Feel free to comment and discuss this game here. Also, if you have any useful tips or tricks don't hesitate to share them with the others! Thanks!

Review and Download (if available)

Many thanks, iwas waiting this game!

Now i've got the complete pinball-something series by Digital Illusions! :ok:

Well at least this version loads. The problem that I have now is that the graphics (after you enter a table) are stretched left and right and everything is very "short".

i know, the resolution of this game is a bit unusual (no 320x200) but despite
this fact, i had no problem playing it...

I got a few pinball games at Target the other day and I thought they were really fun,
so I looked around for Epic Pinball, but the Evil forces at Epic want me to pay for it.
I got Pinball Dreams 1 & 2 but 2 dosnt work! I sure am glad I found this one!

I think it looks very strange, too strange.

http://img218.echo.cx/img218/7751/pi1aa.th.jpg

Hmm looks interesting, got to download it, hope it works though for me...

Did you tried to play them with DosBox?

What a great game , shame none has beaten it in the pc era since

Dreams, fantasy , illusions........ what a poetic.

if you want to play some balls :max: than stay by century!!! :ok:

No retro games night is complete without games of one (if not all three) Pinball games, hehe.

I still remember the day in 1995 when I got my first PC. It came with a bunch of games, Pinball Illusions being one. I just kinda launched it and whoosh - six hours gone. :ok:

So, am I the only one who sees this as a serious problem?

Efthimios, try fullscreen=true, fullfixed=true and that fiddly resolution parameter (what the heck is it called???) 640x480 or 320x200.

Works like a wonder for me.

I've also got the floppy version.
At the floppy version you can choose screen resolution and it
features 320x240 that looks MUCH better in my opinion.
(just like Pinball Fantasies)

The problem is that it doesn't have the vikings table.

So if you hate the resolution try to find the floppy version

Nice to see this game here!!! I've played the Amiga versions of all three Pinball Games from Digital Illusions and they are totally brilliant.

If you have the floppy version Dimitris you should upload it.

I'm having issues downloading and unzipping the game file. When I extract the files it tells me that WinZip encountered problems during the operation. When I check the log it only extracted "start.bat" and put it in a folder marked Illusion. The other two files "illusion.exe" and "SETUP" give me an "unsupported compression method 9" error message. On top of all this, the file itself is smaller than the 4,443 kB reported on the site and instead is 4,340 kb. I have downloaded the file 5 times (thrice in mozilla, once in firefox and once using IE) and they each download the same size .zip file. :wall:

Please help.

:bleh: i never had any problems with any games from this side! just keep my 300mhz machine running! enough ram, and win 98. so what? ya wanna play old games? ya need an old machine. seems normal too me, one for abandon ware, one for the new games, and a playstation 2 for rockin the beat em up and neo geo reloads!!! yeah!!!! i love to play!!!!!!! but first, to play on my girl!!!! :angel: 2d 4 ever dudes!!!!!

Authorman, this is my fault. This is a slightly different then standard sort of ZIP compression, not always supported.

Try getting Total Commander file manager, it's internal UnZip interface works perfectly.

TC worked like a charm.

Thanks.

Ya-hoo! This has to be my favourite pinball game, especially because of Babewatch. That can glue me to the computer for hours, the table is so efficient in everything, with all the rules to mind-boggle you and the extra little features. The only backside is perhaps the slightly unusual handling of the paddles at some times, which is especially irritating when you have four balls on the field at the same time and when you have five seconds to hit a ramp.
I have been playing with the floppy version for weeks, now I have to start getting those 700 millions again in the CD version :)
For some odd reason though, I have no music after the modes start in The Vikings. Huh. Actually, I might return to the floppy version, that has setup at least. I have no problem with the 320xwhatever resolution though, at least a larger area of the table is visible than in the normal resolution. You just have to accompany yourself to it.

Edit: Someone help! Is there any way to change the number of balls from three to five like in the three table version?

I'd beat u all in the Beach Pinball, I love that one.

In Babewatch (the beach one) my top score is 1.051.796.700 . Top that? :D
My other favourite is the Viking one, but because of the 3 ball limit that's only 444 million.

Unfortunately, you cannot change the number of balls in this version.

I'm just wondering whether anyone managed to get all music when playing this in Dosbox. Certain tunes simply don't play, and the main menu tune also doesn't play when I quit a table (does when I start the game up)...

