Difference between revisions of "Sega Flipper"

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Sega Flipper

System(s): SG-1000

Publisher: Sega

Developer: Sega

Genre: Action

Release	Date	RRP	Code
JP	1983	¥3,8003,800	G-1018
EU	1983
AU	1983
NZ	1983
TW	198x

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Sega Flipper (セガフリッパー) is a pinball game released for the SG-1000 in 1983. In New Zealand it is known as Video Flipper.

It was one of the first pinball video games to be released, being released one year earlier than attempts from Jaleco and Nintendo but four years after Atari's Video Pinball. Unlike Video Pinball, however, Sega Flipper makes use of color.

Gameplay

Sega Flipper is a very basic pinball game, with the sole objective being to score as many points as possible.

and control the left and right flippers (and activate the plunger (or "shooter" as the manuals call it)), while and can set the force of the plunger at the beginning of a ball. There are no means of moving the table, although pausing the game causes TILT to flash (even on the title screen). The player is given five balls at the start of the game which are played one at a time (meaning no multiball options exist).

There is only one table in Sega Flipper, however it features a set of mini-flippers in the top left. The table features four bumpers, two spinners, seven drop targets, two kicker holes and three "unstable bumpers" in the centre which can be are activated by using the flippers. Hitting all the drop targets grants the player an extra ball. Passing through the three gates at the top of the playfield increases the score multiplyer.

As is typical for a video game implementation of pinball from this era, the physics are far from accurate. The system is such that the ball can only travel on pre-calculated routes, meaning flipping a ball in a certain position is guaranteed to produce the same angle and velocity every time (in real life, the "spin" of the ball would affect its movements, among other factors). The erratic nature of the physics can be seen when attempting to "trap" a ball with a flipper - in a more realistic simulation, the ball would remain at rest, however in Sega Flipper it jumps around.

Possibly acknowledging the physics concerns, the table is designed in such a way that the ball should not drain unfairly for skilled players. The unstable bumpers can be activated to block each route, although unreliable collision detection makes accessing certain parts of the table very difficult.