I told them about this in the beta, on more than one occasion. Apparently they didn't want to listen to me.
The goals for this table are pretty much a carbon copy of the same 5 Standard, 5 Wizard goals that were in Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection on consoles. It made even less sense there, because the Harem Multiball ramp was glitched on the 360 - I don't think you could earn it any way other than the "back door three times" shot. (Dirty minds, please stay silent! Heh.) On the 360, you got a token 25 Achievement Points for completing the Standard challenges, and 50 for completing the Wizard goals (along with the customizing options that Wizard provided). If Sorcerer comes out, I remember it having an objective that seemed a bit much for Standard as well (spelling Sorcerer twice). Of course, when you got to Wizard you had a goal to spell it FOUR times in one ball, so it made sense why they split that objective between the two "tiers." Harem Multiball's mocked me off-and-on for the better part of two years now. I'll get it some day!
Thanks for this. I realize each table is different, so it's not as much a question of scoring well on a given table. It was exactly what you addressed! I'm definitely enjoying this. I've learned that waiting that extra second to flip prevents a lot more middle drains (as it keeps the middle lane smaller for longer), and I'm learning how to aim my shots a bit. Lots of fun! The only thing I have to do still is unlock all the tables but for $9, I'm going to wait and just okay the Arabian table a bit more. I want to make sure I definitely wasn't to indulge first.
I think it also pays, even if a bit tedious, to read the table's instructions that explain how the many missions work (especially if they have many components like first hit this ramp and then these targets...).
Yeah, there's a lot going on. I haven't bought any of the other tables yet...I'm only up to just over 16mil on Arabian Nights. The space table looks really minimilistic but awesome. I may bite on that one next. For some reason, playing this makes me want to head downtown to the Gameworks and play the machines there.
I had not played TotAN before this, but it is a lot of fun. One thing that will help here is to get good at hitting the lamp repeatedly. You can score a ton of points this way, and then when you hit the bazaar you will be able to use wishes to get jewels if you like.
This has already been answered a few times but I'll throw in my hat to describe the real basic differences. Zen Pinball is one of the better "fantasy pinball" sims in that the tables are just things the programmers dreamed up themselves with a lot of clever elements that could never exist in a REAL pinball table (like characters fighting it out on top of one of the bumpers or strange oil slicks suddenly appearing on the board). Pinball Arcade's claim to fame is that all of its tables are based on real world tables you might have seen in the arcades from the 60's to 90's as accurately as they could manage. Hard to say which is better as I kind of like stuff like animated characters and having the points I just scored flash on screen next to the target I hit to score them, but then again playing tables you knew as a kid accurately recreated is also pretty cool.
Every fifteen lamp spins will trigger Lightning Lamp, which causes pyrotechnics on the dot matrix, Make a Wish lit on the Bazaar, and lamp spins to be worth bonus points. A timer counts down on Lightning Lamp mode, and any spins will reset that timer. While it's active, it's tempting to pound the lamp over and over, and that can get you a very nice chunk of points. However, some important details: * Spins in Lightning Lamp mode do NOT count towards your bonus at the end of the ball. That count remains frozen at its current multiple of 15 until Lightning Lamp mode ends. * The bonus points per spin increase each time Lightning Lamp ends and is restarted. * You won't get another Make a Wish until you reach the next Lightning Lamp. Since Jewel collection there puts you one closer to Rescue the Princess (two with Ruby active) and ends any Tale that's active, letting you start another one, maximizing your Wishes is a good thing. Translation: don't pound the lamp to the exclusion of all else, especially in its first couple of instances, because it is to your benefit to let it lapse at times. Also, one of the biggest contributors to your score is the bonus multiplier. This can go up to 12x, so whack those captive balls early and often. A full load of lamp spins (119) at 12x is 14,800,000 at the end of the ball, plus 10K per Genie hit and 50K per jewel times 12. Even lower multipliers can easily produce bonuses in the millions, which is nothing to sneeze at.
anyone getting a weird bug when they click on "Tables" under the leaderboards tab? It just scrolls through the list of tables indefinitely. Thought it would be fixed in the update, apparently not.
They are both good. But Zen Pinball is a better product. Pinball Arcade is good, but it still needs a lot of work so if I were you, I would just play the free version for now. Also, the pinball tables in Pinball Arcade are a bit too pricey.
I have to agree Pinball Arcade has some rough edges but I place a lot of the blame on the devs raw ballsy ambition in this case! While Zen Pinball came about as the decent (although it still has some kinks to iron out as well) port of an established XBOX 360 series of video pinballs, the guys behind Pinball Arcade are trying to do a near simultaneous release of this series on ALL SYSTEMS (iOS, Android, Mac, PC, PS3, 360, PSP, NDS, etc.) each with their own resolutions, unique hardware, programming languages, etc. Since the iOS is something fairly easily patched on the fly, I think we and the Android folk are being used just a bit as Guinea Pigs for them to really solidify things before they release the console versions a month or so later...or again it really may have been truly simultaneous and it just takes the physical boxes a lot longer to work their way from master to your local Gamestop than uploading a file up to the AppStore/Android Market. We'll see if this eventually pays off for them but I love the idea that they've essentially setup a framework where they can take any real pinball machine they come across and then, after it goes through some magic machine, pop out a version of that game optimized for every current computer/smartphone/console out there!
The console versions are going to be download only as well, but I agree with what you're saying. This app does still need work, but even so I'd say it's worth every penny as it is. Zen is more polished, but certainly isn't perfect yet either (the frame rate on my iPad 1 was pretty terrible in Zen).
The game will only be available as a download on the consoles as well - there won't be a physical version of it.
There's an option to change nudge to be either shake or off. In either of these cases, I'd like to be able to use the entire surface of the screen for flipper control. I've lost more than my share of balls because my fingers slid too high.
