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How To Properly Store Your Pinball Machine

Andrew MacBain — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 23:43:45 +0000

How To Properly Store Your Pinball Machine

If you are thinking about adding a pinball machine to your home, you are not alone. Many homeowners are purchasing pinball machines in hopes that their kids will enjoy this beloved game just as much as they did (and to indulge in a little nostalgia). But when you add a pinball machine to your home, you must know how to treat it. Storage is an important part of caring for your machine and making it last.

What is the proper way to store pinball machines? Pinball machines should always be in a climate-controlled area. The best place for your pinball machine is inside of your home. Too much moisture, heat, or humidity can cause significant damage to the pinball machine. If you decide to store it in a garage or basement, it is recommended to have the pinball machine up off the floor to avoid potential water damage.

Taking proper care of your pinball machine is critical to its lifespan. The good news is that a pinball machine is easy to take care of, but you need to make sure you are doing it the right way. One important aspect of pinball ownership is proper storage, and this article will provide you with the best details on how to store a pinball machine.

Why Is It Important to Properly Store a Pinball Machine?

Think of your pinball machine like you would any other type of gaming system or device. You wouldn’t toss your expensive PlayStation 4 into the basement without a thought, so why drag your pinball machine down there and expect it to be fine? Sure, pinball machines are much larger than most current gaming systems, but it doesn’t mean that they can be neglected.

Without proper storage, your pinball machine can be affected in many ways. The biggest issue is that the overall system can malfunction and become damaged from excessive heat, humidity, or moisture. Additionally, there is also the problem of dust accumulating in the pinball machine, which can cause the pinball machine to stop working properly.

Another thing to worry about when it comes to storage is the possibility of water destroying the pinball machine. Certain areas, such as a garage or basement, are more prone to leaks and floods, which can have a seriously negative impact on your pinball machine and potentially destroy the sensitive electronics or damage the entire cabinet.

Proper storage is imperative for the functionality of your pinball machine. Continue reading to find out some of the best places to store your pinball machine and how to store it correctly to avoid damage.

How to Properly Store a Pinball Machine

The best place for your pinball machine to be stored is inside of your house. In most cases, the inside of the home is going to be climate-controlled to suit you and your family. This means that the humidity levels will be relatively low, and the temperature should never rise too high or drop too low.

If you can, find a spot in your home to place your pinball machine. Your machine will be the safest in this environment You also won’t have to worry about cleaning your pinball machine too often while it is inside because there is less of a chance of dust or dirt accumulating in the playfield. Of course, it’s probably best to keep it out of direct sunlight since the sunlight can cause the machine to deteriorate over time.

But what should a pinball machine owner do if he can’t find room in his home? What if he needs a temporary space to place his precious device? If you can’t store your pinball machine in the home, there are a few other options. However, you will need to take extra precautions when using these areas.

The Basement or Garage

The most common places you might find a pinball machine stored in are garages and basements. After all, many people have basements and garages that can make excellent storage spots for their pinball machines. Does your garage or basement have to be finished, though? Of course, not. Even unfinished areas like these are great places to store different things.

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But when you opt for a basement or garage, you need to be extra careful. Always make sure that the humidity levels don’t rise too high in the basement or garage. Humidity can have the biggest impact on pinball machines and can render them unplayable if exposed to too much humidity. Always check the levels, especially if you live in an area that is prone to high humidity.

If you live in an area where the humidity is high over the summer time then investing in good dehumidifier is a good option to keep your basement moisture free. If moisture collects inside of your machine it will quickly begin damaging a variety of components.

The other thing to worry about is potential leaks or floods. Since basements and garages are prone to these disasters, it is a good idea to place the pinball machine up off the floor by using a wood pallet or another similar item to keep it safe. As you can imagine, water getting into your pinball machine is going to cause significant damage, so it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Self-Storage

Many people may end up using a self-storage facility to house their pinball machines temporarily. This is a great option because self-storage locations are generally climate-controlled, and you won’t run the risk of moisture destroying your machine. This leaves the owner feeling confident and secure.

I wouldn’t store it in a self storage facility that isn’t climate controlled. Often the climate controlled units are more expensive but being that you spent thousands on your pinball machine a few extra dollars a month is well worth it to keep it in good condition.

Clean Your Machine Before Storing

For the most part, running a cloth across the playfield of your pinball machine regularly is enough to keep it functioning and increase its lifespan. This should be done as much as possible while in storage. If kept in the home, you will only need to clean it every couple of weeks.

Don’t Wrap Your Pinball Machine

Some people might think that they should wrap their pinball machine to keep it safe. This is mostly because many items that are kept in storage and should be handled with care, such as a glass table, will likely be covered with a blanket of some sort. But should you cover your pinball machine?

The simple answer is no. You should not cover your pinball machine while it is in storage. This will make it easier for dust and dirt to find itself into the smaller crevices of your pinball machine, which will make the grime harder to remove once out of storage.

Conclusion

Taking care of your pinball machine is an important task. If you need to store a pinball machine, the best option is inside of your home. If you cannot keep your pinball machine in your home, you must find another climate-controlled area. Humidity and moisture can wreak havoc on a pinball machine, so keep your device as far away from them as possible.

If you’re honest with yourself, though – You will probably be playing your pinball machine much too often to need to store it except for in rare instances like a move.

PINBALL ADVENTURES

Pinball Adventures is a North American manufacturing company producing fresh and unique Pinball machines. Our goal is to create to the highest standards, and spark the same joy we found as gamers when we rolled our first quarter into that coin slot so many years ago. Stemming from a lifelong passion, Pinball Adventures is created by gamers, for gamers. We strive to bring high quality, innovative, and captivating experiences for all to enjoy.

Visit our website at pinballadventures.com and also check out our new Instagram page for more updates https://www.instagram.com/pinballadventures/

Pinball, Pinball Adventures, Pinball Buzz, Pinball, Pinside, History of Pinball, Pinball News, Pinball Updates, Origin of Pinball, Pinball Skill Shots, Pinball Canada, Vancouver Pinball, pinball relates to real life, collect pinball, shooter rods, Parts of a pinball machine, Move a pinball machine, most expensive pinball machine, guide to playing pinball, Largest Pinball Collection, hardest pinball game, 5 Classic Pinball Machines, Owning a pinball machine, 5 Cool Pinball Art From The 80’s, How To Properly Store Your Pinball Machine

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What Are Pinballs Made Of?

Andrew MacBain — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 22:00:50 +0000

Pinball machines are a favorite for many people that remember them fondly from many years ago. Some of the modern versions of pinball machines can be found in many places from Dave and Busters to the few remaining arcades.

