Pinball machines are works of art designed and styled to catch your eye and make you reach for a quarter. In spite of all this styling, the instruction cards in the apron are usually black and white or yellow and white. People looking for something more interesting have created custom apron cards for almost all machines. Some of the most interesting cards can be found at pinballcards.com. These re so well doe that they are worth a look even if you don’t need an apron card.
Taylor is currently working on a Dr. Who pinball. It has an incredible clearcoated playfield and is going to be very fast. While we wait, here is a video to give you some idea of what Dr. Who will be like.
About a month ago, I made a deal with a member of pinside.com to buy his Iron Man. When I got it home, the GC (Grand Champion) score was 89,000,000. I changed the settings on the game to make each multiball harder to achieve. I started to feel pretty sure that I would not be able to reach the GC and would be stuck looking at the initials TAD for a while. Iron Man has average scoring of 4 to 5 million per multiball. Iron Man also has two very big scoring opportunities that are difficult to achieve.
Each time you complete a mode (multiball, shield, iron man) you light one of the Mark I-VI circles. The Mark circles stay lit from ball to ball. Once you light all six, the center shot lights a mode called Jericho. Jericho is a one ball mode in which all of the multiball and mode targets are worth 250,000 to start with values increasing with each shot. There is also a reward for completion of each multiball and mode target which starts at 2,000,000 and increases.
The other scoring opportunity is Do or Die. In order to light Do or Die, the player must complete all multiballs and modes in the same ball. Given the speed and difficulty of Iron Man, this is not an easy task. Do or Die is a 35 million point countdown jackpot which is collected by shooting the center shot.
in the GC game, I started the third ball with War Machine and War Monger lit and about 14 million points. I hit Do or Die for 29 million and hit 49 million during Jericho.
Fish Tales tutorial by the current PAPA Champion and master of the tutorial, Bowen Kerins. The bluegrass music seems to make Fish Tales a love it or hate it game. I love the music and the various callouts. As Bowen notes in the video, there is so much music and sound in the game that there is a separate music theme that only comes up when you enter your initials for an achievement.
Bowen also refers to the fact that many tournament players don’t try to lock balls for multiball because it so often leads to a drain. Instead, many tournament players focus on the boat ramp. Unless you can reach the super jackpot in multiball, there are many easier ways to come up with similar scores. My favorite quote is “multiball in Fish Tales frequently just flames out with nothing on the board.”
Lots of pinball diehards don’t like video modes where you stop playing pinball and play a video game on the DMD. Fish Tales has to be an exception to this rule. I challenge you to not enjoy shooting torpedoes at boats and waterskiers.
The attraction to this game by kids may be why grown ups don’t clamor up to this table but once they play it and figure out how much there is to do and how fun it is you’ll find parents patiently waiting for their kids to finish that “one more game.” Both my daughters love this pin and I don’t blame them a bit.
WCS’94 was designed by arguably the most artistic of famous 90’s B/W designers, John Papuduik. His titles include Cirqus Voltaire, Theater of Magic and Tales of the Arabian Nights, all three of which are aesthetically breathtaking tables. I have played all of his games and have owned CV. I personally think WCS’94 is the best of the tables and only for the theme did it not reach the heights of his other games. Fortunately this lack of interest in the theme has kept the game in the “affordable” bracket for years and has allowed people to stumble upon the game which rarely happens with a title that cost 3-6 thousand dollars. At 1k the game is a steal for what it is and would be my recommended table for anyone wanting to enter the hobby.
My game was routed and is easily in the poorest shape of all my tables having a small amount of playfield wear by the right flipper. If the wear indicates anything it is the substantiation that this is one of the funnest pins to just walk up to and play. Wear often indicates neglect but in this case I think it simply demonstrates the utter playability of the title.
In WCS’94 the goal is to travel through the host cities until eventually playing Germany in the finals. Shots award ticket stubs that in combination will award the chance to collect travel by hitting the left orbit. Completing the skill shots will light the opportunity to collect three cities so should never be taken lightly. There are ample opportunities to score big on this game and there are several stackable modes that can create huge bonuses so keep that play tight as to not tilt away those 100s of millions to put your game over the top.
My daughters love this game so I keep the settings relatively easy compared to my other tables. Hearing them scream out GOOOOAAALLLLL is one of my favorite moments in the game room. The one issue with my game I need to look into is that it has weak saucer kick outs. I think it is just a matter of swapping in some new coil sleeves but the game plays decently and getting under the hood is my least favorite thing to do. Eventually.
