Comment by sircastor | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sircastor | Hacker News Reader

I got into Pinball because my work had a handful of machines in our breakroom. This author is not joking about how different an experience it is playing pinball when you don't have to worry about pumping in quarters or being elbowed out by the next player. Pinball machines from the 90s on are reasonably complex games. They have levels, modes, and lots of goals to attain. Multiball is a reward

> I’m fortunate enough to live near the biggest publicly accessible pinball arcade (Pinball Hall of Fame)

In danger of being rude, I'd say the Pinball Hall of Fame is about worth the price of admission (it's free to enter). Maybe I visited on an off day, but it seemed to be just a warehouse full of privately own machines, about half of which were operating. My local pinball place (Next Level Pinball Museum, outside of Portland, OR) has a very large collection which spans the history of Pinball from very early games to machines that have HD video displays on the backboard.

I strongly recommend if you've never given it a try, find a pinball place that'll let you pay a flat fee for admission and spend some time on some games. My personal favorites:

- Attack From Mars

- Cactus Canyon

- Medieval Madness

- Creature from the Black Lagoon

- Star Trek (based on the Abrams movies)

- Super Mario Bros (the full size table from 1992)

The Pinball Hall of Fame is notable for having a working Pinball Circus[1], of which there were only 2 ever built. I try to give it a play every time I'm in town. It's also got quite a few other rare games that are very difficult to find elsewhere, including a significant collection of electromechanical games that usually don't get much representation in arcades. I do agree that the level of maintenance isn't great, but that's basically true for almost any place with more than ~10 machines. I have a comment here[2] about the state of the places I go to regularly in San Francisco, but basically the only one that's consistently good is the one where the owner is onsite and does the maintenance himself.

[1]: https://arcadeblogger.com/2018/07/06/arcade-holy-grail-the-p...

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35965664

The now defunct Pinball Museum in Banning, CA had an interesting model. They opened for business on a convention model (bi-annually, or quarterly) with an all-you-can-play ticket. This gave them time to get all the machines in working order. There was also a repair crew onhand to try to get failures fixed. They did not survive the pandemic and had to liquidate their collection, which was tragic.

So while maybe not the best way to make money, the experience for fans at their shows was outstanding. The largest collection of pins and arcades I've ever seen, almost all in working order.

I deeply lament it's loss, it was something I looked forward to. I was at many of the events and even participated in the Guinness Record. http://www.museumofpinball.org/pinball-news/hello-world/ It was a private collection and magnificent and met some amazing and interesting people there. Walter Day was promoting a set of trading cards. Billy Mitchell once handed off a ms. pacman game to me in progress which I quickly lost despite my best efforts. You could tell he was a big self promoter and liked playing the heel to create a dramatic story for media. It was worth the long drive from LA to Banning (near Morongo), and even the Bob's big boy in the middle of nowhere was a good lunch. I think the facility was an old connector factory https://www.recordgazette.net/news/local/decisions-to-be-mad... before John Weeks bought it, it was really close to where the record blanks were made that burned down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Masters_Corporation_fir... At least in LA we have AYCE Gogi running a couple good rooms, and a few hourly pay arcades, but the pandemic closed the Northridge Reseda one. And Two-Bit Circus in downtown is fantastic but limited on pinball. I own a Rocky&Bullwinkle but i'm still repairing it. Trying to decode/disassemble the software written for MC6808 is a part time amusement for me. I'm glad someone used their wealth to provide a lot of joy to people, but nothing lasts forever.

My son and I went to nearly every one of the events. His first was in his baby carriage. It really is a loss I mourn every so often. Lots of amazing memories tied to that place. And you are right, everyone there was pretty cool.

I was hoping to maybe grab one of the pins during the auction but the prices the machines were getting were way out of my range. I'm glad they made some money back, I suppose. Still trawling Craigslist hoping to find a deal.

pinside.com is a quality community for pinball people, including sales. I found the operator I bought my pinball machine from and got a reasonable price. Most mainstream sites are highly overpriced, but prices soared since I got mine and haven't stopped.

Attack from Mars is a good beginner table to learn ball control especially. There's basically a single shot up the center, but a lot of nuance in how you do it to avoid a drain.

In London there’s Pinball Republic in Croydon. I haven’t been in a few years, £15 to enter and all machines are set to free play.

For the Bay Area there's Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda.

Downtown Omaha, Nebraska has a venue with perhaps 50 or so machines (ranging in age).

Having grown up in the one quarter to play era, pinball machines were refreshing. You could make your game last via skill, or even just holding the ball on the flipper. In comparison video games would take your quarter and ramp up difficulty until you died.

Memorable games for me were more modest, such as "8-ball deluxe" with lots of targets or "black knight" with a second set of flippers.

Games nowadays seem to be too deep to play in an arcade on the way home from school (if any such venues exist anymore). Seems to me like asking you to play skyrim a quarter at a time.

I would definitely add Star Trek - The Next Generation to that list as well. One of the great classics in my opinion.

Old games I put a lot of quarters into:

- Black Knight 2000

- Whirlwind

- High Speed

I've gotten into pinball the last year and also love the ones you listed. Some of the newer machines I've had a blast with include Stern's Godzilla, Ghostbusters, and 007 machines

I would add:

- Arabian Nights

- Addams Family

- Star Wars

Add Pinbot to the list.

Addams family is the best machine ever!

Which “Star Wars”, Stern, Sega, or Data East?

Data East. I wasn't playing pinball by the time the others came out (I didn't know they existed, to be honest, I had to look up :) )

Oh, I forgot Twilight Zone!

Silver Ball Planet in Osaka is awesome if you ever travel there. And cheap too!

We have very similar tastes! CFTBL is my #1 favorite.

If you're in Budapest some time, I recommend the "Flipper Museum".

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