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I got into Pinball because my work had a handful of machines in our breakroom. This author is not joking about how different an experience it is playing pinball when you don't have to worry about pumping in quarters or being elbowed out by the next player. Pinball machines from the 90s on are reasonably complex games. They have levels, modes, and lots of goals to attain. Multiball is a reward
> I’m fortunate enough to live near the biggest publicly accessible pinball arcade (Pinball Hall of Fame)
In danger of being rude, I'd say the Pinball Hall of Fame is about worth the price of admission (it's free to enter). Maybe I visited on an off day, but it seemed to be just a warehouse full of privately own machines, about half of which were operating. My local pinball place (Next Level Pinball Museum, outside of Portland, OR) has a very large collection which spans the history of Pinball from very early games to machines that have HD video displays on the backboard.
I strongly recommend if you've never given it a try, find a pinball place that'll let you pay a flat fee for admission and spend some time on some games. My personal favorites:
- Attack From Mars
- Cactus Canyon
- Medieval Madness
- Creature from the Black Lagoon
- Star Trek (based on the Abrams movies)
- Super Mario Bros (the full size table from 1992)
The Pinball Hall of Fame is notable for having a working Pinball Circus[1], of which there were only 2 ever built. I try to give it a play every time I'm in town. It's also got quite a few other rare games that are very difficult to find elsewhere, including a significant collection of electromechanical games that usually don't get much representation in arcades. I do agree that the level of maintenance isn't great, but that's basically true for almost any place with more than ~10 machines. I have a comment here[2] about the state of the places I go to regularly in San Francisco, but basically the only one that's consistently good is the one where the owner is onsite and does the maintenance himself.
[1]: https://arcadeblogger.com/2018/07/06/arcade-holy-grail-the-p...
The now defunct Pinball Museum in Banning, CA had an interesting model. They opened for business on a convention model (bi-annually, or quarterly) with an all-you-can-play ticket. This gave them time to get all the machines in working order. There was also a repair crew onhand to try to get failures fixed. They did not survive the pandemic and had to liquidate their collection, which was tragic.
So while maybe not the best way to make money, the experience for fans at their shows was outstanding. The largest collection of pins and arcades I've ever seen, almost all in working order.
Attack from Mars is a good beginner table to learn ball control especially. There's basically a single shot up the center, but a lot of nuance in how you do it to avoid a drain.
In London there’s Pinball Republic in Croydon. I haven’t been in a few years, £15 to enter and all machines are set to free play.
Having grown up in the one quarter to play era, pinball machines were refreshing. You could make your game last via skill, or even just holding the ball on the flipper. In comparison video games would take your quarter and ramp up difficulty until you died.
Memorable games for me were more modest, such as "8-ball deluxe" with lots of targets or "black knight" with a second set of flippers.
Games nowadays seem to be too deep to play in an arcade on the way home from school (if any such venues exist anymore). Seems to me like asking you to play skyrim a quarter at a time.
I would definitely add Star Trek - The Next Generation to that list as well. One of the great classics in my opinion.
Old games I put a lot of quarters into:
- Black Knight 2000
- Whirlwind
- High Speed
I've gotten into pinball the last year and also love the ones you listed. Some of the newer machines I've had a blast with include Stern's Godzilla, Ghostbusters, and 007 machines
I would add:
- Arabian Nights
- Addams Family
- Star Wars
Silver Ball Planet in Osaka is awesome if you ever travel there. And cheap too!
We have very similar tastes! CFTBL is my #1 favorite.
If you're in Budapest some time, I recommend the "Flipper Museum".
If there are any pinhead game devs out there, we're still working on the next generation of Visual Pinball, called VPE[1].
However, given the current drama around Unity, we're currently looking into Godot to evaluate how much effort it would take to port, and how Godot will support our needs.
I have a VPX cab that but I've been out of the loop for a while because it just works. A refresh of my cab is on the agenda, though, and VPE looks great!
Are you targeting Linux compatibility, by chance? My biggest complaint about the whole VPX scene is that it's locked to Windows.
Is Visual Pinball the pinball emulator of choice these days?
(Asking because I want to build a cab this Winter and not sure where to begin.)
Very nice article, I appreciated both the game/technical detail and the personal touches in the text.
Not knowing about the author, I checked the About page [1] which states that Tynan is a "minimalist nomad", but perhaps that label is somewhat outdated? I mean ... owning three full-size pinball machines seems somewhat incompatible with both properties. Perhaps they are only minimalist when in nomad mode and not when at home, or something. Also, I have little clue about "nomadism", that is not my cup of beverage at all. :)
Author here... minimalist might be a little bit outdated. A friend wrote the about for me because he was annoyed that I didn't have one. FWIW I do still only wear one set of clothes every day and travel for weeks with what most consider to be a very small backpack.
> Some of the best classic games for new people are Medieval Madness, Attack From Mars, and Monster Bash.
Those first 2 are what got me into pinball, many many years ago. The last original Medieval Madness table I saw was $15k at the Chicago Pinball Expo -- it's probably the most beloved table, with the possible exception of Addams Family.
