Hey, there are a few in my town! Sadly the one closest to me is gone. I think the bar owner got tired of me coming in just to play pinball, but I wasn’t going to drink at 10am.
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How pinball machines are brought back to life…
https://www.google.com/search?q=dallas+makerspace+vector
I was spoiled by having Pinball Wizard about an hour from me until they recently closed; that place was glorious and the owner was a wonderful person. At least with the current popularity of “retro” arcades, there’s a few other small places around with pinball.
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It’s nice to see that they have such a broad stock of replacement parts, too. I guess this is why Chicago is so pinball crazy.
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When I bought my Addams Family pinball machine a few years back, I had no idea what a huge secondary market there is for replacement parts and playfield toys specific to various games. Addams Family is the most popular pinball machine ever made, so there’s people who make aftermarket stuff just for it: lighting kits, knobs for the ball launch, custom trigger buttons, under lighting to make it glow… I had no idea.
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I hate you (not really)
It rules and probably 99% of the reason I forked over money for Pinball Arcade on Steam.
Which isn’t a bad emulator for those of us on a budget/lacking space for a real machine.
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It was a moment of weakness! I spent money I really shouldn’t have spent on it and it takes up half of my room. But it’s my favorite pinball machine, and now a friend and I make some aftermarket toys (a bear rug for the rear ‘bear kick’ ramp) and sell them on pinball forums. And yes, Pinball Arcade is the closest you’ll get to real pinball, it’s great. I think my favorite game on there is Elvira’s Scared Stiff.
Addams Family is still my absolute favorite pinball game. I was able to play for much longer than other tables. It feels more like skill and less like luck to me.
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I used to have a Captain Fantastic - Brown Dirt Cowboy pinball, which was one of the last all-mechanical games before they went electronic. Pretty complicated to troubleshoot when anything went wrong. https://photos.app.goo.gl/Y2BLuqacMBly5uTJ2
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That being said, Pinball itself evolved. While I can’t imagine playing Raster Blaster for more than five minutes, neither can I imagine playing Firepower, the table it was based on, for very long. In my opinion, Pinball really came into its own in the mid 1990s with Williams games like Attack From Mars, Medieval Madness, and The Addams Family. Even the modern Stern games are clearly copying that style of play, with “missions” and the like rather than just a few bumpers here and there.
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If you want to be jealous, I helped rebuild a Twilight Zone machine in college (in Flint Michigan of all places) and got to play the working machine for a long time. It was amazing, I would like to buy one one day - even if I have to do repairs and restoration again.
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Twilight Zone is BONKERS, so you have my respect for that nonsense! I would have no idea what to do with the mess of wires underneath that playfield. I remember reading a thing from Pat Lawlor once, the designer, who admitted that they kinda went nuts with that machine and packed it full of every wacky idea they had. It’s one of my all time favorites.
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Definitely support digital pinball!
Also on iOS and Android app stores as Pinball Arcade.
One quick way to get a more authentic digital pinball experience: just rotate your monitor to portrait.
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