PINBALL - CONTROL & CHAOS

GANTT CHART

PINBALL MACHINE DESIGN APPROACH

PINBALL BASED DESIGN AND PRESENTATION

Pinball machines work at numerous levels, corresponding to the player’s experience, personality, and approach to gameplay:

1.) Pinball as Salesperson

Appeal to: Attention

Get the playing thinking: “That sounds/looks fun – what is it?”

A salesperson’s work is to get someone’s attention, then persuade the listener(s) to buy something. This is part of what pinball’s sounds and lights are designed to do. It’s no accident that it sounds fun and it looks fun before even figuring out what it is.

Oooooooooo.
Aaaaaaaaaa.



2.) Pinball as Display Window

Appeal to: Imagination

Get the player thinking, “Hey, Lord of the Rings*! I wonder what they included from it…”

* Or: Space Aliens! / Addams Family! / Carnivals! / Racing! / Elton John!

The back glass – the tall head of the machine with a brightly lit image and score displays – does much of the work here. Artists like Roy Parker became masters at putting together a pleasing, eye-catching visual. The artwork on the play field helps as well, when the player is close enough (or drawn close enough) to notice it.

The videogame equivalent might be the side of an arcade cabinet, or the front of a software box on the shelf. The ‘play field’ in the case of boxed retail goods would be the screenshots on the back.

Movie licenses have become common – it’s all Stern Pinball seems to make anymore – for their instant recognizability. However even before that pinball machines were riding on the coattails of film and TV with knock-off/spoof IP like Dragonette (it was based on Dragnet, and had nothing to do with dragons) or F-14 Tomcat (unofficially playing off of Top Gun’s attention, which came out the year prior). The wacky paddle positions in Q-Bert’s Quest are not what drew me to it, likewise for the Super Mario Bros table (both of which I’ve only been able to semi-play in Visual Pinball / VPinMame). I took an interest in those games purely because I recognized their themes, and wanted to see how someone might create a pinball machine around each of these games. Only after the theme wins the player’s attention and brings them over can the layout and mechanics of the play field have a chance to make a difference.

Dragnet spoof.




Appealing to Top Gun fans.




Elton John. Just in case
you thought I was joking.
Context (video) – for if
you’re my age or younger.



3.) Pinball as Chaotic Spectacle

Appeal to: Thrill of fireworks shows (booms, bangs, and glowing colors) and reckless play

Get the player thinking: “I’m just hitting the ball anywhere, but sometimes I get lucky and the machine goes crazy with lights and sounds. It’s exciting. I instantly feel good at it.”

The novelty and surprises as rewards for skills and lucky accidents, as well as the feel and flow of the table – these factors only become relevant at this stage of interaction.

People new to pinball play it like people new to pool: they just hit the ball in the general direction of targets and hope something good will happen. Pinball designers like Pat Lawlor went out of their way to ensure that even when the player misses or fires blindly, something good happens. In an interview for the documentary Tilt’s extras*, Lawlor describes that approach, from the player’s perspective he aims to support, with the phrase, “I meant to do that.”

It’s not necessary to progress any further toward developed skill or underlying depth to enjoy pinball. Although there is a different and perhaps longer-lasting type of satisfaction to be found in digging deeper and getting better, in pinball it’s entirely possible to enjoy the game without being particularly good at it nor even making any effort to get better at it. There’s genuine pleasure in live spectacle. Though it would be a harder sell, a ‘pinball’ machine could offer just a 2 minute sound and light show and shoot a shiny ball around without any player input, and it might still find some people willing to pay $0.25 for it – a bit like the old gum ball machines that added value by having the candy spiral down a tall enclosed helix before vending the purchase.

*(As mentioned in another entry this month: the extras disc is not included in the iTunes purchase. Consider ordering from their website if interested. I have absolutely no stake in the DVD selling, but (a.) it really is quite good (and b.) linking to it here helps alleviate some of my guilt over borrowing so many quotes from it in the entries this month.)

I don’t understand what to
what to do in Diner, but just
hitting the ball around makes
exciting things happen.

Note that the DINER lights
are not out, but cycling -
this can make pinball games
hard to photograph in their
typically dark settings (bars,
theater side rooms, arcades,
bowling alley game areas) since
at any given instant in time,
much of the table is dark.



4.) Pinball as Self-Contained Toybox

Appeal to: Fascination with miniatures

Target thought: “I want to see what that does.”

The toys on the play field, such as Steve Ritchie’s dancing Elvis or Brian Eddy’s exploding castle in Medieval Madness, add to the spectacle, surprise, and appeal to imagination. The toys are just delightful to see working.

The creepy face in Funhouse, Rudy, is what first drew my attention to it.

Using toys more selectively keeps them special. Designer Larry DeMar explained (also in the extras of Tilt) this as one of the balancing challenges of The Addams Family pinball machine from 1992. Initially the Thing hand was designed to come out and grab the ball too frequently, and testing revealed that they needed to scale it back to keep it interesting and special for the player.

