#4: Pinball in the public
Good day, ball flingers!
“Every summer is pinball summer”, reads the back of my t-shirt from Ottawa’s wonderful punk pinball venue House of TARG which I was happy visiting a second time recently after seven years. This phrase is a notion that I can definitely agree upon, and most of you readers will probably as well. Hopefully you all had a good pinball summer, too! And it’s not over yet.
Going to places like House of TARG or other pinball arcades or bars around the world represents one of the most important aspects of what pinball means to me: That it’s about public social gatherings of like-minded geeks who want to play and learn about the game(s) as well as engage in friendly competition. This issue of The Ball is Wild 🪩 will delve more into why this is important to pinball culture in general and also provide some thoughts on the question whether you need to own pinball machines to become good at the game. (Spoiler: You don’t.)
IN THIS FORTH EDITION:
Editorial: The ball is in the wilds
Pinball in pop culture: Sesame Street’s Pinball Number Count
Flippin’ Arts: furminator
Videoballs: Peglin
Videoballs: Super Fowlst
Simulation Station: Goat Simulator + The Princess Bride
From the archives: Pinball in the public (first edition)
EDITORIAL:
The ball is in the wilds
Back in the day, pinball was commercially successful and publicly pervasive. Up until the 1980s and going into the early 90ies, pinball machines weren’t just available in arcades or bars, but could also be seen at restaurants, youth centers, or even doctor’s offices. Owning a pinball machine yourself seemed like an outlandish idea for most people. They are expensive, big and have to be maintained. And why even bother thinking about it? There was no real reason to buy for your own home when you could find so many different pinball machines out in public places anyway.
Things have changed, of course. Pinball devices were seen less and less in the wilds at the turn of the millennium and players eventually had a hard time finding them or gather at public places for leagues and tournaments. Venues that still existed often didn’t invest in maintenance anymore which led to half-dead machines in bad condition that nobody really wanted to play.
When Stern Pinball was the last remaining pinball company in the 2000s, it couldn’t survive on the few operators and location owners who were still active alone anymore. A new market had to be explored and exploited: that for pinball in private homes. So a gradual shift happened between the late 90ies and the early 2010s: Pinball almost vanished and found refuge in enthusiast’s basements, apartments, houses and garages. Now, if you wanted to play pinball, chances were that you needed to at least know someone who knows some pinhead in order to get invited to his or her home.
It was quite a predicament: Private pinball collectors saved the game (at least to a degree) from completely dying out, but then again they were responsible for the game to become even more niche, obscure and - most of all - inaccessible. Even if you got invited into one pinhead’s home, you always had to abide to the respective rules and wishes. Also, animosities were bound to happen here and there, and you certainly don’t want to play at a place from someone you don’t like (if they invited you in the first place). Sometimes, the only way out of this double bind was to buy machines of your own. And so the vicious cycle continued.
A way out
When the pinball renaissance happened in the early 2010s, arcades and arcade bars became a thing again. Some pinball collectors also started to open up their spaces for interested folks a few times every month. Pinball became at least semi-public from this point onward again, and rightly so. The accessibility and neutrality of a public gaming place leads to the freedom for all kinds of people to come and go as they please. Here, you can get to know players who might not come out of your social circle, but they could be interesting to you for that exact same reason.
Another great advantage: All the machines are owned by someone else who provides the means and the space. You also don’t need to tinker around inside the machine if a ball gets stuck or something breaks. All it takes are a few coins that open up the opportunity of playing pinball with likeminded individuals who can be good friends — or complete strangers.
Pinball machines are … gregarious animals?
I know what many of you might be thinking now: That despite of all that, everyone still wants to own pinball machines, for being able to play and practice all the time, and for creating a private play room for you, your family and friends. Fair enough, if you can afford it and have the space for those bulky four legged mech creatures.
