Pinball Construction Set is a pinball table designing
utility, allowing you to design, create and play your
very own pin table. Anyone who's seen Night Mission
and David's Midnight Magic, both constructed
using this device, will realise what a powerful utility
this is.
The
program requires NO programming knowledge at
all to work it, a cliche that seems rather overused
when it comes to any designing game, but here it is
one that is definitely true. Pinball Construction
Set is an icon-driven program, so using it is simple,
and designing a table takes very little time.
STARTING
OFF
When you load the program it starts with the screen
divided into two. On the left is a picture of a very
basic pin table, with the border and drop chute. On
the right is a box containing icons and pieces of a
pin table. Using these you can start to design your
table.
THE
ICONS
During the construction of a table everything is controlled
using a 'hand' icon. To use another icon, say the paint
mode, you have to put the hand over the paint pot, press
fire and then you can use the paintbrush icon. All icons
are accessed in a similar way and are used with the
joystick and fire button.
SHAPING
There are three icons which you can use to redesign
the actual shape of the table. Using the hammer and
arrow icons you can drag the sides of the table around,
giving its surround an entirely original shape, and
thus make the final product a far more exciting game
to play. If you happen to make a boo-boo (happens all
the time), then you can use the scissors icon to 'snip'
out your mistakes. There is also another very clever
device which allows you to take a square of four dots
and put it anywhere on the table and use the hammer
and arrow to pull it around to make an isolated bumper
for example. You can shape this to suit your requirements
and make oddly shaped bumpers, tunnels or drop targets.
DESIGNING
THE TABLE
Once you have an idea of what you'd like your table
to look like, you can start to design it using pieces
from the bits box on the design screen. Simply move
the icon over a piece, flippers for example, press fire
button and keep it down. You then can move the piece
into position and let go of the fire button. It will
now fall into place on the table and will play an active
part in the game if you want to try it out. Once you
have laid out the table you can start polishing it up.
FINISHING
OFF
There are several modes which you can use to add a really
professional touch to your table. Firstly you can adjust
the table's gravity, rather like increasing or decreasing
the pitch of it. You can also adjust the elasticity
of the bumpers and flippers, the speed of the ball and
the 'kick' that the sides, bumpers and flippers actually
give. Once you have set these parameters you can then
set the scores and bonuses of the drop targets, spinners,
bumpers or anything you want. You can also define the
jingles when the ball hits anything, which is a nice
touch.
POLISHING
THE TABLE
Once you are really happy with what you've done you
can finish the table off using the 'zoom' mode. When
you go into this mode you will get a box on screen that
can move about. On the right is a large panel and you
will notice when you move the square about the table
that the panel will show a large magnification of the
pixels the square is over. You can use the icon to add
or take away pixels and thus really smooth the sides
of the table, or even engrave pictures or your initials
somewhere on the playing area. Using this you can also
draw on the playing area, or reshape the objects on
the table to give your design that extra professional
look.
WHAT
CAN I MAKE?
The utility allows you to make an infinite amount of
tables and then use them independently from the Construction
Set itself, rather like The Quill adventure
writer. Using the program you can design your own tables,
or even make computer copies of some of your favourite
arcade pin tables. We are currently searching for The
Black Night, Bally/Midway's Spy Hunter and
Ghost Hunter, and the Williams Space Shuttle,
some all time favourite pin tables to photograph so
we can transfer them to the Commodore!
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