Pinball games are a lot of fun to play in the Toy Box, but can be tough to make. Therefore, Quorra has a kit all ready for you to explore. She also explains some of the tricks you can use to help create some physics such as gravity.
The pinball kit is a complete game that is ready to play. However, you can still modify it once you learn how it works.
As with all games, the challenge maker is where you start the game. It also connects several of the key components and ties them together to make the game work. Quorra also introduces a new toy that is very important to this game—the remote controller. This actually lets you assign controller inputs for game play. The remote controller only works when a character steps onto it. Then the character is temporarily removed from play and the player gains control of specific Creativi-Toys in the game rather than controlling the character.
The remote controller is a powerful tool that gives the player control over different elements in a game.
The remote controller in the pinball game lets you control the left and right pinball flippers.
The previous kits and templates have all used the default camera view, which is focused on the character. However, in this game, a target camera is used. This lets you set the view of the game the player will see when playing. Once the target camera is placed, then a locator is used to show where you want the camera to look.
The target camera lets you set the perfect angle of view for the game.
One of the challenges of a pinball game is gravity. The Toy Box Worlds are flat while pinball games are set on an angle. Therefore, the game needs a way to simulate gravity so that the balls will move towards the flippers just like they would in real life. To accomplish this, the game uses weather vanes. These weather vanes are then connected to locators to choose the direction of the force they use to move the ball. You can even adjust how hard the forces push the ball by adjusting the properties of the weather vanes.
Weather vanes are used to simulate gravity by pushing the ball in specific directions. In this case, towards the flippers.
There are several other toys that help make the game work. When a player steps on the challenge maker to begin the game, the character is automatically dropped right onto the remote controller. When the player presses the button to use the remote controller, this sends a message to activate the target camera. The remote controller also tells the falling object generator to drop a ball via the logic gate toy.
All of these toys work together to create the game.
When the ball is released, super cannons propel it up the chute. At the corner, the ball enters a trigger area. When this happens, a second weather vane is activated and blows the ball into the pinball table area. It deactivates as soon as the ball exits this small trigger area. The table area is another trigger area that activates the first weather vane that blows the ball towards the flippers. Every time the ball hits a pinball bumper or pinball bouncer, it sends a message to the scoreboard to increase the score. A racing gate is positioned behind the flippers. The racing gate is connected to a kill switch. If the ball hits this gate, the ball is destroyed and disappears. This then sends a message to the counter toy to reduce the number by one. The counter toy keeps track of how many balls the player has. When the counter reaches zero, a message is sent to the challenge maker to end the game. If the counter is not yet zero, it sends a message to the logic gate which then sends another message to the falling object generator to drop another ball.
There are two trigger areas that activate and deactivate the weather vanes. This is important since you only want them moving the ball in specific directions at certain places in the game.
You may have noticed a large, bluish, transparent object over the top of the pinball table area. This is a scalable barrier block. This is a new feature to the Toy Box. For the pinball game, it prevents the ball from leaving the table area. In other games, it can help keep characters in the game area without being a visible barrier. When you put your magic wand away, the barrier becomes invisible. If you are doing a side-scroller game, you can use a vertical barrier to keep characters from falling off edges. Remove the barrier from the pinball game and see what happens. The ball may hit a bumper or bouncer and get flipped out of the table area. Then the game does not work anymore.