What Are Pinballs Made Of?

Pinballs are most commonly made out of carbon steel. However, they can be made from chrome steel, rubber, ceramic, gold, and silver. What a pinball is made of depends on the game you are playing and if the pinball is custom made.

These small balls have been used in these games for close to 150 years. Pinball games were even outlawed at one point! This article looks at what pinballs are made of and answers questions you didn’t even know you had about pinballs. source

Pinballs are made out of steel. Their diameter is 1 1/16th inch (2,7 cm) and the weight is 80 gram.
Almost every pinball machine made in the last 60 years is designed for this type of regular pinball.

There were only a few exceptions:

Bally’s Truck Stop (1988) used pinballs of 1 inch diameter. After designing the game it was found that pinballs sometimes got stuck on a ramp because it was too narrow. It was cheaper to sell the machine with smaller pinballs installed than to design new ramps.

Sega’s Viper Night Driving had Glo-Balls. These look like regular pinballs that are covered with a layer of yellow rubber. They weigh less: 60 gram. This causes for a special effect in combination with the blacklight on the playfield. The rubber layer also makes the pinballs bounce more and react more uncontrollable.
Glow balls didn’t become a success among players and operators, especially because they felt different whilst playing, but also because the rubber became dirty very fast and easily got damaged.

The most famous and popular non-regular pinball is the Powerball in the Twilight Zone pinball machine.
This game has five regular steel pinballs but also a white ceramic powerball. Size is regular but it’s lighter: only 65 gram. The powerball plays very fast. It’s also not influenced by magnets below the playfield. The game has special sensor boards to be able to detect if a ball in a certain position is a steel ball or the ceramic powerball.

Pinball shops now also sell ‘custom’ pinballs. Gold or silver (be careful as it’s sometimes a very shallow layer which comes off after a few games). Black pinballs also exist, even with different drawings on them.

Pinballs aren’t too complicated, and there’s nothing inside of them. Most pinballs are made out of solid carbon steel. Some manufacturers use a different kind of steel called chrome steel. Carbon steel is a metal alloy of iron and carbon, while chrome steel is non-stainless steel that is normally used on things like drills, forks, and knives.

Pinballs are small in diameter, only 2.7cm (or 1 1/16^th in) so that they can fit through the narrow ramps inside of pinball machines.

Using a heavier or bigger ball will affect gameplay. You must get a properly sized ball, which sometimes varies based on the machine that you have. For example, in Bally’s Truck Stop machine, made in the 1980s, the ball was 1 inch in diameter, and so it kept getting stuck in the machines because the ramps on them were too narrow.

PINBALL ADVENTURES

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Our Favourite EM Games

Andrew MacBain — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 05:49:18 +0000

Curious to find out what our favourite EM games are? Keep on reading

Our Favourite EM Games

Abra-Ca-Dabra – Our Favourite EM Games : Gottlieb single player EM game made in 1975. It’s a popular game and requires some restoration work since it didn’t work when I bought it as part of a package deal with a Buccaneer from Rod Wideman who is the most meticulous restoration person I have ever met. One bit of wisdom Rod told me was to focus on single player games since there is far less scorewheels that need attention and the game is lighter without all those scorewheels. The game looks nice and everything is there, just a matter of restoration since it’s in the same shape as when Rod bought it. There is an add-a-ball version of this game made in 1977 named “Team One” which was also has an Itialian market version known as “Kicker” also made in 1977.
Alpine Club – Williams single player EM game with a snow skiing theme made in February of 1965. I bought this game from Jim Swenson for 400 bucks on April 3th of 2011 and it’s in good condition for a game of this age. The game features the same kind of odd cabinet design similar to Full House which was made the same year by Williams, and there were 1,200 games produced (not that many). It features 4 flippers, 4 pop bumpers, 3 passive bumpers, 2 slingshots, 2 kick-out holes, 1 standup target, and a right outlane ball return gate. Lots of things going on for this game. It also features a backglass marguee and backglass light animation which shows a climber ascending a mountain. When the climber is almost at the top of the mountain a flag at the summit flashes. When the climber reaches the summit the player is rewarded with a replay and the animation resets. Note that this is a carry-over feature from game to game. It uses a bell instead of chimes for sound effects. The game was designed by Steve Kordek with artwork by Art Stenholm. There is an add-a-ball version known as “Ski Club.” An interesting note is that the backglass shows the mountain climber is silkscreened fourteen times but only 10 lamps were used in the stepping mechanism to light the climber. You will also find that near the upper flippers are holes where a lamp should be, however there are no lamp sockets wired to these holes. A very interesting game.

Big Hit – I got this game from my pinhead buddy Tim in June of 2012. This is an Exhibit Supply game made in February of 1946, so this is an old guy. The game doesn’t have flippers and is an EM game with 13 scoring bumpers, 1 kickout hole, and 3 lanes in the center of the playfield. Although this game doesn’t have any flippers, it’s still a neat old game that was made months after WWII was over. It even has a card in the backbox that says “Important Due to acute wire shortages it has been necessary to substitute colors in some instances.” This was caused by the war of course since copper wiring with cloth insulation was in short supply. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot known about the game and in particular, no idea of the number of games manufactured, who designed the game, or who did the artwork.
Big Shot – Gottlieb single player EM game with a pool theme made in August of 1973. I bought this game from Kim (Mr.68) for 400 bucks and it’s in great condition. Looks like it was a game that was never on a route it’s so clean. There were 2,900 games made and it has 2 flippers, 1 pop bumper, two 7-bank drop targets, and one kick-out hole. The game was designed by Ed Krynski and artwork was created by one of my favorite artists – Gordon Morison. There is a 4-player version named “Hot Shot’ and a single player add-a-ball version named “Pro Pool” which has an Italian version named “Play Pool” which was made in 1972.
Big Top – Genco single player game made in February of 1949 (the game is older than me). It’s a woodrail game that features 2 flippers (that flip in the opposite direction when compared to newer games) with 2 pop bumpers and 5 kick-out holes. The game was designed by Harvey Heiss and there isn’t any more info about the game. The backglass has some issues, but the cabinet and playfield look nice for such an old game. I got this game for $150 from Jim Swenson on April 30th of 2011.
Buccaneer – Gottlieb single player EM game made in 1976. I bought this game from Rod Wideman as part of a package deal along with Abra-Ca-Dabra. The great thing this game has going for it (other than it’s a fun game to play) is that this is a Rod Wideman shopped game. That means that everything is meticulously restored and looks like a game you could eat off of it’s so clean. Probalby the finest example of a restored game that I own thanks to Rod’s work. There’s an add-a-ball version of the game made in 1976 known as “Ship Ahoy.” I sold this game to a fellow pinhead in 2014 that should really enjoy this classic game.

