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,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
Snoopy is by far the best of the bunch for the new tables. The modes are actually fun to play. Garfield was okay.
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.
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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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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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The lit up playfields behind the machines are really cool. Looks like a real labor of love for the owner. Very cool!
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
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…
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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How is Zen’s offering on other platforms? They’ve lost my trust on iOS. I never tried on PlayStation but if I recall they’ve released a couple versions of the game and tables didn’t transfer between them or something egregious like that. It’s a shame because I love their pinball.
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Yeah. I haven’t really played much until very recently because my preferred platform is playing on my iPad and they seemed to have abandoned it or released ftp crap like the Williams app. Also their latest iteration on other platforms confusingly called pinball fx (we went from fx3 to just fx?) has not supported importing your previously purchased tables into the new platform. I recently paid like $100 during the black friday steam sale to rebuy the most of the old tables I’ve played and also all the new tables that have been exclusive to the new fx platform. Probably like 60-70 tables. Snotty thought I was building a virtual pinball cabinet. I wish. I’ll probably wait to see if there is going to be a christmas sale on these new packs before I purchase them. I’m not certainly not lacking in new tables tomplay.
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I’ve been in the irl pin scene long enough to see a few virtual pins. It’s just a tv in a box with some buttons. A bit of woodworking (with plywood of all things) and some very basic electrical skills to attach the buttons. Make a back glass to your taste (doesn’t have to be glass, any decal will do) and you’ve got yourself a stand up pinball table and conversation piece. Its a totally doable home project, or just buy one outright.
Then once you’ve got your first machine, start filling every square inch of your house with pins like the other pinheads I’ve met
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I played the terraforming mars table on my free pinball pass. It’s pretty good. Between the loops, ramps, mission mode, and side mission mode, there’s plenty going on even though the gameplay is pretty straightforward.
I don’t like that the rover hides the mid table flipper until you advance the rover, and how the skill shot is incredibly hard to get unless it spawns in the right spot.
Overall, I think this table is welcome in the pantheon of pc based space tables
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