Pinball General

[Anonymous No.6068995]

There's a twitch channel where anyone can play on a physical pinball machine over the internet. Free, no lines because no one knows about it. I'm not affiliated with them. I think the lag's not too bad if your ping is good, but see for yourself.
https://www.twitch.tv/surrogategames

Also:

How to find pinball and pinball tournaments in your area:
US, Canada, Australia, Japan, Finland, London
https://pinballmap.com/
Worldwide:
https://pinside.com/pinball/map
Europe:
https://findapinball.com/en/

Tournaments:
Depending on where you live, there may be a facebook group for pinball players in your area.
You can also find tournaments near you here:
https://www.ifpapinball.com/calendar/

Pinball Simulators that will give you a free virtual pin or two as a sample:
Pinball Fx 3 (Sorcerer's Lair, Fish Tales)
Zaccaria (Time Machine)
Pinball Arcade (Mary Shelley's Frankenstein)
Stern Pinball Arcade (Also Frankenstein)
There's also Visual Pinball, which is a freeware pinball simulator.

How to become Good at Pinball (wholly optional):
https://www.deadflip.com/tutorials/ (techniques in .gif form)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-WQLGFMr97DnxeE1Rmi-wAwa-Vm7D-7i

Individual machine tutorials:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci7gXjSLq9o&list=PL-WQLGFMr97CQpOQDEvRqAiSqcvSuK11h
https://pinballvideos.com/t

[Anonymous No.6070932]

[Anonymous No.6070958]

Aww yiss, it's been a while since I've seen a PB thread.
Anyone played the Wonka table?

[Anonymous No.6070963]

another pic

[Anonymous No.6070968]

Deadpool next to the Wonka. Sydney btw.

[Anonymous No.6071236]

>>6070958
I played one at Midwest Gaming Classic this year after it was unveiled coincidentally the reveal stream happened at the same time as my first proper pinball stream of my Hobbit. I managed to get Gobstopper multiball but not really anything else. Like with Dialed In! I have no clue what I'm doing yet and would need to sit down with one to find out how to play it properly. After wrapping up a stream of Space Invaders at my local arcade today I talked with one of the regulars and found out a burger bar close by has a Wonka, so I'll probably check it out sometime.

[Anonymous No.6071245]

>>6071236
I also got a new PB and my first Knight mode on Black Knight 3 today, so it was a pretty great day overall.

[Anonymous No.6071248]

>>6071236
I also got a new PB and my first Knight mode on Black Knight 3 today, so it was a pretty great day overall.

[Anonymous No.6071253]

>>6071236
I too managed the Gobstopper multi on my first try, and same don't know what I'm doing most of the time.
I found that the ramp shots are easy to get the hang of and was just flinging the ball around those.

>>6071248
>Black Knight 3
I had no idea this existed, and it's a Stern? When was the last time they released a pin that isn't a band or movie license??

[Anonymous No.6071330]

>>6068995
>There's a twitch channel where anyone can

How is this fucking physically possible?

[Anonymous No.6071790]

>>6071330
Some special software/hardware installed in the pinball machine. It's Batman 66, so they just use the action button to auto-plunge the ball when the player wants to plunge it.

[Anonymous No.6071806]

>>6071253
Not counting Woah Nellie, the last liceneless Stern release was High Roller Casino in 2001 (or so).
Technically this IP is licensed from Scientific Games, who owns the Williams IP.

[Anonymous No.6072943]

page 9 save

[Anonymous No.6073473]

Any irl pinball fans have you tried the new physics in Pinball FX3?

They got like physicists and math geniuses to work on it and shit.

It's fast as fuck now and the games far far harder. Which I'm not sure if I like. Even just trying to trap the ball on the flipper is hard as shit now that it's smashing around everywhere. And center drains for me have increased 1000%. But I don't play much irl pinball and am wondering if it's a big improvement and closer to the real thing to you more experienced players.

[Anonymous No.6073590]

>>6073473
My biggest problem is that the ball still rockets down flipper inlanes at incredible speeds that you almost never see on a real pin. It's going so fast it'll roll off a raised flipper onto a slingshot, which pretty much would never happen on the games they're "porting"

[Anonymous No.6073712]

The Monster Bash at my local bar has a fucked up sinkhole, it has a ~20% drain chance. The operator went mad when someone put a piece of cardboard under a leg to fix it. Any idea what to do?

[Anonymous No.6073725]

>>6073712
That honestly sounds par for the course on any game with a scoop, especially Monster Bash.

