Doctor Who (pinball)

Doctor Who Pinball
Manufacturer Midway
Release date September 1992
System Midway WPC (Fliptronics II)
Design Bill Pfutzenreuter, Barry Oursler
Programming Bill Pfutzenreuter
Artwork Linda Deal
Mechanics Zofia Bil
Music Jon Hey
Sound Jon Hey, Paul Heitsch
Voices Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor)
Anthony Ainley (The Master)
Terry Molloy (Davros)
Brian Miller (Daleks)
Production run 7,752

Doctor Who is a pinball machine designed by Bill Pfutzenreuter (Pfutz) and Barry Oursler, and released by Midway (under the Bally brand name) in September 1992. It is based on the television series of the same name, although the relationship of spinoff media to the parent series is open to question. As stated in the Gameplay section, the rulesheet is rather different from other pinball machines released at the time, which didn't help popularity (and even now it is still seen as an exotic machine amongst collectors) as casual players did not understand the complex rule changes that occur during the game.

The first 100 games included a moving Dalek topper that would turn side-to-side while the robot was speaking.[1] The effect was achieved by fitting the robot's body with a complex motor, cam, and optoelectronics system. Its complexity and expense lead to it being cut from the production run.[2] Production Dalek toppers can be made to move with "wobble head kits".[3]

Prototypes featured the old Bally-style backbox (and a totally different backglass), but this was changed to the Williams-styled one in order to cheapen the production process for both product lines.

Gameplay

The basic gameplay is all about the various incarnations of the Doctor (at the time, these were seven) and each Doctor affects the rules of the playfield differently (each for a different section of the playfield). The player must "collect" all Doctors throughout the game. After collecting a Doctor, the following rule changes are applied:

Areas of Importance

Dalek on top of backbox
Tardis in playfield

Each of the various playfield zone features relates to one of the individual Doctors as listed below, and also affects gameplay rules. Completing a Doctor's playfield zone does not award that Doctor, but earning that Doctor will make earning the zone's award easier. The individual zones are as follows:

Multiball

The Multiball mode in Dr. Who begins after the player lights 15 Time Expander Factors after locking the ball. After the Time Expander reaches 0, the mini-playfield rises again to level 3, which has three gates in it with a small picture of a Dalek on the front. The player must shoot one of the doors to start multiball. Once the player has done this, the mini playfield lowers, releases the two locked balls, and then rises again back to level 3. To earn the jackpot, the player must hit all three gates on level three of the mini-playfield. This awards a jackpot that begins at 5,000,000 points for the lowest tier of Daleks and grows dramatically as the player rises through the ranks of Daleks (up to the Emperor Dalek at 50,000,000 points). After the player defeats the Emperor Dalek, Davros is revealed as the arch-villain behind the story. The mini-playfield lowers itself back to Level 2, and to defeat Davros, the player must hit the bank of 5 targets once (more if the player has already defeated Davros) to deactivate Davros' shield and get the mini-playfield to raise back to level 3. Once Davros' shield is down, the player must hit the three gates on level 3 again, after which a 100,000,000-point Davros Jackpot is awarded. All jackpots are affected by the playfield multiplier, allowing the player to collect tremendous amounts of points from a single jackpot (1,200,000,000 points if Davros has been defeated twice before and the Playfield Multiplier is 4).

Features and strategies

A major feature is the Time Expander in the middle of the playfield, which can be in the following states:

As the player can select which Doctor to rescue next at the start of a ball, this enables a vast amount of scoring strategies:

Pro-Scoring strategies may also take into account that the next Doctor after the currently selected will be the one to the left of him (wrapping around to Doctor 7 if Doctor 1 is selected). Joey Redman from Victoria, Australia holds the highest score with 3 Davros multiball waves.

Digital versions

On December 25, 2015, FarSight Studios announced that their next Kickstarter would be for Doctor Who pinball. The goal of $54,364 was reached on February 13, 2016 with $16,566 in excess. The table has been released for The Pinball Arcade on October 1st 2016.[4]

An updated regenerated version was planned for a release at the end of October. The regenerated digital version will also be based on the original Doctor Who pinball machine. The new table will have an update of the art style and new material to add the six Doctors who debuted after the release of the original table, as well as new lighting features, and new toys.[5]Updated version is still unavailable.

References

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/26/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.