Captain Kid Rifle Game – Although not a Pinball game, it is an EM rifle game featuring a spinning ship’s wheel with targets, a captain’s face that rotates from side to side periodically throughout the game, and a couple of pirate flags that raise up and down during play. Very fun game. I got this game along with the Magic City EM from Jim Swenson for $250 in April of 2010. Took some minor switch adjusting that Jim did to get the game basically working, and only needed to be cleaned and a power cord replaced. I ended up selling this game to fellow pinhead Steve Dankanich along with a few other games in 2014.

Casino – Williams single player wood rail EM game that featues 2 flippers, 4 pop bumpers, 2 kick-out holes, and 1 gobble hole. Rollovers and kick-out holes will light playing cards on the mirrored backglass which is often distorted (the mirroring). I got this game through a trade with my pinhead buddy Tim. I traded him a clear-coated Target Alpha that had most all of the playfield parts replaced and 200 bucks for the working Casino game. The game was designed by Harry Williams with artwork by George Molentin.

Central Park – Gottlieb single player EM game made in 1966. Central Park is a very fun game to play and unlike many other games from the 60s, the playfield is usually found in a very nice condition for some reason. The playfield looks new with no wear on it and plenty of targets. The game works and I had it set up for awhile, but due to space constraints (ugh), I had to take it down and store it on end. I’ll set it up one of these days since it’s a very fun game to play. I bought this game for $900 from John Detweiller (Sir Tiltsalot) who sent me email not too long afterwards wanting to know if I would be interested in selling it back to him since it was so popular in his house.
SOURCE

PINBALL ADVENTURES

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5 Classic Pinball Machines You’ll Love

Andrew MacBain — Sun, 29 Nov 2020 06:50:30 +0000

Curious about what classic pinball machines we’re gonna list? Keep on reading!

History

Pinball machines have been around for almost 90 years, evolving from shady barroom amusement in the 1930s to pop-culture phenomenon by the ’70s. After a resurgence in the early 1990s, pinball nearly died out by 2000 as the Big Three manufacturers (Williams, Bally, and Gottleib) exited the business or went bankrupt. Amazingly, the game held on and has even flourished, thanks in part to fans who spread their pinball passion online and new manufacturers that have entered the business. Today, you can find pinball-themed bars, arcades, museums — and even laundromats — from coast to coast, where games old and new are just waiting to be rediscovered — or discovered for the first time. Not sure what to play first? We talked to a couple pinball experts for their take on the best games from pinball’s golden era, the early 1970s to the late ’90s. Odds are, you can find some or all of these classics at an arcade near you. Just bring extra quarters; most vintage games now cost anywhere from 50 cents to $1 or more to play.

5 Classic Pinball Machines You’ll Love

FIREBALL (BALLY, 1972)

There’s no missing “Fireball” at the arcade with its demonic red namesake glowering at players from the backglass. Its fantasy-world theme was one of the first games to depart from the traditional sports and guys-and-girls designs of the 1950s and ’60s. And in the center of the playfield was a novel feature that had only been found on a couple of earlier, obscure pinball games: a spinning disc. “That can change everything in an instant,” says Chloe Hansen of the Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda, California. “You think the ball is going to hit the left bumper, then, boom! It hits that disc, spins, and goes right.” The spinning disc, it’s “zipper” flippers (which could “zip” together to prevent a ball from going down the drain) made “Fireball” a hit, and it remains one of the best electromechanical games of the early ’70s. A home version of the game appeared in 1978, and Bally produced an arcade sequel, “Fireball II,” in 1981.
HIGH SPEED (WILLIAMS, 1986)

By the mid-1980s, pinball machines were losing the arcade popularity contest with video games. In response, manufacturers like Williams began adding new features to the playfields and props on the cabinets to make them stand out in a sea of blinking, beeping machines. One of the most distinctive is “High Speed,” a police-chase-themed pinball game with a red emergency light on the top of the backglass that spins during play. “No one had ever done that before,” says Kuntz. It was crammed with fun-to-play features: two ramps, a toy traffic light on the playfield that changed colors as you hit targets, and a novel multiball that could be carried over from one game to another. There wouldn’t be another pinball machine this sophisticated until games like “Addams Family” arrived in arcades. “For five years, this game defined pinball,” he adds. “The light box, the multiball…. ‘High Speed’ sort of invented that.” It also had several technical advances new to the industry, most notably its digital alpha-numeric display, which displayed not just your score but also flashed status updates and point values during play.
FRONTIER (BALLY, 1980)

This Wild West-themed pinball game is a bit of a sleeper hit. Only about 1,000 were produced — far fewer than other classics from the era — and it’s harder to find in arcades today than other games from the same era. But for players and collectors who can track one down, “Frontier” strikes pinball gold. It’s not particularly sophisticated, but it’s got all the elements of a classic-era game, with two banks of drop-down targets that would trigger big point bonuses, thumper bumpers, and rollover targets. “I like games based on the emotional response you get when you play it,” Chris Kuntz says. “And ‘Frontier’ is a really, really good game. The layout, the rules, it’s all challenging.”
THEATRE OF MAGIC (BALLY, 1995)

In order to compete with video games, pinball machines in the 1990s morphed into complex creations with multiple goals and outcomes, not to mention ever more outlandish playfields crammed with interactive features. All of it was designed to keep people playing. One of the most engaging and eye-catching, says Hansen, is “Theatre of Magic.” Drop in a quarter and you’re greeted with a booming “Welcome to the Theatre of Magic!” The centerpiece of the playfield, a large revolving magician’s trunk, is one of the era’s most notable “bash toys,” designed to trigger game functions like multiball mode when struck by the ball. Other notable features include ramps that snake around the playfield and a magnetic “magician’s ring” that makes the ball float from one ramp to another. “It gives you so much feedback that you want to keep playing,” she says. “It’s one of my favorite games.”

5.

REVENGE FROM MARS (BALLY, 1999)

At the tail end of pinball’s golden age, the industry had one last trick up its sleeve: Pinball 2000. The gaming system, invented by Williams and licensed to Bally, was a curious hybrid of pinball and video, with a floating screen atop the playfield that created the illusion of computer graphics hovering in space. The graphics were as sophisticated as any arcade video game of the time, flashing an ever-changing sequence of exploding spaceships, attacking aliens, and other displays. “The holographic floating screen and how it interacts with the game below has yet to be surpassed, though augmented reality will ultimately accomplish that someday,” says Nic Schell, director of the Roanoke Pinball Museum in Virginia. Although revolutionary, “Revenge From Mars” wasn’t enough to save Bally or Williams, however. Both of the once-legendary pinball manufacturers ceased making games by the time 2000 rolled around.

