Early Research Toward Twilight Zone Beta Testing

A few people have questioned the claimed 902M score in my signature. See proof below.

Everyone else, be warned: TZ is an evil, evil table. I can't tell you how many times I wanted to put my fist through the glass. Console owners may want to go ahead and identify a safe area to throw their controllers.

Also: a shout out to the owner and patrons of CP Pinball, for putting up with the 120+ hours of cursing, wailing and gnashing of teeth required to produce this picture, as well as fixing a broken Powerball sensor, bending a wonky bridge diverter back into shape, retrieving numerous stuck balls, and enduring countless overly-loud Jackpot sound effects.

I´m pretty sure that the TPA version will be quite a bit softer on our controllers, tablets and smartphones... I´ve had the chance to play Revenge From Mars, Guns n Roses and Addams Family recently, and there have been many times when I´ve thought "on TPA that would have worked".

Real ball speed is still a lot faster, and the reliability and predictability of the virtual machine takes away a lot of the inherent randomness (and sadly, a bit of the excitement) of a real machine. It killed me how many times a ball just wouldn´t go up a ramp on Guns n Roses, but that machine was in a pretty bad shape to begin with. On the other hand, the feeling of hitting the electric chair scoop to start the booming multiball on TAF will very likely not be matched by the virtual counterpart

Anyway, congrats on the great score I think it will be very interesting to see real-life players playing the TPA version and seeing the differences!

That TZ score is crazy. I played about ten games last week and never even hit 100Mil. That table is so addicting. It can't get here fast enough.

This might be a good time to ask: How does it compare to other Lawlor tables? I think that Funhouse, Whirlwind and Addams Family all feel kinda similar (what I enjoy between them are the very different themes), while RBION and, to an extend, No Good Gofers stray from that formula a bit (while still feeling very Lawlor-y).

If I remember correctly I´ve read somewhere that Lawlor himself said something like that he made TZ way too complex for new players, and I´m curious to hear how this machine plays.

I guess I can always look at more videos of it, but that doesn´t really show me how it feels.

mmmagnetic said:

This might be a good time to ask: How does it compare to other Lawlor tables? I think that Funhouse, Whirlwind and Addams Family all feel kinda similar (what I enjoy between them are the very different themes), while RBION and, to an extend, No Good Gofers stray from that formula a bit (while still feeling very Lawlor-y).

If I remember correctly I´ve read somewhere that Lawlor himself said something like that he made TZ way too complex for new players, and I´m curious to hear how this machine plays.

I guess I can always look at more videos of it, but that doesn´t really show me how it feels.

Click to expand...

I understood that Ripleys is considered a TZ alternative for people who can't afford the real thing.

mmmagnetic said:

This might be a good time to ask: How does it compare to other Lawlor tables? I think that Funhouse, Whirlwind and Addams Family all feel kinda similar (what I enjoy between them are the very different themes), while RBION and, to an extend, No Good Gofers stray from that formula a bit (while still feeling very Lawlor-y).

If I remember correctly I´ve read somewhere that Lawlor himself said something like that he made TZ way too complex for new players, and I´m curious to hear how this machine plays.

I guess I can always look at more videos of it, but that doesn´t really show me how it feels.

Click to expand...

As bavelb said, it plays a lot like Ripley's. The main difference is that you don't have to actually play any of the door panel modes if you don't want to and you still make progress toward the wizard mode. Unfortunately, to balance that there are 15 door panels instead of 7 Ripley's letters.

TZ is mechanically complex, but I find it a lot more intuitive than some of the newer Sterns. In TZ, if a given light is flashing, you generally know why it's flashing and what you need to do about it. On recent Sterns, that's not always the case. The only time TZ gets confusing is if you have multiple modes stacked, especially if you have Spiral running and you're expecting the magnets to stop the ball and they don't.

The thing that worries me (and why I wrote the comment about throwing controllers) is that playing TZ well requires lots of intricate flipper work - passing, cradle separations, live catching, etc. It's hard to do some of those things right now, and TZ is pretty heartless about punishing errant balls (you will generally not be able to save a ball headed for the outlanes, for example). Hopefully Bobby will have a chance to get the flipper physics sorted before TZ releases.

Thanks. Yeah, I've heard the RBION comparisons as well. I really enjoy the, well, "bombastic" feeling of Ripleys (both in the many modes and the huge, crammed playfield), it always felt like the Lawlor style of the older tables turned up to 11.

And now that I had the chance to finally get some more real pinball experience, I'm really curious to see how far the physics engine will develop. While my playstyle was a bit clumsy (mostly trying to mimic tricks from PAPA videos), I was surprised how finely you can handle the ball with just two flippers with simple on/off states. Some of the little dances I intuitively came up with surprised me, and I hope we will get at least 90% there in TPa sooner or later!

200 odd million is my best and thats with 5 balls

Carl Spiby said:

200 odd million is my best and thats with 5 balls

Click to expand...

Don't feel too bad. The 902M game definitely had some divine intervention from the pinball gods (although I wish they had intervened just a touch more...I'd really like to see Lost in the Zone in person [yes, that 902M was without LITZ]), and I've put in my dues with many, many sub-100M games. Thank heavens the machine is on free play...I've probably put in 400 to 500 games on it by now.