[Anonymous No.6073869]

Man I just want to play black knight 2000 on my computer (since I aint driving up to laconia to play the real thing), but the only pinball simulator (pinball arcade I think it was) that ever had it lost the rights to williams and bally's tables, and now it seems like the only way to play it is through a cracked pirated version. I don't have a vpn, and rarely pirate through torrents anyway.
Why does the solution have to be so close yet so far?!

[Anonymous No.6073921]

>>6073869
Visual Pinball is freeware. You don't need to pirate Pinball Arcade.

[Anonymous No.6073927]

>>6073725
First game I've seen this happen.

[Anonymous No.6074141]

>>6073927
I haven't seen a game with a scoop where it didn't happen. My local arcade has a Monster Bash Remake, Metallica, Guardians of the Galaxy, and a Total Nuclear Annihilation, and all of their scoops have a chance of kicking the ball straight down the middle. Even more hilariously I've seen the left scoop on TNA kick the ball down the left outlane, but thank god that game starts a brief ball save to counteract a crappy kickout. Scoops in general are just not a very reliable mechanic when it comes to being a consistently safe shot.

[Anonymous No.6074565]

I played a metallica and that fucking snake would just shoot the ball down the middle every time

[Anonymous No.6074798]

I think ball savers on scoops should always be an option in the operator menu. Or, better yet, just get ride of scoops entirely. Scoops suck! Keith Elwin agrees with me. And Wonka doesn't have a scoop either, at least not the sort that could end your ball.

[Anonymous No.6074896]

>>6073921
Thanks a ton anon! Took me a while to figure out how to get it to work but now I haven't been able to stop.

[Anonymous No.6074915]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXrr_0YX2PI&feature=youtu.be
The Rick and Morty pinball machine... has... a pop bumper where one of the slingshots typically would be! Just like the Angry Birds pinball machine pitch had before it was rejected by Rovio. Cool! I like that! It's different!

[Anonymous No.6075576]

>>6074141
Aren't just lazy operators to blame for this? I fucking love scoops.

[Anonymous No.6075780]

>>6074915
Crazy how this is almost sold out in ~3 hrs

[Anonymous No.6076217]

>>6075576
If by "lazy operators" you mean "the manufacturers themselves" then yes. Every pin with a scoop I've played at my local arcade was brand new and had its scoop randomly kick out SDTM every once in a while. I genuinely don't think scoops are as precise as people honestly think, and they always have some room for error. That being said, I absolutely love how damn fast TNA's scoops are.

[Anonymous No.6076597]

>>6075780
An economist would say that if something sells out in a day, the seller probably should have charged more for it and sold everything in two days.

>>6075576
It's impossible to assign blame. There are two sides who have the capacity to solve the problem, and in many cases neither of them takes action. I think it would be easiest for the designer to take action.

[Anonymous No.6076692]

Anyone played Jurassic Park?
It's got some flow but the fucking voice overs are horrendous, sounds nothing like the original actors. But that seems to be the case with Stern, if they don't sample straight from the movie they hire the worst voice actors in their shit. Or it's just guys from the warehouse "Hey Hose wanna earn a extra fifty bucks? Here pretend to be Samuel L Jackson and read these lines into the microphone".

[Anonymous No.6076817]

>>6076692
The voice actors they used on the Avengers pin were insisted upon by the license holder. I don't know if the same is true of the X-men voice actors. I think it is true for both.

The voice actors for JP don't bother me. Even the Avengers and X-men voice actors don't really bother me.

[Anonymous No.6077114]

>not gaming on Demon's Tilt

[Anonymous No.6077241]

Scoops with cross-playfield kickouts will always have a chance of pitching an unsaveable ball between the flippers no matter how well-maintained the game is. The same problem doesn't exist if the ball is kicked directly down to a flipper (like Addams Family or Twilight Zone) or directly to an inlane (like Creature from the Black Lagoon or Earthshaker); at this point I almost feel like manufacturers use cross-playfield kickouts on purpose to make you lose the ball because it's not an impossible problem to foresee and solve when designing a game.

>>6075576
>plastic post directly underneath the bumper
What's the point of putting a bumper there if they're going to let you post pass anyway? It's a step in the right direction, but I would've liked to see the game lean into that bumper more instead of just making it act like a normal slingshot.

[Anonymous No.6077245]

>>6077241
wut?

[Anonymous No.6077302]

>>6076692
>mfw I found out they used a soundalike for The Hobbit
I couldn't even tell it wasn't Ian McKellen.

[Anonymous No.6077332]

>>6070958
Am I going crazy or does that layout look A LOT like Heighway's Alien machine?

