acori

I liked it here.

There was a lot I never got to explore here. It was cool watching everyone else though. Maybe someday I'll open up like that too.


website (RSS and cohost shrine will be added after read-only)
acorisage.neocities.org/

arborelia
@arborelia

TOTAN is many people's favorite pinball machine. It's a game that is packed full of stuff, like a spinning lamp, a genie that magnetically catches the ball and throws it back at you, beautiful and complex ramps, "shooting stars" you can earn that are pins that pop up and save your ball from the outlane, and many more. The sound design is incredible, including the musical riffs during the bonus count where every note is synchronized with counting something.

As one of John Papadiuk's ambitious designs, made physically possible by the amazing engineering of Bally/Williams, it creates a "world under glass" where your pinball gameplay tells a story. The story builds up toward a reasonably attainable wizard mode where you battle the genie, and you keep getting balls back during the battle, but if you are losing to the genie, your flippers get weaker.

One thing should be immediately clear about the VPX recreation of it by Flupper: it is gorgeous.

In fact, I have heard this as a criticism of the VPX implementation. It's too pretty. It's so pretty that it's distracting.


The other criticism of this VPX, one that's more meaningful and that I share, is that they really need to put some virtual oil on the virtual spinning lamp. It has too much friction and it's much less rewarding to hit than it should be.

Sadly, TOTAN doesn't appear in pinball tournaments, and it's because there's an exploit where you can stack Harem Multiball with the genie battle in an unintended way, prolong the battle indefinitely, and score points risk-free forever. But it is one of the greatest pinball games to play casually.

I am not good at TOTAN. I fall for all of its tricks, letting the genie distract me into making risky shots instead of staying focused on what I need to do to get to the wizard mode. I have not yet fought the genie. One day I will get revenge.


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