Roundup #020 - Creature From The Pink Lagoon
Oh boy. I've fallen down the rabbit hole. Deep deep deep down the rabbit hole... of virtual pinball. See, I've always loved pinball machines but from afar - they were the noisy, exciting, colourful, frantic things that were always a beacon of fun whilst being a kid in the 80's. When I got my first job at a design studio in Leicester, in the year 2000, there were a couple of pinball machines in the corner of the main studio, so the lights and bitcrushed sound effects of Williams' 'Fish Tales' are burnt into my subconscious!
I kinda forgot about them after that, as this was the era of the Xbox and PS2, so I was all in on the console wars. It was only when my good friend Norm aka Waste Studio started collecting classic pinball cabinets for his design studio that my love of this maximalist art form came roaring back to life!
But I was still just admiring them from afar - hanging out with Norm, whiling the weekend away as Norm, Jonny & myself battled it out for top score (spoiler alert, it was always Norm) but I could never have a real one myself; they're huge, expensive and complicated.
I did scratch that itch a few years ago though, making a small virtual pinball table encased with Duplo bricks and powered by a Nintendo Switch, in a passion project called 'Pinplo'. I had an absolute blast making it, and got very very carried away in the process!
It sits here in my studio and I've been super happy with it, playing it frequently as it's powered by Pinball FX3 on the Switch and there's a tonne of great tables!
But then, for a reason I'm not quite sure of - maybe it's because I was searching for new pinball tables to download on the Switch and the YouTube algorithm got me - but I found myself watching videos about virtual pinball but at the next level... at life-size cabinets, with 4K screens, and inbuilt surround-sound feedback to imitate actual haptic feedback!
Well that was it, for the last week, I've been hooked! i've spent my nights reading, researching and watching videos and I've decided to build my own virtual pinball machine! It's a lot more tech than using the switch, this thing runs on PC and through a bunch of different programs, but I'm up for the challenge!
I started clearing some space in my studio last night as if I'm gonna make this work, I need to have a serious rejig of my (already very small) space!
So stay tuned for my journey into virtual pinball! I'm so excited to get started, and I'll be documenting the entire process so watch this space!
In other non-pinball related news, we got back from a family holiday last week to Cornwall. It was lovely and full of ice creams, chippy teas and the occasional meltdowns - perfect family hols!
Anyways, that's enough from me - more pinball-related nonsense soon I'm sure!
- Gav.
WHAT AM I PLAYING?
I discovered that the excellent 'What the Car?' is also available on Apple Vision Pro and it is absolutely wonderfully ridiculous! I really adore how dedicated to nonsense all the 'What the...' games are, they're ace! I like how they've integrated the play screen and the wheel into augmented reality, it works well!
I'm still pretty obsessed with Pokémon Pocket too, there's another new set been released so I'm on an endless quest for full arts and rainbow cards and shineys and immersives and all the good stuff! I got this lovely golden-shiny-birb-boi recently!
WHAT AM I LISTENING TO?
I'm still on my BMTH thing at the minute, got a new found appreciation for just how much I like their combo of crunchy breakdowns, screams, sing-along choruses and glitchy eletronica.
- Bring Me The Horizon – POST HUMAN: Nex GEn
- Knocked Loose – A Different Shade Of Blue
- Disembodied Tyrant – The Tower: Part One
- My Chemical Romance – Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge
WHAT AM I WATCHING?
When we were away we didn't have wifi or really any phone signal so we went back to the good ol' days of DVD's and downloads! We watched a bunch of family favourites like The Incredibles, Cars, Nanny McPhee and more.
Once the kids were in bed though I had downloaded the entire series of Ironheart onto the iPad and we worked our way through that. Me and Jane both really enjoyed it! It was fun, different and wonderfully diverse - good times!
Now we're back in the land of wi-fi we're looking forwards to finally catching Thunderbolts* as it's now streaming on Disney+
WHAT'S CAUGHT MY EYE?
Honestly.... virtual pinball. That's all that has caught my eye this week! I mean, just look at what's possible!!!
