Not just pinball and videogame, in the awaited event "eSports & Pinball", which will be held on June, 23 - 24 at Villorba, near Treviso. But also pinball in videogame format. Or, to put it simply: virtual pinball.
Thanks to the cooperation of the Chicago-based producer,
Stern Pinball, which joins the event and makes its interactive gaming platform available:
Stern Pinball Arcade, through which one can play on the best Stern's "real" pinball machines, but in virtual format, through its official App, available on mobile too.
With an official competition even happening in a virtual environment. Thus, more competitions will take place simultaneously within the Treviso event: "
eSports & Pinball". First of all, the
Italian Sports Pinball Championship, IPO2018, including a "
main tournament" and a "
side tournament". While a series of professional videogamers will compete in a
HearthStone contest in the next room: a very popular videogame that is now an instrument of great competitions.
The tournament on virtual pinball will join the two segments, with the Stern Pinball's App that will connect the two segments of players, offering a pinball machine with all its known features, but in videogame format, then definitely in the style of eSports players too.
HOW WORK THE VIRTUAL TOURNAMENT - The number of participants is not pre-determined, given that people can register also on the day of the competition (starting at 11 am of Saturday, June, the 23rd). The competition will be held on 5 iPad stations and a different pinball machine will be avalable in each of them, in virtual mode, through the Stern's official App: "Stern Pinball Arcade". Pinball machines used in the competition will therefore be exclusively selected from those of the single manufacturer Stern Pinball. Players will have the opportunity to qualify for the final phase by playing the qualifying phase which will end at 1pm on Sunday, June 24th.
During the qualification stage, each player will play alone on one of the 5 iPAd stations, trying to obtain the highest score. Before starting each single game, the player is obliged to always call a referee to be authorized to start the game. At the end of each game, in case the player obtained the highest score of all to that moment (Grand Champion), he must enter his identifying TAG into the tablet and call a referee. (He must enter the TAG also in case of High-Score 1, 2,3 and 4)
During the qualifying stages, each player is obliged to set the pinball free after each game, because it is forbidden to play two consecutive games in the same pinball machine. On the contrary, the player can change the pinball machine and play on a different one.
At the end of the qualifying stage, the first 5 players with the best score (Grand Champion) on each pinball machine will qualify for the final. In case a player obtained 2 or 3 Grand Champion, the final will be played with 4 or 3 players, respectively. In the case of 4 or 5 Grand Champions with the same player, the final will always be played with 3 players, by drawing the other 2 finalists among those who obtained the High-Score 1 on the five pinball machines.
All virtual pinball machines selected for the VPT will be set in standard mode (the only one provided in the current version of the App Stern Pinball, which doesn't include the "Tournament Mode"). Each game will last 3 balls with the extra balls included, which must be played.
The final of the tournament, involving the simultaneous participation of 5 players on the same pinball machine, will be played with simultaneous games of the players on the same pinball machine, but on 4 different devices, as the Stern Pinball Arcade software doesn't provide today the possibility of multiplayer games.