Not in my experience. They are usually with a group of 3-4, and one person starts a one player game while the others watch. Then the next person plays while the first person tries to remember their score and see who won. Haha.
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I see this very often at Superelectric. We get a lot of first time players, or people that havenât played pinball in a long time. Many of them take turns, sometimes instead of playing multiple games theyâll each play a ball.
I, for one, am an advocate for multiple player buttons. I feel like Ghostbusters has the right idea, announcing each player as theyâre entered. Arcade games have always had a button for multiple people, though. Itâs not a far stretch to maybe add 3 buttons and make them how many players instead of a start button.
Unless there are multiple credits stacked up, or, like previously mentioned, someone puts in a whole bunch of coins, hitting start repeatedly wonât tell them that it does anything. (I realize free play makes this point irrelevant but Iâm thinking of in general here.) Seeing buttons for multiple players tells people right off the bat that more people can play. It may cause them to put a dollar where maybe they would have only put in fifty cents.
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I see what you mean, then. What I have in mind is the person whoâs there solo and mashes the start button. Iâve seen what youâve described too (and honestly, I prefer just playing a full game if Iâm with people unfamiliar with pinball because nine times out of ten they want to see me play a demonstration game before diving in). But what I had in mind is the person whoâs unaccompanied (or is the only one in the group interested in playing) AND doesnât know multiplayer exists, so he or she mashes the start button and doesnât know why multiple scores are displayed (or is unaware of it, hence the large number of games abandoned at Player 4âs Ball 1.)
[quote=âChubbyGoomba, post:23, topic:1719, full:trueâ]I, for one, am an advocate for multiple player buttons. I feel like Ghostbusters has the right idea, announcing each player as theyâre entered. Arcade games have always had a button for multiple people, though. Itâs not a far stretch to maybe add 3 buttons and make them how many players instead of a start button.
Unless there are multiple credits stacked up, or, like previously mentioned, someone puts in a whole bunch of coins, hitting start repeatedly wonât tell them that it does anything. (I realize free play makes this point irrelevant but Iâm thinking of in general here.) Seeing buttons for multiple players tells people right off the bat that more people can play. It may cause them to put a dollar where maybe they would have only put in fifty cents.
[/quote]
I definitely think part of the idea of people mashing the start button on pinball is because mashing the start button in arcade video games has never yielded multiplayer, and rather, arcade video games have, as you describe, either multiple buttons for each player (like fighting games) or an onscreen prompt asking how many players want to join in (like platformers and some puzzle games). More recent arcade video games, at least ones originating in Japan, have tended towards the latter, especially rhythm games.
It would be very interesting if a future release, or even a patch of a currently-existing pinball machine, creates that kind of prompt on the DMD or the monitor, asking how many players would like to play. I think I mentioned it earlier about a menu right when the start button is pushed, and I think it would be a much better system than the âpress start multiple times for multiplayerâ system because thatâs intuitive only to people who are familiar with pinball, whereas the game itself asking how many players will be playing is intuitive to everybody.
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Itâd be neat to see someone make a nice, big, readable graphic poster with some basic information about playing pinball that could be put up in arcades, itâs certainly something Iâd look into if I ran one, though I know customers tend to become blind and deaf the second they enter a business. You could have important info at the front counter or near the coin machine (âpress start ONCE for one-player, TWICE for two-playerâ) and some other tips scattered around for people to come across. IDK how much it would actually help but it could cut down on four-player-one-player five-credit games.
Itâd also be fun to see a poster about basic pinball techniques that could be hung in places people might sit or loiter, if thereâs a bar/food aspect. Or you could put it in the bathroom opposite the toilet.
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Best idea ever
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I can say Iâve lost count of the number of times I see an âOut of Orderâ sign on something and someone attempting to use it, or getting frustrated when it doesnât work as they intended (which is the most common with restrooms).
In general though, the more words there are, the less likely people are to read it. Such a display would have to be big, bold, and dominated by pictures. I donât know if anyoneâs been to such a place, but some seafood-boil restaurants have banners showing how to deshell and extract meat out of a crawfish, for instance, with photographs for each step. There are many, many things the non-fan does not understand about pinball though, and to avoid overwhelming the visitor, itâd have to be either a series of signs strewn around the establishment or a monitor hung on a wall that rotates images and/or videos showing what to do.
But yeahâŚif people are here to play some pinball and theyâre completely new to it, theyâre probably going to gravitate towards a machine and ignore everything. Still, this would be worth a shot.
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Iâm trying to make many things describing how to play, and general information about pinball on locations.
One thing is making completely new instruction cards which donât show many features of the game, but only the simplest strategy especially for beginners (for example how to start a multiball)
Second thing is adding some stickers on the machine on the lockbar or coin door (with general information like how to start multiplayer games or how do you get an extra ball - because beginners donât look at the screen.). I know it makes the machine look worse but the information provided is necessary for people who donât know pinball. Iâm still testing it so i do not know if it works.
Also Iâm planning more things to help beginners.
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