Stately Balls Of Steel

#205

Yeah, they sure make it hard to just get all your tables in one place, huh? What they should have done is upgraded their app to the FX platform that is on consoles and PC and allowed cross-platform tournaments and leaderboards. And the Williams tables should have been added into the main game, not as a stand-alone f2p monstrosity.

As it stands now on iOS, if you want to try every table, you need one app (Zen Pinball) for most of the tables, which you need to buy individually, a second app (Williams) for real-world tables, which you need to earn with multiple currencies, and upgrade with other currencies (barf), and now a third app (Party) that is tied to a monthly subscription for the new IPs.

On a positive note, it sounds like the new app has tournament support like what should have been present in Zen Pinball for the last 5+ years.

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#206

Zen Pinball Party was released for the Apple Arcade. Good news: It looks like they included controller support, ability to save a game mid session, aspect ratio is better for new devices (no black bars). bad news: the tables and the ball assets are all lower res compared to the Zen pinball app (looks blurry), no landscape which I prefer for Zen tables, it’s buggy (plunger won’t launch ball, lose all audio), and the physics feel floaty. The ball moves slower. It feels like they lowered the incline of the playfield to make the game easier.

I’ll fool around with the new tables for a bit and play the Williams tables (no ftp shenanigans). But I doubt this app will last long on my ipad unless they improve it dramatically.

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#207

I have to say that playing on an iPad 6, I haven’t noticed any issues yet. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. I also don’t notice a physics difference but 1) I haven’t played Zen for some months now and 2) Judging by past performance, you know your pinball better than I. I do agree that the graphics aren’t as sharp as they could be. I certainly need to play plenty more as well before I can judge anything but I wish Zen would update their now-busted main app to mirror this a bit more. The tournaments alone could be a very welcome addition.

Edit: My tournament scores are not uploading. I also can’t see leaderboards for any table. I’m going to chalk this up to a server issue rather than a bug right now, but we will see.

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#208

I played a couple games this morning and also did not notice any problems, seemed smooth to me.

#209

How to Train Your Dragon requires 7 shots to complete all the side modes required to progress to the wizard mode. Probably another 7 shots to start the wizard mode. Easiest table Zen has ever made. Completed 2 full wizard modes in less than 10 minutes. Got 3rd on the all time leaderboard after my second game. Pretty boring,

#210

Yikes.

That said, I don’t have a problem with overly-easy tables as long as they don’t destroy their already-established tables in an attempt to dumb the game down for broader audiences. I’ll have to try out Wild West Rampage sometime as I remember it being one of the more difficult tables in Zen’e lineup.

#211

My Little Pony, Trolls, and How to Train Your Dragon are all super easy tables. I expected as much with the themes. Kung Fu Panda is challenging but for a bad reason. You start modes by hitting a training dummy that deflects the ball all over the place leading to drains. The Williams tables are fantastic except poor resolution like the other tables and for the inclusion of unnecessary animations like the dragon on Medieval Madness which flys around and obstructs your view. Makes me sad that the Zen’s William’s Pinball app is FtP garbage.

Zen Pinball Party is great if you haven’t already invested in Zen’s other pinball apps. I tried using a controller and nudging is much easier hands down.

#212

Is there no way to compare scores with friends? I don’t see a local high score list or friend high score list, just global.

#213

I don’t see a friends filter for high scores and the only local scores I see are for your personal best. Usually the top 10 scores are saved locally but I don’t even see where you can access those. Often you can access them on the status report (cradle the ball on one flipper until the status report pops up and then cycle the dmd reports with the other flipper) but I don’t see them there (tested on the Kung Fu table). Seems like a strange design decision since chasing high scores is a huge part of pinball.

Side note just finished wizard mode on Kung Fu Panda. Definitely the most challenging table of the 4 new games. A controller with proper nudging was mandatory to redirect the balls away from the outlanes. Swipe to nudge is absolute garbage and more often than not fails to register at all.

