BDYETP 51: Legends of Valhalla, TMNT and Heist impressions, plus the 2010s in review.

TL;DR

Early impressions of Legends of Valhalla, TMNT, and Heist; praise for responsive design feedback.

Summary

Key Claims

• Legends of Valhalla was made in a run of six machines by Riot Pinball

  high confidence · Skip confirms 'there's six of these machines that have been made' and played one at Adam Gasek's house

• Riot Pinball responded immediately to feedback about the lock-light mechanic on Legends of Valhalla, changing it from only the first target lighting locks to all three targets lighting locks on first attempt

  high confidence · Skip details: 'Not a one of us could do it... So they took that into account and immediately said, okay, we're going to go ahead and change that rule'

• TMNT has a balance issue where the upper left flipper return from the right loop is very fast, causing extra balls to be abundant

  medium confidence · Skip: 'The return through the right loop to the upper left flipper was really fast... extra balls were like just like water at that point'

• TMNT's co-op mode gives all players the same mini-wizard mode availability after one player earns it, preventing progress differentiation

  high confidence · Skip explains the co-op mechanic allows 'all four players start their ball that next ball after it's been earned with that available to them which i was like why would everybody want to play that'

• Heist is Multimorphic's fourth playfield for the P3 system

  medium confidence · Kevin states 'It's their fourth play field, I want to say, for the P3 system'

• Heist features a crane toy that can pick up the ball, hang it over the screen, lower it down, and also function as a bash toy that extends across the playfield

  high confidence · Kevin describes the crane mechanics in detail with visual examples

• Heist's wizard mode is not yet implemented but was discussed on stream by Jerry (Multimorphic)

  high confidence · Kevin: 'The final wizard mode isn't in there yet, but Jerry was on my stream two weeks ago talking about it'

• TMNT has an issue with ball return kicking in too high up the lane, causing the ball to gather momentum and rattle through the in-lanes

Notable Quotes

• “I could see that game going into production for a company. I would buy that game over 100 different production games that have come out in the last decade, right?”

  Kevin Manning @ Legends of Valhalla segment — Strong endorsement of Legends of Valhalla's quality relative to modern production machines

• “You don't have to just choose to do one thing. You can kind of go in all these different directions. And you could tell that the code was only just going to get better.”

  Skip Natty @ Legends of Valhalla segment — Positive assessment of game's accessibility and design direction

• “They didn't make you have to shoot one scoop or make you have to shoot one loop or something like that. It was shoot any of these three things, and you can go ahead and start a mode.”

  Skip Natty @ Legends of Valhalla rules discussion — Highlights inclusive shot-selection design philosophy in mode start mechanics

• “There's no unique themes in pinball anymore, they need to make a unique theme. No, there are. There's games like Heist and Dialed In and TNA, and this is another one.”

  Kevin Manning @ Heist theme integration segment — Defense of original IP pinball themes against common industry criticism

• “This crane is awesome. This takes it to the next level. So not only can it pick up the ball off the ramp there on the right... It can pick the ball up off of there and hang it over the screen and then lower it down, and you can knock it off.”

  Kevin Manning @ Heist crane toy discussion — Detailed praise for mechanical toy innovation in Heist

• “I don't find myself looking up at the back box display while I play because everything is presented right there in front of me.”

  Kevin Manning @ Heist display design discussion — Positive assessment of P3 playfield display integration versus traditional backbox-focused design

• “The game offers you both a really good mix of tough and easy shots. Easy shots can do some things earlier on in the game, and you'll see that. But then as we opened up the later tier modes, you'd see that it was more focused on some of the tougher stuff.”

Entities

Signals

• ?

  community_signal: Riot Pinball shows strong commitment to playtester feedback with immediate rule adjustments post-release based on early gameplay observations

  high · Skip: 'they said, okay, we're going to go ahead and change that rule so that the first time around, you can hit any of those three targets'

• ?

  competitive_signal: Legends of Valhalla positioned as superior to numerous production games despite being limited six-unit short-run

  medium · Kevin: 'I could see that game going into production for a company. I would buy that game over 100 different production games that have come out in the last decade'

• ?

  design_philosophy: TMNT co-op mechanic criticized for allowing all players to access the same mini-wizard mode simultaneously, preventing individual progress differentiation

  medium · Skip: 'all four players start their ball that next ball after it's been earned with that available to them which i was like why would everybody want to play that'

• ?

  design_philosophy: Legends of Valhalla demonstrates inclusive shot-selection design allowing any of three different shots to start modes rather than forcing single required shot

  high · Skip: 'They didn't make you have to shoot one scoop or make you have to shoot one loop... It was shoot any of these three things'

• $

  market_signal: Original IP pinball themes (Heist, Dialed In, TNA) gaining recognition as viable and compelling alternatives to licensed properties

  medium · Kevin: 'There's no unique themes in pinball anymore... No, there are. There's games like Heist and Dialed In and TNA'