The Angry Birds Movie Pinball is a fan-made virtual pinball adaptation of the 2016 animated film The Angry Birds Movie, which is in turn based on the Angry Birds mobile game series. Designed as if Zen Studios were to make it as part of their ever-growing, massive library of well-acclaimed virtual pinball tables, this table re-enacts the slow, long sequence of events that led to the central conflict between the Angry Birds and the Bad Piggies, giving the player the occasional opportunity to help the Birds stick it to the Pigs, out of revenge for stealing their eggs.
A full description of the table and its rule systems can be viewed here
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The Angry Birds Movie Pinball contains the following tropes:
- Anti-Frustration Feature:
- A 30-second ball saver will be granted at the start of each ball. Once it expires, you can turn it on again by shooting Mighty Eagle's diverter ramp six times, spelling MIGHTY.
- You are not obligated to beat each mission to unlock the wizard mode. Coincidentally, one might realize that the success or failure of any of the five major events from the movie that the table presents would not greatly impact the film's story.
- You can try the wizard mode as many times as you want until you beat it, if you still have at least one ball available to play with.
- Kickbacks are easy to turn on - just spell RED on the rollovers above the bumpers to activate the kickbacks. You can also spell it again twice to hold each kickback, so they won't be taken away if you lose the ball before you use them.
- Berserk Button:
- The Birds' anger can power up some of the table's perks - namely kickbacks, the score multiplier and the bumper booster - if you follow the activation procedures for them.
- You can also unleash the full rage of Red, Chuck and Bomb, the three most famous Angry Birds, by locking three balls, one for each Bird, at certain places in the table every time you spell ANGER on the rollovers. Once the multiball begins, the table glows red with anger and you'll juggle the three locked balls to knock down an endless waves of Pigs who are at the Birds' mercy.
- Call-Forward: The mini-playfield has its own magna-save, like the Stella pinball table has.
- Combos: If you pull off a 5-way combo or longer, you can anger Red and boost his bumpers.
- Herd-Hitting Attack: In the Pig attack side mode, this is exactly what happens when you shoot Mighty Eagle's diverter ramp, like in the original games.
- Kill Enemies to Open: As you progress through the Egg Raid mission, you'll suddenly have to deal with a wave of Pig drop targets before being able to continue it.
- Minigame: Stella and her friends are represented as a raised mini-playfield at the back right corner of the table, where the player uses a second pair of mini-flippers to hit targets.
- Morton's Fork: The fact that you can fail each of the five missions and still progress to the wizard mode reflects how the events in the movie that they represented played out all the same regardless of whether the missions were completed successfully:
- "Horrible Hatchday" is about helping Red bring a birthday cake to Edward and Eva, but even if the player helps him get there on time, Edward would reprimand him for being late.
- "Anger Management" is about the hit-and-miss efforts to help the Birds control their anger. In the movie, Bomb fails to do this spectacularly and classes get called off due to the collateral damage that results. The story moves on regardless of whether or not you succeed in keeping Bomb's anger down.
- "Mighty Mountain" is about Red Chuck and Bomb trying to get Mighty Eagle to help them deal with the Pigs the first time around. Anyone who saw the movie knows that it's All for Nothing, so it does not make less sense if the player failed that mission.
- "Egg Raid" is about one desperate effort to stop the Birds' eggs from being stolen, but in spite of efforts, the Pigs succeed anyway, leading to the climatic battle.
- Mythology Gag:
- The mission start procedure, which involves hitting a pig toy at the mission sinkhole until the pig catches the ball and drags it into the hole is a reference to the original game's premise: that the pigs steal the birds' eggs.
- Terence's side mode pays homage to a Angry Birds Toons episode where he inexplicably outruns Chuck in a footrace. This is also demonstrated in the movie when the Birds and the Pigs meet for the first time.
- Spelling PIGS in the mini-orbit will give players the chance to beat up some Pigs, like in the original mobile game (though it doesn't go so as far as to use sprites of their original, limbless forms). Shooting the Mighty Eagle diverter once you have a clear shot at it, as you would have guessed, will instantly eradicate those hogs, but you might want to try to sweeten the deal by shooting the PIGS mini-orbit again and again to raise the value of each defeated Pig before closing in for the kill.
- Thanks to the slingshot-shaped plunger, the skill shot is designed to remind you about the original Angry Birds game over and over again - aiming and shooting birds at pigs.
- The Stella's POP Dance minigame is an indirect reference to the mobile game Angry Birds Stella POP! before it was rebranded as Angry Birds POP!
- Score Multiplier: Hitting Red's bumpers will raise the score multiplier, but it's only good for the current ball unless you get a multiplier hold from Matilda's random award, or activate the Super Jets with a 5-way combo and hit them enough times.
- Shout-Out: This table was designed by someone who was a huge fan of Zen Pinball and cobbled together parts of favorite tables:
- The orbit system and the mission start procedure are a mirror image of those of Zen's pinball adaptation of Alien vs. Predator.
- The presence of a saucer that catches and drops the ball in a different direction, a mini-playfield that involves hitting a row of targets at the back and a side mode where multiple waves of drop targets must be taken down were brought from Alien: Isolation (Zen Studios).
- The mini-playfield and diverter ramp system appear to be inspired by Aliens (Zen Studios).
- The corners of the diverter ramp's entrance have targets, similar to the targets in the diverter ramp of Zen Studios' Excalibur pinball table.
- The Mighty Mountain mission, in which you to shoot two sequences of lit lanes after hitting a diverter that seals, was inspired by the mission "The Pit" in Doom (Zen Studios). The Egg Raid mission, which involves shooting an orbit and hitting bumpers, also plays similar to the "Recharge" mission on that table as well.
- The Anger Multiball mode appears to have the same activation process as that of the Ghost Multiball from Zen's pinball adaptation of Star Wars Rebels.
- Bomb's "Explosive Action" hurry-up plays similar to the Fireball hurry up in the Williams pinball table Tales of the Arabian Nights, in which you raise a hurry-up value by shooting a certain lane before hitting a certain target to claim the final amount.
- Skill Shot: At the start of each ball (and also after you lock a ball or beat Bomb's hurry-up mode), you use the slingshot plunger to shoot the ball at a cardboard target of the pig Earl before the ball drops into play. The ability to pull off multiple skill shots on the same ball is meant to remind players of the original Angry Birds game - simply aiming the slingshot to shoot birds at pigs.
- Spelling Bonus: Spell the names of various Birds to trigger side modes or perks. Red activates and holds kickbacks, Chuck starts a Pig-bashing hurry-up mode, Bomb starts another side mode involving explosives, Terence starts a race against Chuck and more.
- Timed Mission: Many modes are played on a time limit. Each of the three phases of the wizard mode also have their own time limit.
- Wizard Mode: By the time you've started up all five missions, the Pigs have stolen the Birds' eggs and the Birds are now planning a counterattack to take them all back, opening up a wizard mode where you re-enact the climatic battle between Birds and Pigs at Pig City as it was depicted in the movie. The mode is split into three different phases, and once all three are successfully completed, a 4-ball Hatchling multiball will trigger to celebrate the Birds' victory.