Am I missing certain settings or does the game itself exclude some of the music?

Any help would be appreciated.

I think it's not only DosBox - I've played this version many years ago and that had a problem with music as well, that's why I sticked to the three-table version every time I didn't want to play the Viking table. It's a bug in the code, not in DosBox.

Yup. And it's not the music is gone, because it starts after a minute or two.

Soo...the 3-table version ain't avaliable here then I suppose?

Meh, was me...

(don't really intend to register unless I happen to become a regular...got enough forums to read as it is for that tho :P)

If I may say, Addiction Pinball, which is not abandoned ware yet, is excellent. It has really incredible graphics still even though it is several years old now. It has only two tables; a car rally type table and a Worms-based table that is really fun.

I had the 3-table version, but the files somehow got corrupted - there was no way to recover it, sorry.

You can change between 3 to 5 balls in the floppy version, you can also select scolling mode, table angle, multiball maximum, resolution and more...

Yep, and the music worked better then in this one, too.
:cry:

You can make those settings in this version too...

Syntax:

ILLUSION.EXE [configfile] /[parameters]

in start.bat configfile defaults to "setup" (without brackets)

Valid parameters:

S - runs the Setsound soundcard configuration before running the game
O - runs the game options selection program before running the game
R - restores all game options to the standard settings before running the game
? - displays help text

Seems to hate QEMM or EMM386 if more than 48MB RAM Installed, runs fine without them though... Some of the music are missing, was there a CDDA music in CD-ROM Version? (would be kind a stupid to make cd with 4,5MB exe only...)

No, according to my info, it had 50 MB full of zeros. (!)

And thanks for the info regarding the switch parameters.

Hi - for everyone who have problems with resolution or whatever, try run the game like this " Illusion.exe setup /o
this will open the option dialogue, where you can change the resolution or number of balls :)

Whoops - too late, nevermind than

You can get the floppy version from HOTU, btw.

There is a method which can be applied if you want to attain TONS of points:

1. Set the tilt sensitivity to EARTHQUAKE and the table angle to LOW. (I do not recommend VERY LOW since "Babewatch" will be unplayable because the ball gets stuck when it falls down after hitting the bumpers-.)
2. If you do this, you can save the ball from draining quite a lot of times.
3. After having earned any of those Multiball modes you should SHAKE the table (by hitting Alt/Space/AltGr a few times)!!! If you are lucky enough, one (maybe more, although I never managed to do that) of the balls gets STUCK at the STARTING position. Result: one Extra ball :) while constantly playing Multiball - even after losing all but one of them! (You have one spare ball at the starting position while playing the another one.) Works GREAT with Final Arrest, Burger, Casino, Extremist and Valhalla modes.

Once I managed to make a score of over 8 billion on the Extreme Sports table by using this method.
(Law'n'Justice: 7,2 billion, Babewatch: 5 billion, would have been over 8 billion or maybe even more if the game had not crashed after a couple of game hours because I had at least 4 extra balls left... Also made a few Billion Point Shots. On Vikings, my high score is only 6 billion.)

Extreme Sports: also note the Combo GATE SAVE + MULTIBALL. You should exploit this to the FULLEST :-) 800x600 mode is a must for this table: in the EXTREMIST mode, you can get INFINITE NUMBERS of extra balls but to gain them, you have to hit a trap on TOP of the table.
By using all these methods, IMHO my 8-billion highscore is not unbeatable at all.

> No, according to my info, it had 50 MB full of zeros. (!)

In the original CD-version, there was TONS of garbage in place of those zeroes. By having zeroed it out, the game could be stored on four 1,44M disks (or three if you over-formatted them). Others have managed to cut this entire thingummy out of the file.

All the music seems to be there, it's just triggering WAY too late. This is the best pinball game I know, I can play it for days in a row before I grow tired of it. Especially the first two boards.

If anyone could care to look deeper into the music issue, this game is complete. Runs perfectly in DOSBox at 10k cycles.

The floppy version will be up in a few days. It doesn't have the problem with music, and that's about the closest we can do.

can you get the game to run under xp or do i have to go back to 98 or millenium

Actually, I don't think it would work on 98 or ME. What you need to do is use DosBox to run the game. You can download it here.