Virtual pinball is the future. If you're interested, the easiest way to start is with an AtGames Legends Pinball machine. It's the most easily moddable... for mine I went with these upgrades which made all the difference.
https://www.buystuffarcades.com/products/deluxe-backbox-2-0-...
https://www.clevelandsoftwaredesign.com/pinball-parts/p/styl...
https://www.atgames.us/products/arcade-control-panel-for-leg...
Yes, getting it all together takes quite a bit of time and money, but everyone who has seen it has been delighted, even if they knew nothing about pinball beforehand.
An MM table is like my #1 "if I won the lottery" frivolous purchase. Such an absolutely awesome table.
Just wanted to give a shoutout to my hobby app, a social scorekeeper and ranker for pinball players, Pindigo. It’s free; there are over 11k users posting scores. It also has locations, user groups, and leaderboards. https://www.pindigo.app
Thanks for making Pindigo. I'm a frequent user and evangelist. It's been a great resource in growing our local pinball community.
I used to play a lot of pinball. I would regularly go to a location with a large collection of machines on free play and a flat entry fee. I started watching tutorial videos and improving my skills, but the better I got the less fun I found the games. I eventually stopped playing.
Unless you're very competitive, I recommend avoiding any kind of systematic effort to improve your skills, as this is likely to reduce the enjoyment you get from the game itself. The explanation is itself a kind of tutorial, so I've ROT13 encoded it for the sake of people having fun at their current skill level:
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Nf sne nf cynlvat pnhgvbhfyl, V qba'g guvax gung'f arprffnevyl n fgenvtug pbabs cvaonyy. Cneg bs gur sha bs gur tnzr vf znfgrel bire pbageby bs gur onyy, gura nqncgvat gubfr fxvyyf gb arj gnoyrf jvgu qvssrerag fubgf, tbnyf, rgp. Vg'f fbzrjung yvxr cynlvat SCF ivqrb tnzrf, jurer gur npg bs fubbgvat vf zber be yrff genafsrenoyr ohg gur fcrpvsvpf bs gur tnzr ner abg
Pinball is awesome. I play it every week. I also organise tournaments.
Great way to socialise and if you're competitive, tournament pinball is very deep and satisfying. Physics! Rules!
Take a quick peek at the last IFPA world championship
I own three pinball machines and recently built a virtual pinball cabinet running open source Visual Pinball (aka VPX) which is great. One challenge of getting into pinball is knowing which tables are "good". While it's true that different people will have different preferences, there are tables widely considered as "good" by the community. There's a list of best 100 machines of all time here: https://pinside.com/pinball/top-100. This is voted by the community and the majority of voters are very experienced players. You'll also see in the comments for each machine that many of the voters are current or former owners of that particular machine.
Since I have a virtual pinball cabinet now, as well as some friends who are pinball collectors with dozens of well-regarded, sought after machines - I've played everything in the top 100 (most on a real machine at least once) and IMHO - pretty much anything in the top 50 is worth a play, Also, my personal favorites are all in the top 50.
A few years ago I could have sworn that The Addams Family (1992) was the most highly regarded table of all time.
What appears to have happened is that between last time I checked and now, some great tables have been produced. I checked out a video of that Deadpool one and it looks amazing. It's good to see vibrant activity in the pinball space; I thought pinball had died off (again).
Man. I really want a pinball machine. But they’re just so expensive. Though I had kinda ruled out building a virtual pinball machine. This article has convinced me to reconsider. Can anyone recommend a guide?
I’m a pinball newbie but not a woodworking newbie. So a guide with details on the software and pinball-specific hardware included would be sweet.
While I'm sure the sibling comment is correct about how much nicer 120hz screens are, you shouldn't let the cost of them dissuade you from this project.
I built my own pinball machine (I looked up specs of real machines on the internet, and just kinda copied their angles and sizes) and put a 43" cheap 60hz TV in it. I had a computer laying around with a 1080ti, but that was overkill I think.
I initially set it up with just a pair of speakers, but I soon added the "exciters" that make the sound come from the cabinet in the 4 corners, and that was a subtle but important upgrade, IMO. It also needs some amps, etc for that.
I already had a cheap arcade button/joystick set that I just used the buttons and controller from, and I splurged on a plunger.
The plunger was surprisingly optional in the end, though. A lot of the best games don't even use it! The plunger also had an accelerometer for nudging, but I soon disabled it because it was causing a slight angle to the virtual table and I haven't gotten around to bothering to fix it. It's also not really necessary.
I found that Virtual Pinball X was the easiest software to set up tables on and had most of the best tables. Look for "pinup popper baller installer" to get an easy installer that will ask you a lot of questions and just set things up.
You'll also want a second tv/monitor for the backboard, but don't feel the need to get a third screen for the DMD. Most (all?) game themes will just integrate it into the second screen for you.
My wife is a huge pinball fanatic and when I told her I wanted to make this, she rejected it out of hand. She said it wouldn't be good enough.
She has completely changed her mind. She played it a ton at first and still fires it up weekly at least. Of course, she still goes to arcades for real pinball.
Whenever I see pinball machines I check the embedded bubble level and 9/10 are not set to the right angle, even in reputable arcades. It seems important to keep the angle in spec, otherwise the ball goes either too slow or too fast but I wonder how much it really matters.