By the way, I often hear the comical phrase that pinball machines would be “gregarious animals”, which is supposed to mean that once you own one machine, you are very likely to eventually get a second, third or forth device soon. Speaking for myself, I once owned three older machines only to swap them into just one newer pinball (a Stern Star Trek Pro). This happened already six years ago, yet my interest and passion for pinball hasn’t changed since then. (If anything, it became more pronounced.)
There is also the aforementioned notion that you would need to own at least one machine in order to properly practice to become good and better at the game. At this point, I let you in into a devious little secret of mine: Every time during a league or tournament situation when I play against a pinhead where I know she or he owns a bunch or even a lot of machines, a tiny bit of Schadenfreude sparks inside of me when I win. Because, without a doubt, you can become a very good player if you only play on pinball machines that you don’t own. Even better, it motivates you to seek out more different models in the wilds in order to try to become decent at all of them.
In the end, of course, this isn’t an adversarial situation. We are all friends here, and pinball machines should just be everywhere, in public places and also at home 🪩
PINBALL IN POP CULTURE:
Sesame Street’s Pinball Number Count
Many people from the US and Canada are familiar with this as is it considered a children TV’s classic that was broadcasted for decades. In other countries less so. When I first watched the Pinball Number Count, I was in awe as to how amazing it is: It is a colorful, psychedelic animation of a pinball rolling through a fantastic and whimsical world. Meanwhile, a counter from 1 to 12 is sung as part of a shockingly groovy funk pop song, performed by The Pointer Sisters.
There is a general intro and an outro, and then there are eleven different (the number 1 is missing, curiously) individual animations in between for each number during which an instrument solo is being played — alternating between steel drum, electric guitar and saxophone.
The Pinball Number Count should simply help little children count from 1 to 12 (or the other way around). Yet it is such a complex and at the same time approachable and entertaining creative achievement. It’s really kind of breathtaking and, of course, it celebrates pinball culture — during a time when the game was literally all over the place.
Produced in 1976, it was a staple of Sesame Street since then, all the way through 2002 when it was then maybe considered outdated. Granted, it has this vintage Yellow Submarine look to it, but it still begs the questions if children are bothered by notions of whether something might look old or not if it’s interesting and fun.
The complexity of the composition and the arrangement of the Pinball Number Count has been analyzed, the song has been remixed a lot, and the animations have been redone several times, also by fans. It’s a timeless classic! And it’s the perfect promotion of the uniqueness of pinball, audiovisually and in terms of the game itself. Who doesn’t want to plunge a silverball onto a giant playfield after watching this? Luckily, since 2019, there is also a real Pinball Number Count video pinball game that you can comfortably play in your browser. You can even nudge the table!
FLIPPIN’ ARTS:
furminator
Some of you have probably already tried playing pinball with a virtual reality headset. Although I own a Quest 2 myself and could play Pinball FX2 VR regularly, I don’t use it very often as it’s always a little bit of a hassle to fiddle around with the setup and have this thing on your head constantly. But actually I should do it more because it’s really satisfying to be able to look at a pinball table from all the angles and distances in any way you like. This is something that still bothers me with pinball simulation: that you can’t freely choose your perspective.
Already in 2004, the German games, tech and hardware art group fur came up with an even bolder concept as what VR would be 20 years in the future: first person pinball! That’s not completely true, of course, because you can not incorporate the ball itself. But it’s the next best thing. The furminator, a huge container, is host to a pinball machine (a Terminator 2, hence the name) that is being brought up to the player’s height of view. Then she or he enters the furminator through a hole and enjoys a view and a pinball experience that is truly unique.
Fur has an exciting approach to art, games and technology, and is always interested in uncommon interfaces and tactile feedback. They started out with their ambitious project PainStation, for instance; a PONG variation where the player who loses a ball gets likely punished by a little whip, a heating device or a small electric shock to her or his hand. The group likes moving balls in general, they also incorporated them in other projects like His Master’s Voice, Amazing, or disque rythmique.
