Length of Game (Time-wise)

[SheepsTooth]

Would anyone care to say how long a game lasts please? Regardless of whether it's a high scoring (long) game or a low scoring (short) game.

How long did it take you to get a personal best on such and such table and so on.

I'd be interested to know just out of plain old curiosity.

[Bruno]

It depends on the table and your skills. We can't give an estimate like that, lol.

[SheepsTooth]

Ha! Yes, what I meant to say was personally speaking. For example Bruno how long did it take you to get your highest score on say The Twighlight Zone.
As I slowly improve I'm obviously spending longer on each game I play and it seems to me that some of these astronomical high scores must have taken hours and hours to achieve...

[Smugass Braixen-Chan]

I haven't timed it, but a good game for me is maybe 5 to 10 minuets. Less than a minuet on a bad day >_<

[infraredux]

A lot of the tables can be marathonned if you focus on earning extra balls first and gaining points second. I've had games last several hours before.

I haven't played a marathon session in a while, but looking back at one of my old videos, it looks like you could estimate ten minutes for every billion points in Twilight Zone.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=211168990

The scoring gets a little quicker once you activate Super Robot (five million points per robot after you get 99 of them), and you can get some big quick scores occassionally (earning "Collect Bonus" as a Camera award when you have a billion points in your bonus), but ten minutes sounds like an ok baseline.

[Pragmatic Tornado]

My longest game is when I set my current best on Scared Stiff, which took me about 2 hours of non-stop playing. On the other end of the scale, it took me around 5 minutes to get 6500 points on Central Park, which is probably the shortest table in the collection, time-wise.

[-=UBeR=-rqper]

Personally I like most the tables that deliver your moment of glory (or defeat) within mere minutes.
Examples: Big Shot & Genie are quick and brutal.

In those games the ball stays visual and there are no time consuming animations, no waiting for the ball to reapear somwhere, no tiresome video modes.

Games like Ripley's believe it or not tend to last longer than my attention span or willingness to sacrifice time. After 20+ minutes I stop caring for the ball to drain.

So while some tables are skill based the other ones are skill and time based. No different from many computer games, the one with the most time at hands wins.

EDIT: Flight 2000 took 1 minute for 250K , 4 minutes for 650K

[RobertMeans]

Originally posted by -=UBeR=-rqper:

Personally I like most the tables that deliver your moment of glory (or defeat) within mere minutes.
Examples: Big Shot & Genie are quick and brutal.

In those games the ball stays visual and there are no time consuming animations, no waiting for the ball to reapear somwhere, no tiresome video modes.

Games like Ripley's believe it or not tend to last longer than my attention span or willingness to sacrifice time. After 20+ minutes I stop caring for the ball to drain.

So while some tables are skill based the other ones are skill and time based. No different from many computer games, the one with the most time at hands wins.

EDIT: Flight 2000 took 1 minute for 250K , 4 minutes for 650K

Interesting, I think Genie is one of the longer tables as you gain so many extra balls, plus collecting the bonus at the right kickout-hole takes ages. Similar to what you say, I get tired if a game lasts too long. I pay less attention and I don't feel like I have to concentrate anyone, e.g. once I made Lost in Time in TZ or the Grand Finale in ToM.

[phoerber]

Both CFTBL and BOP were multi-day playing sessions. BK2K and WhoDunnit were ~2 hours of straight play. I totally blew it on WhoDunnit, I literally got bored and drained my last 3 balls in like 5 minutes due to losing motivation.

....."Tell me more about Trixie." and i'm all: Who gives a sh*t?

[-=UBeR=-rqper]

Originally posted by RobertMeans:

Interesting, I think Genie is one of the longer tables as you gain so many extra balls, plus collecting the bonus at the right kickout-hole takes ages. Similar to what you say, I get tired if a game lasts too long. I pay less attention and I don't feel like I have to concentrate anyone, e.g. once I made Lost in Time in TZ or the Grand Finale in ToM.

Haha, that proves the "play time depends on skill" point, I almost never get extra balls on Genie. :-/
Don't know where to get them even after hours of play.
Genie still plays fast and apart from the bonus colection pauzes it keeps you focussed making time pass faster I guess.

[Pragmatic Tornado]

Originally posted by phoerber:

I totally blew it on WhoDunnit, I literally got bored and drained my last 3 balls in like 5 minutes due to losing motivation.

....."Tell me more about Trixie." and i'm all: Who gives a sh*t?

Yeah I did the same on Scared Stiff. Drained 3 or 4 balls due to boredom. Even ended a few multiballs so I could keep working on completing the spider wheel (which I thankfully got during that game). I only play that table with Family Mode off now. I'll never have the patience to beat my high score anyway.

[-=UBeR=-rqper]

Originally posted by Viper:

Originally posted by phoerber:

I totally blew it on WhoDunnit, I literally got bored and drained my last 3 balls in like 5 minutes due to losing motivation.

....."Tell me more about Trixie." and i'm all: Who gives a sh*t?

Yeah I did the same on Scared Stiff. Drained 3 or 4 balls due to boredom. Even ended a few multiballs so I could keep working on completing the spider wheel (which I thankfully got during that game). I only play that table with Family Mode off now. I'll never have the patience to beat my high score anyway.

Totally agree, these tables are all what pinball shouldn't be: an immitation of a tiresome 1990's adventure or platform game.
I can imagine it brought something new at the time but now we have seen the video games, survived the first decenium of the 21st century, bring back the pure pinball please.

If I ever had the patience to get so good at WhoDunnit that I felt the need to know about Trixi to top up a high score I wouldn't want to know how much time it took me... Its a chicken egg situation that requires having plenty of uninterupted free time available.

Give me 5 games o Firepower instead while I listen to my background music of choice. :p

[ChozoSR388]

I think this guy wins lol Over 3 hours on Medieval Madness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWhfLFOfP54

[-=UBeR=-rqper]

Originally posted by Darth Crunchus:

I think this guy wins lol Over 3 hours on Medieval Madness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWhfLFOfP54

Listening to the same noise for 3 hours, making the same moves , no mistakes allowed.. At some point it starts to resemble labour LOL.
Reason enough to make a video as proof and move on :D

[Mukatahren]

15-20 minutes is an average expectation from a decent game. 30+ is not an unreasonable expectation on skill-based tables.

[phoerber]

Originally posted by -=UBeR=-rqper:

Originally posted by Viper:

Give me 5 games o Firepower instead while I listen to my background music of choice. :p

Yeah great call on Firepower, **much** more fun. Once the task is complete and the repetition starts that's the beginning of the end. In order to beat these ridiculous scores on the leaderboards, you really have to find something fun on the table to keep your interest. For me its the Spider Wheel on Scared Stiff, the jackpot stacking on CFTBL, the big wheel on BOP, etc. Games that lack that "hook" are going to really be impossible for me to dominate. I just get bored too easily...