Having dynamic toys on the play field is a feature of pinball that completely loses its magic in virtual remakes. Pinball videogames like the Pinball Hall of Fame collections (both Williams and Gottlieb versions) and Visual Pinball + VPinMAME or Future Pinball (supporting many fan-made table remakes via vpforums.org+ipdb.org and pinsimdb.org respectively) include the same parts, sounds, and animations, but the impact is watered down beyond recognition. When a plastic castle rumbles and tips, an Elvis action figure swings its hips, a mechanical face begins talking and looking around, or a toy hand reaches out of a box and picks up a steel ball, it is genuinely surprising and novel. The toy comes to life, seeming to act on its own accord. Of course when a polygonal model of these things – existing purely in software – rotates, animates, plays recorded speech, or moves the ball around the screen, it’s far less impressive. In the realm of what pure 3D graphics, animation, and audio can accomplish, these simple behaviors are tame, ordinary, and unprofessional looking. (Marvel Pinball on PSN by Zen Studios, which uses original table designs for virtual play instead of remakes of real tables, gets around this issue by using fully animated characters, particle effects, and other visual flair fitting user expectations for on-screen displays.)

That the mouth of Rudy’s face in
Funhouse is the correct height and
size for a ball to go in surely helps.
It’s a clear challenge to the player.



5.) Pinball as a Basic Skill

Appeal to: Desire to get better at what looks deceptively simple (simply keeping the ball in play – the same appeal as the classic bouncy ball strung to a paddle)

Get the player thinking: “I used to lose really quickly sometimes. Now I can keep it going awhile, and my scores are much higher. I’m visibly getting better.”

It’s possible to play a long time without/before caring about score or how the machine’s Mission Rules tie together. It takes a certain level of base skill and familiarity with a machine before those thoughts become relevant.

If pinball were just about novelty, this is where we’d step off the ride. It isn’t, of course. There’s a game of skill buried behind all that noise and flashing.

Beyond keeping the ball alive, this level of play typically involves setting one-off personal goals: focusing on trying to get up a particular ramp, or trying to clear all drop target banks before running out of plays, etc.

For many, many players though, play will likely never progress beyond this stage of consideration. As mentioned in my entries on heuristic play patterns (example), the majority of players tend to fall into the category of “experienced but not expert”. Such behavior is weakly adaptive, but overall focused on nothing more advanced than trying to keep the ball in play, occasionally shooting for specific targets, and hoping something exciting happens.

This is the stage of interaction at which a player begins to feel somewhat competent at pinball, rather than random and out of control. Somewhere between starting this stage and advancing to the next one, a player goes from feeling a bit self-conscious and nervous about being watched to feeling proud and confident to have someone else paying attention.

When I was new to this machine,
I practiced hitting the toilet,
since it’s in at an easy central
angle off the right flipper. Now
that I’ve had more time with the
table, I’m trying to get better at
hitting the Mojo targets and Mini-Me
ramp from that flipper instead, since
those are a bit more difficult to reach.



6.) Pinball as a General Skill

Appeal to: Competitive drive to master challenging and unfamiliar domains.

This thinking bridges the gap from, “I play pinball,” (often in reference to one or two favorite local tables) to “I’m good at pinball,” (often in reference to a number of tables, and pinball more generally, even if with a personal focus on a few particular ones).

Beyond simply keeping the ball in play, there are a number of intermediate and advanced skills in pinball for players to practice (some are listed in this month’s Advanced entry). For each of these tacit skills, there are two aspects to learning it: (1.) rapidly recognizing the right situation to apply each technique (and 2.) practicing muscle memory to reliably execute each maneuver successfully under pressure. Mastering these skills, much like practicing chords on a guitar, can prepare someone to be more successful at pinball in general, not only on a particular machine, but extending to improving performance on tables that they’ve never seen or played before.

The videogame equivalent might go something like, “I’m pretty good at FPS games,” or “I used to play a lot of Command & Conquer and StarCraft – so although I haven’t played this particular RTS game yet, I’m sure I’ll pick it up easily.”

The pinball analog, to be clear, might be: “I have pretty reasonable control over keeping the ball in play and getting it to different areas. If I don’t yet know what happens when I go up a particular ramp or hit a target, I just try it. Usually I’m able to figure out which of the handful of standard conventions or patterns are being applied.”

Part of what makes this development of general skill possible is a clear grammar, or visual and interactive language, conventions that are consistent between tables. That grammar in pinball is then used to compose each game as a rearrangement of recognizable, known parts (bumpers, slingshots, rollovers, flippers, plunger, drop target banks…). In pinball this approach was partly guided by manufacturing reuse and what parts could be mass produced economically in a fashion rugged enough to survive being hit repeatedly by a steel ball; by comparison in videogames, where duplication of designed virtual components is zero-cost and maintenance-free, it’s driven more purely by a need to establish, build upon, and incrementally advance player-understood conventions (ex. health bar, lives, power-ups…).