VIDEOBALLS:
Peglin (Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS, Switch)
Pachinko is a strange game. It’s as early pinball would have stayed the same through decades and only got enhanced by its presentation. Indeed, if you go to Japan’s big cities, you will see that Pachinko machines are often large, loud and colorful — although you still just watch a ball bounce off of little pins on a vertically mounted playfield.
Despite the minimalism in gameplay and interactivity, Pachinko is obviously exciting to many and can also make for interesting videogames. A prime example for this is Peglin which first came out in 2021 as an early access game. Recently, Peglin was released as a completed game (version 1.0). It’s an intriguing combination of Pachinko, role playing as well as puzzle games. For the videogame culture savvy crowd amongst you: Think of an amalgam of Peggle, Slay the Spire, Vampire Survivors and early Final Fantasy.
The emphasis here lies with the ball bouncing though. The most interesting thing is the fact that you can upgrade your balls. Better variants can, for example, split in two (multiball!) or pop the pins in different or more efficient ways. With the 1.0 version of Peglin, the game is now also available for Switch. So don’t hesitate to peggle the pebble! Or something like that.
VIDEOBALLS:
Super Fowlst (iOS, Android, Switch, Browser)
Ever thought about if a chicken would make for a good pinball? Well, apparently New Zealand indie game developer Thomas K. Young (who also creates the Dadish series) has. Might be that as a result of this, Fowlst was born, although the original mascot wasn’t a chicken but an owl.
Be it owl or chicken: Your bird is, as the game describes, a “renegade” and slices baddies in two. In the game’s reality though, you are mostly bouncing into the enemies and thus neutralizing them. That is already the basic gameplay. You can “flutter” by tapping or pressing left and right and help your renegade gain some height. Think of Flappy Bird, just with more nuance.
Super Fowlst is a simple game and yet it’s executed well. It’s fun to navigate your chicken pinball around, bounce into enemies and sometimes also get thrown about by plungers, bumpers and flippers. There are also bosses, power-ups, different biomes and daily challenges. Quite a lot for a small ball bouncing game! You can also play Super Fowlst free (and without weird distractions or technical problems) on Poki.com.
SIMULATION STATION:
Goat Simulator + The Pricess Bride
To wrap up the video pinball tipps, let’s also briefly mention the newest additions to simulation framework Pinball FX. Both tables don’t excite me too much (and I also haven’t played them yet) but they are nonetheless at least worth a look.
First we have a pinballization of the famous meme videogame Goat Simulator which is basically about living out an anarchist lifestyle. The pinball trailer has a strange rewind thing going on whose references I probably just don’t understand.
Secondly, there is The Princess Bride, a pinball version of the cult fantasy adventure comedy movie from 1987 that itself was adapted from a 1973 novel. Not knowing the film, I mostly experience a kitschy Disney vibe when I watch the pinball trailer but after reading more about the story and its tongue-in-cheek approach, there surely must be more to it.
Protip for digital pinball
If possible, always tilt your monitor 90 degrees so you can play in vertical mode. You can make out so much more details and intricacies this way, and your skills usually improve as well. (This goes for all of pinball simulation and also some videopins, not just the ones from Zen.)
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
Pinball in the public (first edition)
To finish off this edition of The Ball is Wild pinball culture newsletter, I’ll only be a little self indulgent. Mostly because it was nine years ago when I used the exact same title from this issue’s editorial already for a story on (almost) the same subject: Pinball in the public.
Also, if you read German (or want to use a translation tool), you can take a look at my personal pinball story I recently wrote for the game culture blog Videospielgeschichten (video game stories).
You’ve just read issue #4 of The Ball is Wild!
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Back issues!
Issue #1: Let’s get this ball rolling (10 June 2024)
Issue #2: Examining the pinball (1 July 2024)
Issue #3: Machine manipulation (29 July 2024)
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Issue #5 will be ready in September. Until then, fling those balls 🪩