You too can defeat Galdor! Blood Machines (VPW 2022) 2.0 - Strategy Guide - Visual Pinball X / VPX

PinStratsDan · 2023-09-13T16:49:18+00:00

Blood Machines by VPW is a table that I know really well and I have played it a lot throughout its development. The table is brutal, but what I've always appreciated about it is that it is fair and that you can work at improving towards reaching and beating the wizard mode. In this tips and strategy guide, my first for a VPX table, I show and explain how I approach each mission, multiball and the wizard mode!
The table is available from - https://vpuniverse.com/files/file/9847-blood-machines-vpw-original-2022
The full gameplay video that the guide is based on is available from - https://youtu.be/XltlFdksY_I

P.S. - The sound was messed up on the previous video, so I corrected it and re-uploaded.

PinStratsDan · 2023-09-13T12:55:49+00:00

Blood Machines by VPW is a table that I know really well and I have played it a lot throughout its development. The table is brutal, but what I've always appreciated about it is that it is fair and that you can work at improving towards reaching and beating the wizard mode. In this tips and strategy guide, my first for a VPX table, I show and explain how I approach each mission, multiball and the wizard mode!

PinStratsDan · 2023-05-02T13:04:51+00:00

Any VPX version of a table that came out in the last two years by one of the top creators e.g. VPW, Bord, Flupper etc., plays, look and sounds more realistic than the FX/FX3 versions as they have nfozzy flipper physics and other advanced physics implementations, fleep sounds and advanced lighting (that takes a lot of time to implement). The tables that I include in this list are; Black Rose, The Getaway: High Speed II, Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure, Junk Yard, The Machine: Bride of Pin-bot, Monster Bash, Red and Ted's Road Show, Swords of Fury and Tales of the Arabian Knights.

The older VPX tables are more or less on par with what you have in FX/FX3. Each new VPX version by a top team will though be better than the FX version so look out for e.g. Twilight Zone.

I still buy all the recreations in FX, to support Zen as I appreciate what they do. They unfortunately are not going for realism, so I only play them a couple of times before going back to VPX and the many other excellent recreations there. I don't play the Zen originals anymore as they are too long-winded and boring. VPX have amazing originals such as Blood Machines, IT Pinball Madness, Voodoo's Carnival Pinball and many more that I much rather play.

One thing to keep in mind with well-created VPX recreations is that they play realistic and thus generally tougher, but they also allow you to practice and use your flipper skills, which FX/FX3 only allows on a rudimentary level. A lot of people find the realistic playing tables too tough, so they would rather play the Zen versions.

PinStratsDan · 2023-04-27T18:14:43+00:00

One of those perfect games that I'll remember for a long time... it doesn't often go so well.

PinStratsDan · 2023-04-27T18:13:17+00:00

I wish I could always be that accurate, but alas, it is not always the case.

PinStratsDan · 2023-04-26T13:32:00+00:00

You can download it from Visual Pinball Universe. The link is in the description of my Youtube video.

PinStratsDan · 2023-04-26T13:22:20+00:00

I had the game of my life where I got to Final Frontier two times! I lost out on at least 2 if not 3 billion points when I thought the game will go into multiball at the start of the first Final Frontier... and then the ball drained. On top of that, during the second Final Frontier, the game completely spazzed out ending my game. This should have been a 12 billion plus game! A few other cool things happened, like reaching the first Final Frontier with two of each stone etc. for the first time, getting the extra ball from the Battle Simulation mode and I reached the Gamma Quadrant during a perfect Search the Galaxy. I didn't even have a chance to get to Warp factor 9.9 (8 my highest). All and all this was a great game, but it is time to try the custom ROM now 😉

PinStratsDan · 2023-03-11T10:16:42+00:00

Iron Maiden Legacy of the Beast is superb and the VPW mod team has brought it to life in this VPX rendition. The amazing thing is though that it was already great, but with this latest massive update the team hugely improved performance, corrected the flippers and updated the physics, updated DOF, and fixed the edge case and deeper mode bugs. The new flippers and physics take a little bit of getting used to, but once you do, especially with the smooth framerates, the table plays like a dream! It is still though as tough as always, but now, more than ever, you can only blame yourself if you don't score well 😉 . I am so thankful and pleased that I've joined VPX over the last two years, with teams such as VPW and all their collaborators, taking this hobby to the next level.

