I am not sure how I run across this pinball. Most probably I found a reference in Touch Arcade. Anyhow this is not the most important thing. What is funny is that this pinball does not exist and despite this I am going to write a post on it. We are talking about Chalkboard Pinball Creator. It’s a product of Pangea Software, a serious brand that has produced several successful games both for the Mac and iDevices.
To put it in a nutshell it’s a new generation Pinball Construction Set. You draw the table frame and then position the various elements. The screen below is one example of what you get.
There is even a video which shows the workings of the pinball on the Pangea site.
As I was saying the funny thing is that this game does not exist, neither in the french store, nor in the US or Canadian one (and I even searched for it in the greek store, to no avail). Perhaps the game is being updated for iOS 9, in which case it will resurface soon. Having had a frustrating experience with Pinball Construction Set (never managed to play it) I am now jittery concerning this new pinball creator app. Most probably it will turn out to be an anticlimactic experience, but be that as it may, I would like to try it.
ASK Homework just released another table in the Zaccaria collection, Red Show.This brings the total of pinballs in the Zaccaria collection up to 42. There is some rumor that this will be the last Zaccaria table from ASK Homework, but one never knows. Anyhow, Red Show
is not among my preferred Zaccaria tables. It’s not that I do not like simple pinballs where you do not have that much to do apart from hitting the ball trying to aim at targets. It’s the physics of the ASK Homework simulations that make for a frustrating game. Even if you crank the flipper force to a maximum and tilt the table as much as possible, the game is sluggish. Having played with Red Show for a few minutes, and after having taken the mandatory screenshot for the blog, I decided that I had better go back to Addams Family.
Since no new pinballs have made their appearance these last weeks (and while we wait for Family Guy from Zen) I decided to give Pinball Planet a try. Well, it was a pure loss of my time. The game comes with three tables, Halloween
Mine
and Pirate
but you can play only one at the beginning: you must progress to some level for the remaining two to be unlocked. I found it faster, after having tried one table, to just reset the game and choose a different table starting afresh.
There is nothing positive I could say about this pinball. The graphics are cheesy, the gameplay uninteresting and the physics below par. The developers spiel goes like this: "it combines the best parts of old-school pinball games but adds original and fun digital additions that are not possible in real-life pinball games". By this last statement they mean animations "à la Zen" which, as you surely know, I cannot stand. At least, when Zen Studios add all those moving parts in their games they do it with an excellent taste both graphically and animation-wise. Here the animations are just intrusive and disrupt the gameplay. So, even if the price of Pinball Planet is minimal I wouldn't recommend trying it. Just go back to your preferred pinball and spend your time having fun.
The first pinball of season 5 of Pinball Arcade is here and it is beauty. The Getaway: High Speed II is a fast-car themed pinball with an nice design and an interesting gameplay.
As is always the case with Farsight pinballs you have to choose an adequate ball. Given the basic colours of the table I found that a plain white ball was a good choice. I enjoyed the game right away and the Supercharger feature is really great.
As you have certainly noticed I am a harsh critic of Farsight. But you have to give it to them. They have by now produced 62 (count them!) simulations of existing pinballs, among which you can find some masterpieces. Of course the price is quite steep, in particular when you wish to play both on your iPad and your Mac, since you have to buy the same table twice. But, had Farsight not existed, I don't know how we could have had all those classic pinballs at our disposal.
