Arborelia (Bluesky - @arborelia.net): I heard something that obstructed the effort to make Timeshock into a physical machine is that some of its mechanisms just couldn't be made of physical components that are reliable enough.
Arborelia, thank you for that wonderful question. It digs deep into the inner workings of both this project, and pinball machines as a whole, and the problems designers face with trying to make pinball fun and compelling for players, and not a nightmare for technicians.
Short answer: Yes, the three Wormhole Scoops present a design/engineering challenge.
Long answer: I've given a lot of thought regarding how best to implement the Wormhole features (teleporting the ball and ball lock for the multiball found in the "Full Tilt Pinball" version). I had tossed around several ideas:
-Each scoop having its own small ball trough (i.e. the Megatron scoop on Stern Pinball's "Transformers")
-A series of troughs joined by a few subways with kickers and diverters; with a mid-subway ball trough, like we see (experience?) on Williams' "Star Trek: The Next Generation"
-A reverse-sloped playfield (i.e. Gottlieb's "Haunted House" and "Black Hole") hidden under the main playfield as a more involved version of the idea above, using the reversed slope to make moving pinballs "up" the playfield easier.
At this point, for the sake of simplicity, the current design will have each Wormhole scoop a simple scoop; without any connections to the others. This allows the design process to continue moving ahead, instead of snagging on what is shaping up to be a design and engineering nightmare. Revisiting the Wormhole scoops at a later time will always be on the table, but moving the project along is a bigger priority.
ben (Bluesky - @benharri.org): are you repurposing an existing cabinet?
This is a fairly common question/approach in the custom pinball community. Many folks will get their start by simply replacing the artwork (referred to as a "re-theme"), or modifying (building new ramps, swapping playfield parts, etc.) a machine they already own.
-For "3D Pinball - Space Cadet", the plan is to put the playfield into a reproduction cabinet for a Bally "Twilight Zone". Given the rather steep price for an original machine, and my ambivalence towards that game (I know, it's heresy); a reproduction cabinet, built to the original specifications is the best course of action.
-"Twilight Zone" being my choice, as it's a widebody cabinet with a standard shooter rod (instead of the button launchers like "Judge Dredd", or "Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure"), and little else in the way of extra holes that would need to be covered up.
ZeeGoesMeep (Bluesky - @magpietyzee.bsky.social):What is the most challenging part of the build for you?
Another great question with a more technical angle! I always enjoy these sorts of questions, as I get to give a bit of a peek behind the curtain.
-At this point, the biggest hurdle has been learning to program the game itself. Over the course of this project, I've spent a fair bit of time with different CAD software (mostly LibreCAD for 2D CAD, and Fusion 360 for 3D CAD), and moving from 2D CAD to 3D CAD has been (relatively) easy, as parts of the toolset used a shared verbiage.
-For me, I can understand the core of programming (lots of "if THIS, then THAT" sorts of statements), but as the layers build up, it becomes more of a digital knot for me to untangle.
Pinhead (Bluesky - @psychopsonic.bsky.social): Will it have the time-limited disablement with snarky message feature that parents always dreamed about?
I figured I'd save the most interesting question for last, so here we are.
-I hadn't given any thought to limiting the time a given player could spend on my recreation of "3D Pinball - Space Cadet".
-For me, having a time-limited game (Gottlieb's initial code revision of "James Bond 007" or Midway's "Safe Cracker") isn't as fun of a time. If a sense of urgency is needed, a mode timer (instead of a game timer) could be implemented.
-That being said, having an Easter egg; be it a callout and/or a short display animation, isn't out of the question. Having a callout after a particularly long ball to remind the player to get some fresh air hasn't crossed my mind until this question was posed, but it certainly got me thinking to incorporate that concept of a parent coming in to tell their child to take a break from the computer for a little while.
Huge thanks to everyone who submitted questions. Over the next week or so, I will be modifiying my streaming schedule to include more regular/consistent streams when I work on this project. Stay tuned for that, and also make sure you follow my Twitch channel (https://www.twitch.tv/TerpohGaming if your browser is having issues with the link) to get notifications when I go live. You can also subscribe to this blog to receive updates when new posts go live!
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