So if you are looking to get into the pin hobby and need a pin with lots of playability that won’t kill your wallet WCS94 would be my first choice. It has certainly created more than one new player in my house, young and old.
I bought this pin because my wife liked it at a pinball party we went to years ago. I am always looking for a table that will bring her to the dark side of pinball and this was my heroic attempt at doing just that, heroic in the sense that I added a table to the lineup that I could claim was a heroic attempt at bringing my wife to the dark side of pinball.
Monopoly was released by Stern Pinball in 2001. The game was designed by Pat Lawlor and of course utilizes one of the most iconic of board games as its theme. Theme integration is done very well as the player makes shots to advance their way around the play field.
The playfield seems very open but there is actually a lot to shoot for with four ramps, 6 pops, several saucers as well as a third rotating min-flipper. I don’t know what it is about this game but I really, really like it. I also think it makes for a great league or tourney table as the shots are very obvious and the game is very “playable” and by that I mean very responsive to nudges and passing. Strategy is pretty straight forward: advance around the board collecting all properties, once all properties are collected the wizard mode will begin which I believe is a timed, similar to the wizard modes in Twilight Zone and Safe Cracker.
I frankly have never sat down and read up on strategy for this game but there are two MBs, one of which is the train MB which is accomplished by hitting a quick return wire ramp just above the left flipper. This ramp advances along the railroads in the game so after hitting it four times it starts a two ball MB. The main MB is achieved by use of a hard lock. Lock is lit once the player travels around the board game. Depending on the games difficulty both locks are available once the player passes go one time and then the right ramp is available to start the MB. Jackpot shots are accomplished by hitting the side ramp off of the upper right flipper.
Monopoly is certainly not a complicated game and with it’s iconic license it is probably one of the most approachable games in my lineup. There are certainly nuances to the rules that a seasoned player will enjoy exploring but the game is very “beatable” if the goal is to get to the wizard mode. Personally its is all about trying to bang out high scores more so than how “deep” you get into this table. Depth does not always equate to fun and Monopoly is certainly proof of that. Worth a couple of quarters in the wild.
Safe Cracker is the gem in my collection. It may not always be the most loved or most played but it is a special game that often gets overlooked by its bigger neighbors.
Safe Cracker was manufactured in 1996 and was designed by Pat Lawlor, designer of some of the most iconic games in modern pinball history. The game is a “token pin” and upon completion of certain game goals would dispense a token that could then be played for a special wizard mode called Assault the Vault. Apparently there was a concern that the game would be used as a gambling device so apparently 800 of the roughly 1000 made were sent overseas. This would leave only 200 domestic examples making it easily the rarest example of a pinball that I have owned.
The object of SC is to play the pinball portion of the game and then break into the bank to play the board game which gives the player an opportunity to win a token. The pinball part of the game awards the player with items that will help the players journey around the board game. The play is timed so the number of balls is not set to 3-5 but will be determined by how long balls stay in play. A player could play an entire game on one ball or as many as was used while the clock still had time on it. This makes it for a bit of a tricky multiplayer game for the uninitiated but once people become more familiar with the ruleset it becomes a favorite in my lineup.
I first played SC at a local collectors house when I first got in the hobby. It was just such an unusual looking game that I was drawn to it. It wasn’t until 2007 when I attended the Pinball Expo in Chicago that I really got a chance to spend some time on the table. I participated in the team tournament and SC was one of the usable tables. It ended up being my go to game as I won every round it was featured. The game is quirky enough though that is was are undoing as a team member was unaware as to how the rules worked once in the board game and they chose to risk it to further advance in the board game than taking their loot and starting a multi-ball which would have easily won us the round and pushed us into the finals only to be beat by a couple of points. Ugh. And there it was, the next game that I had to have.
My hunt didn’t take long and I was able to find a decent table, well so I thought.
My game was in decent shape but had the common SC issues: bowed playfield, kickout wear and cracked ramps. At the time this didn’t mean much to me but after playing the game enough to get the feel for it the bowed playfield drove me nuts. There was also the slightest bit of wear at the vault.
