[3 min read] Pinball is a journey, a collection of puzzles bound by the rules of physics.
Portable AC, the kind you might find in a subway station in late July, created pockets of cool relief in the large hotel ballroom hosting the Pintastic Pinball Conference. The box office was flanked by tables of merchandise showcasing the uniquely wild, pinball art that is a mix of 90’s animation, 80’s CD album cover, laced with psychedelic swirls from the 60’s and 70’s. And after passing a retro-cade filled with parents introducing kids to Galaxian, and after wandering past a stack of $3 cupcakes topped like pinball bumpers, I wandered into the main event.
“Play Pinball…Hail Satan!”
Crammed with greying GenX’ers, wizened Boomers, and tattooed Millennials with smaller kids in tow, an aura of heat stoked by these devotees and their machines hung low in the air. League T-shirts were common (“Silverball Rumble” and “Belles & Chimes”) as were playful retro twists like Pac Man chomping ghost-colored beer mugs. A trio of Metal folk, tattooed and pierced, sat comfortably in a darkened booth towards the rear. “Play Pinball…Hail Satan!” adorning T-shirts and stickers.
Star Wars imagery, from every generation, blends in effortlessly and my choice to wear a vintage-style X-wing fighter schematic was possibly the best decision I could have made.
A Wizard on a Journey
I walked down the rows of lights and sounds and surveyed this glowing tabletop land. Like a book, you choose your game based on a title and flipping through a few pages. Earlier machines have echoes of baseball or rockets, and in the 70’s someone even decided to create one called “Swinger.” Hollywood becomes the predominant theme at some point, and the titles of movie and TV shows start to overwhelm the offerings until video becomes part of the game itself. Using a silver ball, players must vanquish escaped terrors like “The Mummy” back to their B-Rated film clips in “Elvira’s House of Horrors.”
Pinball is not a game of chance. Pinball is a journey, a collection of puzzles bound by the rules of physics that a wizard can navigate and bend with a well-timed flip or nudge. It’s a story with a few well-lit paths and curves, a silver-tongued narrator, and a player with heroic skill and a few extra quarters.