Multiball is also a part of that standard grammar: not in its affordance, like the other parts mentioned (expectation of consequence before it happens), but in its reverse interpretation (recognition of excitement as a visceral reward for something done which must have been praiseworthy). In addition to the natural excitement of trying to keep several balls in play simultaneously, seeing multiball initiate is a bit like seeing your Tetris blocks all change to a new palette – it reads intuitively as a sign that you’re playing well.

The similarity between individual components in machines – at least those from a given company during a given era of pinball history – makes ‘level design’ a useful metaphor from videogame production. The game (here real pinball, as opposed to Call of Duty or Arkanoid) has an established language known to the player about how each part behaves – and the design task becomes a matter of laying them out and theming them.

Note that this metaphor should not be taken too literally, though; a pinball machine in the 90′s took an engineer a year or more to design, the complexity of wiring and mechanical consideration has to be factored in, and the lively chaos of a real ball striking and spinning against real materials gives a pinball table substantially higher replay value than the typical level from a particular game (although levels famous for their replay value, such as 2fort in Team Fortress or de_dust in Counter Strike may be roughly analogous). In the case of pinball, the level is the standalone game.

By the time I played Tron I had
practiced on a variety of other
tables, allowing me to approach
the gameplay more deliberately.



7.) Pinball as Per-Game Knowledge

Appeal to: Being the best, being in control, having confidence

Player thought: “I can challenge anyone on Funhouse.”

The goal at this point is getting the player to obsess over a particular table – learning its ins and outs, developing an actionable strategy to identify techniques that optimize reward against risk, and adapting general skills to meet the precise needs of a given playfield.

Every table has its own particular sequences, goals, and tricks to be performed. Even after someone is an expert ball handler, that skill won’t go far unless someone knows where to put the ball, when, and why. Contrary to the looks of many pinball machines, their reward structures are often surprisingly complex. (Check out the instruction guide to playing The Simpson’s Party.)

The parallel from videogame players might be along the lines of, “My time with Halo and Quake helped me with dodging and aiming in this new FPS, but it wasn’t until I figured out which guns fire through cover and learned the multiplayer maps that I really began to dominate.”

Here’s the guide for Indiana Jones.
I’m not good enough at basic control
yet to worry about these sequences
and details, but it’s clear that the
best players take risks and tradeoffs
based on knowing this information.

The effect that these rules have on
a player at my level is that the table
unpredictably changes modes while I play.
Though that sounds awful and undesirable,
it actually makes the game more enjoyable,
since it leads to accidental discovery of
features and keeps the play field dynamic.



It’s About Supporting a Variety of Players

The above stages are not universal. Some people aren’t as interested in the art or the concept, and others aren’t as interested in the potential gameplay tricks or competitive scoring strategies.

There are a variety of different ways that each pinball machine can appeal to different interests and priorities in people. One of my friends went straight for multiplayer competition, inviting others to compete in turn taking instead of practicing alone. Another friend took an immediate interest in his scores and trying to improve them each time, leading him to check the instructions before playing each game.

The differences in depth outlined earlier in this entry can be thought of as just another form of player preference, albeit a type of preference that changes over time as a player gains experience. It’s an approach that appeals to both inexperienced and experienced players, in different ways, keeping a player engaged as they mature within the general domain and with each particular game.

Pinball, like any good twitch gameplay experience, benefits by being able to work well at many of these levels and types of appeals. These appeals are simultaneous and parallel, not serially gated one behind another, so no matter what the player’s preference or experience level is, it’s ready for their enjoyment immediately.

I can have fun on this table,
and so can a first-time player,
and so can an expert. There’s no
difficulty switch – we’re each just
getting something different out of it.

source: http://www.hobbygamedev.com

DEFINITION OF CONTROL & CHAOS

control

kənˈtrəʊl/

noun: control

1. the power to influence or direct people's behaviour or the course of events.

"the whole operation is under the control of a production manager"

synonyms: jurisdiction, sway, power, authority, command, dominance,domination, government, mastery, leadership, rule, reign, sovereignty,supremacy, ascendancy, predominance

• the ability to manage a machine, vehicle, or other moving object.

"he lost control of his car"

• the restriction of an activity, tendency, or phenomenon.

"crime control"

synonyms: restraint, constraint, limitation, restriction, check, curb, brake, rein

• the ability to restrain one's own emotions or actions.

"she was goaded beyond control"

synonyms: self-control, self-restraint, restraint, self-command, self-mastery, self-discipline

• a means of limiting or regulating something.

plural noun: controls

"growing controls on local spending"

• a switch or other device by which a device or vehicle is regulated.

"he had the chance to take the controls and fly the glider"

synonyms: switch, knob, button, dial, handle, lever

• the place from which a system or activity is directed or where a particular item is verified.

"passport control"

synonyms: headquarters, HQ, base, centre of operations, command post

• COMPUTING

short for control key.

