Visual Pinball Post
My cardboard Pinball machine was Disc Golf Themed. Unlike most people, I didn’t bring my cardboard box to digital. This was mainly because I felt like there weren’t enough features for a more advanced machine, and I also wanted a machine that was more recognizable to the average person. For these reasons, I decided to pivot and make a Mario-themed Pinball machine. Right off the back, I was happy with how many different features I could easily include using things from the Mario universe. Let me explain the making process.
Initial Sketch
The idea sketch idea had these main features: Peach’s Castle in the center, mushroom bumpers, a warp pipe that brought the ball around the course, goomba spinners, a Luigi ball unlock, and a Bowser figure that would fall in lava after you hit every other feature. While presenting this in class, Professor Jacobs had the brilliant idea of using lights instead of actually animating the figure. I ended up taking his advice.
Block out
The initial block out yielded 2 main changes from the sketch. The first change was that I moved the bumpers to behind the castle. This was because it made it possible for the ball to go into the bumpers right after launching it, and it also meant the castle would be less covered and more of a centerpiece of the machine. The second main change came from feedback from Kai while I was working on it. He said that the middle of the board felt very empty. I realized that he was right, so I added targets down the middle that you could shoot, and they would fall. At this point, I didn’t know what I would make the targets, but I wasn’t worried as there were lots of enemies in the Mario Universe from which I could choose.
Polishing
The polishing phase of this machine took the longest by far. The first thing I worried about was textures. I was inspired by Mario 64, so I used my inspiration to steal those textures. Then I Modeled a version of Peaches Castle in Blender and added it to the machine. I thought the playfield would look boring being all grass, so I added a lava section at the back. When it came to texturing the bumpers, I realized that mushrooms would no longer make sense, but Mario 64 has bully enemies that try to knock you into lava, so it seemed like a fitting reskin for the bumpers. I decided to make the targets in the middle red coins. After adding the bridge texture to the playfield below the castle to look more like the starting area from Mario 64, I had to move the targets a little to be on the bridge. The game also revolved around collecting 8 red coins, so I had to bump the number of targets from 6 to 8. I also added a little Bowser statue to the top right corner of the box using the model from Mario 64. Another change from the sketch was that the top left corner had a Luigi section which would give you a Luigi ball, but I changed it to Luigis Mansion because I thought it would look cooler. This would end up having negative consequences later (Foreshadowing!!). A small detail I added was that the first ball you have is red, like Mario, but if you get the Luigi ball, it’s green to show a visual difference. The last visual thing I added was lights, so the features had visual feedback for the players. And then with a little bit of scripting magic, the box was complete. It works almost exactly as I planned. If you shoot the ball into the castle, it will just spit it out, but if you shoot it into the castle after hitting every spot, indicated by their lights turning off, the bowser statue will light up showing that you won!
Feedback
I got some good feedback at Imagine. The main thing I took away was that it was fun and addicting (Yay!) Multiple children were playing it and had to be begrudgingly taken away by their parents. The only bit of negative feedback that I got was that when players hit Luigi’s mansion and it kept their ball and put a green ball into the launcher, players did not realize they got an extra ball, and they thought their first was just stuck. This is because I had no signifiers of what would happen when you hit that. Maybe if I just kept it as the Luigi symbol it would have been clearer, or I could have just had the words unlock Luigi ball on the mansion to show it. Those were the main points of feedback I had gotten.
Conclusion
I am very happy with how the box turned out. I think the features work well, some of the shots are challenging, but I don’t think they’re too hard. What I’m most proud of is that it plays and feels like a pinball machine, which was my main goal from the start. To that end, I think I succeeded wonderfully and I’m very proud of the work I did for this class!