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New Product: TurboTwist

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Major Rock Hardy:

--- Quote from: RandyT on February 25, 2006, 10:25:21 am ---Somewhere along the line the community has been fed the incorrect notion that a desirable trait is one where the spinner will spin "forever" with one spin of the control, when in fact, all that does is make them more difficult to control.

--- End quote ---

I have always wondered about this too... seems like a marketing point for slikstik and perhaps further propagated by Retroblast in the "spinner roundup":
http://retroblast.com/reviews/roundup7.html

(which, by the way, needs to be re-revisited, right Randy?)

ridiculous, IMHO


--- Quote ---The TurboTwist has been balanced to provide playability in all genres of games.  I can pretty much guarantee that no spinner or paddle game will be unplayable with this control.

--- End quote ---

oh please, tell me someone has tested this w/ Warlords and it is SWEEEEET....

Randy, that encoder wheel kinda looks like one of those old printer daisy wheels :)  Just kidding

RandyT:

--- Quote from: Major Rock Hardy on February 27, 2006, 01:29:39 am ---oh please, tell me someone has tested this w/ Warlords and it is SWEEEEET....

--- End quote ---

Somehow I forgot about that one.... and is it ever! 



--- Quote ---Randy, that encoder wheel kinda looks like one of those old printer daisy wheels :)  Just kidding

--- End quote ---

<shudder>   :)

RandyT

brandon:
wow.. that encoder wheel has lots of "fins" on it..  one could assume that it might be more precise than other spinners.. perhaps even 3 times more so..    ;D  (sorry.. I couldn't resist)

19rjs99:
Well, I got mine this weekend. My CP isn't read for it yet so, I will have to test it tonight on it's own. I have to add that I like the construction and it seems very solid, however it definately needs a new knob. My knob has a wobble to it. It is definatley the knob because the shaft is straight. and doesn't wobble.

Randy, any plans on a new knob soon? I don't want to support SS after their attack in the other thread. Thanks for a great product.

Bob

farmecologist:

--- Quote from: RandyT on February 25, 2006, 10:25:21 am ---
--- Quote from: farmecologist on February 24, 2006, 04:01:08 pm ---Randy, I understand that your spinner has many more expansion capabilities than the tornado spinner.  It looks really nice!

However, if I ONLY consider the spinner functionality, what are the differences?  In my experience, for many games such as Arkanoid, *any* non-geared spinner, regardless of the sensitivity, will not give you the correct 'feel' while playing the game.  I take it this is also true with your spinner? 

--- End quote ---

The major stumbling block for spinners with Arkanoid has been the lack of resolution.  I did a fairly complete analysis of the control situation with that title in another thread found here.  I had to operate from a few assumptions, but it seems to add up.  The only thing I am not sure about is whether the game actually uses all of the resolution the control provided.  It's possible that it was averaged somehow.

While the resolution of the TurboTwist isn't at the same level as an Arkanoid spinner, it's still much higher than any other conventional spinner.  This makes a game like Arkanoid very playable.  I certainly do not consider the TurboTwist to "suck" for this game :).  The feel and performance are different from other spinners.

There are other things to be concerned about with a a title like this and those are inertia and momentum.  If a spinner has a heavy flywheel and spins too freely, it will be difficult to prevent overshoot.  The spinner will want to continue spinning past the point where you attempt to stop it.  Somewhere along the line the community has been fed the incorrect notion that a desirable trait is one where the spinner will spin "forever" with one spin of the control, when in fact, all that does is make them more difficult to control.  More than 8 or 9 revolutions are unnecessary as no game requires this type of motion for effective control.  If you find that the spinners you have tried have too much resistance when beginning a move, or are difficult to stop precisely where you want them to, they suffer from the aforementioned problems.

As for the physical "dead stop" and "specific resistance" properties of the Arkanoid control itself, no spinner is going to be able to do that while being a good spinner for any number of other titles where those properties would make the games unplayable.  Well, unless you wanted to pay $200 or more for the contraption and have it take up much more space on your panel :).  The TurboTwist has been balanced to provide playability in all genres of games.  I can pretty much guarantee that no spinner or paddle game will be unplayable with this control.

So, at the "end of the day" this is going to be the answer:  If you are a dyed-in-the-wool Arkanoid fan, there is only going to be one control that will ever be satisfactory to you, and that is the original control.  It won't do you any good for the majority of other titles, so you'll need to plan on having a two spinners on the panel.   Everyone else, will most likely be happy with the compromise the TurboTwist can provide.

RandyT

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Ok, that's what I thought.   I just wanted to make the point that even though your spinner has higher resolution, it probably isn't the answer for Arkanoid ( and clones ).   Also, it seems to me that much of the 'feel' of the original Arkanoid spinner is due to the physical characteristics of the geared mechanism.

That being said, I still might try one out!   If anyone has installed the spinner and has tried out Arkanoid, please post a review!

Thanks!



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