"note that Control plus various keys on the numeric keypad will move you around the text"

2. a person or thing used as a standard of comparison for checking the results of a survey or experiment. "platelet activity was higher in patients with the disease than in the controls"

synonyms: standard of comparison, benchmark, standard, check

3. a member of an intelligence organization who personally directs the activities of a spy.

"he sat with his KGB control as the details of his new assignment were explained"

4. BRIDGE

a high card that will prevent the opponents from establishing a particular suit.

"he has controls in both minor suits"

verb

verb: control; 3rd person present: controls; past tense: controlled; past participle:controlled; gerund or present participle: controlling

1.determine the behaviour or supervise the running of. "he was appointed to control the company's marketing strategy"

synonyms: be in charge of, run, be in control of, manage, direct, administer, head,preside over, have authority over, supervise, superintend, oversee, guide, steer

• maintain influence or authority over.

"there were never enough masters to control the unruly mobs of boys"

limit the level, intensity, or numbers of.

"he had to control his temper"

synonyms: restrain, keep in check, curb, check, contain, hold back, bridle, rein in,keep a tight rein on, subdue, suppress, repress, master, damp down

• remain calm and reasonable despite provocation.

"her eyes flashed angrily, but she made an effort to control herself"

regulate (a mechanical or scientific process).

"the airflow is controlled by a fan"

synonyms: regulate, modulate, adjust

• (of a drug) restricted by law in respect of use and possession.

adjective: controlled

"a sentence for possessing controlled substances"

2. take into account (an extraneous factor that might affect the results of an experiment).

"no attempt was made to control for variations"

Origin

late Middle English (as a verb in the sense ‘check or verify accounts’, especially by referring to a duplicate register): from Anglo-Norman French contreroller ‘keep a copy of a roll of accounts’, from medieval Latin contrarotulare, from contrarotulus ‘copy of a roll’, from contra- ‘against’ + rotulus ‘a roll’. The noun is perhaps via French contrôle

chaos

ˈkeɪɒs/

noun

noun: chaos; plural noun: chaoses

1. complete disorder and confusion.

"snow caused chaos in the region"

synonyms: disorder, disarray, disorganization, confusion, mayhem, bedlam,pandemonium, madness, havoc, turmoil, tumult, commotion,disruption, upheaval, furore, frenzy, uproar, hue and cry, babel, hurly-burly

antonyms: order, orderliness

PHYSICS

the property of a complex system whose behaviour is so unpredictable as to appear random, owing to great sensitivity to small changes in conditions.

the formless matter supposed to have existed before the creation of the universe.

GREEK MYTHOLOGY

the first created being, from which came the primeval deities Gaia, Tartarus, Erebus, and Nyx.

Origin: French

THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL

The illusion of control is the tendency for people to overestimate their ability to control events, for instance to feel that they control outcomes that they demonstrably have no influence over. The effect was named by psychologist Ellen Langer and has been replicated in many different contexts. It is thought to influence gambling behavior and belief in the paranormal. Along with illusory superiority and optimism bias, the illusion of control is one of the positive illusions. Although, the idea of illusion of control has been studied prior to Langer. Psychological theorists have consistently emphasized the importance of perceptions of control over life events. One of the earliest instances of this is when Adler argued that people strive for proficiency in their lives. Heider later proposed that humans have a strong motive to control their environment and White hypothesized a basic competence motive that people satisfy by exerting control. Weiner, an attribution theorist, modified his original theory of achievement motivation to include a controllability dimension. Kelley then argued that people’s failure to detect noncontingencies may result in their attributing uncontrollable outcomes to personal causes. Later on, Lefcourt argued that the sense of control, the illusion that one can exercise personal choice, has a definite and a positive role in sustaining life. Nearer to the present, Taylor and Brown argued that positive illusions, including the illusion of control, foster mental health.

The illusion is more common in familiar situations, and in situations where the person knows the desired outcome. Feedback that emphasizes success rather than failure can increase the effect, while feedback that emphasizes failure can decrease or reverse the effect. The illusion is weaker for depressed individuals and is stronger when individuals have an emotional need to control the outcome. The illusion is strengthened by stressful and competitive situations, including financial trading. Though people are likely to overestimate their control when the situations are heavily chance-determined, they also tend to underestimate their control when they actually have it, which runs contrary to some theories of the illusion and its adaptiveness. People also showed a higher illusion of control when they were allowed to become familiar with a task through practice trials, make their choice before the event happens like with throwing dice, and when they can make their choice rather than have it made for them with the same odds. People even are more likely to show control when they have more answers right at the beginning than at the end even when the people had the same number of correct answers.

The illusion might arise because people lack direct introspective insight into whether they are in control of events. This has been called the introspection illusion. Instead they may judge their degree of control by a process that is often unreliable. As a result, they see themselves as responsible for events when there is little or no causal link. In one study, college students were in a virtual reality setting to treat a fear of heights using an elevator. Those who were told that they had control, yet had none felt as though they had as much control as those who actually did have control over the elevator. Those who were led to believe they did not have control said they felt as though they had little control.

