Williams™ Pinball 17+

Fun but lots of bugs

Great selection of tables (I’d select Medieval Madness as the starter table, it’s amazing) and solid game physics.

Fish Tales, Attack from Mars and Getaway are also super solid tables for starters.

Some of the tables aren’t as good sadly. Hurricane needs work as the ball drains down the right ball drain upon replay more often than not. Others are too busy to understand to start with, such as Black Lagoon.

The system for opening new table requires you to complete challenges, earning table parts and tokens along the way. You cannot simply pay for different tables. Tokens won can be used to reset challenges, and you win a lot more than it costs to reset, so this is your way to open new tables eventually. I’ve Been playing for 2 weeks and have 5 tables open to free-play on Level 2, so still a way to go.

However, the app is sadly let down by the servers and constant freezing of the app to allow constant to update/load. 30 second adverts offering free tokens are also a constant cause for freezing, requiring a shut down and reload, often causing prizes to be lost. This is a really big downside but hopefully something which is remedied soon.

Over complicated

1st, the graphics and physics are excellent, then it’s downhill after that. The whole game has been over complicated by adding in “parts” for tables, XP points that never get added and worst of all is the adverts that “lockup” or stagger along (internet connection is fine) which then means having to quit the app altogether and restarting. It’s reached the point that I now avoid the adverts to gain extra parts and everything is then fine. Also, the Hurricane table has an annoying bug, in that its almost always sends the ball down the right hand side after one hit on the right-hand flipper. Trying to achieve a score of 10M is almost impossible within 5 mins...

This is a real shame as the game/app itself is superb and is easily one of the best pinball games around. It needs to be simplified, a choice of buying the tables directly and a fix for the adverts if people wish to use this option to obtain parts.

Update (May 2020)
After receiving a generic response from the developers, the issues with delays in “fetching data” and adverts locking up the game continue. At least they can be avoided, although this then removes revenue for what is essentially a free game.

Update (June 2020)
Still has the issue - “Fetching Data, Please Wait”
The Servers are so slow! And occasionally it will also crash or lock up the game as well, which means you lose any rewards.

Developer Response ,

Hi! Thanks for your feedback! I understand your confusion regarding the pricing.
Williams Pinball works as a free-to-play game so it has a different pricing structure than the more conventional other versions. The mobile version is mainly designed for playing challenges. I believe, we still haven't achieved the balance between users who want to get the tables and bypass the challenges and those who like to play the challenges so they could upgrade the tables.
Thank you for writing regarding this - it really helps us.

What happened to the solid pinball experience?

Downloaded and played this game in 2017 and it was brilliant . You got to demo a table and then pay for it - simple . When I got a new Apple device downloaded this “new version “ and woah everything changed . Why can’t I just pay for the table and play , see the actual prices for a flipping table and play ! Go back to the drawing board and think seriously why and what you want to achieve because if you want to copy other game developers and focus on micro transactions you’re shooting yourself in the foot ! Why must it be a headache to play a pinball machine in 2022 ? Imagine you go to a barber shop to get a haircut and the barber says to you sit relax and have a coffee first and then he says sit relax here’s a newspaper and then he says sit relax smell these eu de toilette how long will you jam in that chair without getting a haircut ? It’s the same thing you’re doing except worse enough to knock the enthusiasm out of a jumping 7month old puppy ! What a dog tease !