Pinball Factory is an intriguing look at one possible path for wireless gaming development. While the ability to create your own tables offers a glimpse into the future--one ripe with potential--its dull gameplay holds it back. Still, given the possibilities wrapped within its design, one cannot help but wonder where this game may lead development.
On its surface, Pinball Factory presents you with two different pinball games, one with a Wild West theme and the other with a fantasy motif. The Wild West board requires you to break several bottles scattered on the board, which unleashes Bad Bart for a final showdown. If you hit both of Bart's guns, the board resets. The castle board requires you to knock away the bricks of a tower that hold a princess captive. You can earn extra points by hitting bumpers at the top of the screen to spell out the maiden's cry for help.
Both of these games offer a typical pinball challenge, but they suffer from similar gameplay issues. The Wild West board offers little interaction. The ball can bounce around the board for long stretches without coming into contact with your flippers. Two alleys beside the flippers allow the ball to slip by you without any hope of stopping it. On this board, playing the game consists of putting the ball into play, occasionally hitting it, and watching helplessly as it slips down one of the alleys and out of play. The option to tilt the board does help things, but overall the Wild West board lacks interaction.
The castle board is better in this respect, since there are times that you must slam the ball repeatedly as it knocks into the tower's bricks and shoots toward the bottom of the board. Yes, the level of interaction is definitely higher here, and the action is faster and more compelling. However, there are times when you must sit back and do nothing because the ball bounces around at the top of the tower.
If Pinball Factory offered only these two options it would be a fairly unremarkable title. However, you do have the option of going to a Web site for the game to create new boards with the tools presented there. A quick trip to the site should show you that the tools are simple, at best. You can add a few different features to the game, such as bumpers, and you can use a custom-loaded background image. However, the site has little documentation. For example, two of the tools seem as if they can be used to create different-shaped barriers on the board, but when loaded, they seem to have no real use. That said, there's real potential here for limitless new boards, despite the site's lack of documentation. Loading a board is as easy as noting the ID number assigned to your creation, which makes it easy to share with friends. The interface is both easy to use and clear, even if the tools are not explained, thus making it simple for anyone to dive right into creating a pinball game.
Unfortunately, the board design offers none of the cool features in the pre-installed games, such as the castle's disappearing bricks or the Wild West game's showdown with Bad Bart. However, it might be asking a bit much for Airborne to offer such a wide array of tools in its first release. As it stands, the interface is easy to use, though it takes some trial and error to create a fun, playable board. It would be great to see some more-elaborate boards in the style of the two pre-installed ones available for download, though.
Overall, Pinball Factory is a tantalizing step in the development of mobile games. User-generated content is a powerful force in gaming, because it can turn a single game into a source of nearly limitless entertainment. While OpenPath's efforts in this direction have a few flaws, the overall template shows tremendous promise. A more robust toolset, in addition to documentation that illustrates some of the tricks of the pinball-design trade, could turn this into a must-have title. Still, as it stands now, Pinball Factory is a solid title that hints at great things to come.