THE REALITY OF CHAOS

The true meaning of the word chaos is different from its general usage as a state of confusion or lacking any order. In chaos theory, chaos refers to an apparent lack of order in a system that nevertheless obeys particular laws or rules. Chaos is not disorder but a higher order of the universe.

Chaotic systems appear to be disorderly, even random. But they are not. Beneath the random behavior is a sense of order and pattern. Truly random systems are not chaotic.In a world of order, chaos rules.

Chaotic systems are deterministic. This means they have something determining their behavior. Chaotic systems are very sensitive are very sensitive to the initial conditions. A very slight change in the starting point can lead to enormously different outcomes. The theory behind how small deviations can lead to large deviations lies at the heart of chaos theory.

Chaos theory is the study of non-linear, dynamic systems. Using Chaos theory, you can predict the patterns of the stock market, the weather and everything that has unfoldment.Chaos theory shows that the occurrence of events is not linear but holographic in nature. The image of the whole can be found within any part of it. Self- similarity is symmetry across scale. It implies recursion, pattern inside of pattern.

Playing with chaos mathematics, science and computer programming produced images which looked like nature. Ferns and clouds and mountains and bacteria. Simple mathematical equations fed into a computer could model patterns every bit as irregular and “chaotic” as a waterfall. They can be applied to weather patterns, coastlines, and all sorts of natural phenomena. Particular equations would result in pictures resembling specific types of leaves, the possibilities were incredible. They seemed to match the behavior of the stock exchange and populations and chemical reactions all at the same time. They suggested answers to questions which had been asked for centuries about the flow of fluids as they moved from a smooth to irregular flow, about the formation of snowflakes, about the swing of a pendulum, about tides and heartbeats and cauliflower and rock formations. The chaos pattern is the pattern of the universe.

PINBALL FACTS AND KNOWLEDGES

HOW TO MAKE A SIMPLE PINBALL MACHINE

Instructions

1. • 1
     Make the pinball table. Glue the top of an empty cereal box shut. Cut off the front panel of the cereal box, leaving rounded corners for support and decoration (see image).
   • 2
     Round the top inside of the box so the ball is guided around the corners when it flies out of the chute. Cut a strip of cardboard the same length as the pinball table. This piece should come from the piece of cardboard cut out in step 1. Glue this strip sideways into the top inside of the box to round out the corners and guide the ball.
   • 3
     Add another piece of cardboard (I chose to make a curved band) to the top left corner of this arch so that the ball does not keep going along the arch. Install a chute to the right side of the table by taking another strip from the cardboard panel you cut out of the box in step 1. Cut it one inch wide and a length equal to that of the box.
   • 4
     Bend a 1/4 centimeter of this strip down one long edge. At the top of this fold, cut the 1/4-centimeter flap at increments 1-centimeter apart, going down the side, for 4 inches. The cuts should penetrate 1/4-centimeter (the entire width of the flap) until it hits the fold. Orient this strip with the 1/4-centimeter flap facing down and folded toward the inside of the table.
   • 5
     Curve the top as needed to match the contour of the wall. Give enough space in the chute so the ball will progress smoothly from the bottom to the top. Glue the strip in place to finish the chute and hold it until the glue cools enough to let go.
   • 6
     
     
     

     Make the plunger. Cut a strip of cardboard 2-inches wide and fold it into a triangle. The "front" of the triangle should be the width of the chute. Make a dent in the front to make it a little concave (curved inward). The leg of the triangle that you pull on should be 5 inches long. The other leg (on the other side of the front) should be 2 inches long and dented inward in the middle. Half of this dented leg should be flush against the other 5-inch leg. Glue the part of the two legs that touch each other. Cut a vertical 2-inch slit at the right hand corner facing you. Slip the long corner of the plunger triangle into the slit so it sticks out of the box through the vertical slot 1-inch. Outside the box where the plunger is sticking out, cut a small 1/4-centimeter notch on the top and bottom edges of the plunger.
   • 7
     Make the plunger stop. With the plunger still positioned as before, cut a new piece of cardboard the width of the chute and with two 1-inch panels on either side. Cut the height of the plunger stop short enough to allow contact with the ball when the plunger hits the stop. Make the stop tall enough to prevent the ball from following the plunger back.
   • 8
     Cut the plunger guide out of a cardboard strip that is 2 inches wide and 4 inches long. Fold the flap 2-inches in from one side and another 2-inches in from the first fold. Fold the cardboard in half and slip it over the plunger inside the table where it goes through the slot. Glue the side facing the outer wall in place.
   • 9
     
     
     

