One Life, 80 Levels – “Mile High Pinball” Goes Above and Beyond Its Spiritual Predecessors

by Louis Bedigian

“The idea behind it was to create a casual game that'll appeal to both men and women, younger gamers and older gamers.” 

Is pinball a dying form of entertainment?  Fewer new pinball machines are made each year.  The death of arcades could be blamed, but new pinball machines used to appear in bars, restaurants, and movie theaters.  Not anymore.

One venue remains where pinball can live on – video games.

Armed with N-Gage, the world’s most powerful mobile phone gaming device, Nokia is putting the finishing touches on Mile High Pinball.  Designed for players with a multitude of tastes, Mile High Pinball features several dozen levels, over 40 different balls and nearly three-dozen power-ups.

“There are two, three and four multipliers for score,” said Producer Steve Patterson when asked about the game’s many different power-ups.  “Everything I hit gives me two, three or four times as many points.”  Steve told me that there are multipliers for Bucks (currency used to buy new power-ups).  When you kill an enemy it’ll leave behind a piece of gold, such as a gold coin.  Equip a Bucks multiplier, hit a few enemies and watch your Bucks multiply.

That’s just the beginning.  We had more questions about the game, and Steve was ready with answers before we had the chance to ask them! 

Introduce us to your game, Mile High Pinball.

Steve Patterson: The idea behind it was to create a casual game that’ll appeal to both men and women, younger gamers and older gamers.  It’s pinball, which everyone plays.  Hardcore gamers will be looking for something more in-depth.  You look at the game and the graphics are way beyond anything you’ll see on a Java [pinball] game.  The depth that’s there is things like enemies and boss enemies.

Power-ups: we have 35 different kinds of power-ups.  There’s a power-up that will give your ball wings.  There’s all kinds of multipliers that will multiply the amount of damage it does when it hits enemies.

We have rocket balls [that] shoot the ball upward because the idea of the game is to go from the bottom level, Level 1, which starts out in the jungle/ruins of a castle.  Go up through the forest, up past the mountains, up into the sky, and then out into space as far as the levels span.

Balls can have different symbols on them – one has a Swiss Army Knife design on it, one has an American Cross emblem on it.  Every ball is unique.

This is the kind of game that you can pick up, play for five minutes and put it down.  When you pick it up the next time, you pick up where you were.  If you were at Level 5 and you had five power-ups, you’ll start right there the next time you play. 

Ode to another N-Gage game.

Cool!

SP: Throughout the entire game you only get one ball.  Usually when you play pinball you get five balls.  Mile High Pinball gives you one ball.  You start at Level 1, let’s say you play for a while and you get up to Level 10.  You have a bad day, you have a bad week, whatever, and you fall through the level, then you’re back down to 9, you’re back down to 8.  It’s 80 levels that you’re trying to play through with one ball.

There are power-ups that will help you out through this.  There’s one called Do-Over.  Basically, if you’re at a level and you’re having a hard time, you use the Do-Over power-up and it brings you back to the level you were playing at last.

There’s also a bunch of N-Gage Arena features.  Once you connect, you have your pinballs of course, and you also have Team Balls.  Some of the levels are tougher to beat.  There might be a boss that you’re having a tough time with.  Your friend is like, “Oh I’ve beaten that [boss].”  You take your ball, put it on the Arena, and he downloads that ball as a team member and plays your ball.  He then gives it back to you when he’s done.

You’ve also got the standard community stuff like ranking.  You can rank to see where you are, there’s a literal map of the level that shows where you are (example: at Level 45).  And it shows you that 10 [other players] are near you.  You then say, “Well where are all my friends?”  You can check to see where your friends are – one might be at Level 79, another at Level 8.  You also have rankings by Bucks, which is how much money that you have.

How many different balls are there?

SP: There are 50 different skins.  You start out with 15.  You play through, you find secrets and beat certain bosses, you’ll get new skins.  You won’t get every single skin when you play through once.  When you beat all 80 levels, you should continue to play because there’s an extreme board.  You unlock the extreme board at the 80th level and the final boss.  The extreme board is all 80 levels, remixed and in a new order.  You can play indefinitely, forever and ever.

Do any of the different balls have different attributes?

SP: All balls were created equal [laughs].  But the game has a lot of different power-ups.  There are monsters, like gargoyles.  Occasionally she [the gargoyle] will turn to stone as I’m trying to go up.

Is the gargoyle considered a boss?

SP: She’s just a normal enemy.  There are true bosses, like a Cyclone, a Giant Gargoyle, etc.

There are damage multipliers, which can do up to 10 times as much damage.  Then there are multipliers that do all three – they’ll multiply your Bucks, your score, and your damage.

The Slow Ball power-up slows the ball down.  So if you’re at a level with a lot of enemies and a lot of bumpers, it’ll slow you down.

If a pinball falls through the paddles and no one hears it, did it really happen?

So it’s a good thing?

SP: Yeah.  There’s also a really bouncy ball [power-up], which is good for when you’re in a level with a lot of enemies that you have to kill.  It’ll bounce around like crazy.

There’s a Clone Ball, which is basically a multi-ball.  Everyone loves multi-ball pinball [pinball where there is more than one ball in play at the same time].  So we have two balls or three balls that will come out at once.

We have an enemy target power-up [which functions as] an enemy hunter.  Basically, every time you hit the ball upward, it automatically strikes the enemy.

We have a bomb that kills all enemies on the level.  We have a Rocket Ball that shoots the ball straight up, and several others.  Thirty-five total.

To launch a power-up during play, hold down the 9 button.  It shows all the power-ups that you have.  Select the one you wish to use from there.

Can you tell us more about the boss battles?

SP: I don’t want to give too much away, but the Cyclone is a really good example of one.  There’s a giant cyclone, and it spits out little storm clouds.  The Cyclone has two modes.  When it goes dark, it shoots electricity.  It’ll grab the ball and shoot it around.  When it turns dark it’s invulnerable for a short while, then you can hit it.  Turn on your multiplier and do 10 time as much damage.  Every time you hit it a little health bar appears so you can see how much damage you’re doing to it.  This boss is pretty nasty.  The levels are chaotic enough, and then to have a cyclone spitting storm clouds around, well, it’s pretty fun.

It sounds like it!

Thank you for your time.