Serenseven said:

Don't feel too bad. The 902M game definitely had some divine intervention from the pinball gods (although I wish they had intervened just a touch more...I'd really like to see Lost in the Zone in person [yes, that 902M was without LITZ]), and I've put in my dues with many, many sub-100M games. Thank heavens the machine is on free play...I've probably put in 400 to 500 games on it by now.

Click to expand...

The high-scores on the table I play are all over a billion. The tilt bob doesn't work on it though so that might be why.

Interestingly nobody has a LITZ highscore, its maybe my only chance to get on the leaderboard

Got Lost in the Zone tonight for 307M, with a total score of 896M! I am now fully qualified to beta test TZ.

EDIT: I lose my posting-at-four-in-the-morning privileges; that should be 207M for LITZ, not 307M. That's a pretty awful LITZ actually, but hey, I still got there.

SECOND EDIT: Since someone asked - This was done without employing the buy-in feature; it's disabled on my local TZ.

Serenseven said:

Got Lost in the Zone tonight for 307M, with a total score of 896M! I am now fully qualified to beta test TZ.

Click to expand...

Congrats on a super game. How long did it take to complete that game? I think a lot of people are going to be surprised at how difficult TZ is compared to most tables. I hope FS is able to translate the difficulty to the TPA version. Lost in the zone will be one of those wizard goals everyone talks about like frog frenzy and battle for the kingdom. Have you beta tested other tables for FS?

459,296,940 is my personal best, I got it on a machine that was in a Holiday Inn Express in New Hampshire. I wasn't expecting to find it, since the place was dead nobody used it so it was damn near in perfect condition. Only thing I found wrong was the ball would sometimes fall out of the rocket skill shot.

459 million is not even in the rankings on most of the places where I go to play pinball. I always thought I sucked but then I find out all the best players in the area go to the places I go to. I always wondered why I never got anything on the tables at 8 on The Break in Jersey, then I found out the Jersey Pinball Association does a weekly meet up and tournaments. I'll have to get a picture of the high score table on the Twilight Zone at Reciprocal Skateboards. There's this one really quiet guy that comes in and just plays Twilight Zone and he's got the whole high score wall on it. Every score is a billion and a half. Here's a video I shot at the shop BEFORE he came in. At the time the Grand Champion was 2,609,000,000 (Go to the 4:25 mark in the video)

Kolchak357 said:

Congrats on a super game. How long did it take to complete that game? I think a lot of people are going to be surprised at how difficult TZ is compared to most tables. I hope FS is able to translate the difficulty to the TPA version. Lost in the zone will be one of those wizard goals everyone talks about like frog frenzy and battle for the kingdom. Have you beta tested other tables for FS?

Click to expand...

I'd say about 25 minutes. TZ doesn't hand out extra balls left, right and center like RBION sometimes does, so you don't get too many marathon games. Of course, the TPA version will have one more extra ball than normal from the replay score awarding an extra ball.

I don't think Lost in the Zone is going to quite rank with Battle for the Kingdom or Atlantis in terms of difficulty. The TZ here has a moderately sensitive tilt and its Slot Machine kickout can be pretty random. I'm assuming the TPA version will come with the standard ultra-liberal tilt and consistent kickouts. What will hurt is the lack of fine flipper control (assuming we don't have it by then); I do a lot of little taps and passes to keep control.

Moon Jump said:

459 million is not even in the rankings on most of the places where I go to play pinball. I always thought I sucked but then I find out all the best players in the area go to the places I go to. I always wondered why I never got anything on the tables at 8 on The Break in Jersey, then I found out the Jersey Pinball Association does a weekly meet up and tournaments. I'll have to get a picture of the high score table on the Twilight Zone at Reciprocal Skateboards. There's this one really quiet guy that comes in and just plays Twilight Zone and he's got the whole high score wall on it. Every score is a billion and a half. Here's a video I shot at the shop BEFORE he came in. At the time the Grand Champion was 2,609,000,000 (Go to the 4:25 mark in the video)

Click to expand...

The Grand Champion here is 1.145B, but I suspect that will go up soon - the current GC still plays and is now aware that I'm on his heels...I'm sure he will make every effort to defend his position. I feel sorry for the other patrons...between the two of us we've managed to reflex up the replay score from 139M to 245M. There's a lot less of that satisfying thwack sound...

TPA scores for Twilight Zone are going to be insane with the way most games hand out extra balls like candy. This Tuesday I was recording gameplay videos for my site and I couldn't make it up the damn lock ramp, twice. Of course when I took down the setup I was able to make the shot and start multiball. Also, whenever I play a Twilight Zone the Power Field is always different. I've play a lot of them and the Magna-Flippers are hit or miss. You gotta get them just right on some machines. I think TPA version's gonna be too strong and you'll be able to beat The Power easy. Let's hope that's not the case.

How is the extra ball buy-in going to be handled? Or will it simply be disabled.

Presumably disabled, as Theatre of Magic's buy-in feature was. (Although those who have access to the operator's menu would be able to change that, theoretically...)

Wonder if they just disable online score posting like tilt off, since its free play unlimited buy inns?

SKILL_SHOT said:

Wonder if they just disable online score posting like tilt off, since its free play unlimited buy inns?

Click to expand...

Twilight Zone only allows one buy-in if it allows them at all.

Made it to LITZ last night but I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing as there's nothing about LITZ on the Papa tutorial.

I think I got 300 mil then the mode ended and the balls drained. Was I supposed to do something to keep the mode going?