Pinball Construction Set - Redux

[z05DSL3A]

Sorry my brain just dumped this on me. Thought I'd jot some ideas down and expand, contract, or delete it later.

The general idea is for a hardware/software pinball system.

build a 'normal' pinball shaped cabinet for the hardware to sit in.
The bed would be something like a 16:9 monitor in portrait orientation
with a 4:3 as the scoreboard. Real buttons with tilt sensors etc.

[Duthomhas]

It's a really interesting idea.

To be sure, I don't think you win over any pinball afficionados -- they're pretty fanatical about the actual hardware -- but it does sound like a fun project with a fun game.

Personally, if it had the right gameplay, I'd play it over any 'real' machine any day of the week.

My dad, though, was so good at it that people would line up behind him just to play all the free games he would rack-up. And he never did find any video game version of pinball that he liked. (Some of them were really good, I thought.)

Anyway, didn't you have a cabinet partially assembled for this kind of thing a while back?

[Computergeek01]

So wait, this is a pinball video game that sits and plays like a mechanical one? That is an interesting idea. I know that the Raspberry pie has some accelerometers that you can probably use for your 'tilt' sensors.

[Lachlan Easton]

I don't want to ruin any dreams here, but do you mean like http://infinityamusements.com/ ?

[z05DSL3A]

Duoas wrote:

Anyway, didn't you have a cabinet partially assembled for this kind of thing a while back?

I don't think so...I did put an old PC and CRT into a video game style cabinet and ran an emulator that I can't remember the name of now.

I would like to build a real pinball table, I've seen Ben Heck messing with building his, looks kind of fun. I get the feeling that that would be very expensive here in the UK.

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Computergeek01 wrote:

So wait, this is a pinball video game that sits and plays like a mechanical one?

Yep. I've been fixing a monitor at work. Plugged it up before putting the case back on and lent it up against another monitor to test it...

I think tilt sensors and haptic feedback would make the experience a bit more real. It would also be good to see if I could do some head tracking to add a bit of depth to the table.

I think the first thing to do would be to see if my potential donor screen looks any good at a side angle.

[z05DSL3A]

Lachlan Easton wrote:

I don't want to ruin any dreams here, but do you mean like http://infinityamusements.com/ ?

Cool...it might not be an original idea but at least it's not a total space cadet idea. :0)