#oneaday Day 737: Figuring Out Flippers

I've been spending a fair amount of time with Pinball FX 3 over the last few days. A Christmas present of a Nintendo eShop voucher led me to download all the Zen tables, so I now have a decent selection to fiddle around with — so far I've done the best on the "Mars" table, which appears to be nicely beginner-friendly, though the "Sorcerer's Lair" table you get as a freebie is also quite good in this regard.

Playing earlier today, I actually noticed a distinct improvement in my play. "Shoot this lane," the game said, and after two or three misfires I actually successfully managed to shoot that lane. Prior to this I'd been playing pinball very "reactively", simply hitting the flippers when I kind of sort of thought the ball was in the right place, but today I got the distinct feel that I instinctively knew where on the flipper I'd need to flip the ball in order to get it going in particular directions.

I'm not perfect by any means — any sort of momentum prior to flipping the ball still messes with my ability to calculate these things — but I feel like I've made a distinct improvement. I'm still a long way off being able to confidently "complete" one of these tables, but it's satisfying to feel like I'm better than I was. Hopefully that will demonstrate itself in my scores.

Trying to figure out how I want to write about Pinball FX 3, because I certainly do want to. I'll definitely do some sort of general overview of the program, but so far as individual tables go I'm not sure I quite have the specialist knowledge required to comment on them effectively as yet. At the same time, there may also be some value in a layman's view of all these different tables — anyone coming to Pinball FX 3 for the first time will be presented with a wide variety of options and have little to no idea where to start, after all!

Anyway, I'll mull it over. In the meantime, off to bed with Flip Grip in hand for me… there's time for a round or two of Mars before I sleep, I'm sure!