     Make the flippers. Cut a strip of cardboard 3 inches long. Fold the strip at one end 3/4 inch tall. Cut a second strip of paper 2 inches long that is also 3/4 inch long. Roll the second trip into a roll and hold it with a rubber band. Put hot glue into and on both ends of this roll. When the glue cools, remove the rubber band.
   • 10
     Glue this roll, on end, just behind the fold in the first strip on the side toward the outside of the table. Put glue along the edge of the cylinder Where it contacts the folded edge. Cut a wedge in the flipper on the long flap to make a triangle with the roll forming the base and the folded cardboard forming one side. Do not cut past the roll. Do the same thing to make a mirror image of the one you just made. Hold the first flipper up to a mirror if you are having trouble visualizing the next one you will make.
   • 11
     Glue on the table legs. Make and glue four rolls for the 1-inch-diameter legs of the table. Two of them should be 1-1/4 inch long and the other two legs should be a 1/2 inch long. The two table legs closest to you should be the two short ones. Glue the table legs at the corners of the table. This is especially critical for the two front table legs.
   • 12
     Make a fifth table leg. Fold in half, one time, a 2-inch square piece of cardboard. Glue it in on itself. Use this to make a fifth leg on the center front of the table. Glue it here and let it sit flush against the table with the front two legs.
   • 13
     Cut a slot across the table wide enough to insert the ends of your flippers (up to the wedge). You can see in the picture that it was cut back at an angle so that it did not interfere with the ball when the flipper was pulled. Cut two squares of cardboard that are the width of the slot hole and glue them to the under side of the table to patch the flipper hole. Repeat the same process for the other flipper leg.
   • 14
     Complete plunger installation. Flip the table over. Put the flipper handles on either side of the 5th table leg. Get a 1-inch wide strip of cardboard the width of the table. Glue it across the two short table legs and glue it to the fifth leg in the middle of the strip. Do not glue the flipper handles to the table or this strip. At this stage, trim the flipper handles to 1-1/4 inches wide where they touch the table legs so they have more room to move.
   • 15
     Add the springs. Tie three rubber bands together at one central location. Put one loop around each of the two flipper handles. Cut two 1/2-inch deep slits at the top edge of the pinball table at the center with 1-inch separating them. Loop the third rubber band here.
   • 16
     Cut a small hole above and below the plunger stop on the right hand side of the box. Cut a rubber band and thread it through. Tie the loose ends of the rubber band, in which you cut to the same place on this new rubber band, to make a figure "8" shape, where one loop goes through the side of the box. Loop the other end of the figure 8 around handle of the plunger through the two notches. If the rubber bands are not tight enough, double them over to make them tight.
   • 17
     Make the bumpers. Fan fold a 12-inch-long strip of cardboard into 1-inch cardboard "plates." Pull the fan fold open so the first and last plates meet and glue them together.
   • 18
     Make the plates 2 inches long for the side bumpers. Glue cardboard tunnels and flaps to guide the ball.
   • 19
     Cut holes slightly smaller than the ball so the ball stops and you can add up your score up before popping the ball out from underneath. Assign a point score for everything so that you can count your score as you play or tally the score on a sheet of paper.

Tips & Warnings

• Use crate paper to make your machine pretty. Use the plastic from a large box of donuts (or fruit-leather) as a shield over the top of the box. The flippers are operated by pulling them outwards with your thumbs while your finger tips rest on the sides of the table and then letting go. The plunger works by pulling back on the plunger handle and letting go.
• Do not use balls that will break things or hurt when they fly out of the machine. Watch out for the rubber bands since they can snap unexpectedly; there is an element of risk for the user. Wear goggles when making this machine and when using it if the rubber bands are under significant tension. Do not cut yourself on your scissors or other sharp objects. Do not burn yourself with the hot glue gun/glue or anything hot.

source: http://www.ehow.com

PINBALL FACTS AND KNOWLEDGES

HOW TO PLAY PINBALL LIKE A PRO

1

Watch and listen to the game. In order for the profits to trickle back upward, operators need as many players as they can get. This means that the last thing anyone in the industry wants is players walking away from machines confused and frustrated because they couldn't understand what they were doing. To combat this, machines today give the player lots of instruction. But some beginner players don't realize this and this miss easy hints from the game. So while you are playing, look at and listen to the machine.

• "Look at" mostly means watching the display. Most games from roughly 1990 onward will tell the player what they need to do next. Keep an eye also on the play field lights: often if you don't know what you are doing, just hitting a target with a flashing light in front of it will do something.
• "Listen to" means just that. Pinball machines have had speech since the late 70s, and will verbally tell the player about things going on in the game. And even the sound effects are designed the cue the player in certain ways. Start listening to the sounds games make in conjunction with the things they do and you'll start to get the connection. And this isn't trivial: often the sound is meant to tell you something like, "Hey, I'm about to kick the ball at you really hard: be ready!