And thats the 5 Classic Pinball Machines you should play at least once in your life!

PINBALL ADVENTURES

Pinball Adventures is a North American manufacturing company producing fresh and unique Pinball machines. Our goal is to create to the highest standards, and spark the same joy we found as gamers when we rolled our first quarter into that coin slot so many years ago. Stemming from a lifelong passion, Pinball Adventures is created by gamers, for gamers. We strive to bring high quality, innovative, and captivating experiences for all to enjoy.

Visit our website at pinballadventures.com and also check out our new Instagram page for more updates https://www.instagram.com/pinballadventures/

Pinball, Pinball Adventures, Pinball Buzz, Pinball, Pinside, History of Pinball, Pinball News, Pinball Updates, Origin of Pinball, Pinball Skill Shots, Pinball Canada, Vancouver Pinball, pinball relates to real life, collect pinball, shooter rods, Parts of a pinball machine, Move a pinball machine, most expensive pinball machine, guide to playing pinball, Largest Pinball Collection, hardest pinball game, 5 Classic Pinball Machines

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Hardest Pinball Game?

Andrew MacBain — Mon, 23 Nov 2020 04:37:14 +0000

After researching and playing pinball i’ve found one of the hardest pinball game, many of you would agree as well. Keep on reading to find out which game is this!

The Hardest Pinball Game

This is based solely on our opinion and we will be posting what you think of this game after as well.

Manufacturer	Williams
Release date	April 1993
System	Williams WPC (Fliptronics II)
Design	Barry Oursler, Mark Sprenger
Programming	Bill Pfutzenreuter
Artwork	Mark Sprenger
Music	Paul Heitsch
Mechanics	Zofia Bil
Production run	6,801

Have you guessed it? Its Bram Stoker’s Dracula!

The game was characterized by its unusual blood-red DMD display (most other games at the time used orange for their color) as well as a “Multi-Multi-Ball” mode, where up to three different multiball variations could be active at the same time, with each successive active mode providing a jackpot multiplier of up to 3x. It also featured a unique variation on the usual multiball mode known as “Mist Multiball,” where a magnet would drag a pinball across the playfield and the player would be required to knock it loose from the magnet’s grasp to start the mode. Source

This machine was designed by Barry Oursler for Williams in 1993. The machine was based on the 1992 movie of the same name and features many toys based on the movie. The primary challenge of the machine is to stack 3 multiballs (Castle, Coffin, & Mist), kill bats and rats, and earn big points in the process of doing so. Toys in the game include a revolutionary magnet that can throw the ball along a trail for Mist multiball, and two separate lock traps for “Castle” and “Coffin” multiballs.

Game Features:

Flippers (3), Pop bumpers (3), Upper mini-playfield, Left outlane kickback. Multiple ramps. “Whirlpool” funnel. Toys include an interactive BigFoot figure that needs to be distracted in order to let the ball come into his cave. Bigfoot turns and spins head for certain shots

Let us know which game you found the hardest? .

PINBALL ADVENTURES

Visit our website at pinballadventures.com and also check out our new Instagram page for more updates https://www.instagram.com/pinballadventures/

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Our Favourite Shooter Rods

Andrew MacBain — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 08:30:13 +0000

The Coolest Shooter Rods

Every pinball machine has shooter rods that is part of the plunger. The plunger is player-controlled and has a spring-loaded rod that allows the player to send the ball into the game. The plunger is usually located at the bottom right corner of the pinball machine. Most plungers are mechanical but recently more modern games have electrically activated autoplungers and plungers in different shapes and objects like guns, fishing pole rods or mechanical wheels!

The Early Days

In early versions of pinball, players used wooden cue sticks to shoot the ball onto the playfield. Today, they use spring-loaded knobs called plungers. When tugged all the way back and released, the plunger will send the ball flying around the playfield with careless abandon, into a potential series of landmines. The plunger shot isn’t all luck, though: designers, who can choose from more than a dozen spring strengths to fine-tune the plunger’s tension, consider plunging the ball a “skill shot”—which means that if the player hits the ball with just-so force, they’ll launch it into a specific target that will net them big points. Source

The plunger was non existent in pinball until M. Redgrave has created the plunger device to propel the ball into the playfield which was in 1931 when David Gottlieb’s Baffle Ball became the first hit of the coin-operated era. Selling for $17.50, the game dispensed five to seven balls for a penny. The game resonated with people wanting cheap entertainment in the Great Depression-era economy.

Our Favorite Rods

Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure

Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure is a 1993 widebody pinball game designed by Mark Ritchie and released by Williams. It was based on the Indiana Jones movies. It was also part of WMS’ SuperPin series of widebody games. This game was the first game to use Williams / Midway’s DCS Sound System. The shooter rod in this game is in the shape of a gun which works by shooting the gun to plunge the ball into the playfield

2. Modfather

Modfather is a website where they sell several items for pinball machines such as toys, tools and plungers! Here are some of our favorites from this site!

3. Pinball Decals https://www.pinballdecals.com/ShooterRodsPage.html

Pinball Decals is another website that have custom made shooter rods! Here are our favourites

Thanks for reading!

PINBALL ADVENTURES

Visit our website at pinballadventures.com and also check out our new Instagram page for more updates https://www.instagram.com/pinballadventures/

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Top 5 Pinball Machines From The 80’s

Andrew MacBain — Tue, 27 Oct 2020 03:37:52 +0000

Top 5 Early 80’s Pinball Machines

The late 70’s and early 80’s is when pinball first changed from the EM style to digital electronics. Along with this came some of the best pinball machines ever made, ones that are still lots of fun to this day. I’ve played a ton of these games, so I’ve made a list of my top 5 pinball machines from the 80’s.

Eight Ball Deluxe

This is probably the most famous game of the group. Produced in large quantities, this game was a mainstay in arcades and bars for years. Based upon pool, it has an easy to learn ruleset but is difficult to master. One of the things people really loved about it on location is the amount of free games and extra balls you could earn from it in different ways.

The basic ruleset is that you want to knock down the drop targets on the right and then hit the 8 ball target for big points. You can find the complete ruleset here:

Eight Ball Deluxe Rulesheet

Prices on this game is $1500 to $2500 usually for the original version, the limited edition that came with the smaller head is less desirable and is generally a lot less expensive (even though it’s the same game).