One drag about SC is that the low production numbers made reproduction parts less viable for vendors so few parts were available. I was fortunate to pick up a spare playfield that I was able to get restored and cleared by arguably the best pinball restorer out there, Chris Hutchins. The intent was to do a playfield swap but with the lack of additional parts it sat on my wall for a while. Once ramps were made available I had to dive in and last year I swapped in the new playfield. Another reason to finally jump in was the development of under playfield supports that stiffen up the playfield taking out the common bow.
The playfield swap was a bear but the game turned out beautifully and plays fast and true. SC is a game worth finding and checking out. Game play may take a little to get use to but once a person does it can take hold of you. The smaller cabinet and “wings” create an intimate pinball experience and really makes the player feel “in” the game.
I am not sure why I ended up with an I500. I sold a game and was looking for a replacement. It was a title I hadn’t played and I was looking for something off the beaten path and with the production being relatively low at 2,249 I jumped when one came up locally(“local” in this hobby is usually a 20 hour driving radius). My game was living outside of Boone, NC so it was like a milk run for a pinhead.
Game had a couple of issues when I bought it. The game has targets with lit quadrants. One objective of the game is to light all four lights to increase scoring and the targets are prone to breaking. Mine had one of these but it was an easy fix and the game was good to go.
So here is the thing about I500, it is wickedly fast and hard. It hands me my ass almost every time I play it except on our league nights. I don’t know why but I have had some of the most fun groupings on it. Not sure if it is because I don’t play it as much as other tables, like AFM and BSD, so it is fresher and more fun to play or if I have just lucked into having decent games when I need one. Either way I always look forward to it on league night. This past round it didn’t make it into our list of 6 so was a bit disappointed.
And now to be humbled. Below is the recently released Bowen Kerins tutorial. I can’t stomach to watch Bowen’s tutorials as I frankly don’t want to know how much I suck but for anyone that actually wants to know how to destroy the table here you go….
Installed new code and figured I’d share a video of the gameplay.
Wizard of Oz is the first pinball machine built by Jersey Jack Pinball.
The game is obviously based on the iconic movie and is still in the process of having its code written. I would of course rather have a completely coded game but watching the code development has been very eye opening. Very impressive stuff. Enjoy.
So I first played this game at a fellow hobbyist house when I was working in Baltimore, MD. I probably played about 5 games on it and was hooked. The game has one simple goal, stack three multiballs and every shot is worth 30MILLION!! Note that I said simple and not easy which is the last word I would think one when describing the game.
BSD was manufactured in 1993. It was shipped with “lightning” flippers which actually do have a lightning bolt on top. They measure a 1/4″ shorter than traditional flippers and make BSD’s looping ramp shots not only harder to make but more punishing when that ball rolls 40% up the ramp just to come down 100% SDTM!!!
I bought my game back in 2007, way before the game is seeing the love it now gets. I disassembled it to restore shortly after buying it and never played my actual table until the restoration was done. After teardown and play my family moved and the parts were stuffed in boxes, not sure how I got it back together but pretty much ended any trepidation I may have had on fixing a gmae. My BSD is set up pretty hard. Pitch is about 7% and the outlanes are open. GC is over a billion and I have had a couple billion+ games but it is easy to post scores well under a 100 million. I think most league nights a score of 100 million would win it.
Not a full overview but here are the MBs in a nutshell.
Multiballs
Mist MB is easily one of the coolest MBs ever and is probably the best known thing about the game. A ball is carried on a magnet from one side of the plafyield to another. As the ball “floats” the objective is to knock it off the magnet to start a two ball multiball in which all shots score 10 million. You can light this by hitting the left ramp a certain amount of time, 5?, and then hitting the mystery hole which is located to the top and left of the pops.
Coffin MB- Coffin MB consist of hitting the right ramp enough times, 4 or 5 or 6 I can’t remember, and the ramp will lift for the three locks needed to start the MB. Locks are virtual and the ball gets launched into the pops after each “lock.” The goal is to shoot under the right ramp and to kill Dracula getting the jackpot. This stacked with the other MBs will increase their JPs to 20 or 30 Million depending on how many are stacked. The payoff on this mb is better when stacked that just killing drac. I usually try to get two balls locked and then start Mist.
Castle MB is a bitch(es). There are two sets in the game. One in the center and one on the left hand side. The targets have to be hit in order they are lit to light the lock. The lock is timed and is made by hitting the left ramp. Three balls are physically locked on the wire form. After starting MB you want to lock two balls on the castle ramp and then go for the Jackpot at the mystery hole.
RVA Pinball 