1. 2
   Learn the rules. It isn't just ball control, nudging and aim that makes the world's best players. Most modern machines have complicated rule sets, and learning what those rules are is a major part of getting high scores. Rule sheets for most modern titles can be found at the Pinball Archive.
2. 3
   Master the basics of flipping. While there will always be an element of chaos in pinball, in truth, very few balls that come down the playing field are completely out of the player's control. This is the key area which determines a player's skill level: bringing the ball under control. There are many advanced tricks, but for now let's address the basics:
• Don't flip both flippers. Flip only the flipper that you need to. Flipping both will actually sometimes cause the player to "drain" (lose the ball) when they didn't need to.
• After you've flipped, drop the flipper back down immediately. Leaving it up leaves a nice big gap for the ball to fall between.
• In general, don't flip any more than you need to. And as you'll discover, that's way less than you might at first think. Once you've got that down, you'll notice that if you hold the flipper up at the right time, you can bring the ball to a dead stop. Great! You've learned how to "catch" the ball. This is a critical element of good play. Catching the ball lets you both stop and think of what shot you want to try to take next and aim carefully for it. There are other things that it also affords the advanced player that we will get into later. And for all players, it lets you stop and take a quick drink, smoke, or answer your cell phone if you're careful.
• Some machines have more than two flippers. Before you start, be sure to look over the entire machine to find all of the flippers, so that you're ready when the ball is near any of them. (For that matter, some machines have more than two buttons. Some have an additional button on one or both sides that have special functions that come into play at various times in the game. Some have buttons on the lock bar, which is the metal bar above the glass that is closest to the player. Some have more than one plunger. Some have a gun or other type of auto-launch mechanism that at times will come into play for reasons other than just getting the ball onto the field. Be sure to note where all of the these things are, and pay attention to when it is time to use them.)
3. 4
   Get good at aiming. You've now gotten to the point where you can bring the ball to a stop consistently and you're learning about what shots you want to try for. Excellent. Now you need to learn how to hit them consistently. The most important rule for aiming is simply that the closer to the tip the ball is, the more to the opposite side it will go. So, for example, let's say you're holding the ball on the left flipper. You drop the flipper and let the ball roll down. If you flip again quickly, you'll send the ball more to the left. If you let the boll roll down a little more towards the tip of the flipper, the more you'll send the ball to the right.
• This is where instruction starts to slowly be taken over by instinct. While the above and other rules are accurate, in truth this is where you will need to start "learning" the machine--what direction and with what force a ball goes in conjunction with when and how you flip all comes down to the individual machine. Even two of the same machine can play very differently dependent upon a wide variety of physical factors: how strong the flippers are and what angles they are at, how clean the machine is, how steep the machine is, etc.
• Aiming is thus a combination of knowing the general physical rules for a pinball machine and knowing the specifics of the machine that is in front of you. If you shoot for a ramp on a machine that is the same as the one that you normally play, but the shot goes early, adjust yourself, and shoot later next time. You're not playing against other players; you're playing against, and with, the machine.
4. 5
   Nudge and tilt. Don't be shy: a certain amount of nudging is considered perfectly fair play, and done right, can often save a ball that might have otherwise been lost.
• Even more than aiming, when and how to nudge is an art form. Even among the experts, no two players approach this with the same philosophy. Some are aggressive, some passive, some judicious, and some wild. What is important is simply to remember that machines do have tilt sensors, and if you tilt, not only does your ball end, but in most games you will lose any end-of-ball bonus points that you might have accumulated; in some cases, this bonus can be enormous.
• Most modern games will also warn you that you are playing too hard. Take the warnings seriously. The way that tilt bobs work, sometimes the moment you get the first warning you are already doomed, since the tilt bob will keep bouncing back and forth and hitting its surrounding ring even if you stopped touching the machine entirely. More often, though, you'll get your warnings, which build up over the course of the ball. Two to three tilt warnings is usually the default.
• Do not hit the front coin door in frustration. Really, don't abuse the machines, period: these are expensive games, most operators don't fix them all that often, and it's just plain anti-social. But added to this is that many 80s and 90s games have "slam tilt" sensors on the front door. If this goes off, your game automatically ends.
5. 6
   Perfect your stance. We've talked about how you play, but how do you stand? What is the best way to position yourself as you flip away? Again, there is no single standard here. Many players simply stand mostly straight, with a slight lean towards the game, no frills. Some hunch down. Some put one leg far ahead of the other. A few cross their legs. And a few even do a Karate Kid and stand mostly on one leg, seriously. Also some players play with gloves to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome. Some play sitting down. Some junior players stand on a milk crate. Some play with and iPod on or with cigarette in their mouth. One player once played routinely with a miner's hat on. Whatever works for you, here is what is important to consider:
• First, whatever stance you choose should be one that you can remain comfortable at for a long time. A good game can last 15-20 minutes. An epic game can last hours. Make sure that whatever you choose it's so comfortable that you don't think about it.
• Second, make sure that your body is physically centered enough that you can nudge the machine forward without losing your equilibrium. A pinball machine weighs about 300 pounds; giving it just the right amount of force takes more physical precision than you would think.
• Finally, don't give a hoot what other people think of your style. Pinball is likebowling or golf in this respect. When the ball is moving you might subconsciously strike all sorts of absurd poses, but as far as the game is concerned, a jackpot is a jackpot. Do what works.
6. 7
   Join a pinball league. "Huh? A pinball league? Those exist?" Why yes, quite a lot of them do. Pinball leagues and tournaments have been around for decades, despite getting scant media coverage. Various web sites listing them come and go. Much of what you'll learn will come from just watching others play and getting ideas. There are also all kinds of online communities; just about every major social networking site (such asMySpace) that includes groups or forums has at least a few pinheads mulling about. However, what is arguably still the best gathering spot is in the ancient land of Usenet, at the newsgroup rec.games.pinball.
7. 8
   Enjoy it. Like any game, the object of pinball is ultimately to have fun. Sometimes, you may need to be reminded of this. Pinball is awfully fun when you're playing well. When you're not, or when the game just isn't being nice to you, it can get highly frustrating. Learn early on when to chalk it up to a spat of bad luck and keep on trucking, and learn when to just walk away and come back for another round another day.

