The leaderboard system isn't THAT BAD. Signing up for their site is fine with me. But I do agree that the front end needs some serious work! A few times I've tried to swipe to the next table and ended up selecting the one I was looking at! As far as the actual pinball playing goes this is top notch!! I have physically played every machine on the app within the past year and actually ALMOST prefer the app to the real thing! Last weekend we went to a game convention in orlando. They had Several pins including Gorgar, Theater of Magic, Tales of Arabian Nights and Bride of Pin*Bot. There is no feeling worse than walking up to a pin and finding all it's issues. weak flippers.... pop bumpers not working.... rollover targets not scoring.... The Bride of Pin*bot they had there had such weak flippers the ball wouldn't even make it up the center ramp! So far the only issue I've seen with the new tables in the app is on Creature! if you pull the plunger back before the ball kicks out the ball will sometimes fall through the floor! it Immediately fixes itself so its just kinda funny and doesn't hurt the game This last update REALLY reminded me of my only regret in life... The day I sold my Creature from the black lagoon....
The next tables will be Taxi and a Stern table, " that will get your motor runnin". From the farsight newsletter. Taxi is nice, but what will the Stern table be? Motor runnin? Stern table with cars? I don't know.
I looked at Stern's tables, and the only motor-themed ones I could find were NASCAR, Harley-Davidson, and Transformers. Not sure I could even bring myself to play a NASCAR table They also mentioned they were phasing out Facebook integration, so I guess the Farsight login will eventually work properly and the app will stop nagging to post high scores. Has anybody else seen slowdowns in Arabian Nights in this version?
Well I finally got a chance to try Pinball Arcade on the PS3 and now I'm sort of sad that I did! The tables LOOK SO MUCH BETTER ON THE PS3. It isn't the graphic fidelity or anything, it's the lighting of the tables. On the PS3 the tables are lit like they would be in the low light of an arcade. Now when I play the iOS version the table colors look washed out like I'm playing inside a super brightly-lit operating room. The best example is Black Hole. On the PS3 the center of the table is just about pitch black. You can barely make out the second play level underneath. The effect is awesome. The table lights also jump out much more, and there is a bit more depth. I wish they would provide the option for that lighting difference in the iOS version.
The next tables will be Taxi, already known and Harley Davidson (Stern), the strange table, which "will get your motor runnin".
I'll keep playing Pinball Arcade as the tables are amazing, but I can't help but feel the same way every time I boot up the app. The UI is terrible. The nudging is terrible. These things are related. Pretty sure this is because at FarSight, they have the Pinball Engine engineers (who do the physics, OpenGL, etc), and then they have front-end UI engineers. Their front-end iOS engineer just isn't very good. This is also why we have a shitty nudging system rather than something that actually works, since that is technically a part of the UI hierarchy that "talks" to the underlying Pinball Engine. My guess is they have one guy that does the UI for all platforms, or at least all mobile platforms so they have to write not only iOS code but also Android, etc. Typically these kind of developers (I mean specific individuals, not the company) don't know advanced tricks of specific OS features (i.e. Jack of All Trades, master of none). Essentially FarSight really needs to hire an iOS master. Or send their mobile UI engineer to some Big Nerd Ranch classes or something.
They are working on it. There is an option to enable new lighting for newer devices but it really brings down the frame rate (and also doesn't look nearly as good).
So after updating I decided to buy the funhouse/Circus two pack. Played some funhouse but when I decided to try circus it wants me to buy it again...plus the game seems to have "forgotten" all my other purchased tables (I've bought all except Creature FTBL) and asks me if I'd like to buy them when I hit the start button for any of them. How can I restore my purchases without paying again?
Theres lots of apps like this, it'll come up with a popup saying 'you've already purchased - redownload ?' type of thing Everytime theres an update i've had to re-download the tables, you wont get charged again dont worry !
hmmm, no I think something is a bit borked. When I hit the buy button, I get the "you've already purchased" pop-up and I choose to download it again but it still cuts out after reaching the free trial score limit and tells me I need to buy it. ...just tried with Gorgar (which I own already) and its the same thing...asks if I want to purchase, tells me I already have and asks if I want to re-d/l which I do, then cuts out after the free trial score limit and asks me if I want to purchase.
BE CAREFUL! While you are never charged for IAPs you've already purchased, if you bought tables in a bundle and not individually you'll need to make sure you purchase the bundle again and not "buy" the individual tables as they're different IAPs.
yeah I figured as much so I hit the same buttons. This is a pretty confusing system though. I mean I did purchase one table on its own and remembering six months down the road which button to hit to redownload is a bit of a pain. Once you buy a table whether as a 2 pak or individually you should be able to re d/l with no risk of paying for it again. They need to work on a better system - especially as it seems like the stuff needs to be re downloaded with every update... ...again though, that isn't the issue here since I'm being asked to re purchase even after having re-acquired the table (even if I had hit the wrong buy button, I would still have bought it) and thats on both my ipad2 and my iphone4 btw.
This is why most apps have a "Restore Purchases" button which sorts things out nicely. Sounds like you might want to delete the app, reboot and reinstall it, then try the IAP again.
Yeah I thought of that, but I've just installed the app for the first time on my phone and its doing it there too. Yes, a "restore all purchased tables" option is whats needed. On an un-related note, nudging seems to be working more consistantly now which is good, but its still pretty useless since its completely non-directional. I should be able to swipe to the right to nudge the table on the left side and to the left for a right side nudge, as well as swiping up to nudge the table away from me...
