Yes, the sex issue is here... err the sixth issue that is so don't get any funny ideas! Anyway it is here, so simply read and enjoy a moment of... pinball!
The main attraction of this mail is an interview with noone else than, Bill Budge! Creator of Raster Blaster and Pinball Construction Kit, that is the first pinball simulation and the first pinball editor!
There is ofcourse also some comments on this years main attraction, Pro Pinball - Big Race U.S.A. Believe me this is something you really should get hold off, specifically for the head-to-head implementation, just sooo fun! :)
Microsoft is also releasing their MS Pinball Arcade this fall, it will maybe not be quite in the same league as the pro pinball series (on concern of realism) but it features 7 tables, all simulations of real pinballs!
Sierra is also coming out with their fourth pinball, this time a car themed one approved by Nascar.
There is also some other pinballs on the way, but they are further away and I have no idea whetever or whenever they will be release, so that is another issue.
I didn't write so many small articles this time, just concentrated on the big releases. Who knows, maybe I'll do things differently next time. If there is any people who would like me to send out these clubmails more often then feel free to send me articles, tips on articles, etc... I wont mind.
Before I finish off this letter editorial I just wanted to point out that there is now a Pinball Simulation Mailing List (maintained by Gregory A. Swarthout). Join the list by filling out the form on the club page:
http://www.pcpinball.com/club/psmlist.html
Oh, by the way, wish me a happy birthday (on 11/11)! :)
Bill Budge! The creator of both Raster Blaster and Pinball Construction Kit, the first pinball simulation and the first pinball editor (you will have to take my word for it that they are the first)! Here follows an interview with him, hope you like it! The interview asks questions about how the pinballs he developed came to be and also investigates the history of computers a little...
The Interview...
[Sam Gabrielsson]: Godday Mr. Budge. A simple question, who are you? (if it is not to personal, how old are you? :)
[Bill Budge]: I'm a guy who likes to build things. I discovered computer programming as a teenager in the late 60's. While in the PhD program at UC Berkeley, I got an Apple II and began writing video games for fun. I liked it so much I stopped being a student and became a game programmer. I'm 44, married to a beautiful woman from Chile, and have two little kids, aged 3 and 5.
[SG]: What are you doing today? Still programming all you can, or have you taken the step up (down?) to be the organizer of lots of other programmers or are you just relaxing with a lot of money at some calm Hawaii hotel... or what do you do? :)
[BB]: I'm still programming. I love to build things, and software is the ultimate construction toy. I do work with other programmers though.
[SG]: By memory, how many titles (games, programs, whatever) have you created? Might be quite a lot, feel free to mention just the titles of the ones you are most happy with or maybe the ones that were most successful. Just curious on what you have created!
[BB]: About a dozen - let's see... First was inspired by Pong, called Penny Arcade and traded to Apple Computer for a printer. Then some more Apple II games. I did a 3-d vector graphics game construction set, then Raster Blaster, the first personal computer pinball simulation. (Someone did a really nice arcade sim before me) I extended RB to get Pinball Construction Set, which is probably my major claim to fame. More recently, I completed a version of PCS for the Sega Genesis, called Virtual Pinball, published by Electronic Arts. At 3DO, I did a 3DO Multiplayer game called Blade Force, and worked on an Olympic Decathlon game. Since then, I've been doing engines and tools for PC games.
[SG]: Where did you grow up and where do you by the way live today? Did/do you like the places?
[BB]: My family moved around a lot; I've lived in Raleigh, NC, Buffalo NY, Chicago, Los Angeles, Wichita KA and finally, the San Francisco - Bay Area. I love it here.
[SG]: Let me jump directly to a quick pinball question, did you play any pinballs as young? If so, any special ones you remember? If you had no contact with pinballs at all as young, when did you come in contact with one the first time?
[BB]: Never. Only when I was an engineer at Apple Computer in the early 80's. Woz and a lot of the other engineers became obsessed with pinball, and I picked it up from them.
[SG]: Today, do you play lots of lots of pinball all the day in the arcade or on the computer? :)
[BB]: Neither. With work and kids, I don't have time for much else.
[SG]: Do you remember which your first contact with computers was, which the first computer you owned was (I suppose there might be a big time gap between those two occasions and then again maybe not, I don't know)?
