Series
Pokémon Pinball
2 games, 1999–2003.
Games
Interactive: timeline (needs JavaScript)
The series by yearMechanics
A marked cell changed from the game before. “Uses” means the game has the mechanic, with no variant recorded yet.
Every claim, by mechanic and game
| Concept | Pokémon Pinball
1999 |
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| Ball saver | - Each table starts with a 20-second ball saver, and every ball lost for good starts a new one. While it runs, a drained ball is saved: the first save leaves the timer alone, and the second cuts it to 1 second and 1 frame. The timer counts down 60 frames a second, and not while the ball is at x 154 or more. Set to 20 seconds, it lasts 1,259 frames, about 21 seconds, if the ball stays left of x 154 throughout (computed). The slot cave can award 30, 60, or 90 seconds instead. Code
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| Flipper | |
| Gravity | |
| Pinball physics | - In the US and Australian Pokémon Pinball, the main loop runs the game's screen logic once per frame. During play that logic adds gravity, caps the velocity, handles the tilts and, on the lower half of a table, the flippers. It then tests for collisions, bounces the ball if one touches, and moves the ball last. Code
- Each axis of the ball's velocity is capped on its own: a high byte above 7 becomes 7 and one below −7 becomes −7, the fraction kept, so the caps are 7 255/256 px per frame down or right and −7 up or left (computed), and a diagonal ball goes faster than a straight one. The move is limited again: a velocity of 5 px per frame or more moves the ball 4 255/256 px that frame, and one below −4 moves it 4 255/256 px the other way. Code
- To find a wall, the game tests 16 points around the ball against 1-bit collision masks for the tiles under it. The first and last points of the longest run of touching points index a 256-entry table,
CollisionForceAngles, for the surface's normal angle, in 256ths of a turn. Two more tables with the same index push the ball back out of the wall. Code - On a hit, the game rotates the ball's velocity so the surface's normal points up. A ball moving away is left alone. A ball moving in bounces back at a quarter of its speed into the surface, plus an eighth for each step of the hit's amplification. Its speed along the surface gains half the stored spin, in 256ths of a pixel per frame; the new spin is that speed × 4 / 256. The velocity is rotated back. A speed of 3 px per frame or more into the surface also sets the rumble's duration to 1 and, unless a flipper was hit, plays a sound. Code
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| Table mode | - In Catch 'Em mode on the Red field, each Voltorb hit flips 4 of the billboard's 24 tiles and scores 100,000, so 6 hits reveal the Pokémon from a blank board (computed). The Pokémon appears once all 24 are flipped and the ball is on the table's lower half. Code
- Once the Pokémon appears, each registered hit scores 300,000 and steps a counter from 0 to 3, lighting part of the CATCH bar; a hit with the counter at 3 catches it, so the fourth registered hit catches. Mew counts a hit only when a separate byte of its own rolls over at 256, so it would need 1,024 hits from a zero byte (computed). When the timer runs out on Mew, the game marks Mew caught in the Pokédex anyway. Code
- Every Pokémon gets the same 2 minutes to be caught: all 151 entries of
CatchEmTimerData are 0 seconds and 2 minutes. Starting the mode also starts a 60-second ball saver that saves without limit, and the saver from before is restored when the mode ends. Code
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| Tilt | |