I used to play pinball pretty seriously in the 1990s. I would particularly like finding machines that had no tilt or insensitive tilt and “nudge” really hard or even put the front legs up on top of my boots for better control.
At a small state school they saw me doing this and threatened to kick me out of the game room if I face it up (which had me playing more Xevious and World Heroes) but ai learned the meaning of social class when I was in grad school at an Ivy and nobody ever gave me trouble.
There was that time I put up a score on a Harley Davidson that was so high I’m sure people would have thought it was impossible and that was almost true.
I'm gen-x and really loved pinball. A list of some of my favorites
Cyclone
World Cup
Beat The Clock (The Stone Pony in Asbury Park NJ had it) that one gave you a set of time and you try and stop the clock while still playing. A very old game but an unique concept with a better setup than a fixed amount of balls.
I saw some new pinball machines for sale at our local home store. They were bloody expensive, on the order of 9k. What makes these machines so expensive?
My pet theory as to why pinball has gotten so popular in the Northwest is because it's a way to pay a few quarters to temporarily avoid interacting with other people. A win-win for introverts and bar owners!
Pinball is addictive. I don't even have a house to myself and I've had to talk myself out of picking up pins for my apartment. If anyone is in the Bay Area, I recommend the Pacific Pinball Museum. Over 100 pins ranging from old EMs to 90s games to plenty of modern ones. I have a season pass and try to go as often as I can.
I built a virtual pinball table. Sadly I came to the realization that I just don't like pinball, so it mostly only gets played when other people come over and want to play.
But building it was pretty easy, and fairly cheap. I used a new 55" TV (with "game mode" to reduce lag) for the play surface, and old monitor for the backdrop. It does require a descent computer and graphics card, but not top of the line. My card is a Nvidia 1080, a buget card wasn't enough. The main structure is just 2x4's, then plywood tacked on. I used dimentions from a real pinball table, and real pinball table legs. There are a lot of artwork stickers available to make it look like less of a box (though I own a printer that can print large enough that I could do my own). Overall I would consider it a fairly simple project.
Is pinball seeing a resurgence in popularity?
A friend of mine is internationally ranked, and he started out much like the author:
> What if I built a wall cutting it in half and built a pinball room in the resulting new room
Their small apartment is now full of pinball machines, tools and parts
I traded 5 hours of IT labor for a Bally Sea Ray table (1971). Tuning it up was interesting (electro-mechanicals use many solenoids and relays) and the end result was a blast...
Now I have a client who is asking to hire me to get their old table back in shape.
Would recommend!
I played pinball at a metal festival (Wacken 2022), because I was bored of loud music and wanted somewhere to chill. for some reason there were a few real machines there in tents outside. I think 8 or so, and no one was really playing them. We got to have quite a lot of goes without having to pay that much, and it was quite. Also the fun thing is that we had a lot of beer so we got to drink beer while playing them. The tables were messed up and dirty, so I didn't worry about putting my beer near them. There were some interesting tables there, Terminator 3, Lethal Weapon 3, Godzilla...and a few others I can't remember
I have a 1976 bally freedom machine that I inherited from my grandfather in the early 90s. it was right on the cusp of digital pinball and from what I understand there are versions of this machine out there that are solid state. unfortunately it broke a long time ago when I rolled the scoreboard over into 6 digits and I haven't been able to play it since. it's now sitting in my garage waiting to be restored, collecting dust for decades. I have a long term plan to bring it back to life and luckily there is a prominent pinball youtuber that walks through the restoration of the exact same machine I have. I hope my plans come to fruition some day and im sure its gonna cost me more than the ~$1500 it is worth fully restored. looking inside at the guts, it is an absolute wonder of mechanical engineering.
I got into pinball myself this year in a big way. It started with restoring a mid-80s Williams Comet that my wife's family had stored in the back of the barn for years. Things went slightly off the rails after that and we have since picked up another eight machines. We now have a good mix of electromechanical (Grand Prix!), 90s classics (Twilight Zone, Fish Tales, and Safe Cracker) and modern games (Jurassic Park and Foo Fighters). It's a great feeling to clean and repair an old machine and get it playing smoothly. And there's a lot of skills to be learnt by playing on a wide variety of machines.
Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game on Hulu is awesome if y'all have never seen it.
I have fond memories of playing Police Force by Williams (1989) in college.
I've thought about buying a pinball machine for a while, but haven't pulled the trigger. I think I would get bored of one machine after a short while, and then it would just sit there. I like pinball a lot and I think the design and build quality of many of the more recent games is fantastic. But, I'm not interested in collecting machines. Is anyone else in a similar situation?
I'm a big fan of Theatre of Magic and by extension most other pins designed by John Popadiuk.
How is the durability / needed maintenance on new pinballs from Stern?
I'm in love with pinball since when I stopped worrying about losing the ball, as you also told in the article, but because of their price, I'm a little scared without knowing that much :(
Mechanical (Analog) Devices
There's something about mechanical devices that bring back nostalgia for me.
Especially in this day & age when everything is moving to digital.