From: ung@felix.filenet.com (Bill Ung)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Re: Layout/Pinball sexism?
Date: 28 Sep 92 19:55:32 GMT
Reply-To: ung@fritz.filenet.com (Bill Ung)
Organization: FileNet Corp., Costa Mesa, CA

In article <Bv46tB.8H9@cantua.canterbury.ac.nz> henwoogr@elec.canterbury.ac.nz (Gazza) writes:
|The first one is: Is there a "science" (formula/rules...) in determining
|what the configuration of the "drain stoppers" (things that prevent the
|ball to drain - width of the gap between the flippers, centre pin,
|kickback, magna-save etc) in each pin?

A game with a center pin usually has slightly wider flippers, kickback is
fairly common on all games nowdays (save for TAF, which probably had too
many things on it to support anything else!), and magna-save, as far as I
know, isn't all that popular.  An added gimmick, don't know exactly why,
though.

|    AND a timed "autoe-fire" like a free-ride on HSII or bullet-proof
|    shield on LW3)

Someone once said the auto-fire on T2 was due to the large percentage of
balls that went from plunger to skill-shot target, and directly to drain.
It was a make-up for a bad design, rather than re-design.  Dunno about
HS2 or LW3.  At least on HS2, the ball usually ends up just barely
missing (or sometimes making) the upper loop by the upper flipper.
Nowhere near the drain.  Maybe it's a gimmick to make-up for lack of
other things in the game?

|    AND it automatically lights the skull extra ball if your first two
|balls scored bugger all (Never had this happen to me, but I saw it happen
|to someone else :-))

That's the game being VERRRY nice.  Is this operator-settable?  HIGH SPEED
has no such option.

|Fish Tales, again has similar features, but no kickback, nor centre pin.

Bummer, I've yet to see a Fish Tales too.

|BUT, TAF does not have ANY of these features.  How come?  How are these
|things figured out?  I can perhaps understand that the method of launching
|the ball in TAF precludes an autofire - and I s'pose the "no-points" ball
|return feature that is inherent in all WLMS machines is equivalent to a
|"autofire". But what about the other features?

Probably the game had a whole lot of things on it already, you can't
overload a game.  TAF has a pretty crowded playfield, if you had a
kickback, it'd have to take up a considerable amount of real estate.
You'd probably lose the Thing flipper, probably not a good move,
gimick-wise.  A post would have been nice ... though I can see where
very few balls can come straight down the middle (when the post is
most useful).

|My other point, which, I hope, will elicit informed comment and NOT flames
|is this:

| Has any one else (besides me) noticed the inherent sexism in some of the
|pin designs?  HSII seems to worst protagonist in this respect - is it
|really necessary to propagate such out-moded stereotypes?  Is it likely
|that a hitch hiker is gonna be wearing next-to-nothing, carrying *nothing*?
|And worse, still, is s/he gonna say things like "ohh nice car", "ohh nice
|wheels"? (I forget what else the hitch-hiker says for the moment)  To me,
|this sort of stereo-type got thrown out years ago, but it is still
|being perpetrated by a modern pin!  

Ummm, well, I'm not a big fan of HS2, and have only played a handful of
games on it, but does it guarantee you that the girl is a hitchiker?  I
kinda always thought she was on the order of the girls in the Bugle Boy
commercials.  Basically, flashy-car=flirt-time.  Whether or not the
stereo-type exists, things like this still happen, all the time.  <-- Does
that make any sense?

|Machine Bride of Pinbot also fits into the same category- in a slightly
|different manner...

Perhaps you'd like to explain here?  I don't understand what is sexist
about it.

|Yeah I know, pins "are only games".  Certainly, the obvious sexism in HSII
|is not gonna prevent me playing it ...
|... But stereo-types are dangerous for they imbue the mind, reinforcing
|outdated ideas.  This is specially important when you consider that lots
|of children get exposed to the pins in the arcades.

Please lets not have PC/moralistic pins.  The last thing I want to see are
pins with "Family Values" installed along with a dot-matrix picture of
George Bush.  They're here for fun, (or profit, depending upon who you
talk to), and that's it.

Even if I'm wrong about HS2, and that is a hitchiker, I still don't see
anything so wrong about her commenting that it's a nice car.  As for
Bride of Pinbot, if anything, it could be construed as being biblical,
as Mr. Pinbot is building Mrs. Pinbot (Adam giving up a rib to create
Eve?)  Think Bush/Quayle would approve?

Anyway, if pins are teachers, does that mean HS and HS2 teach our kids
to be disrespectful to cops?  Does T2 teach kids to break into high-
security buildings?  Does EARTHSHAKER and WHIRLWIND teach kids to cause
major disasters?  Fruitful thought?  Maybe, maybe not.

|Gazza.

By the way, do us a favor and hit return about every 70 some odd
characters.  Most screens are 80 characters long and editing posts
that are 255 chars. long is quite the pain in the rear.  Thanks.

Bill Ung
  ung@filenet.com

Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball