A joyful flip of the year, dear ball rollers!

What a second half of 2025 it has been. At least for me: After some personal struggles, a good amount of work, and hence not a lot of time to do much else, I was happy to at least play pinball throughout the last weeks and months. I took part in Hungarian Pinball Open (HPO), for instance, where they also put a TV camera in front of my face. Did you know that I speak Hungarian fluently? Go watch! In addition, I got myself a new pinball machine. It’s a Bally 1991 The Party Zone which currently resides in my garage and awaits some maintenance.

Now is the time to also get some words down about pinball culture again, which I very much enjoy, as you may know. New Year’s resolution: Less is more! Or in other words: The Ball is Wild 🪩 newsletters may be published more frequently again, but they will be definitely smaller in size. As much as I like the idea of more extensive, lengthier editions, I also know that many of you don’t like to read so many words at once. Also, with shorter editions, I have less work (and hesitation) doing it. But enough about me, and instead more about pinball. Onwards!

IN THIS TENTH EDITION:

• Editorial: Mastering Pinball

• Videoballs:

  • Super Pinball Adventure

  • Yosh Pinball

  • A Pinball Game That Makes You Mad

• Heavy machines:

  • Mystery Winchester House

  • Beetlejuice

  • The pinball machine that plays itself!

EDITORIAL:
Mastering Pinball

Learning how to play pinball was always a little similar to discovering arcane skills that have been lost over many centuries. Some of it has been preserved and passed on to newer generations by telling and showing. Other parts have been written down somewhere or put on ancient media (read: DVDs). Those sources aren’t easy to find now. To this day, there was almost no comprehensive and complete guide on how to play pinball, which techniques exist and how to pull them off successfully. At least nothing new that is on par with today’s multimedia and online possibilities: high resolution video and streaming.

This situation has now changed. Abraham “Abe” Siedler, a fellow Austrian, who started getting into pinball only about six years ago, not only very quickly learned how to play well. He also took on the challenge of creating high-quality video clips to show different pinball and flipper skills in super slow motion — the latter became his trademark.

Do it yourself

Abe’s motivation for his video tutorial series, which he started in early 2021, grew out of his own frustration when he tried to become a better player through the study of different online sources. Or as he himself puts it on his Youtube channel:

I got into pinball in 2019, knowing nothing and nobody. I have had a hard time learning everything over the internet and I thought there has to be a high demand on pinball skill tutorials.

Three years and a few months after the first tutorial video has been uploaded, Abe stepped up his game tremendously. Instead of single clips about specific techniques, each being about three to five minutes long, he now teased a whole pinball skills film that promised to have the runtime of a fully fledged movie. Mastering Pinball: In-depth Skills and Strategies started its crowdfunding campaign in Summer of 2024, and the word spread rapidly. The funding goal of 8.000 Euro was quickly reached. Eventually, the project ended with a total backing of about 27.500 Euro.

Fast-forward into the present

After the big trailer was published in May of 2025, Mastering Pinball is now ready for streaming on Patreon (for 40 Euro, if you’re not a backer already).

Abraham delivered on his promises. Although other efforts of pinball skill tutorials have been shown and described throughout the years and decades gone by, this master class movie is the ultimate source to sink your teeth into if you really want to know the whole bag of pinball tricks that exist, going all the way from basic techniques like Cradling or Dead Bounce to high-level maneuvers such as Shatzing or Loop Pass. Of course, there is also an extensive section about nudging, maybe the most important thing to learn if you want step up your pinball game.

The only thing I would have liked to see more of, is watching (and listening to) pro players — which have been thoroughly consulted for the creation of Mastering Pinball, and who you can also glimpse in the film from time to time. But knowing the determination of Abe, there might be more footage and content coming up in the near future.

In any case, Mastering Pinball is not completely finished yet. Physical media versions are being produced as of right now and will be shipped out pretty soon. A downloadable version of the pinball master class is also something that is considered. The stream on Patreon does work fine for the moment though and also features subtitles as well as timecodes. As a bonus, there is an additional German version available (for which I had the honor of providing the voice-over).

VIDEOBALLS:
Super Pinball Adventure

Created by software engineer Tom Basche, hailing from Australia, but residing in Finland, Super Pinball Adventure is a neat little casual quest-based game where you play each pinball table mostly for a few minutes only (but can choose to continue once you clear the objective).

The stages have a pretty basic design but offer different surprises nonetheless. Sometimes you have to cut a tree, collect fairies or bash cars in order to finish a level. There are whimsical elements like explosions that divert the ball, or mushrooms that act like bumpers except you can temporarily knock them out of the playfield. This might seem easy and straightforward, but then you only have two balls (although you can stock up extra balls with in-game currency later on).

I asked Tom about his motivation for the game and he told me that he ...

“... really just wanted a colourful and almost childish pinball game, something you might find on an N64”.

That covers the game visually for sure! There isn’t too much depth in terms of level/playfield design (maybe also to deliver easy onboarding?) and the ball physics are a bit floaty. I still had a good time for half an hour when I played the demo levels back in Fall, and another hour and a half when I enjoyed the full game the other day. Especially the high ball acceleration from crazy rebounds was something positively unexpected, as well as different animal characters (squids, tortoises, crabs) that you can shoot for. Fun!

Super Pinball Adventure is out on Steam (Windows and Mac). You can also play the demo for free, featuring four levels.

Yosh Pinball

Trippy hippy pinball? Why not! Yosh Pinball (already released in November 2024) by grey fox is a minimalist silverball game with a unique rubbery bouncy feel to it. You simply have to shoot for the one single target that is in the game. Each time it gets hit, the shape of the level morphs and the target reappears elsewhere. That’s it — yet I couldn’t put this one down for whatever reason. Yosh Pinball is certainly mesmerizing and you can pull of subtle micro flips which I enjoyed a lot. I found the game on the Apple App Story although it is also available on Itch for Windows and Mac.

A Pinball Game That Makes You Mad

The name says it all. APGTMYM is a classic ultra-hard meme-heavy indie game in the vein of Geometry Dash or I Wanna Be The Guy. Within the last few years, the game genre within these, let’s call them “fun but punishing experiences”, shifted from platformers to climbing games like Only Up! or Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy. Foddy, a renowned game designer and researcher, has made a name for himself and his strange, tough-as-nails, but also fascinating movement games which inspired similar titles. His most recent release, co-developed with two other designers, is Baby Steps, which came out a few months ago.

APGTMYM is the pinball equivalent of all this. You try to overcome a tedious challenge and have to try again from the very beginning many, many times. There are labyrinthine levels with flippers and bumpers of all sorts and sizes spread throughout the environment. Luckily, APGTMYM includes the possibility to activate checkpoints as well as skips, where when you can’t manage to overcome a certain part of the challenge after ten minutes of trying, you can just pass over it.

Aside from its going-up-and-falling-down gameplay loop, A Pinball Game That Makes You Mad is presented in an amusing way where a British commentator is teasing and mocking you every few minutes. Although the ball physics are a bit off and the game isn’t primarily made for a pinball audience, APGTMYM is still worth checking out, particularly if you are in a group, or playing on stream. Most importantly, the checkpoint and skip features go a long way within a game like this.

HEAVY MACHINES:
News from the physical pinball world

In the world of physical pinball, the last months saw two announcements which piqued my interest whilst knowing that it will be tough to be able to get hold of and play them. Which is a shame because the themes are amazing.

Winchester Mystery House

First, there is Winchester Mystery House by Barrels of Fun, a pinball machine based on the real house that was a lunatic project, a gargantuan house commissioned by Sarah Winchester (of rifle-husband fame) in the late 19th century. The concept of the crazy mansion instantly reminded me of one of my favorite videogames of 2025, Blue Prince, where you walk through — and create! — your own mystery house and thereby search for the storied 46th room.

Beetlejuice

Then there is Beetlejuice by Spooky Pinball, a design based on the late 80s Tim Burton gothic horror comedy. I’m not the biggest horror fan and always in for a comic relief, so this is a perfect fit as far as I’m concerned (also, Beetlejuice’s sharp outfit with the striped suit and Doc Martens is pretty cool).

Most importantly though, the playfield design is all over the place with mad gadgets, trinkets and other neat contraptions. The designers behind Beetlejuice boast that they experiment with elements no other pinball manufacturer would dare to implement. While this may be so, and while I am more than hyped to play this machine, I wouldn’t want to own one myself. Not just due to the high costs of buying. Think of maintenance!

The pinball machine that plays itself

In other even more curious physical pinball news, there was this: A machine that plays itself, involving some high-brow software wizardry which I don’t remotely comprehend. Nevertheless, it looks impressive. This is obviously the pinball equivalent of the self-playing piano.

That was issue #10 of The Ball is Wild 🪩

Back issues can be found here.

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