Like all the early Bally games, it has great artwork. It is also one of the first games to feature speech.

Fathom

Probably the best looking game of the early 80’s, it features a fantastic backglass and playfield of an ocean dive. I restored one of these about 5 years ago, it was a great game. I actually regret selling it quite a bit now, but not much I can do about that now. It’s also one of the most expensive games of that era, Fathom will cost you at a minimum $3000 and probably closer to $4k for just an average example.

Fathom like Firepower features a 3 ball multiball. I think Fathom’s is better though, because it doubles and triples the playfield depending on how many balls are remaining. It also has a 1, 2, 3 target bank up front that if you hit them in order and then hit the standup target to the right, you can earn an extra ball. Fathom is like a lot of the Bally games of that era, it’s very bonus heavy. The best strategy is to try and get all of the blue and green multipliers to 5x and then get that bonus elevated for major points.

There isn’t a rulesheet online for Fathom unfortunately, but there is a good tutorial video

Firepower

Firepower is one least attractive early games but also one of the best playing games. Featuring a three ball multiball, it’s a pretty hard and fun game to have at home. I owned one for about a year, I really liked it other than the fact that the electronics on it were a little flaky at times.

The basic ruleset is that you need to complete the bank of targets 1 through 6 to light 2 of the 3 lock locations. From there, you need to lock a ball in both of those places to start the Firepower multiball, which is a pretty cool sequence. Depending on which of the locks lights up, it can be pretty difficult to start the multiball. The lock in the back of the game in particular needs strong flippers to reach.

Firepower Rulesheet

The one good thing about Firepower is that it’s cheaper than a lot of other 80’s games. They made a ton of them and the general unattractiveness of the game compared to other games has kept the price at a reasonable $1000 to $1500 range for the most part. Sometimes you can even find them cheap broken since the electronics weren’t the greatest.

Black Knight

The first multilevel game ever created, the Black Knight was a huge hit when it was released in 1980. I owned this game for about a year as well. I liked it a lot but not as much as Firepower or Fathom, mainly because the music was kind of annoying and most of the game revolved around getting the ball to the upper playfield (there is updated code that addresses this issue now).

One of the cool things the game features is a magna save, which is an extra button on the side that you press to save the ball from the outlane. It works pretty good most of the time, although occasionally it contributes to your demise.

Black Knight Rulesheet

#5 Flash Gordon

Flash Gordon is one tough game. It was basically Bally’s answer for Black Knight, their first two level playfield. Unlike other games of the era though, Flash Gordon doesn’t have any multiball, it’s just the toughest single ball game of that era according to many players.

It has a similar ruleset to most of the other Bally games of the era. The main focus is you try and hit targets to get double or triple scoring for 15 seconds, although honestly keeping the ball alive that long would be a feat most of the time, lol. It has the same bonus features of the other Bally games, that’s one of the things I really like about games of that era.

Honorable Mention

There are a ton games that could go below. Some ones that I can think of off the top of my head are:

Paragon: Probably the best art package of any game of that era. The backglass is just stunning.

Black Hole: Featuring an upside down playfield underneath, it was something totally mind blowing compared to everything else at the time.

Stargazer: Fantastic Art, good playing game, and very rare. It’s unlikely that you’ll ever get to play one except for maybe at a show.

Centaur: A lot of people have this game as their favorite. It might have the biggest multiball of the era at 5, but I’m not sure 100% sure. I really like the game, but the art is only so-so for me (although a lot of people love it).

Hopefully this list of top 80’s pinball machines has helped you discover some games you haven’t heard of or pointed you towards some games to aspire to. I’m looking to add a Flash Gordon here at some point myself, might take a while though.

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When did multi-player games appear for pinball?

Andrew MacBain — Thu, 28 May 2020 04:17:13 +0000

Originally, machines were all single-player games. It was one player at a time. But starting in 1954, Gottlieb came up with the idea to have two or even four people playing at a time. Player one would play ball one, then player two would play ball one. Then player one would play ball two, and player two would play ball two. Suddenly it was more competitive.

The problem was that with electromechanical architecture, the amount of circuitry needed to support multi-player games came at the expense of game play. Basically, it meant that the games couldn’t be as complicated as far as game play and game features were concerned. So there was always this kind of wresting match—do you have a multi-player game that people can play more or less head to head, or do you have a single-player game where the rule set can be considerably deeper but with only one person playing at a time?

As far as collectors go, most collectors like single-player electromechanical games because the games are more involved and they have a deeper rule set. There’s more to do. With the advent of solid-state microcomputers and microprocessors, all games became multi-player just by default because now the game could remember.

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What were some of the other most popular pinball themes?

Andrew MacBain — Thu, 28 May 2020 04:15:08 +0000

Gottlieb was really good at card themes. They were known for that. Card games like poker, you’re trying to get different hands, a royal flush, they used that name a bunch of times—Card Whiz, Royal Flush, Pop-a-Card.

In the 1950s, Gottlieb would run a machine for maybe three or four weeks in their factory and then make anywhere from 500 to 1,500 machines. They would produce maybe 10 different games a year. By the 1960s, production numbers began to bump up. One thousand was now a low production number, and 2,500 to 3,500 was a good run for any particular game. The games were becoming more popular. They were selling more of them.

By the 1970s, some of the machines were breaking sales records, especially the early Bally licensed stuff. They were selling 10,000 machines, 15,000 machines, and this is an incredible number of machines compared to what they were selling just a few years before. But in the mid-’70s, video games were just on the horizon, and by 1979, microprocessor games like Space Invaders, which was a black-and-white game, really started to cut into the pinball market share.

When Pac-Man came out in 1980, pinball really took a dive. Where just a couple years before they had been selling 8,000, 10,000, 12,000, or 15,000 machines, now manufacturers were having a hard time selling 2,000 machines. So the popularity would go down, and pinball would constantly have to reinvent itself. By the late 1980s, Bally was almost out of business, and Williams bought them just to get the name and basically kill a competitor.

By the early 1990s, pinball was on upswing again. Manufacturers were selling boatloads of machines, with the Adam’s Family being the most popular game of all time. And then in the mid-’90s, home-gaming consoles became popular and once again pinball’s popularity started to slide. People weren’t going out so much to be entertained. Arcades were having a hard time, some even closed.

In 1999, Williams/Bally stopped making pinball machines. They just stopped. They said, “We’re just making slot machines.” Remember, Gottlieb had already gone out of business in 1995. So now there was only one pinball manufacturer left, a company called Data East, which in 1995, was bought by Sega.

