fan layout

pudluther

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sorry for the dumb question, but wtf does that even mean? seems like any time someone wants to take a quick shot at a pin, they throw out "fan layout" as if it's some kind of death sentence....seems stern usually takes the brunt of those shots.

i've never understood what it meant and saw it again recently in the transformers thread.....thought i'd ask.
 
sorry for the dumb question, but wtf does that even mean? seems like any time someone wants to take a quick shot at a pin, they throw out "fan layout" as if it's some kind of death sentence....seems stern usually takes the brunt of those shots.

i've never understood what it meant and saw it again recently in the transformers thread.....thought i'd ask.

All the shots are layed out like a fan....all the top games are designed this way (MM, MB, AFM) ...so - dunno why people bitch about it. LOL
 
All the shots are layed out like a fan....all the top games are designed this way (MM, MB, AFM) ...so - dunno why people bitch about it. LOL


thanks. seems like a silly thing to bitch about. if a game is fun, it's fun.
 
because it has been done so many times.

Yeah, but that is just the main shot entrance layout. Once you hit a shot, different games do very different things with the ball. Even pretty straightforward fan layouts--MM, AFM, NF, LW:JP, T3, etc.--play quite differently and do not seem to be minor variations of the same game.
 
Yeah the whole fan layout thing is kind of old. Like was said earlier a lot of the really popular games all have a very similiar layout. Hell even 2 of Sterns biggest games have it, LOTR and SM. SM has the third flipper, but hell it bears quite a resemblance to AFM and MM shot wise, at least to me.

I think given how long pinball has been around, there is not much more that can be done with it, in regards to layout. With so many games being out there, there is always going to be something in a game that reminds you of another game.

I know Stern catches a lot of flak for reusing old layouts with newer themes, but I really don't think it's that bad. What I mean by that, is say there is a really good layout that you enjoy but the rules, theme, or whatever just kill the experience for you. Would you not enjoy playing that exact same game with a better ruleset, them, etc?

I think a lot of it comes down to rulesets, art, music, essentially the whole package. Hell if you look at video games, people have been playing the same games for years, just with different variations.
 
Some of the best games are fan layouts, MM, AFM, MB, just to name a few, and I personally like all of those titles alot.
 
Fan layouts are fine. I have one (BoP), and am looking for another (MB). However, I wouldn't want all my pins to have that shot layout.

shawn

Ya know - I was looking at my games that aren't considered fan layouts...but at the end of the day, they all kind of ARE. Most games try to maximize the amount of shots you can make on a playfield..so from left to right you always will have somewhat of a "Fan" selection of shots. I guess games that are more symmetrical instantly strike you as "FAN" ...but yeah, at the end of the day, it's more about where those shots go, what they do, how it all works w/ the software...
 
And some of the worst games also have a fan layout, like Austin Powers (compare its layout to Transformers and you'll see it's also very similar).
So a fan layout isn't a guarantee for success :)

On games with only 2 flippers and no other major toys that take up a lot of space in the middle, and all shots in the back of the playfield, a fan layout is the result.
 
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Seems like a necessary evil in a lot of cases, especially when there are no mid/upper playfield flippers.

Come to think of it the games that don't exactly have a fan layout and have no upper flippers will usually have annoying bank shot targets which can be far worse...
 
Found this pic of part of a collection in IL, pretty sweet lineup here, and it's only one small portion of this guys collection:

pinsp.jpg
 
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