121 episodes tracked since 2023 about →
Episode 108 - Center Ramps
PodcastAnalysis updated yesterday51 min listen
Highlights
- Center ramp games (Comet, Avengers: Infinity Quest (Pro) Quest, King Kong, Star Wars Fall of the Empire) rank lower on Pinside 100 than other games by the same designers
- Keith Elwin's Avengers: Infinity Quest (Pro) Quest and King Kong both feature center ramps as their primary shot design
- Center ramps were placed deliberately in the 'bozo zone' (middle third of playfield) to make them easy to hit for new players
- Star Wars Fall of the Empire uses a jump ramp instead of traditional center ramp to avoid reject feeding straight down middle
- Designer placement of center ramps is a conscious choice to serve casual/novice audiences, not experienced players
Notable quotes
“Capital C trademark center, dude. I'm talking about the ones that are just fucking dead center.”
“Pinball's supposed to be a fight, and safety does not make a game more fun.”
“You put a ramp in the bozo zone because you don't want people buying their first pinball machine to hate it.”
“They're not good because of those. Definitely not. Despite those, which is a testimony to the skill. Yeah, the designers.”
“Not every game is meant for you, no matter who you are, whoever's listening to this.”
“A lot of these center ramp games got center posts because a reject will go around the middle, which counters the entire point of giving a noob a noob game when it feeds down the middle. So then they had center posts and center post is like an appeasement for sure. That's that's an admission of guilt.”
Entities
- Aerosmith· game
- Avengers Infinity Quest· game
- Beetlejuice· game
- Big Hurt· game
- Cactus Canyon· game
- Comet· game
- Fast Break· game
- Harry Potter· game
- Iron Maiden· game
- Jurassic Park The Lost World· game
- King Kong· game
- Kiss· game
- Star Wars Fall of the Empire· game
- Pinside Top 100· organization
- Wedgehead· organization
- Barry Oursler· person
- George Gomez· person
- John Borg· person
- Keith Elwin· person
