Hi Guys
Thanks for the compliment JP, but I do use mirrors too sometimes! Anyway Kristian, as for these old tables, well, like I said, I'm a recent convert. I like tables old and new, and if truth be told, I'd sooner be playing Addam's family than Bagatelle, but in terms of actually building a table, these old ones are great for several reasons. Firstly, they are genuine antiques that have often been overlooked - there's not many tables out there that haven't been made for VP nowadays, so it's a chance to add a new one. Secondly, as you say, it's a part of history. Although I don't know if the manually controlled 'foozler' in this game was ever actually built, I find it interesting because in the patent it's described ass a manually operated. moving obstacle, and I think in practice players could have used it to flick the ball. In other words, it was a kind of flipper. Considering the flipper didn't emerge till ten years after this table, it's really quite innovative. This table also has two playfields, something that didn't appear in regular pinball for until many years later, and in simulating a round of golf, where you can get stuck in bunkers and have to aim for specific targets rather than those that just score the most points, it has a progressive element to it, which again was not regularly seen in pinball until a generation later. So all in all, a very advanced table for it's time.
Thirdly, with a few programming tricks, it's possible to capture the feel of the original a little more, and see why these games were so popular. It's all about the getting the launch right, and then bumping the table - the table itself is what you use to control the ball. Practising your skill on a table like this will really improve your nudge skills on more advanced tables. As well as rewriting the launch mechanism, I'm also rewriting the code for bumping the table, to allow for softer or harder bumps.
And finally, making a newer style table can be a heck of a daunting prospect, whereas something like this means you do something simple, but with plenty of style!