It will be documented well eventually. But I've been deep in the other commissions since then. It hasn't been a priority until this article gave it some exposure.

It's also the heaviest pinball game in the world. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

To be fair, the playfields are pretty simple. But it's also my very first game. And it's nuts. I feel pretty happy about how it's worked out.

It was hard for the journalist to summarize without getting too wordy. Here's how it works.

The game starts and scores like normal pinball. Each playfield also produces a resource [corn|carpentry|medicine|shoes|water] by playing. The carousel at the head of the game represents resources from others as balls. You need one of each in your carousel to be healthy and capable. These resources expire as you play, and you cannot get a new playfield ball until you replenish them by trading with other players for them. So you are playing and then having to stop and negotiate with other players.It's got an unpredictable social component.

There is a second round in which everybody is using money and the transactions happen without social complications.

This is mostly explained by just-in-time illuminated signage inside the playfield.

It's fun to play. But it's missing a lot of things the pinball purists care about. It's not designed to be a superior pinball game. It's about getting inside of two different dynamics of production and trade.

Also, the game is in a simplified state at the moment because I ran out of time dealing with the endless challenges. But this are the rules as designed.

Electromechanical as opposed to video, not meaning 'no computers'.

I think y’all are both right and I appreciate the additional contexts. It’s just awkward to headline the article with a term that has a pinball-specific usage and not define it or dig into it a bit more.

I’m super impressed though Andy, did you use MPF or something else to program it? I’m only just dipping my toes into building my own pin, it’s quite intimidating realizing the breadth of skills required.

EDIT: another post clarified that it is on MPF - nice!

It was prototyped on MPF. But I later refactored and used a more direct API for the P3-ROC. Because these games are nothing like typical pinball. And because I'm allergic to frameworks. The direct API isn't public but I can share it with you if you want.

Nice! Direct access seems like the way to go if you're not worrying about the single player modes and shot structures, and if all the sound is from the physical interactions. I appreciate the API info offer, but I've already got the FAST Neuron controller, so I think it's a different path for me

The individual playfields aren't very complicated compared to typical pinball. But all of the elements together makes for a lot of logic, channels, and code.

The game works fine, actually. It's getting played every day. I just spent so long getting it working that I never got good documentation. I have, like, a thousand photos of solder joints, pinout labels, the moment when the problem happens, etc. I recently stitched together some of the phone videos I took in the middle of the night while I was there and working on it. There will be good documentation at some point. But not yet.

Hey, Andy, welcome to HN! DC looks pretty awesome.