[BB]: First computer programmed - An IBM 1401, a real antique. First computer owned - an Apple II, serial number about 10,000.
[SG]: As might not be a surprising question in an interview with a programmer, when did you start programming and well... on what, why and what (interpret that in some way you think is correct)?
[BB]: A math teacher in my high school, Harriet Hungate, started a computer programming class. I took it out of curiosity and after a week of total confusion realized what I wanted to do as a career. A local business loaned us some time on an IBM 1401. We wrote programs in assembler on coding sheets, they got punched into decks of cards, and we got printer output. I wrote multiply subroutines at first, obsessed with improving them. Then more math stuff, like division, factorials and square roots. This was a very primitive computer. Later someone gave us time on a machine that had a FORTRAN compiler. Finally, we got a terminal which could link up to a minicomputer with BASIC, and I wrote tic-tac-toe, checkers and GO games. My unfinished project was a Geometry Theorem Prover.
[SG]: What was the situation like when you started programming, even if your aim wasn't to get work as a programmer, would it have been hard?
[BB]: It didn't occur to me that I could make money at programming then. Probably not if I'd been more of a hustler.
[SG]: So, what was your first finished v.1.0 of a game or program? You still got it lying around somewhere or has it been lost somewhere unknown?
[BB]: Probably Tic-tac-toe. I think I have the source listing stored away. I definitely have some of my first programs saved.
[SG]: Would you like to tell us a little more about your early days as an more or less experienced programmer? I mean more like, what did you do to work your way up to wherever you have ended up, or are you maybe still aiming for something! Maybe you could start with your time at Electronic Arts, that was the first company you worked for, right? What did you do?
[BB]: The learning process never ends. I've improved my skills significantly this year, and I'm 44! I was always a good programmer, almost from the start, but I had a lot to learn. It's a common fantasy, when you're starting, to believe you're the best programmer in the world, because other programmers' work isn't that visible. I've come a long long way since then, but in some sense, I still have about the same intelligence and creativity.
[SG]: When did you write Pinball Construction Kit and why, what is the background for the game? For which platform did you originally write the pinball (I think it has been ported to quite a lot of systems?).
[BB]: I wrote it in 1982. It's descended from Raster Blaster, which I wrote in 1981. I rewrote the pinball simulation to make it more robust, and added the GUI editor. It was originally written for the Apple II, but I ported it to Atari 800 and Macintosh, and EA hired programmers to port it to IBM PC and Commodore 64. I totally rewrote the whole thing in 1993 for Sega Genesis Virtual Pinball. It's the same idea, with a better simulation, better graphics and sound, and a simpler interface.
[SG]: Were you happy with PCK? I have read that the wysiwig interface featured in the pinball was pretty unique when it came out, sort of the first game to feature a graphical level editor?
[BB] Yes, I was very satisfied. I was inspired by the Xerox Parc work on GUI's. I had to solve a lot of problems to build all of that on an Apple II.
[SG]: Tell me about Raster Blaster!!! When did it come out, for what computer, why did you make it, give us the full story! :)
[BB]: Raster Blaster was also an Apple II game. I did it in my spare time while working as a graphics engineer at Apple Computer. I had seen an arcade pinball, and had learned enough about hi-resolution graphics to realize that a very nice simulation could be done on the Apple. For the first couple of weeks, I built the basic simulation and built a board database by hand. Nobody quite understood what I was doing. Then one night I got the ball bouncing around on the board and it became apparent how cool it would look (by 1981 standards at least) I got the rest going pretty quickly. I made myself some bitmap editing tools (which were included in PCS) and made it look pretty. Flippers took a while to implement. They're definitely the most complicated thing for me. I also had some trouble with collision detection, with balls getting stuck to walls, or slipping through. Eventually I got it pretty solid. I had my own company to market the game and we sold quite a few without much effort.
[SG]: What other pinballs have you written?
[BB]: That's it!
[SG]: What do you think of the pinball simulations and the pinball editors released today (not sure if you have tried any?)?
[BB]: I haven't played too much; the ones I've seen look very good, and I'm sure the latest ones are great. Much better than my early stuff, which wasn't very realistic.
