Why Surfing Theme and Mechanics?
For my bagatelle design, I decided to go with a simple theme – Surfing and beach culture in the USA. I like this theme because it is lighthearted and easily recognizable by many people. It is also somewhat historic, nodding to mid-20th century beach culture, though not quite as historic as the bagatelle.
I also want to play around with smoother mechanics – semicircles and curved lines that the ball can “roll” off of, as opposed to the traditional approach of the ball bouncing off various elements on the playfield. Upon starting my design, I found that it is best to make the curves with tightly-positioned thumbtacks/pins in the absence of plastic, and they still give a bit of that “rolling” feel to mimic waves in the ocean.
The player’s goal is to get balls stuck between pins with point values to increase their score. Although the player can’t use flippers to maneuver the ball, they can control how hard to hit the ball initially – which can land them in a hard-to-reach location and earn them a lot of points.
Observations and Next Steps
The only way to really know if the playfield “flows” in a smooth way is to test it many times, since adjusting any one of the pins making up a “wave” can drastically alter the outcome and path of the ball. I’ll also want to adjust the scoring and rules pertaining around the maximum number of balls allowed on the playfield (since my concept started with three, but I think five would be more fair and fun). I’ve made a few changes to my design since starting it, mostly pertaining to the placement of pins not part of a semicircle and the scoring. The bottom of the playfield isn’t flat like depicted in my layout drawing, so I’ve moved the pins along the bottom to follow the slope. This makes them harder to hit (but still possible), so I’ll want to increase those 50-point values specifically.
Although I didn’t get many comments in class regarding my initial concept, I think I will get good feedback when testing my design.