[Anonymous No.6078824]

>>6077332
Hm...

[Anonymous No.6080826]

>>6077332
>>6078824
I have studied for many hours, and I have come to this conclusion: not really.

[Anonymous No.6081092]

i want more drop targets with THINGS behind them to shoot at, like that ramp on the home star wars machine that nobody is buying. thank you for reading my reply

[Anonymous No.6081378]

>>6080826
I'd normally object to this dumbass kind of image but the pin in question is a GOT so I don't give a fuck if she cracks or breaks it.

[Anonymous No.6082160]

>>6080826
hahah imagine playing with the smelly sweat-stain on the glass hahaha

[Anonymous No.6082915]

>>6082160

In other news... It's a shame that Punny Factory isn't more fully featured. It is very cool that it has a chimney that blows fog from a fog machine (resembling smoke) out of the top of the pinball machine.

[Anonymous No.6083149]

>>6080826
Are you blind? It's very close.

[Anonymous No.6083156]

>>6080826
>>6082160
LOL!

[Anonymous No.6083157]

[Anonymous No.6083175]

>>6083156
>>6083157
Weeabos are fucking turbo autists I swear. How can you turn on yourself with such shitty same-faced cartoon reality?

[Anonymous No.6084580]

>>6083149
Agree to disagree, I guess. I have a feeling that the broader pinball community would agree with me. But I could be wrong.

[Anonymous No.6085235]

>>6084580
No

[Anonymous No.6086284]

What is the most complex, intricate and difficult pinball ever made?

[Anonymous No.6086618]

>>6086284
My vote goes to LotR. Just look up what needs to be done to get to Valinor.

[Anonymous No.6086886]

In my dreams, there's a lot of weird pinball machines. Like really poorly designed ones. Stuff that belongs in a gallery of weird interactive art, not an arcade. A lot of them are made from cheaply painted rustic wood.

[Anonymous No.6086975]

>>6086284
LotR is widely considered to be one of if not the most complex table, but it's not that difficult to play. Getting one of the many multiball features isn't all that hard and I don't know much about the ruleset yet I can get some decent playtime out of a few credits.
Difficult pinball? Well any poorly designed table that suffers a lot of SDTMs or outlanes that act like vacuum cleaners can be difficult.
Twilight Zone can be difficult, Star Trek TNG can be difficult, not bad tables by any means I just think they were designed to be a tad more hard-core and unforgiving when mistakes are made.

[Anonymous No.6087620]

>>6086284
I believe I've heard Spiderman is an extremely difficult tournament table. Also in the movie Wizard Mode, he says Simpsons Pinball Party has like the hardest wizard mode ever and he flips when he finally gets it. I fucking love pinball. Maturity is realizing it's better than video games.

[Anonymous No.6087893]

>>6087620
Spiderman has ball times so long that they sometimes replace the flippers with smaller flippers called lightning flippers.

LotR and Valinor are both super hard Wizard Modes. Those are typically the first super-hard ones that come to mind.

Ghostbusters and Walking Dead are both known for short ball times. There are some long ball times on both, but Ghostbusters has the wide flipper gap and WD has many dangerous shots.

[Anonymous No.6087976]

How do I git gud at Monster Bash? I'm maxing out at ~115mil.

[Anonymous No.6087998]

>>6087893
>Ghostbusters and Walking Dead are both known for short ball times
Seconding Gbusters, one of the best looking Stern tables, cunt of a game to play.

[Anonymous No.6089690]

>>6073473
One in like every 5 shots drains. It's far too fucking fast I hate the new physics reeeeeeeed

[Anonymous No.6090697]

Jurassic Park

[Anonymous No.6090707]

Data East's Guns n' Roses 1

[Anonymous No.6090715]

>>6090707
photo 2
Also this pin has the colour display mod and a few other bells n whistles

[Anonymous No.6090720]

>>6073473
It's really close to the real thing.
>>6073590
Hmm....
>>6089690
No it doesn't.

Also: I want a hug.

[Anonymous No.6091327]

>>6090720
*hugs*

[Anonymous No.6091586]

lol

[Anonymous No.6092258]

Stranger Things looks like garbage. The Stern layout needs to die

[Anonymous No.6092320]

>>6092258
You're wrong. It's not a Stern Layout, it's a Brian Eddy layout. If you don't know who Brian Eddy is... look it up and you will see the wisdom in my words.
Also: look at that inner loop around the drop targets. I don't see that too often.