[SG]: I read some notice that EA in it's early days packed their games like lp records and send people like you out on... "autograph signing tours"? You got to tell me something more about this, sounds like a kind of unusual idea! Did it work out well like a promoting thing? (could you email me your autograph? :)
[BB]: Yeah, they sent me out on a kind of celebrity rock star tour. But it became obvious pretty quickly that programmers aren't quite rock stars. But it was a fun experience. I don't have a scanned autograph yet!
[SG]: What did you do after EA? I know a pinball by the name "Virtual Pinball" for Sega Genesis was released by BudeCo Inc. in 1993, is that some company of your own? Is it still in business?
[BB]: That's an EA game too.
[SG]: So, when did you start working at Studio 3DO? What do you do there? (I'm pretty sure that you are working at 3DO today, if you don't, how come you have this email? :)
[BB]: I started in 1993. My official title is "Distinguished Engineer", which is kind of like a fellow. So I get to work on cool new stuff, like game engines.
[SG]: Anything really special you remember from your computer programming life so far that you would like to share with us? Any important step in your career I haven't asked about?
[BB]: My programming teacher in high school was great. She let us discover things by ourselves. So I actually discovered the "loop" by myself. That was a transcendent moment for me. Getting my first pong ball bouncing around on the screen, that was another one.
[SG]: If you today look back on the two occasions when you had your first contact with a computer and when you got your first computer, how have computers developed in your eyes until today? (maybe not only in terms of speed and hardware, but in usability, affect on people etc.)
[BB]: Computers were big expensive machines that you never touched. You didn't really interact with them. Some, like university minis had graphics and cool peripherals, but I couldn't get my hands on. It was great to have my own Apple II with graphics and sound. Even though it wasn't that powerful, you got the whole machine. Now, with the Internet, and the kind of hardware and tools that are available, the promise of computing is being realized, so I would say that the impact of the computer has increased dramatically.
[SG]: Most interesting of all, do you find the way things have evolved good, fascinating or bad (and why in any case)? Is anything (concerning the computer world then) today like you expected it to be when you began your career?
[BB]: Good. So many things are better because of computers, from cars to toys. I never thought the average person would ever be buying software!
[SG]: Let's say I think it would be cool if computers evolved so that one on the computer could simulate a real pinball so that it looks as well as feels as a real pinball (maybe a vr or holographic pinball), do you think that will ever be possible? I imagine you as the one and only person who can answer this question correctly! What is your view on the future of computers?
[BB]: Some areas of technology like computing cost and speed are advancing rapidly. But other technologies, like true 3D displays and tactile feedback are in their infancies and may face insurmountable obstacles. For example, feedback to simulate a solid object requires force powerful enough to rip your arm off. I could be wrong, but I think computer pinball should strive to exploit its special advantages, rather than just be a copy of real pinball machines.
[SG]: My last pinball question to you, are you planning on in some way in the future being active in the release of another pinball?
[BB]: Probably not, but you never know. There are interesting problems to solve.
[SG]: A last question, when EA published their first games they produced an ad that said: "Software artists? It is a name these people are uncomfortable with. 'I'm not so sure there are any software artists yet', says BB. 'Maybe we've got to earn that title.'" Well, have you? (don't be modest!)
[BB]: I think I was talking about game design. There is art in just about anything, but I'm strictly an engineer at this point in my career, so I'd have to say "No". But I'd like to design a game again some day.
[SG]: Anything else you want to say...?
[BB] No, but thanks for the questions. Please forward any club newsletters, I'd be interested.
This is the third title in the pro pinball series and it is just as great as the previous ones. BRUSA is a little more on the humorous side than the previous titles in the series. It also differs from the previous titles by not featuring a sci-fi themed table, instead it is cars that are the stars and theme of the table. Mean cars, sweet cars, funny cars...
The main theme of the pinball is to travel across USA to San Francisco and well there win the big race (hence, Big Race U.S.A). Sound simple? Well there is a lot more to it, and who knows, maybe something really really big is out there? You must accomplish a lot of modes, duel other cars, pick up passengers in your taxi and so on.
It is all very neat and fun. Depending on what kind of pinball player you are you might find BRUSA a bit easier to get into than timeshock! maybe was. There is still lots to do and you do have to learn the tables secrets and work the theme out for yourself like in all other pinballs, but isn't that the fun part?