You might then want to check out the official DosBox FAQ, and particularly this part of it. It is quite helpful for users unfamiliar with DosBox.

Done, thanks TFH. :)

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(FirstChild @ Jun 18 2005, 10:22 PM) [snapback]121254[/snapback]</div>
When the game was released many of the reviews complained about that music did not work... but that's cause they were using a pirated version... it plays the music from the CD - ordinary audio tracks... if someone could hack the driver so that it will report song length 1 second the mod-music will start playing - the CD cannot make a nice "repeat" without a short pause, why they are only played ones... i could try to dig up the original cd with the tracks and send to someone to put on the site... don't know if dos-box can play cd-audio-tracks? still, it is nice to see that people are apreciating the game - 12 years after it was made... :) too bad dos-box don't handle the raster tricks - eliminating flicker, changing the palette in the fantasies meny and so on... playd for an hour now, was some years ago i saw it... :D /johan (pc programmer of the game)

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest @ Mar 19 2007, 10:01 PM) [snapback]284282[/snapback]</div>The missing CD audio tracks thing is not just a problem for pirates. I have a copy of Pinball Gold Pack (purchased in a major store in Finland) which has no CD audio tracks (believe me, I've checked dozens of ways on many different CD drives). I figured out that the music skipping was due to missing CD audio a while ago, but I always figured this was a limitation of the Pinball Gold Pack release (i.e. the silly 3D animations in Pinball Arcade were taking up the space needed for CD audio). Do you have any information on this? I'd love to actually hear all the music on the Vikings table!

In any case, DOSBox has CD audio support, so getting Pinball Illusions to run perfectly shouldn't be a problem.

If you ask the DosBox development team about it, they may fix that in the next version. :)

I've come across this thread because I am having problems getting Illusions to run with DOSBOX, has anyone else encountered the '00560kb low and 15280kb high memory...' error when trying to run the .exe?

Any help greatly appreciated!

Which version of DOSBox are you using?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_fifth_horseman @ May 8 2007, 10:08 AM) [snapback]289607[/snapback]</div>
0.70

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest_Mark_* @ May 8 2007, 12:05 PM) [snapback]289611[/snapback]</div>
0.70
[/b][/quote]


Perhaps I should also add that I am using DOSBOX literally as it comes on a 1.86ghz Pentium M laptop with 1gb ram.

This hardware configuration should be entirely sufficient to run DOSBox and Pinball Illusions in it.

Did you make any modifications to your DosBox.conf?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_fifth_horseman @ May 8 2007, 01:55 PM) [snapback]289623[/snapback]</div>No, I used as default but after I memory error problem, I tried increasing the memory in the config file but it made no difference.

I have searched for the error (google) but nothing has turned up.

What does the error message exactly say?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_fifth_horseman @ May 8 2007, 02:07 PM) [snapback]289626[/snapback]</div>Thanks for your time the_fifth_horseman, I appreciate it!

I type;

C:\ILLUSION.EXE

then I get the following;

Pinball Illusions PC
© Copyright 1995 Digital Illusions CE

pMAX ver 1.30 © Copyright 1995 - Frontline Design

00560kb low and 15280kb high memory available
Error while initializing configuration file. Please consult the
troubleshooting-section of your user's manual for further information.


In the DosBox Status Window

CONFIG: Loading primary settings from config file dosbox.conf
MIDI: Opened device:win32

This is the actual error report.
As for solving it, I've already included that info at the end of the review.

And that's it. Just run start.bat and the game should run allright.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_fifth_horseman @ May 8 2007, 03:19 PM) [snapback]289633[/snapback]</div>Oops, sorry, I had actually read the review :wallbash:

As you can guess, I am new to DOSBox, playing PinballFX on the xbox360 has awakened my interest in the Digital Illusions games.

Thanks for your help!

:sos: Fifth Horseman,
I have a question about the resolution. I get the strange resolution as well (360x350), but i don't know how to change it to the normal resolution. I tried the illusion.exe setup/o option, but when I select another resolution the table gets either bigger, or way smaller, which is both very annoying to play.
You suggested an option with fullscreen=true etc, how does that one work??
Otherwise am really really happy with all three Pinballs (Dreams, Fantasies, Illusions).. brings back some great memories! :brain:

You need to edit the DOSBox' config file (Dosbox.conf). A shortcut to it is in the DOSBox start menu directory, and you can open the file itself with Notepad.

