It sure looks like they have a long road ahead to safety...
Telltale Games' The Walking Dead: Season One Pinball is a virtual Pinball Spin-Off and adaptation of the episodic video game of the same name, developed and published by Zen Studios, with help from Telltale Games, the team behind the original source material. This pinball table was released as a premium add-on for Zen Studios' ''Zen Pinball 2'', ''Pinball FX 2'' and ''Pinball FX 3'', as well as a standalone paid app for mobile devices.In this pinball game, you journey through the events of the five episodes of The Walking Dead: Season One, with each episode being represented as a main mission to complete. Along the way, just like in the game, you'll have to make difficult decisions on who to save or whether or not to do something, not only while the ball is safely locked somewhere, but also while it's in play, too. And while you're at it, enjoy looking at the diorama-like set pieces from all five episodes that shape the playfield...and your only opportunity to see Lee and young Clementine as animated, 3D figures.
The Walking Dead: Season One Pinball provides examples of the following tropes:
- Anti-Frustration Feature:
- Typical with all Zen pinball tables, you are granted a merciful, 30-second ball saver at the start of each ball.
- There is a magnetic trap near the mini-flipper that can grab the ball and give you an easy chance to hit it with the mini-flipper, which is good for hitting and knocking down the walker that's blocking the way to the mission hole. You can also activate another magnetic trap that briefly locks the ball in the bumper area to make sure it gets some good hits there.
- Kickbacks are easy to activate - just spin the "Keep Out" flag fifteen times to turn one on.
- Big "NO!": Lee lets out a short, but gut-wrenching one if you drain the ball.
- Bloodless Carnage / Bowdlerize: Season One, like the entire Walking Dead series, is obviously M-rated territory due to harsh language and some gut-wrenching scenes of violence that the faint of heart can't handle, among other things...but this pinball adaptation will have none of that, thanks to Zen Studios' censorship and family-friendly policies, becoming what might be the only Everyone 10+-rated The Walking Dead video game.
- The Horde / Zerg Rush: In the last main mission, and as well as the "Swarm" side mode, several walkers will slowly invade the bottom half of the table, approaching the flippers en masse. Kill them all with the ball for extra points!
- Mini-Game: You can access a first-person "sniper" shooting gallery mode where you hunt down and pick off walkers from afar with a limited supply of ammo and time.
- Morton's Fork: Unlike the game, the choices you make on this table do not impact its gameplay whatsoever - they only determine what voice clips you'll hear. This is an unfortunate effect of Adaptation Distillation.
- Rule of Three:
- Hit the walker sticking out from the grate marked "Keep Out!" three times to knock it down and unblock the mission sink hole.
- Win the "Make Them Smile" side mode by shooting a lit lane three times.
- Shoot the center ramp three consecutive times to start the "Food Is Scarce" side mode.
- Scenery Porn: In this pinball adaptation, you could very well say that there is no table...just well-detailed set pieces of all the locales anyone familiar with Season One will easily recognize.
- Score Multiplier: Hit the bumpers a certain number of times to raise the score multiplier.
- Skill Shot: At the start of each ball, you have five seconds to launch the ball into the right-most lane so that it hits a bell tower.
- Spelling Bonus: You need to spell certain phrases to trigger certain side modes.