[Anonymous No.6092386]

>>6092258
Actually, I have a question. What layouts do you like? Please restrict yourself to only DMD games or later, and no widebodies. Thank you.

[Anonymous No.6092417]

>>6092320
I know who Brian Eddy is, the problem is that Stern has used this layout to death over the past 12 years. Two ramps in almost the exact same spot and a bash toy, that explains the vast majority of modern Stern titles.
>>6092386
>Please restrict yourself to only DMD games or later, and no widebodies
Nah.

[Anonymous No.6092467]

>>6092258
>It's literally just like 10 lanes with a ramp and toy in the middle

Imagine paying 10k for that shit

[Anonymous No.6092543]

>>6092467
Are you describing Stranger Things or Metallica? Or Spider-Man. Or Star Wars. Or Munsters. Or Star Trek. Or Iron Man. Or Tron. Or Guardians.

[Anonymous No.6092591]

>>6092417
There's not a single game in that category you like? I hate to say it, but that makes me think that you have a very non-central taste in layouts. Because a lot of people do like those games.
>>6092467
Honestly, what games do you like? Anything from the past 30 years? Do you only like widebodies? Do you only like games with upper flippers? Please describe your taste in pinball, particularly with regard to layout.
I'm not going to say anything too mean, I'm just curious. A lot of people criticize games with critiques that apply to almost all modern pinball machines, including non-sterns. And I want to get inside their head and figure out their perspective.

[Anonymous No.6092702]

Is Stranger Things that popular?
Seems like a niche license. When are we getting a Pink Floyd Pin??

[Anonymous No.6093520]

Quick survey: what are you favourite Data East and widebody pinballs?

[Anonymous No.6093562]

>>6093520
Guns N Roses is the highest ranked DE pin. I only played it once. IDK if I like it or not. It was interesting, at least. The truth is that I haven't played most Data Easts, and most of the ones I have played I haven't played much. Time Machine is cool.

My favorite widebody is PotC 2018. Wizard of Oz and Twilight Zone are both good. I haven't played all of them. Not crazy about Demolition Man and Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure. Star Trek TNG is cool, haven't played it that much.

[Anonymous No.6093591]

>>6093562
Thanks. I though Tales from the Crypt was pretty good (with the last unofficial rom), but I have yet to play another DE!

Oh yeah, I forgot there are newer widebody! Judge Dredd has fantastic rules and layout for me, but it seem it makes such a poor job at explaining the rules that most people overlook it. Wish there was a Twilight Zone around, I always wondered if it was really amazing or just overrated toy mess.

[Anonymous No.6093806]

>>6093591
There are a bunch of TZ's in the SF Bay Area. It's consistently been on the top 5 on pinside. I think it's a good game.
https://pinside.com/pinball/top-100

[Anonymous No.6094595]

>>6093591
I honestly didn't like TZ at first, with time (and experience) I've warmed to it.

[Anonymous No.6094617]

I'm hoping Zen or another compnay starts putting out Stern and Gottlieb tables eventually since Farsight is pretty much dead, there isn't a single pinball table (that works) where I'm at and I love digital pinball.

[Anonymous No.6094876]

>>6094617
I'd love to see someone get Spooky and JJP on board to be honest

[Anonymous No.6094925]

>>6092591
Dude. Any table with actual shit on it. Bumpers, drop targets, scoops, those captive balls that hit other balls, subways, bash toys. There's so much different shit you can put on a table in such unique ways and stranger thing is literally just 10 fucking straight lanes beside each other. It's the most bland boring shit since Elvira 3 which was the most bland boring shit since munsters

[Anonymous No.6094947]

Just had a look at the Stanger Things playfield, and holy shit there are so many lamp inserts that it's retarded. It's like the pinball version of early 2000's belts & zipper weeb shit.

[Anonymous No.6095608]

Isn't Stranger Things supposed to be about some parallel universe shit? I would've loved to see a Black Hole-style lower playfield.

>>6093520
Tommy is probably the DE game that holds up the best, but it's not perfect. The spinner to mode start combo gets repetitive. Fantastic multiball rules. The blinders are one of the best mechs ever implemented on a pinball machine when they aren't broken.
I absolutely love widebody games to the extent that it's hard to pick a favorite. JJP PotC was an instant classic. I have a profound appreciation for how well Paragon uses its playfield space, too.

[Anonymous No.6095896]

>>6094925
But... Stranger Things does have bumpers and drop targets. And the Demigorgon is basically a bash toy. I mean, he does register hits. Non-entering hits don't do anything yet as far as I can see, but they probably will. Even if they don't, is there some problem with toys where you shoot something inside them vs. toys where you have to bash them? It seems functionally very similar.
Or did you just not take a very close look at the game, since you didn't realize it had bumpers and drop targets on it? It's probably just that, right? No big deal.

