I’ve never understood pinball. It’s a metal ball that with a random movement that you hit like a baseball. If you are lucky, you get a good score. I wrongly assumed that no amount of play could lead to a predictable outcome. Much like Street Fighter or Madden. I knew that I was lost, but I just could not put my finger on why people liked this game.
A while back, I started doing some preliminary research for my MAME video game cabinet (more on that in a later post) and I had a totally original idea hit me. “Why can’t you place a video monitor in a pinball cabinet and play it virtually.” A quick search on the internet for “video pinball” showed me that this was not a new idea and that entire communities exist for their very project. And I learned that this is not for the faint of heart. It’s essentially a hack – the homebrew software works in very specific configurations and it takes a lot of “change something, test it, back out and change something again, test it” to get anything working. This happens every time you add a table. And it breaks anytime you update or change any software on your machine.
I digress…
Obviously, I need to do this. But, one of my New Year’s resolutions is to take a step back and see if I truly have an interest or ability in something before I invest the time and money into it. Not just taking it on in the interest of saving it for later. So, for the sake of research, I loaded up and headed to my local arcade. And for the sake of safety, I decided that contracting the Coronavirus was not worth it and doubled back.
Instead, I found Craig Pullen explaining how to play pinball on YouTube. He’s ranked 84th in the world based on stats from the International Flipper Pinball Association. As it turns out, it’s a very predictable game of physics and geometry. It’s entirely skill-based and there’s a secret – the ball doesn’t have to be moving at all times. The only way to validate those claims was to get a digital table and try it out. Lots of frustration later, I sat down to my first skill testing attempt.
But sitting at a desktop just won’t due! Side by side screens is not an accurate representation of a pinball machine. Many late nights later, I finally had something up and running.
I present for your approval, the first iteration of my virtual pinball cabinet.
Although the game of pinball is entrancing, the electronics involved in a fully decked out virtual pinball cabinet are what really make me giggle. We’ll add this to our list of projects and see if it still shines as bright after a few billion points.