Williams™ Pinball entered Open Beta on Google Play!

[McLovin]

Hi everyone,

following up with more mobile Williams Pinball news.

The Android version has entered Open Beta, you can download and get an early look now!

Click on the link below and follow the instructions

https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.zenstudios.williamspinball

Please let us know any feedback you have, either here or from inside the game through the contact us button.

[tfhfony]

Installed it, played it for a few minutes, got frustrated with all the menu / upgrade / buy popus and the weird "upgrade" systems, so removed it within 5 minutes after installing it.

[MBeeching]

I've finally unlocked a table eligible for League play - I'd rather have spent those 750 tickets promoting The Getaway to Grade 2 but Fish Tales was the current listing.

The frame rate in League Play is really low compared to Arcade Mode, I'd estimate 10-15fps which made it very difficult to make shots or capture the ball. It's far from ideal considering it costs 25 tickets to enter and affects your ranking.

The low frame rate in League Mode also highlighted another issue. I've made my disapproval of the Fish Tales 'bump' well known in the past, but the lower frame rate seemed to be having an affect on ball behaviour. The only way to stop the ball going SDTM was to use nudges but in Arcade Mode it could usually be caught with the tip of the left flipper.

If that is indeed the case does this also apply to the PC version? I despise the bump and play on a 60Hz screen, perhaps it's easier at higher frame rates if the ball travels further left due to increased velocity. Thoughts welcomed.

[MBeeching]

Random musings:

Black Rose is particularly tricky on a touch screen as nudging is essential to direct the ball away from the outlanes. It certainly stands out as a difficult table in survival mode.

Spending 5 Zen coins to re-roll Advanced Challenges seems quite costly as they're few and far between at higher XP levels. Especially as you also have to watch an advert to play this mode.

24 hours to automatically reset Challenges seems too long, providing little incentive to launch the game more than once a day. I'd propose 12 hours as an alternative if that aligns with internal mechanisms.

League Play seems predisposed to rolling Party Zone as the table.

League Play should have a reset timer like daily challenges.

League Play does not provide accurate information about your potential opponent and target score.

The XP levelling system has a progress bar but it does not provide details about the number of points required to advance. Clearly XP requirements increase at each level but the bar becomes stagnant when the player reaches higher levels.

Some of the long DMD animations and minigames do not stop the timer, for example:

Black Rose - Walk The Plank can be a death sentence on Survival Mode, it takes ages yet provides little reward for your efforts. Touch taps aren't that reliable either so I regularly fail to complete it.

The Getaway - Ball lock animations (1 & 2) take too long and do not stop the timer, they're frequently a nuisance on timed challenges as you can't get the ball back into play.

[MBeeching]

Visual issues

Below are screenshots showing the visual issues on AFM and MM.

AFM - Inserts.jpg
MM - Ramps.jpg

[McLovin]

I've finally unlocked a table eligible for League play - I'd rather have spent those 750 tickets promoting The Getaway to Grade 2 but Fish Tales was the current listing.

The frame rate in League Play is really low compared to Arcade Mode, I'd estimate 10-15fps which made it very difficult to make shots or capture the ball. It's far from ideal considering it costs 25 tickets to enter and affects your ranking.

The low frame rate in League Mode also highlighted another issue. I've made my disapproval of the Fish Tales 'bump' well known in the past, but the lower frame rate seemed to be having an affect on ball behaviour. The only way to stop the ball going SDTM was to use nudges but in Arcade Mode it could usually be caught with the tip of the left flipper.

If that is indeed the case does this also apply to the PC version? I despise the bump and play on a 60Hz screen, perhaps it's easier at higher frame rates if the ball travels further left due to increased velocity. Thoughts welcomed.

Thanks for this, what kind of device do you play on?

This league mode frame drop is pretty interesting, haven't ran into this one yet as far as I know.

[McLovin]

Below are screenshots showing the visual issues on AFM and MM.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1315[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1316[/ATTACH]

Oh, this is awesome - we've been looking for this Mars bug for a while, thank you

[MBeeching]

Thanks for this, what kind of device do you play on?

This league mode frame drop is pretty interesting, haven't ran into this one yet as far as I know.

That's on a Moto G4 (Snapdragon 617 / Adreno 405). The only visible difference in League Play is the animated bars in the top left showing the opponents score and progress, this data is having a drastic impact on the frame rate.

In all the other modes I'd rate performance as good, or very good (AFM/Fish Tales).

[MBeeching]

Music bugs
The Android version appears to have the same music drop outs as the PC version.

The Getaway - Using both flippers to rev the speedometer or check status report before launch can disable the music
Black Rose - Draining multiballs can temporarily disable the music
Party Zone - Random music dropouts


Party Zone Bugs
- Ride the Rocket eject is completely broken, if you hit this ramp twice in quick succession during multiball millions the app usually crashes.
- Tilting the table before launching the ball requires the player to quit via the menu.
- If you launch the ball beyond Cosmic Cottage but manage to get it back to the plunger, you cannot launch the ball again.

[MBeeching]

UI issues - League Mode

Just noticed the League icons are in the opposite order on this info screen (i.e. I / II / III).

rank-1.jpg

I am currently ranked Diamond III, not Diamond I.

rank-2.jpg

The progress bar in the above image also stopped working when I reached higher levels (possibly around Gold).

[MBeeching]

New patch feedback
The rendering issues have been fixed and the frame rates in League mode have vastly improved.
Still having issues with balls not ejecting on Black Rose (Pirate's Cove) and Party Zone (Ride the Rocket & Robot Comic).

Fish Tales: Survival Mode
The automatic ball launch needs tweaking, I can get 15 stars just using the LIE rollovers then letting the ball drain. It should probably have the same power as 5 minute challenge and league mode.

[MBeeching]

League point requirements
Diamond III - 8600
Diamond II - 13500
Diamond I - 29500

Thought I was going to make it to the bitter end, but think I'm going to call it a day at Diamond II
That final target is at least another 200 games / 5000 tickets / 12 hours solid play. Any hints about end of season rewards?

[Cloda]

What is the chance of getting landscape view into the app? I have a narrow phone (Nokia 7.1) and the view of the flippers are tiny. I'll much rather prefer having landscape view options so I can have a bigger view of the flippers, similar to what I have when playing on my Mac.

[MBeeching]

Did anyone get a reward unlock when the first season ended?
I've dropped back to Burgundy III and just have another locked crate

[PinCarl]

1st feedback and some bug reports

First off, I'm a simple guy - I see new pinballs from you guys, I buy.

So let me start with my deep gratefulness for each;
- a new game with beloved tables
- the option to buy them all in one package.

I may encountered a bug in Attack from Mars - Arcade mode. At the end of the game I hit the displayed number for an extra ball (incl. that "knock" sound) but the game still ended without leting me play my earned extra round

And a minor Translation error I've found so far (German): Global Menu -> Arcade FX -> last entry word "Grundeinstellungen" should be capitalised.

You made a really good job here, especially on Black Rose - she's as a b*tch digital as irl

Will post more once I face more.

Keep up your excellent work!