#214

I’m just lazily collecting stars right now on the tables I know. I haven’t explored the new ones much.

Strangely on Wild West Rampage I was prompted to put in my initials on one game I played. Just once. I don’t see local scores anywhere so perhaps that is carried over from the main Zen table.

Oh, and I detest Adventureland, or whatever that theme park table is. It is too obnoxious.

#215

Well, I have gotten every star there is to get in Zen Pinball party. With no local leaderboards and no trophies there isn’t really much left for me to do with the game other than try to better my online positions and play the few tournaments on offer. Interestingly, there are still some cosmetics for me to earn, which suggests that there will be more tables coming,

I did find a friend leaderboard, though it was a bit convoluted. I had to go into settings and hit the achievement tab, then the leaderboards were in there somewhere.

#216

Zen Pinball Party has updated a couple times to add in more IPs like Peanuts and Garfield. I wish so badly this integrated into the main app (and that the main app got some QoL updates).

#217

Snoopy is by far the best of the bunch for the new tables. The modes are actually fun to play. Garfield was okay.

#218

This past weekend was the Southern Hemisphere pinball championships, though with covid restrictions it was essentially the national championships this year. The host had a private collection of over 100 tables (which I could list, but it’d be excessive). He repairs and restores electro magnetic pinball machines (ie old ones) which formed maybe half of his collection.

Some of the highlights for me were 3 generations of Star Trek tables, all built in their relevant era. A Star Trek original series table, a next generation table, and the newer movie reboot table. I also got to play on a Jurassic park with its adventure mode, a Rick and Morty table with its excellent theme integration in its mission mode, and a brand new Mandalorian, and Godzilla.

I’m surprised how much I enjoyed the electro magnetic games, and how well suited they were for tournament play. They play fast and the high scoring areas of the table can quickly be figured out by the other players. On more modern tables the mission modes can be a bit convoluted if you don’t know the table. The electro magnetic games also require an entirely different method of nudging, which I observed the top players doing and look forward to practicing it in future. They’re basically constantly slapping the table lol

Anyway, there were 3 tournaments, and I placed 32/62, 16/53, and had a bit of a blow out on the last day and ended up 38/54.

Going into the lions den that is the national championship, I was expecting bottom third places in all 3 tournaments. I exceeded this in 2 of the tournaments, even ending up in the top third of one tournament. Really pleased for my results, and looking forward to the next batch of tournaments.

4 Likes
#219

This is not breaking news but as I just got a PS5 it is news to me:

The Zen Pinball / Pinball FX platform has rebranded yet again to simply Pinball FX. It is available on new gen systems as well as Switch and PC.

And you have to rebuy every single table. That’s right, nothing transfers.

And to make it even better, you don’t buy tables with cash, you buy them with tickets, which conveniently sell for amounts that don’t round evenly into table prices.

I have grown to despise this company beyond words, and it is a shame because I used to love their tables.

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#220

I’ve been talking to the proprietor of Wellingtons dedicated pinball parlour from inception to the final finished product, and he has exceeded all expectations.

I don’t think you even have to be a pinball fan to appreciate the gaming space he has created right in the centre of New Zealand’s capital city

(Lots of awesome pictures inside)

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#221

The lit up playfields behind the machines are really cool. Looks like a real labor of love for the owner. Very cool!

#222

Very much so. Hamish (the owner) has a background in high end domestic AV and entertainment system installation, so he’s got the expertise, the passion and the means to pull off something really spectacular like this

#223

I’ve been playing some of Zen’s offerings and Champion Pup is easily in the running for one of my most hated tables ever. It’s extra galling that the score threshold to earn three stars is so high that I have to play the table over and over and over…

#224

The board game pack (Gloomhaven, Terraforming Mars, and Exploding Kittens) is out along with a new Star Trek pack of tables. Pinball M (their “mature” or “R” rated platform for new tables) also released a week or two ago.

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