By 1999, Sega wanted out, so they basically dumped the pinball company. A long-time Data East guy, Gary Stern, picked it up for a very fair price. So now, Gary Stern is running Stern Pinball. There are no stockholders to answer to, it’s just Gary. Because of that autonomy, his pinball machine company has been able to survive. He’s been able to keep his company afloat even during these poor economic times. That’s good because if Stern Pinball goes under, there’s nobody left making any new machines. There almost has to be a new pinball manufacturer out there to keep pinball alive as a pop cultural icon.

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When did movie promotion begin for pinball?

Andrew MacBain — Thu, 28 May 2020 04:13:02 +0000

Bally was the first company to do that. They were the first company to get an official licensed theme. During the 1950s, Gottlieb had done some unlicensed themes. They had a game called Guy’s Dolls, and it just happened to come out at the same time as the Broadway play called Guys and Dolls. So they were trying to wrap themselves in the popularity of pop culture at the time without actually having to pay any money for it.

In 1975 Bally was the first company to pay for a license. The game was Wizard, which was based on the Tommy movie by the Who. They paid very little for the licensing at the time, but they were able to promote the machine around the movie. And since it was called Wizard, they actually would go around to different cities and give the machines away at pinball tournaments. They would host pinball tournaments to try and increase the popularity of their brand.

Then all the other companies followed suit. Gottlieb got a license in 1979 for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Williams did it to a much lesser extent. Bally was the key player in licensing themes. They really felt that they could bring new people in to play pinball if they recognized the theme.

Today, the only pinball manufacturer left is Stern out of Chicago. Just about every game they put out, if not every game they put out, is a licensed theme because they are really strong believers in the idea that themes attract new players to pinball. In other words, you can get somebody to play an Indiana Jones pinball machine because they just walked out of the Indiana Jones movie, that sort of thing.

Bally also did a lot of games based on rock groups. They did a KISS machine, which was hugely popular, and one with Ted Nugent. The payments to these guys were so small. For the Ted Nugent game, everybody on the road crew, the m

anagement, and the band got a machine. That was the licensing fee, probably 15 machines. Stern did the Ted Nugent deal.

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Did Williams and Gottlieb have their own artists?

Andrew MacBain — Thu, 28 May 2020 04:10:34 +0000

Yes, they had preferred artists. During the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, artwork wasn’t always created in house. Williams or another company would design a game, and then they would hand the game over to another company that just did art. This second company had their own staff artists. In the case of Gottlieb, they used one particular artist, Roy Parker.

So the look of each manufacturer’s machines took on a personality based on the artist—the theme was almost irrelevant. The art really didn’t have anything to do with the actual game play. It could be about almost anything. Clearly some games were designed with a card game like poker or blackjack or something like that in mind. But with a lot of the themes, the art could’ve been anything. The art company would often come up with names for the games, and they would do all the artwork based on the actual whitewood, which was the name for the raw prototype game without art on it. They would pretty much do whatever they wanted, but they knew what the companies were expecting, so that’s why the companies used the same artists over and over.

There were different artists in different years. Gottlieb started out with Roy Parker, who died in 1965 of cancer. Art Stenholm took over and did a lot of Gottlieb artwork through the rest of the ’60s. So you had these artists who would do games for a particular manufacturer for years and years. By the ’80s, the games were getting more sophisticated with voice and speech, and the theme of the game was more set in concrete, so an artist couldn’t really re-theme a game. So a lot of the artists were brought in house and actually worked at Williams or Gottlieb or Bally, and the artwork on the games became much more entwined with the theme.

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Who were the major manufacturers for pinball?

Andrew MacBain — Thu, 28 May 2020 04:08:46 +0000

During the 1930s, there were literally hundreds of companies making pinball machines. After World War II, though, there was only a handful. The key players were Gottlieb—the biggest, and pretty much the Cadillac of pinball—and Williams, which was substantially smaller but still an up-and-coming game company. They were the two prime manufacturers. There were smaller players like Chicago Coin, Keeney, and United that made pinball. But really, it was Gottlieb and Williams. Even Bally only made a handful of pinball machines during the 1950s. They made mostly bingos. They looked like pinball machines, but they were really gambling devices. They didn’t have flippers.

The artwork on pinball machines, especially in the ’50s, was fairly racy because the players they were attracting were mostly male bar patrons, ages 20 to 50. There were always lightly clad, well-endowed women on the back glass. The general thought is that Gottlieb had the best artwork. There are some people who collect the machines just because they like the artwork. For them, Gottlieb is pretty much the king.

In the 1960s, Williams started making more machines, and Bally started to get into the market more aggressively. As the bingo machines became clearly illegal, Bally shifted its production over to pinball, and by the mid-1960s, it was starting to make a lot more pinball machines. So now the big three players were Gottlieb, Williams, and Bally, with Chicago Coin as a runner-up. United was bought out by Williams, and Keeney was out of business.

By the 1970s, Gottlieb was still the leader because of its artwork, game play, and quality. Williams was second. But Bally began pushing the envelope as far as artwork was concerned. The company hired a new artist named Dave Christensen, a guy who had been doing slot-machine art in the Bally slot-machine department. They shifted him over to pinball and he really brought Bally pinball machines to the forefront because of his racy artwork, which was much more realistic than the cartoony art that Williams and Gottlieb were creating. The women Christensen drew looked almost real, maybe a bit super-human.

For a while, Bally was up-and-coming, but as soon as the crossover to solid state happened, when companies dumped electromechanical technology for microprocessors, Bally and Williams really took over. Gottlieb fell behind because the operators didn’t view their system as being reliable. Gottlieb’s approach to game design also lagged, but the company eventually went out of business in 1995 because they could never get past the reliability issue.

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How did pinball evolve in the United States?

Andrew MacBain — Thu, 28 May 2020 04:06:44 +0000

It was a game that morphed from the French game of bagatelle. In the 1930s, it really exploded as a gambling thing, and that’s where pinball got this gambling association.

Coming out of World War II, the gambling laws were changing in the United States. In particular, in 1950, the Johnson Act made it difficult for slot machines or any sort of gambling device to be used in public. It was a federal offense. So, pinball had to shed its gambling association to become a game of skill. In 1947, they came up with this crazy idea of adding flippers to the machine.

Gottlieb came out with the first flipper machine. Instead of just letting the ball fall into a hole worth points or money, now the player actually had some control over the ball. With flippers, you could steer the ball into different point areas. All the companies jumped on this flipper technology—Gottlieb did not patent it. Soon everybody was using flipper machines, and it made all the pre-flipper machines of the ’30s and early ’40s—the pre-1947 stuff—obsolete.

