Full Tilt!
Full Tilt! (WIP) is an ETC project where ETC K-12 successfully pitched to Let's Play! Pittsburgh about creating a playful experience that takes pinball in a digital direction. Our team, Wizard Mode, decided to utilize projection mapping to create a projected pinball game that blends physical and virtual components.
My role: Technical Game Designer, Co-producer
My work involved designing the game mechanics and a pinball playfield that satisfies client's requirement: a game suitable for multi-generational families, that is not competitive in nature. I am also working with our engineering advisor to determine the physical setup, regarding the footprint and accessibility our client requires.
We started with a traditional portrait view of the playfield but soon realized that this setup wasn't designed to accommodate more than one player. With multiple players, the playfield was difficult to view clearly, and players tended to bump into each other. Therefore, we decided to switch to a landscape view for the playfield. It accommodates more players, and already feels like a new approach to this old game.
In terms of how gameplay works, our target audience is multi-generational families, not pinball enthusiasts, and our client was clear about not wanting a competitive game or cooperative where players tend to blame each other. My solution is to design for emergent gameplay. The game mechanics we present is that, our playfield and items in it adopts three themes but the layout is exactly the same, every time you pull the plunger you get a random pinball out of the three possible themes, every time the pinball hits an item, the item switches to the pinball's theme. We don't set an explicit goal, so really we are leaving what the game should be to players - it can be that 2 players are working together with one pinball, and trying to hit every item in the playfield with that ball; it can be 2 players each with a different themed pinball playing against each other, see who switches more items to their themes; it can also be a bunch of pinballs flying around and you can have whatever composition that comes up. Essentially the playfield is a canvas, and we leave it up to the players to decide how they want to paint it. By making multiball a default option, we are accommodating newer players (you don't have to do crazy stuff to enter multiball mode) and eliminating the negativity of blaming your teammate for losing a ball.
In coming up with the playfield and what goes inside/what does not, I was referring to some modern Stern tables. The design pillar is to preserve some classic elements (what makes pinball pinball) without being too over the top for players with less or no experience. However, when I visited an old pinball arcade in Pittsburgh, Pinball Perfection (I highly recommend this place), I realized that a lot of the machines from 1960s and 70s actually qualify for this pillar - strong theme, simple layout. Then I made the next iteration based on what I saw in them.
The gameplay elements:
Bumper: hit and change to ball's theme
Slingshots: hit and change to ball's theme
One-way gate bumper: balls only pass from shooter lane, when hit from the other side acts like a bumper
Track: go through the entire track to change to ball's theme
Drop Target: hit with the same themed ball - drop, hit with different theme ball - change to ball's theme
Smash Target: 0-3 'crack' levels, 0 being intact 3 being smashed, acts like a bumper; hit with different theme ball - crack level +1, hit with same theme ball - crack level -1
Announcer: non-interactive, changes to the current winning theme
Gobbler: gobbles up ball upon contact, has a counter, when counter reaches 5 the gobbler rotates left and right violently and launches the balls
World/Board state: when all bumpers, slingshots and tracks change to one theme, and all targets dropped, the smash target destroyed, play victory music for that theme and 'reset' the board: flippers, one-way gate bumper, gobbler, (lane dividers) switches to the victory theme; drop targets and smash target respawn and the game goes on.
In staying true to emergent gameplay, my method is to design mini-games in drop targets, smash target, and gobbler where people playing for the first time can have something to do without even knowing what the game is. As they see the targets and gobbler react to ball hits, they would gradually understand what the mechanic implies and design their own game.