It's all Venom all the time here this week lol. Yesterday Stern Pinball launched a new episode of its Stern Insider podcast, featuring the show's host, the pinball podcasting G.O.A.T Nate Shivers, designer Brian Eddy, artist Zombie Yeti, programmer Dwight Sullivan, sound designer Jerry Thompson and the rest of the team that worked on the Company's latest pinball machine, Venom. Below are my notes from the show:
The game really changes depending on which one of the four starting characters the player chooses, the playfield physically changes, shots change, rules change, the music genre and sound effects change - it's as if the game has four different sound packages, etc...
Lots of different strategies and ways to play the game
The harder the player hits the Carnage captive ball the further back it goes. It stays where you hit it until you get him to the top
Doppelgänger rotates onto the playfield with three uplift targets
There's two stacking locks. One on the left side and one on the right that lock up to three balls each
The game plays fast just like Venom is. Brian Eddy said that it's his best playing game
There's over 20 characters in the game
The game's code is currently at Version 0.72
It sounds like an incredible amount of work went into this game's awesome-looking animations
In the original version of the game, Doppelgänger was on the playfield and went up and down, but it was in the way so they switched it to an arm that swung out from the side
Unlike in Game of Thrones where a player is locked into the house that they choose at the start of the game Venom players can change their character throughout the game, just like Venom jumping from host to host
Venom is not a mode-based game
The flamethrower from Mandalorian is something that players can get in the game. It enables players to hit multiple shots at once when activated.
Characters Level Up in the game using experience points. At higher levels characters do more damage in boss battles. Through Insider Connected levels carry over.
Venomized Hulk, Wolverine and Captain America are unlockable characters received after beating Knull
The machine has a "Fast Lock" system that keeps gameplay really moving
The playfield art is a little different on the Pro than on the Premium / LE
The Pro plays even faster than the Premium
There's a ton more info in this great, in-depth conversation about the new game. Below is a link to the new Stern Insider podcast that registered users can check out:
I can't wait to see the gameplay stream of Venom tonight!