And the best of all, there is a head-to-head feature available. You connect to the internet (you can play over ipx etc too), load up the brusa table and from a menu enter a chat lobby. Here you can meet other players and challenge them in ladder and friendly matches of pinball! You both play simultaneously against each other in specially formed matches. The matches are made up of three rounds, you and your opponent compete to win each round, and in the third round you play the big race - lock balls to overtake your opponent and get first to the finishing line! It is fun!
This pinball features 7 tables which are all simulations of real tables (created by Gottlieb). The tables are: Baffle Ball (1932, first pinball prototype I believe), Humpty Dumpty (1947), Knock Out (1950), Slick Chick (1963), Spirit of '76 (1976), Haunted House (1982), Cue Ball Wizard (1993). So if you are a fan of any of those tables you are probably looking forward to the release of this pinball which should happen sometime during November this year.
Are the tables in MPA authentic and perfect simulations of the real tables, you might wonder? Well, not perfect anyhow... How are they compared to other attempts of simulating real existing pinball tables, in my opinion a lot better! I feel that anyone a fan of the real tables will probably like this package, anyone looking for just a realistic pinball simulation will probably be a little disappointed (the ball/flipper physics just aren't like you want them to be, though still acceptable they are not exactly in the leauge of the realistic pinball simulations like the pro pinballs).
Graphically the tables look nice. As for the SFX it is also very nice and consists of samples recorded from the real tables.
Anyway, when playing you can have a little fun and just getting to try out these old tables on your computer is kind a fun even though you probably wont spend any hours in front of it (with the exception of Baffle Ball then, which I kind a like nomatter what)!
I haven't yet played the final version and can only base my judgement on the beta version.
MPA is scheduled for a release in US during week 45 and for a Europe release during week 46. Should be out by now then!
Read the preview I wrote of this pinball for a well motivated judgement (duh) on the non-finished version of the pinball which was released by ms for reviewing purpose.
Eight Ball Deluxe and Royal Flush from Amtex (pc/mac)
Elvira and Police Force together under the name Pinball Jam (Atari Lynx)
Pinbot and High Speed (8-bit nintendo)
High Speed II: The Getaway (gameboy)
Baffle Ball/Humpty Dumpty/Knock Out/Slick Chick/Spirit of '76/Haunted House/Cue Ball Wizard together under the name Microsoft Pinball Arcade (pc)
A small sidenote: A very common problem (I've been told a couple of times) when a developer gets the idea to produce a simulation of a real pinball table is the license. Convincing a company to sell the license of their pinball to the developer for the sole purpose of creating a simulation isn't easy. Money might be one problem though the biggest problem most certainly is that companies tend to sometimes think, "why should we, we can do it ourselves sometime if we see a reason for it"... I don't mean to judge, maybe they can too. If you wonder why only Gottlieb tables are included in MPA I believe I might just have given you the answer.
Around November 14th we should expect this pinball to be released. Pay a visit to the nascarpinball.com pages for lots of screenshots and information about the pinball.
Three tables are featured: The Garage, Each race starts in the garage where you tune up your car for the race. There you will see your car and 8 targets representing parts you can adjust to improve your car's performance. The Speedway, This is where the races will be held and where you'll be scoring the points to win them. The Pitstop, The pitstop table is where you go to rejuvenate your car after all the wear and tear of the Speedway. Your car is losing efficiency with every lap and accident. Finally: If you win enough races, you'll get a chance at the championship in a special Winner's Circle event. You win races by scoring as many points as possible.
Hopefully this will end the neverending "is there a cheat for space cadet" (one of three tables featured in Full Tilt!), end the neverending, isn't that a contradiction of some kind? No, there is no cheat (if you can probe me wrong, do so, I doubt you can), there is a trainer though. Download it from:
Isaac Asimov worked out how the large masses of humanity could be controlled, why shouldn't someone work out the laws of pinball? These are the laws for real pinballs though they highly apply for simulations as well (just imagine it beeing the big red on/off button on your computer beeing pressed in law #6 for example).
Original by Mark Phaedrus
Modified and added to by Dave Hollinsworth
(published without eithers permission)
Rule #1: Terrible breaks and stupid mistakes go up exponentially with your proximity to the high score.
Corollary #1: If you do spectacularly well on ball 1 (more than your average total score), balls 2 and 3 will inevitably score a total of the skill shot plus one pop bumper (and an outlane, if you're REALLY lucky....)