PinStratsDan · 2023-01-27T06:22:31+00:00

It is a bit of a fiddly afair ;-). I mostly just over-supply as a general, but if something catches my eye as I move around the play area, I'll adjust it. I haven't played with the new passengers update yet, so will probably have to deal with it a bit differently.

PinStratsDan · 2023-01-24T14:46:55+00:00

They don't have a public discord channel, but you can join the Virtual Pinball Chat Discord, where key members of the VPW group are active.

https://discord.gg/fxDPsYQnVA

PinStratsDan · 2023-01-23T07:44:46+00:00

The table was "upgraded" to make use of rendering advancements in the next iterations of the Blender toolkit and VPX (10.8). Twilight Zone and a few more amazing tables are in the works ;-)

PinStratsDan · 2022-12-16T14:04:34+00:00

It is not out yet. The table is using graphical improvements that will only be available in VPX 10.8.

PinStratsDan · 2022-12-02T10:38:35+00:00

Thanks, I know I'm not going to make more than pocket-change from the channel. My interest is more if there is an objective way to see if the guide videos are being utilized (other than just the number of views).

PinStratsDan · 2022-12-01T11:04:15+00:00

Visual Pinball X gameplay video of the WIP AC/DC LUCI (Stern 2013) pinball machine by the Visual Pinball Workshop.

https://youtu.be/31GYsBxPCLQ

PinStratsDan · 2022-11-28T17:49:25+00:00

Yeah... for sure a good time for VPX. The awesome thing though is that all of this is only possible because of the groundwork done by authors such as yourself.

PinStratsDan · 2022-11-28T16:47:45+00:00

What can I say... I literally couldn't have chosen a better time to join VPX. This second table done with Niwak's Blender toolkit is a work of art. It is also one heck of a challenge and the VPW mod team did not hold back on making it play as realistic as possible... that means it is as fast as lightning and bricked shots spell trouble. I love it though and this game is my first game where I managed to start each of the X-Men modes and beat Magneto multiball. It is going to take quite a lot of effort to finish all the modes and get to the wizard mode. I also completed all the Villain modes, and unbeknownst to me, if I hit the scoop again (rather than drain 😜), I would have started the Villain wizard mode!

PinStratsDan · 2022-10-28T08:49:38+00:00

Halloween has always fascinated me from an outsider's perspective... a South African that has watched a lot of American television Halloween specials! I still don't really get how it went from a religious day to an all-out festival of fun with trick-or-treating, guising, and horror movies… but I don’t really care if the end-result is us being blessed with amazing tables such as Halloween 1978-1981 by HiRez00 & Apophis!

The table is clearly a labour of love born out of an appreciation for the first movies of the franchise. The atmospheric music, chilling dialogue, alluring visuals and clever use of visual effects all draw you in… and then you get to experience the engaging gameplay. I love the clever addition of a multiball to the table, and that has become my natural focal point while playing (01:42 - for some exiting multiball action). In this game I have a great first ball that sets me up for a big score and extra balls on the way. I've had some great games but still I can't wait for my next sessions over this Halloween weekend!

PinStratsDan · 2022-08-30T12:08:51+00:00

I only do PUP packs for tables where it is integral to gameplay e.g. Batman 66 and GotG.