In the ’60s, games became more technologically advanced, and in the ’70s they were still using the same electromechanical principles of coils (which are magnets), relays, and stepper units, which are, more or less, one-bit memory units, in a mechanical sense.

By about 1977, 1978, the companies all dropped the electromechanical stuff and went to solid state, using microprocessors to control the games as opposed to having everything hardwired with relays and stepper units. I collect the pre-solid state games.

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Are there a lot of pinball machine collectors?

Andrew MacBain — Thu, 28 May 2020 04:04:06 +0000

Are there a lot of pinball machine collectors?

It is a fairly small hobby. I’m the co-editor of one of the pinball magazines, and the subscription number is 1,200 people worldwide. Now, I know not every collector subscribes, but that gives you an indication that the hobby is not huge. There are people who own pinball machines, but they’re not collectors. I would say there’s a difference between a pinball collector and a pinball owner.

We categorize collectors by digits: single-digit collectors, one to nine machines, or double-digit collectors, 10 to 99 machines. Well, I’m a three-digit collector, which is just sick. There’s something wrong with me. If you’re a three-digit collector, you’ve got issues. I think the largest collection known is around 1,500 machines. But the problem is that after you get so many machines, it’s hard to keep them all working and operating or even to have them all restored in the first place because they are a huge time suck.

We started a pinball club, a local Detroit pinball club. We call it the Detroit Pinball Collectors Club. We’ve got a little clubhouse, and so I’ve got a bunch of games there, too. And I’ve got games at a friend’s house. I’ve got games all over the place, unfortunately, just because the one single thread in pinball collecting is you can never have just one, and you always run out of room. If you’re a real collector, it seems like you’re just always amassing more games. I have a really great time restoring them and playing them. I’m probably an average pinball player, maybe above average, but I’m not great. But it’s fun. It’s a fun thing, and it doesn’t become old quickly like, say, video games.

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Why People Flip Pinball Machines

Andrew MacBain — Thu, 28 May 2020 03:59:33 +0000

I didn’t really get into to pinball machine collecting until maybe 15 years ago, but when I was a freshman in college, video games were really big. I went to Purdue University. They had a huge arcade there. I always said that Space Invaders and Pac-Man took so much of my money—money that I really didn’t have—that it would have been cheaper to just buy one of those machines.

So one day I went to an auction of coin-operated video games. They had pinball machines there, too, including a 1980 Spider-Man machine. This is about 1988, so the game’s only eight years old. They started bidding at a hundred dollars, and nobody’s bidding. I drag it home and set it up, and sure enough a few things don’t work on it. And of course I don’t know how to fix it, but I go through it, figure it out, and it’s rewarding.

So I started buying these machines, tried to figure out how to fix them, and started to network with other guys who were buying games. I’d say, “Hey, I have this problem, how do you fix that?” You couldn’t find anybody to repair them. As time progressed, I just started buying more games, figuring out how to fix them, and I would run an ad in the paper—“Buying pinball machines, broken or working.” I would get a zillion calls.

Over the course of talking to people, I was developing this library of repair information. Then, in about 1995, I got a new job, and they had this crazy thing at work called Internet access. I’m like, “Wow, I can post all my repair stuff on the Internet.” I made a database and it just kept growing until I ended up with this huge website called PinRepair.com.

As part of the hobby, I went to the Pinball Expo in Chicago. This was about 1999, and they had all these seminars with people involved in the industry—programmers, game designers, service guys. The next year we presented a demonstration at the show about repairing games. As a joke, we said, “We’re going to make a videotape,” just a goofy, comedy videotape on pinball repair. And so we came up with this Norman-Shaggy thing, where I was Shaggy, the guy with long hair, and Norm was the guy who you never, ever saw, but he talked with a Boston accent. It was loosely based on This Old House, so we called it This Old Pinball. It was a weird morph of a bunch of ideas.

We showed the tape after our repair seminar, and people just went nuts, saying, “Hey, can I get a copy?” And we’re like, “We’re not selling this. It was just a one-time thing.” So then this guy comes up to me and says, “Look, I’m running this pinball hall of fame thing in Las Vegas. I’ll sell your video, and I’ll give some of the money to the Salvation Army and some of the money to our nonprofit pinball hall of fame, and you’ll help a lot of people out.”

So we started making these videos, and we turned them into nine, two-hour DVDs. We’ve sold 5,000 of them, or something. It’s unbelievable.

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The Glory of the Pinball Machine

Andrew MacBain — Thu, 28 May 2020 03:55:20 +0000

What is it about the pinball machine that draws us in? Even today in our time of gorgeously illustrated video games, pinball machines continue to have an enchanting quality. In part this is the result ofthe game’s visuals: the lights, colors, and artwork. But it’s also a credit to the game’s simple mechanical brilliance — the fun and challenge of timing the action of two levers to guide the pinball into the machine’s most lucrative spots.The game was not always so simple. Early pinball machines demanded that a player shake the entire table in an effort to guide the ball through the obstacles (pins — hence the name). Later iterations had mechanical flippers like today’s, but more of them — six, which were distributed three on each side up and down the body of the machine. It wasn’t until 1948 that the standard two-flipper version was introduced, designed by Steve Kordek in an effort to save on production costs. But the two-flipper machine was a hit; its use of a direct-current (as opposed to alternating, which other companies were using at the time) meant the flippers were more precise in their motion, and, with only two, the game experience was more streamlined.

