Nov. 9th, 2004

spatch: (uncle duke)
And now let's take a look at one of the exhibits in the Project Atrophy Museum. Here at PAM we archive and catalogue projects I've been working on for quite some time, only to put them into hiatus when I reach a stumbling block, or when I'm unsure as to what to do next, or when I just don't have time anymore for it (PAM exhibits only hobby projects, which sometimes must be on the lowest priority.) I realize some longtime readers of this fine journal will remember many of the exhibits in PAM, but I'm bored and I'm waiting for my goddamn World of Warcraft beta to finish installing (the install is taking longer than the download!) and I wanted to share Potentially Fun Things with the new people reading, so... in the Pinball Wing of PAM, I give you


Cloverleaf! The Pinball Roadtrip


Visual Pinball is a marvelous program for Windows that not only emulates actual pinball tables (in conjunction with the wonderful VPinMAME application) but also lets you build and code your own. The backend script is VBScript, the "modelling" done in the program is easy as pie, and all that remains is for you to come up with a good idea and build a pinball game around it.

Cloverleaf is themed around a family road trip down the highways of This Great Nation of Ours. The goal, of course, is to reach your destination by racking up mileage ("bonus points" in pinball terms) and visiting several destinations to activate exciting game modes such as "Fill-Er-Up Multiball" and "Tollbooth Millions." Along the way you'll have to fill up at gas stations, collect postcards to send home, and keep the kids happy too.

The current version of the game is Extremely Alpha. It's just about what'd be known as a "whiteboard" version in pinball terms, meaning the layout and most of the coding is in place so you can play it but many of the fancy decorations, lights, final game modes, bells, whistles, et cetera haven't been implemented. I'll eventually have full voice acting in the game (can't do it alone, any volunteers? I need family members and roadside characters such as The Truckers and stuff) and full orchestration if I can find some decent royalty-free music. (I like what I've got on the whiteboard, but it'll cost to actually use the high-quality samples.)

If you've got Visual Pinball installed and want a copy, let me know. I'll send one your way. I'll disable the currently-annoying voices, too.

Damn, my download's not done. I'll wait til next time to show you Abbie & Martha's Whizbang Gumball Machine which includes AI flippers (Martha's paws!) that bat the ball when it gets too close, and learn from their mistakes. Kinda like "Thing Flips" in the Addams Family table.

Damn I love pinball.

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