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Farsight Studios
The Pinball Arcade / Farsight Studios
Could Farsight reskin the Williams tables, and make them into Farsight originals?
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<blockquote data-quote="shutyertrap" data-source="post: 286002" data-attributes="member: 134"><p>There are three instances of FarSight reskinning a table. </p><p></p><p>There's the Ghostbusters table, which used the unfortunate choice of Haunted House as it's donor table. They added multiball, made it so the ball wouldn't drain between the double flippers, and threw on a bunch of 'toys'. The result was not well received at all, lacking any inspiration.</p><p></p><p>Then there's Doctor Who: Masters of Time. I don't dislike this effort, but there's some visual design flaws that are major. The first being the upper playfield looks barren with just the TARDIS sitting there rather than the cool mech device that rose and captured balls. The second was the miniature size they used for the Weeping Angels. These should have been at least twice as large and had a real menacing look. Instead they look like cheap toys from a gumball machine. Lastly, there's the lack of cool lighting, whether it be from the inserts or the overall GI. It just seems pedestrian when it should have been otherworldly.</p><p></p><p>Lastly there's Black Hole in the Pinball Tournaments app. Why they named it that is beyond me, as it just confuses things. It is a reskin of Fireball, and to be honest I like what they did. The rules got changed ever so slightly, visuals were enhanced to make it easier to see what you needed to shoot for on an iPhone or iPad, and the sound design was even workable. The main issue with this though is the fact you can't just play it outright. It only works within the Skillz app and it abruptly ends your game as soon as you hit 50K points or the timer ends after 3 minutes. </p><p></p><p>You can kinda sorta say World Champion Soccer is a reskin, as they changed all sorts of color, text, and art on World Cup Soccer '94 in order to not deal with licensing. DMD changes were implemented on certain screens, though some times the original will glitch into view. Rules however were never changed.</p><p></p><p>Now compare that with what Zen did JUST with visual enhancements on the 10 Williams tables they've done. It's not even close. Look at their design and execution of Jurassic Park and Aliens and compare that to Doctor Who. Zen is a like a custom car builder, FarSight is someone going to Pep Boys and slapping spinner rims and neon underlighting to a used car and calling it custom.</p><p></p><p>FarSight would need to hire a dedicated art department that solely focused on pinball, and led by someone who obsesses over pinball. They'd also have to have a team who understands what it takes to make interesting rules for tables, and then code for that. Even Stern struggles with that, letting their tables go out into the wild with code that will be updated numerous times in the following year after getting feedback from their customers. </p><p></p><p>All this would be predicated on the fact that FarSight even wants to dedicate themselves to pinball going forward. There sole fanatic retired 14 months ago, there's guys there that have come to enjoy pinball, but it wasn't why they went to work there. It's a studio that was making contract games for 15+ years prior to falling into the land of pin, and it would seem they are going back to that.</p><p></p><p>They've given up on pinball after being dumped, they'd like to still be friends, and there's even the possibility of a booty call now and then, but for the most part it's over. Maybe it's even just too painful to give it another go. The illusion is shattered, fun was had, now it's time to move on.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="shutyertrap, post: 286002, member: 134"] There are three instances of FarSight reskinning a table. There's the Ghostbusters table, which used the unfortunate choice of Haunted House as it's donor table. They added multiball, made it so the ball wouldn't drain between the double flippers, and threw on a bunch of 'toys'. The result was not well received at all, lacking any inspiration. Then there's Doctor Who: Masters of Time. I don't dislike this effort, but there's some visual design flaws that are major. The first being the upper playfield looks barren with just the TARDIS sitting there rather than the cool mech device that rose and captured balls. The second was the miniature size they used for the Weeping Angels. These should have been at least twice as large and had a real menacing look. Instead they look like cheap toys from a gumball machine. Lastly, there's the lack of cool lighting, whether it be from the inserts or the overall GI. It just seems pedestrian when it should have been otherworldly. Lastly there's Black Hole in the Pinball Tournaments app. Why they named it that is beyond me, as it just confuses things. It is a reskin of Fireball, and to be honest I like what they did. The rules got changed ever so slightly, visuals were enhanced to make it easier to see what you needed to shoot for on an iPhone or iPad, and the sound design was even workable. The main issue with this though is the fact you can't just play it outright. It only works within the Skillz app and it abruptly ends your game as soon as you hit 50K points or the timer ends after 3 minutes. You can kinda sorta say World Champion Soccer is a reskin, as they changed all sorts of color, text, and art on World Cup Soccer '94 in order to not deal with licensing. DMD changes were implemented on certain screens, though some times the original will glitch into view. Rules however were never changed. Now compare that with what Zen did JUST with visual enhancements on the 10 Williams tables they've done. It's not even close. Look at their design and execution of Jurassic Park and Aliens and compare that to Doctor Who. Zen is a like a custom car builder, FarSight is someone going to Pep Boys and slapping spinner rims and neon underlighting to a used car and calling it custom. FarSight would need to hire a dedicated art department that solely focused on pinball, and led by someone who obsesses over pinball. They'd also have to have a team who understands what it takes to make interesting rules for tables, and then code for that. Even Stern struggles with that, letting their tables go out into the wild with code that will be updated numerous times in the following year after getting feedback from their customers. All this would be predicated on the fact that FarSight even wants to dedicate themselves to pinball going forward. There sole fanatic retired 14 months ago, there's guys there that have come to enjoy pinball, but it wasn't why they went to work there. It's a studio that was making contract games for 15+ years prior to falling into the land of pin, and it would seem they are going back to that. They've given up on pinball after being dumped, they'd like to still be friends, and there's even the possibility of a booty call now and then, but for the most part it's over. Maybe it's even just too painful to give it another go. The illusion is shattered, fun was had, now it's time to move on. [/QUOTE]
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The Pinball Arcade / Farsight Studios
Could Farsight reskin the Williams tables, and make them into Farsight originals?
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