Kordek passed away in 2014 at the age of 100 in Park Ridge, Illinois. In his career, he moved on from mechanical games to video games, but the double-flipper pinball machine was “perhaps his most significant contribution.” Its success is a testament to the basic importance of getting the hardware right: Without Kordek’s innovation, pinball would be an overdecorated gambling machine. But together, the marriage of artistry and tech provides that particular pinball allure.pinhead, pinball, pinball-playing addict, backbox, Pinball Machine, BIFF, flipper, panic flip, Lazarus ball, Nudging, machine, ball, pinball video games, nudge, shake, bumpers, thumper, jet, pop, kick-out hole, ,gobble hole, drain, Ability, Achievement, Action, Arcade, Arrangement, Art, Artist, Artwork, Attempt, American Pinball, Chicago Gaming Company. Dutch Pinball, Haggis Pinball. HomePin. Jersey Jack Pinball. Multimorphic Inc. Penny K Pinball. Quetzal Pinball, Pinball Avdentures, Punny Factory, Ninja Mania, Sushi Mania, That’s Wack, Canada, Vancouver , Spooky Pinball, Stern Pinball, SunCoast Pinball, Team Pinball, Allied Leisure, Alvin G, Atari, Bally Manufacturing, Bill Port, Capcom, Centro Matic, Coffee-Mat, Chicago Coin, Data East, Exhibit Supply Company, Fascination Int., Inc, Game Plan, Genco, Gottlieb, Hankin, Heighway Pinball, Inder, InterFlip/Recreativos Franco, Jennings & Company, Jeutel pinball, Nordamatic, Nuova Bell/Bell Games, Maresa, Mirco Games, Midway Games, Pinstar, Mr. Game, Peyper, Playmatic, Rally Play, Recel/Petaco, Sega Pinball, Sega, S.A. SONIC, Spinball, Taito, Tecnoplay, The Valley Company, Viza, Wico, Williams Electronics / WMS Industries, Zaccaria, Zidware, Back-glass, Ball, Ban, Bells, Bing, Bonus, Brand name, Bumper, Business, Buyer, Cabinet, Challenge, Chicago, Circuit, Coin-operated, Colorful, Company, Competition, Compression, Computer, Concept, Configuration, Control, Coordination, Cost, Count, Craze, Creativity, Culture, Damage, Degree, Design, Development, Dexterity, Digits, Direction, Display, Elaborate, Electric, Electronic, Elimination, Entertainment, Enthusiastic, Era, Execute, Eye-catching, Fancy, Features, Field, Flipper, Forward,

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artist modifies a pinball machine to make art prints

Andrew MacBain — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 10:26:49 +0000

Dutch graphic designer Sam van Doorn has modified a pinball machine so that it uses lithographic ink to make prints. Calling his machine STYN, the device makes messy modern art on poster board with six flippers and the ball. van Doorn doesn’t call the resulting works art, rather he thinks of them as design pieces which are the product of “fun and play.” The modified pinball machine was a part of van Doorn’s graduation project. The machine itself will be appearing at different parties where people can use it to make their own designs, but posters are also available for sale in van Doorn’s website for 50 Euros.

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Pinball Cafe closes doors for having more than two pinball machines

Andrew MacBain — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 10:22:28 +0000

The Pinball Cafe opened its doors in February, on the strip of Queen West between Roncesvalles Ave. and Dufferin St. It was a family place where one could buy ice cream, eat a sandwich and play a few rounds of an old arcade favourite.

When it closed on Monday, after eight months of operating illegally without a licence, the owners posted the following to their website and Facebook page: “The Pinball Cafe is CLOSED by order of The City of Toronto based on 1) Zoning By-law No. 438-86 and 2) Interim control By-law #2012.”

The first zoning bylaw referenced states that only two pinball machines or other electronic games are permitted in a restaurant or amusement establishment — a limit that Jason Hazzard describes as “outdated.”

The second reference, the interim control bylaw, was introduced to council on Oct. 31. It states that no restaurants can be opened on the strip of Queen West between Roncesvalles Ave. and Dufferin St. for one year.

“We put a lot of time and money into this little business and we’re sad to see it go,” said Mr. Hazzard, 39, who opened The Pinball Cafe with his wife, Rachel.

Local councillor Gord Perks did not take kindly to that version of events.

“It attempts to lay blame on the city,” he said. “They’re trying to blame someone else for their mistakes.”

The Hazzards met with Mr. Perks in February, when they were seeking a business licence. They were having trouble obtaining one because of their excess of pinball machines. The councillor said he gave the business owners three options: reduce the number of machines to operate within the limit of two; go to the committee of adjustments for a variance on the zoning rules; or ask the city to change the zoning of the property.

Mr. Perks didn’t hear from the business owners again until the summer, when they were having trouble obtaining a liquor licence.

“If you want to get a liquor licence, then you have to get a business licence. And if you want a business licence, you have to get your zoning stuff figured out,” Mr. Perks said.

But the Hazzards didn’t act quickly enough. By the time they decided to reduce the number of pinball machines to obtain a licence, they were turned down because of the interim control bylaw.

Mr. Perks defends the bylaw, saying it addresses a zoning imbalance in the neighbourhood.

“All of the sudden, what was supposed to be a neighbourhood shopping area has turned into an entertainment area,” he said. “The streets are packed all night and empty all day.”

Frank Horgan, who has worked at Amico’s Pizza Restaurant on Queen West for eight years, has noticed the change.

“The area is getting saturated,” he said, noting that there used to be a few restaurants on the street. “And now you need both hands to count them.”

Although the interim bylaw took blame on the website post, Mr. Perks says it has nothing to do with the closure. If the necessary routes to obtain a business licence had been taken last February, they wouldn’t have had to close.

“They never opened legally, and they decided to close themselves,” he said. “It’s heartbreaking to lose a business, but it’s not right to blame the city.”

“We didn’t do our due diligence,” Mr. Hazzard admits.

“We wanted to do something that was fun and interesting and different. There wasn’t anything like it in Toronto.…

“It was a lot of fun. And unfortunately, it was illegal.”

Source

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pinball machine Archives - Pinball Adventures

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The Basement or Garage

Self-Storage

Clean Your Machine Before Storing

Don’t Wrap Your Pinball Machine

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Our Favourite EM Games

PINBALL ADVENTURES

5 Classic Pinball Machines You’ll Love

FIREBALL (BALLY, 1972)

HIGH SPEED (WILLIAMS, 1986)

FRONTIER (BALLY, 1980)

THEATRE OF MAGIC (BALLY, 1995)

REVENGE FROM MARS (BALLY, 1999)

PINBALL ADVENTURES

Hardest Pinball Game?

After researching and playing pinball i’ve found one of the hardest pinball game, many of you would agree as well. Keep on reading to find out which game is this!

Have you guessed it? Its Bram Stoker’s Dracula!

PINBALL ADVENTURES

Our Favourite Shooter Rods

PINBALL ADVENTURES

Top 5 Pinball Machines From The 80’s

Eight Ball Deluxe

Fathom

Firepower

Black Knight

#5 Flash Gordon

Honorable Mention

When did multi-player games appear for pinball?

What were some of the other most popular pinball themes?

When did movie promotion begin for pinball?

Did Williams and Gottlieb have their own artists?

Who were the major manufacturers for pinball?

How did pinball evolve in the United States?

Are there a lot of pinball machine collectors?

Are there a lot of pinball machine collectors?

Why People Flip Pinball Machines

The Glory of the Pinball Machine

artist modifies a pinball machine to make art prints

Pinball Cafe closes doors for having more than two pinball machines