Rule #2: Your chances of making a shot are inversely proportional to how important that shot is.
Corollary #1: You will make without any effort any shot, no matter how difficult or complex, when all awards for that shot are unlit.
Rule #3: The number of onlookers is directly proportional to your desire to be left alone. Corollary #1: You will draw a large audience right before you are about to screw up. You will have no audience when you make the pinball do the physically impossible.
Rule #4: Credits awarded are inversely proportional to your time and willingness to play them.
Corollary #1: It is impossible to lose whenever you should be attending a final exam.
Rule #5: Given two highly valuable shots separated by a post, the ball will invariably hit the post.
Rule #6: Right before you've earned a replay, or just before the end of a great game that will get you on the high score list, a small child will come up to your game and press the brightly flashing start button. Or, the ball will get irretrievably wedged somewhere.
Rule #7: The Law of Conservation of Drains: If the number of balls draining out one place is abruptly reduced, the number of drains out the other two must rise to compensate.
Rule #8: When the outlanes are lit for Special, every ball will drain out the center, no matter how long you play or how many multiballs you start.
Rule #9: The match percentage increases in direct proportion to how much you are waiting for the current player to leave.
Rule #10: You will only get a match credit after a game which gives you a replay credit, a Special credit, and 2 Grand Champion credits.
Rule #11: Any shot that changes the lit mode will cycle through all of them and wind up on the same one it started out on.
3D Ultra Pinball 4: Nascar Pinball (Sierra) (PC/MAC)
www.nascarpinball.com
Sierras next in line racing game, for any fan of the 3dup series it seems to not be a disappointment. Scheduled for a release November 1998 (this month!). Visit the nascarpinball domain for lots of pictures and information about the pinball, there is also a demo available for download!
Addams Family Pinball | (Digital Eclipse) (PC/N68/PSX)
www.digitaleclipse.com
Christmas 98 was a release date I heard of a couple of months ago, though I have no idea whetever this release date is accurate or not. Recently the short notice about this product that used to be featured on DE's homepage dissapeared... So it is very little I know about this product.
Angel Egg (LittleWing) (PC/MAC)
www.littlewing.co.jp
LittleWings fifth pinball I think, not yet released in english but should soon be. Word has it holds up to the expectations, so fans of the littlewing pinball series have something to look forward too!
"Boomerang" (21st Century Ltd.) (PC)
www.21stcent.com
Not really a pinball, more of an breakout style game I think. It should have been released second quarter this year if one is to believe the publishers, though I don't know of it having been released.
David Macaulay Pinball Science (Dorling Kindersley?) (PC)
www.dk.com
A kind of childs educational title for pinball released sometime in august-october this year. The basic idea is that children get a grasp of the physics of pinball as they build their own tables. There is three different pinball worlds to explore, within each of these worlds there are 300 different questions to answer - and of course, plenty of arcade style pinball action to be had too. As you advance and learn more about pinball the more things will be available for you to build your own table.
Golden Logres (LittleWing) (PC/MAC)
www.littlewing.co.jp
A internet version is available of it (you download a tryout demo version from their page, having downloaded it you pay a registration fee to LW and they will email you a serial code).
Last Gladiator V.9.7 (KaZe) (PC)
www.kaze.net
Nothing new, last word about this pc conversion of the popular saturn pinball was that it would be released at the end of this year. It is likely that will happen, though I haven't been able to get any confirmation on it.
Microsoft Pinball Arcade (Microsoft) (PC, what did you think)
www.microsoft.com/pinball
Look at the heading a bit further up in the letter for more information. US/Europe release for weeks 45/46 (so it is likely it is available where you live now)!
Pro Pinball - Big Race USA (Cunning Developments) (PC/MAC/PSX)
www.propinball.com
Look at the heading a bit further up in the letter for more information. It will be released for both mac and pc. No, there was no simultaneous release... The pc version of brusa should be hitting the streets of europe in november. The mac version should also get out during november but more likely at the end of the month. As for the us version, it is slightly delayed apparently, though that is all I know.
SlamTilt 3D The Resurrection (21st Century Ltd.) (PC)
www.21stcent.com
A 3D version of the good old scroller SlamTilt. Have no clue of know when it will be released.
