Vancouver pinball Archives - Pinball Adventures

The Largest Pinball Machine Collection

Andrew MacBain — Sun, 22 Nov 2020 06:34:38 +0000

Ever wondered who has the largest pinball machine collection? Well keep on reading to find out!

Michael Schiess owns one of the largest pinball machine collections in the world with more than 1,700 machines in one location – at the Pacific Pinball Museum. Michael plays as well performs the necessary maintenance and he is almost obsessed with the machines and his collection. With a lot of support and donations from fans, he has managed to collect some of the earliest machines from the 1800s to the latest digital masterpieces.

The Largest Pinball Machine Collection

The museum was founded in 2004 by Michael Schiess, a former museum exhibition designer. Schiess started collecting pinball machines in 2001. He decided to open his own museum after being unimpressed with the coverage of pinball history at other museums. One of his first major acquisitions was thirty-six machines in one purchase. Fourteen of them were installed in a rented room, which Schiess called Lucky Ju Ju, in Alameda and a jar was placed out for donations. In 2004 the facility expanded and became a nonprofit, renaming itself the Pacific Pinball Museum. The museum expanded in 2009 displaying forty woodrail and wedge head machines from the collection of Larry Zartarian. The museum has a gift shop that sells pinball themed merchandise. It also has a museum board, and two additional staff members besides Schiess.

Collection

The museum’s exhibitions include approximately ninety pinball machines ranging from 1879 until today. They are arranged in chronological order. In total, Schiess’ collection comprises 800 machines. Those not on display are maintained at an 8,000-square-foot secret location.^] Upon paying the admission fee, visitors can play any of the machines on display. The oldest machine, from 1879, is a Montague Redgrave Parlor Bagatelle. Contemporary machines include The Addams Family and the Twilight Zone. The museum also has a transparent pinball machine from 1976 that was built by Schiess and Wade Krause. It is based on the Gottlieb “Surf Champ” game. One of the most valued pieces in the collection is a 1930s-era Art Deco machine called the Bally Bumper. The machine was seized by police in Oakland during Prohibition. The museum’s collection has also been displayed at San Francisco International Airport.

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/

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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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How Pinball Relates To Real Life

Andrew MacBain — Tue, 20 Oct 2020 04:46:30 +0000

Does Pinball Relate To Real Life?

When people think of pinball and its gameplay, they usually just think its a random game of hitting the balls and not trying to fall under but pinball is much more than that if you want it to be. So can pinball relate to our real lives?In my opinion, Yes. Playing pinball can teach you things you can apply to real life. Here are some of the main lessons that you could learn as you hit the flippers.

Strategic Planning

You can play a pinball machine and not have any strategy other than to keep the ball in play. You can do fairly well just hitting and protecting the ball. However, to get to hidden modes and to maximize your score, you need to have a strategy. A certain ordering of your shots, combination of maneuvers or preferred shots in certain modes will garner you the most points.

Take that scenario to real life. You can go about your day, day by day not knowing what to do the day after (going with the flow) and see how it goes (which has a high percentage of failing) or you can make a plan and strategically schedule out what needs to be done to reach your goals faster and efficiently. For an example if you ran a business, You need to make money and after that you need to learn how to maintain it to make more & know what to prioritize in terms of your tasks. You have to know what you are trying to accomplish with everything that you do and how that affects your overall endgame. Taking time to plot a strategy should allow you to achieve a high score in the form of a highly padded bank account.

Juggling One Too Many

If you are good or lucky enough, you get the opportunity to have a chaotic experience called a “multiball,” where several balls are put into play at the same time. However, the more balls there are, the less effective you become on your strategy. You become highly focused on not letting the balls go down the drain, rather than on specific shots that will advance your game.

Life is like this as well. For an example, Let’s say you’re cooking in the kitchen & you’re trying to make several things at once like steak, soup, pasta and a salad, & more orders keep coming through, if you try to focus on too many things at once, you end up doing the bare minimum to keep them all from “going down the drain” and end up failing to advance your strategy. You can only focus on one or two things and do them well, whether you are talking pinball or cooking.

source

Following-Through is Key

In pinball, there are certain shots where if you follow through — i.e., hold down the flipper for much longer than you expect that you need to — it will make the difference of the shot being successful. It seems odd, but once the ball leaves your flipper and is on a ramp, keeping that flipper held down can be the deciding factor on whether that ball travels through the whole ramp.

Just like In business, following through is critical, too. You may think that you have completed a task, but an extra proofreading, check-in or client follow-up is often just the attention to detail that you need to be successful. Use follow-through to your advantage.

Consistency

The more you play pinball, the better you become. Sure, sometimes you hit a plateau or move backwards a bit, but your typical trajectory is to get better with more frequent play.

The same notion applies to you and your goal. Let’s say you work at a salon and your goal is to be better at cutting hair. The first few mannequins hair may turn out horrendous but time after time your hand will be more still and your vision for haircuts will be clearer and clearer. You just have to remember what your goal is and what you have to do to get there.

Bad Hit

Sometimes there are shots that you make while playing pinball where the ball just hits off of a bumper the wrong way and ends your turn. This happens to even the most seasoned players, and often at the worst time, killing momentum.

It happens in life, too. Sometimes the circumstances are out of your control. Don’t beat yourself up if it occurs; it is part of the learning experience, whether you are playing pinball or going about your life. Just remember that you can change things with the next ball and stay positive.

What are other ways pinball could relate to real life?

Let us know on our Instagram! @ Pinball Adventures

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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The Punny Factory Update

Andrew MacBain — Sun, 11 Oct 2020 00:56:55 +0000

October 10th 2020

Hey Adventurers! Here’s a quick update on The Punny Factory & what we’ve been up to! The Pinball Adventure Team is currently doing some tests on our first game EVER out of many, We’re currently deciding on what colors we want on our playfield, trims and legs and also adding some touch ups to make sure we deliver the most amazing game we can to you! We have also started an Instagram page at the end of September to be more connected with you! Feel free to shoot us a DM or comment on our posts on what you think. We love to hear your feedback. https://www.instagram.com/pinballadventures/

Pinball Expo

As most of you know, Pinball Expo will be held online this year due to COVID-19! The event will be held online on Twitch from October 14-17th 2020 https://www.twitch.tv/pinballexpo

Our team is currently working on a video to be shown on their Twitch and we are so excited to share with you guys what we do behind the scenes. We will be showing you our work space, warehouse and GAME PLAY!

YouTube

We haven’t ever been consistently active on Youtube before but we are changing that this month! We will be sharing with you guys our story, thought process when making the Punny Factory, game play, tours and more. Let us know what you’d like to see on our channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk2Jwn9Zn3h_rA8kSIgpB-g

This Week In Pinball has also posted an article on their website regarding The Punny Factory a few weeks back! in case you missed it, Click HERE to read it!

We can’t wait to share with you guys our other upcoming games such as Element, Sushi, & Ninja Mania. Stay tuned more new updates. Stay safe and See you soon.

– Pinball Adventures

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