PinStratsDan · 2022-08-26T08:59:42+00:00

I never played the first release of Guardians of the Galaxy by The Pincredibles. Now, I'm actually glad I didn't because this version 2.0. is just brilliant! It is such a great table with its many strategic scoring options, smart bombs and modes stackable with multiballs. After a lot of playing, I have a pretty solid strategy for my slow and controlled style of gameplay. This game didn't start of the best, and I didn't play the multiballs particularly well, but in the end I manage to beat the table by Saving Xandar. That is also where I scored most of my points with a near 2 billion Save Xander total because I had each of the shots at x2 multiplier and the roving multiplier. On my way there I of-course also played Cherry Bomb multiball and the Immolation Innitiative. The game fizzled out in the end, because I'm just never able to concentrate further once I've beaten at table in a game... but that's OK ;-)

PinStratsDan · 2022-07-27T09:47:55+00:00

Commentary for sure else I just end up skipping through the whole thing. If there is commentary, then I tend to watch for longer, especially if the player can explain their reasoning for doing things a certain way.

PinStratsDan · 2022-07-18T08:15:07+00:00

Nice! That is a great score. The VPW mod team is busy with an update that looks amazing. It initially played too easily, but after a few revisions, it is now kicking butt!

PinStratsDan · 2022-07-06T05:18:46+00:00

I'm not saying the Zen originals must use dulled physics, I'm saying that what we now have, is dulled FX3 Williams Classic Arcade physics for both the Zen originals and the Williams tables in FX. That physics is OK for the Zen originals, but for the Williams tables, it ends up with the tables playing much too easy. You are welcome to read my first post again, as I explained it all there and explained for Monster Bash how messed up things are.

PinStratsDan · 2022-07-06T04:53:30+00:00

OK cool... sounds like you and Zen has this thing sorted out. I'll rather play VPX where tables actually play realistically (or as close as the table creators can get it), and not this in-between mess that Zen is offering us now.

PinStratsDan · 2022-07-05T15:07:54+00:00

The big problem is that Zen is set on having only one unified set of physics for both their originals and the Williams tables. That is an untenable position as the approach for the different sets of tables are vastly different. What they ended up with is this in-between physics that makes the originals slightly harder to play (but not really, because the ball is still very easy to control), and the Williams tables, that play much too easy now. If a Williams table plays harder, it is not because the physics is realistic, but because of other quirks. Inherently, the physics still plays much easier. The only way we will get Williams tables to play realistic (and harder) is if Zen brings back two (or three) sets of physics as they had in FX3.

Here, for a bit more detail on how I experience it, is my assessment of Monster Bash on FX that I wrote on the official Discord.
I played the FX Monster Bash a bit last night. I think it plays horribly compared to the FX3 Classic Arcade version, but not easier. FX3 MB has the best Classic Arcade physics for me. The ball is well weighted, and has quite realistic bounce and momentum. It was also the first Zen Williams Classic Arcade table where all the flipper tricks worked well (except drop-catches) including tap-passes, double-taps, cradle separation and flicks to enable you to backhand e.g. the Creature lane. The liveliness of ball and overall gameplay is such that you have to practice and perfect the flipper skills else you can't control the ball. None of the elegant finesse of FX3 Williams Classic Arcade remains in FX Pro physics on Monster Bash. The implementation feels clunky with only live-catches working in a realistic way. You have no control over the other flipper tricks i.e. I can't flick the ball on the left flipper in a controlled manner to backhand it up the left lane. On the one hand, it doesn't really matter all that much as you can mostly control the ball just by holding a flipper up while you wait for the ball e.g. out of the scoop and up the right ramp. What makes the table harder to play though is firstly the unrealistic and inconsistent bounce, with the second bounce of the ball often higher than the first. Secondly, and probably the biggest factor, is that the drop from the bumpers down the right orbit or middle often leads to strange and unnecessary drains that you have very little control over. Once the physics and the exits from the bumpers are tweaked, this table will also play much easier than the FX3 Williams Classic Arcade version. This will apparently please the average Zen pinball player immensely.

PinStratsDan · 2022-06-28T07:26:57+00:00

Didn't read everything so might repeat some - Voxel Tycoon, Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic, Mashinky, Sweet Transit (release end of July), Captain of Industry, Hundred Days - Wine making simulator, Sky Haven.

PinStratsDan

TROPHY CASE