Jimi Hendrix Post Mortem

For my advanced pinball machine, I decided that I’d go with Jimi Hendrix. I have always loved Jimi Hendrix, and felt that he deserved a pinball machine. I knew I wanted to capitalize on his guitar solos. The way I decided to do this was through the use of more elaborate ramps, which also happened to fill the “advanced”-ness of the assignment.

I tried to fit as many ramps as I could, originally trying to go with four, but then realizing that the pinbox 3000 would not be able to feasibly fit them, but I somehow managed to get three to fit well enough. The only problem that I noticed with the ramps was during playtests, the left-most ramp was incredibly difficult to land in, which arguably isn’t that bad, as it means that there is at least one shot that requires more skill than the others. If I were to continue building upon this machine, I believe I’d probably simply make the entrance to the ramp to be larger, but keeping the angle that is required for it, as that should make it easier, but making not nearly impossible anymore.
The other design that I used was a multiball. The inspiration for this was from a few machines I saw at the Strong Museum that used a target, requiring a hard hit to reward the player with a multiball. Mine was not as difficult as the ones I had seen, however I think players enjoyed having a multiball option. On the fly while playtesting I actually also allowed for skilled players to lock a ball back into the multiball zone, because it was a difficult shot to make, and felt that rewarding them in that way was fair. Overall I’d say it was a successful mechanic.

The last mechanic I had in the machine was one I had been trying to get into my machine since the completion of the bagatelle machine, a fidget spinner as a spinner. It wasn’t very complicated, which was exactly why I wanted it, it was simple to get on the field, just buy a fidget spinner, and it worked great. The only problem I found is that fidget spinners aren’t built to be hit constantly, so towards the end of the day, the spinner actually broke apart, requiring me to put it back together, thankfully it wasn’t permanent, but it is something I should keep in mind for the future.

Overall, I think my machine was fun, and there are a few changed that I’d want to make, particularly in the visual appeal, as I kind of threw together the visual part of the machine. I also plan on continuing this machine into the virtual pinball assignments, as I had a ton of fun making the machine.