source: http://www.wikihow.com

PINBALL FACTS AND KNOWLEDGES

LONGEST PINBALL GAME 

Official

The longest pinball marathon lasted 28 hours and was achieved by Alessandro Parisi (Australia) at the Westland Shopping Centre in Whyalla, Australia on 22-23 January 2007.

source: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com

Not Official

Story dated April 14, 2004

The record holder in question is Ronald M Mowry who claims to be the very first to hold the record for the longest continuous pinball playing session at 72 hours and 8 minutes. He reached the record time almost 30 years ago playing a Gottlieb Super Soccer game.

Ronald told Pinball News how the marathon session came about.

"In 1974 there was a movie promotion put on by a major radio station. The movie was Tommy. There were 15 pinball machines at a bar in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla."

The aim was to set the world record for continuous pinball play. There was no established record to beat so this was an attempt to set the standard and become the first Pinball Wizard. Would-be contestants had to send in a postcard with their name, address and telephone number and fifteen names from an entry of 35,000 were chosen to compete. Ronald did not enter the draw and thus was not one of those chosen to play, so he decided to set up his own record attempt.

"I was in a small sandwich shop in Hallendale Beach Fla. I was representing all the unlucky people that did not have their postcard selected to compete for the world's record!"

The promotion's organisers offered to set up a sixteenth game for Ronald to play but he declined. He says the method of choosing players by a lottery was illegal at the time, but more importantly, he wanted to set the record in the true pinball way, with no free play - paying to play if you don't win a replay or match.

"Their machines were rigged for continuous playing where as I had to compete for a free game at all time. There were prizes awarded to their winners - first prize was a Wizard pinball machine, second prize was $250.00 in silver dollars & third prize was a date with Ann-Margret to the opening of the movie Tommy."

Ronald had been training for the record attempt by staying awake for three days and sleeping the next three along with swimming and exercising. "It was fun staying awake that long because I was on the people's team that think that playing pinball is a sport and you must respect the rules of the game."

So one Friday at 7:55pm the first quarter was dropped into the coin slot and the record attempt was under way. Customers to the shop were asked to sign a sheet confirming that Ronald was still playing during their visit.



President Richard Nixon had recently resigned from office, so Ronald tilted away the first ball to mark the occasion.

He was allowed a five minute break each hour during which he did push-ups, sit-ups and running to keep the blood circulating in his legs. Meals consisted mainly of sandwiches (this was in a sandwich shop, remember) and were eaten during play.

The record was finally set after 709 games when he had to stop playing to avoid physical injury. "I was convinced by the paramedics to stop playing because I was losing feeling in my legs and they started to swell. I didn't win their prize but I beat them all and set the record of 72hrs and 8min of constant playing of a pinball machine."

As with the first ball, Ronald tilted away the last ball to commemorate the President's resignation. No other tilts occurred during the session.

Playing for all that time used up plenty of quarters. Despite winning 145 free games, over $100 went into the coin slot during the pinball marathon - $20 of Ronald's own money, $35 from the sale of movie star patches and the remainder was given by well-wishers. The money was was then donated to the Big Brothers & Big Sisters Association.

Getting the feat recognised by the Guinness Book Of Records was more of a challenge. The publishers in New York rejected the submission saying pinball was considered by Guinness to be a non-competitive sport and therefore ineligible.

The best hope for a legitimate pinball endurance record now rests with the Twin Galaxies organisation who chart the top scores of video and pinball competitions. The next edition of their Official Video Game & Pinball Book Of World Records will include Ronald's achievement.

And now, almost 30 years after the record was set, Ronald is inviting pinball players around the world to try to beat his record. "Play the game like the sport that is.
You put the money in the slot and push the button. The game begins when you release the spring. You can not delay; you must start playing, no stalling. Now, at the end of the game you either win a free game by score or match. Not doing that you must feed the machine and play again. You keep doing this for 72hrs &9min, you will have beaten my record!"

So, are you ready for the challenge? Could you play continuously for more that three days or perhaps you've already beaten the record?

Ronald has this message for you: "I Ronald M. Mowry here by challenge the world to beat my record of 72hrs and 8min. I set the record 30 years ago and it's time to get it
on."

source: http://www.pinballnews.com