[Anonymous No.6095910]

>>6095608
I know they aren't for everybody but a guy made a VPX table for Stranger things that is 100% more loaded than the Stern.
https://youtu.be/2VdD1_h0cYw

[Anonymous No.6096191]

>>6095910
I'm not a fan of virtual pinball, but I appreciate the people who do design tables. This one looks a lot like a generic Stern game to me (two orbits, two ramps, scoop, bash toy, jet bumper nest shoved in the back of the game) but a lower playfield like that would've at least added some much-needed theme integration to the game. I love the double ramp on the left side.

[Anonymous No.6096624]

>>6095896
It's just a giant empty boring flat looking playfield with a gorillon lights and far too many straight lane shits beside each other Looks shit mate.

[Anonymous No.6097521]

Open question to anyone who hates Stranger Things pinball: are there any two-flipper non-widebody games from 1991 onward that you like?

[Anonymous No.6097613]

>>6097521
I think there's a case to be made as to why new-era Stern games feel so sterile. They give off the impression that they're designed for the purpose of having as many shots as possible instead of being designed with every shot having a distinct purpose and feel. Stranger Things, Black Knight SoR, Munsters, and the rest of those games all have a lot of shots on the playfield, but they're all pretty generic in that modes and multiballs will simply end up lighting every single shot on the playfield at some point during the game. Every shot is functionally the same; they're just "shots", with little nuance as to why any particular shot is located where it is. It's even started to bleed over into Stern's 3+ flipper games; Iron Maiden and JP end up feeling exactly the same despite the potential that more flippers add because they're just "a bunch of shots."
When I think back to a game like Terminator 2, it feels more like precision engineering, even if there isn't much to the game. Terminator 2 has two ramps because you're supposed to be able to combo them to get to Payback Time. You might favor shooting these ramps over shooting the drop target in the middle; the drop target is a dangerous shot, but you're rewarded for hitting this shot with a high-scoring multiball. Though it's outside of the time period, Cyclone will always be my favorite two-flipper game because of how every shot and target in the game feels unique and has a purpose (though the Mystery Wheel is absolutely random and gimmicky). On the other hand, why does a game like Munsters have two ramps? Why is Stranger Things just Attack from Mars with a fold-down ramp in the middle? I'm all for putting more shit into newer games (get your money's worth from a $10k machine), but I'd like to see more thought put into how they're designed. JJP PotC was fantastic to that end, with every shot having a name and function on top of being used for "shoot everything" modes. Thanks for attending my TED talk

[Anonymous No.6097676]

>>6097613
The Munster main multiball is a little more complicated. I'm pretty sure all the multiballs in JP have complex rules too. Or at least most of them. Not sure about the others.
But I hear you. Thank you for the detailed response. I also love JJP PotC
https://www.pinball.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Munsters-Pinball-Rule-Sheet.pdf
If anything, I'd think you would like Munsters, because each shot has a purpose and a thematic connection.

[Anonymous No.6097824]

>>6097676
Munsters never clicked with me when I first played it, and I'm not a fan of how code is usually made after the game is shipped because it exacerbates the problems that new games have. I'd love to play a premium/LE Munsters with the lower playfield, though. Maybe I'll enjoy it more.

[Anonymous No.6097841]

>>6097613
I have a Hobbit and hold the same opinion about it as you do PotC. It's satisfying to know that my progression does require me to hit just about everything on the table, and it gives me appropriate feedback, visuals, and callouts to drive that point home.

[Anonymous No.6097845]

>>6097824
Premium/LE Munsters is the must-play of the bunch. It's hard to believe, but that lower playfield honestly does make all the difference.

[Anonymous No.6097927]

>>6068995
So am I cursed or does Stern have horrible quality control? Swear to god every single time I run into one of their cabs my ball gets stuck and after it tries to set it loose it counts it as me losing a ball zapping me of a perfectly good run. It's dookie!

[Anonymous No.6097942]

>>6097927
Wait, does the ball actually drain or not?

[Anonymous No.6097976]

>>6097927
Some of their games have some annoying design flaws, like a lot of the Iron Maidens that I play have the ball get stuck between the center ramp and the plastic to the right. Most other stuck balls that I get on Stern machines (on top of drop targets, in the middle of an orbit, etc) are pretty easy to clear, though.

[Anonymous No.6098321]

Are the batterie eliminators worthy?