Pinball

[Typhon]

The other day I happened to hear the Who song, Pinball Wizard, and it reminded me of how much I use to enjoy playing pinball machines back in the day.  When I was a teenager and well into my 20's, I played a lot of various pinball machines at bowling allies, arcades and at the local amusement park.  Finally they faded out with the creation of video games, which I never really liked as much.

I was wondering how much pinball other community members have been exposed to in the U.S. and around the world.  I fear the younger guys may have never played it at all.

Here is a video of one of my favorite machines called Royal Flush.  You will notice a line of drop-down targets, labeled as the playing cards Ace to 10, in the center.  You have to hit each target down to achieve the Royal Flush.  I loved playing these games.

[Zzzptm]

Ohhhhhhhhh yeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssssss

In St. Louis, there is a place called "City Museum". There is a part of a floor that has all-you-can-play pinball games from the 50s-80s for a low admission price. My wife and I spent several hours there, just playing through each one of the games.

It's fun to read over old pinball and arcade game ads in Cashbox Magazine back issues. Pick a year and remember...

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Cash-Box-Magazine.htm

[Vyn]

Played pinball machines quite a bit. I don't recall any of them specifically, by name, but looking at Royal Flush above reminds me I played it. In defense of my memory, they had a pinball game with just about any kind of motif you could think of. Generic ones like the aforementioned Royal Flush, and then branded pinball games like Police Woman, The Partridge Family, Star Wars, etc.

I was never very good at pinball games, but enjoyed playing.

[Charger]

I do remember playing pinball machines. Not a whole lot, but some. For someone who had very little to no friends I did not go to bars so I had little chance of playing them.

But when I went to some gigs I do remember there being pinball machines and I always tried them out.


Back in the mid 90s I had several pinball games on my computer though which I played a LOT!

[Typhon]

Wow!  I never saw this machine.

[Charger]

That looks fairly new...the picture is from The End tour...glad to see they're still making these machines!

Wouldn't mind having one of those to be honest!

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

As a youth I occasionally played them.

But I much prefer playing them on the computer. The game that used to to come with Windows was fine but commercial ones were much better. Haven't played them either for some years!

[Zzzptm]

There was an old Bally's Pinball for Atari 400/800 and Commodore 64 that used paddles for action and it was pretty dang awesome, felt as close to the real thing as I've ever had it outside of an arcade or pizza store.

[Charger]

I wish I'd remember the names of those pinball games I played back in the day...they were on pc...

EDIT:
Bit of googling and I think the two that I played the most were Epic Pinball and Pinball Illusions..Released in 1993 and 1995...I do believe there was a third one too but couldnt find it.

[Typhon]

Another one I loved was Eight Ball.  This video is of the Deluxe version in which you have a second left flipper to assist you in hitting the drop-down targets on the right, which represent each numbered ball.  Once you drop all of your balls, then you can shoot for the "Eight Ball".

[Zzzptm]

This is good times reading and watching for sure.

I found the game I loved: David's Midnight Magic, based on Williams' Black Knight table.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David%27s_Midnight_Magic