so (depending on the table) points right off the bat before play has even started. In SL, you want a weak shot that rolls over the target without going too far. Then hit the lit top lane for a super skill shot. I have trouble with the top lane, but combined you’re looking at 1.3M to just put the ball in play.

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Thanks! I do like the Sorcerer’s Lair table. :sunglasses:

And, yeah, I need a guide since I’m not physically standing in an arcade watching others play and getting explanations from the accomplished experts on what the heck is going on with the table’s layout. :grinning:

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I agree mission mode here is quite forgiving, the target is big and in the centre of the board so could be a regular target for balls from the left flipper. The cog mission stands out as an easy 5.8mil once you’ve figured out the puzzle, no pinball skill required.

The GHOST letters on the ball returns don’t cancel themselves either when the ball rolls over a lit letter. That makes it much easier to spell ghost and get those all important ball savers up to protect your outlanes (I’ve probably completely garbled the pinball terminology, so my apologies)

I got to have a quick go of this table on Xbox and I remember why it was one I hadn’t spent a lot of time with. The camera angles are completely different, much shallower than the iPad version, and that seems to effect where I hit the ball. On the Xbox I’m forever hitting the ball in the whisper hole, to the point it annoys me how much the sfx keep banging on about whisper. On the iPad the whisper hole is one of my trickier shots to pull off.

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Heh. Yeah it does, but I happen to like Zen’s creativity with their tables, and the physics is tolerable.

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I managed 575mil with 2x wizard mode and 12 obsidian on the second one. I’ve not quite reached my skill/patience ceiling yet, so hopefully that will go up a bit.

The game is afoot!

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