For the advanced pinball machine, I chose to continue my Jimi Hendrix themed machine. This time though, rather than use my original design for the field, I completely redid the entire field. I felt that the old design worked well for the pinbox, as there was no score system involved, however, with a virtual pinball machine, there was a higher bar to hit due to how easy it is to create more complex mechanics within the machines.
First off, I knew that I want to keep the long winding ramps, however the original design for them created a lot of empty space for them that I needed to remove. So what I did was make them thinner, and longer instead. I hope that this will keep the appeal that my past machines had where the ramps were fun, while giving me more room to work with to add more things.
Next I completely reworked my bumpers. If you’ve played pinball machines, you probably know the standard use of bumpers. A trio that will rack up a few points by bumping the ball between them. The reason this is so widely use isn’t because of a lack of imagination, but rather that this formation just works great. I realize that in the first machine, I didn’t put enough thought into the placement, however, being in anything less than a group of three meant that you didn’t get the fun bumping that you do with three, and honestly, anything more than three is just overkill.
I also wanted to add something more akin to a professional machine, and that meant giving the player some objectives. So what I did was add a set of targets that will then light one of the ramps, or the bumpers. Hitting these will give you a bunch of extra points. This I think makes the game have more direction than just shooting the ball hoping to not drain.
The final touch I added was putting in sound effects, I found a few open-source sound effects and threw them in. The effects I kept short enough that they didn’t create loud obnoxious noises, but long enough that they made sense for what type of trigger they were being set off. What I mean by this is that the ramp has a longer guitar riff, while the bumpers are single strums of a guitar. I think this really brings the entire machine together to make it more unique.