The part of the string before the = is the name of a given setting that you'll need to look up in the config file. After the = is its current value. You'll need to change them as follows.

output=ddraw
This will automatically stretch the display to fit the current screen size, but also cause slight blurring of the image (sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes it's not)

fullresolution=640x480
Will make DOSBox run in 640x480 resolution when in fullscreen mode. You can use 1024x768, if you prefer. It would make a difference if you're using a scaler (see scaler=, below).

windowresolution=800x600
Will make DOSBox window run in 800x600 resolution when in windowed mode. If you're using a higher desktop resolution than 1024x768, you might want to increase the window resolution.

fullscreen=true
Will make DOSBox start in fullscreen. Not neccesary, but highly recommended.

scaler=hq3x
If you're using 1024x768 fullscreen resolution and have a sufficiently powerful machine, changing the scaler to that will make the graphics look much nicer. Optional only.
On lower resolutions, hq2x will suffice, and if it's too much load on your machine - normal2x or normal3x will do (altough won't look as nicely).

aspect=true
Will scale the displayed graphics to 4:3 aspect ratio. This is critical for dealing with "weird" resolutions like 640x400, 360x350 et al.

THANKS! :kosta:
Works like a charm... now I can beat my highscores from the old days.. :ok:

I have pay a compliment to you guys for the excellent programming on those pinball games - jävligt vasst! Especially Fantasies - I could run that game smoothly on my 286, at full speed, with sound effects and music mixed to my pc speaker (no sound card)!

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_fifth_horseman @ May 11 2005, 11:43 AM) [snapback]106237[/snapback]</div>Hey, that almost sounded like me saying that! :w00t: Pinpall illusions was one of my first games too, and it is such a nostalgy trip.

I have a (cracked/pirated/whatever) copy of the cd-version with 4 tables where the music actually works in all of them, so it must be possible. I just offered my copy to the abandonia crew, maybe they're interested in posting it here.

Just hope they do...

It was one of my first computergames I played on my own PC...

Please register and send me a PM, so I can provide you with the login info you can use to upload the archive to our FTP. :)

I have an itching for some pinball action and I played Fantasies to death on my CD32 with all my college buddies. I'm having trouble playing this on my laptop though...it loads fine in DOSBox and I can get to a table but some keys don't work such as my right shift button and (unfortunately) the down arrow so all I can do is flip my flippers and tilt the hell out of the table but not play. :(

The funny thing is I just played Pro Pinball: Timeshock on the laptop and I had the same problem with the right shift key though it works fine on my desktop. Any ideas why this would be?

I loved being able to play the game with one of the the best original pirate/sailing songs - I hummed it to myself from time to time :whistling: .
I thought it was from The Lost Vikings 2 and was disappointed that I couldn't find it amongst its songs, but when I saw the screenshot for PI, I knew this game was The One.

Unfortunately, the rest of the game didn't live up to my expectations (especially when compared to Pinball Fantasies, which I'm playing at the moment, too).

My lamest hits get quadruple combos after triple combos, get me into casinos, score jackpots and make me a 80 times over millionaire within 5 minutes of first starting the game...
... while the ball slides down the sidelines after a-move/hit-most-unlikely-to-get-the-ball-down-the-sideline. If it were for my skill, or rather a lack of it, all would be well, but it isn't :oh: . It goes down the sides, not down the center, and it goes there after slowly going over the bumper... slowly going a bit down the first "safe" side... slowly going a bit down the second "safe" side... going out of it and to the unsafe one :laugh: .

Tough luck for me, no http://www.emoticons.free.fr/smileys...py/biggrin.gif ?

This worked wonders :D !

I got over 3 billion in Babewatch, now top that...

Just found this game of my childhood. Trying to run it under dosbox, but whatever I do, it onl displays 1/4 of the game (menu works fine, just the game is broken).

I already tried most of the things listed here (setup and changing resolution) and also tried changing machine in dosbox settings. No change. Any ideas how to fix this?

Try
machine=vesa_oldvbe
or
machine=svga_et3000

Thanks a lot! The last one finally worked, tried a couple different machines before suggested here and there but only the last one finally made the display ok