Thonk! Bonk! Screech! V-r-o-o-o-m! Thwap!
These sounds of Milwaukee were heard in a darkened ballroom, as crowds, mostly men, gathered last weekend for the second annual World Pinball Championships, a place where no quarter was given to the weak of knee or the faint of heart.
It was a time for testing-of the limits of reflexes, concentration and the ability to catch a ball on a flipper, hold it and shoot out, for example, the `r` in G+R+E+E+D, a pathway to success on ”The Addams Family,” one of four new machines introduced at the three-day competition. Arrayed in three major categories-Pin Master, Open and Women-400 competitors battled for a table-full of plaques and trophies, one of which, won by Dave Hegge of Brookfield, was three feet tall and topped with an eagle in flight.
Entry fees, for contestants, ran from $5 to $20. Machines cost 50 cents a play (though the money went to charity). Set at the highest level of difficulty, they gave no free games and no extra balls. In a room full of wizards, that speeded up play because, as somebody noted, ”if you had free games, you`d never get near a machine.”
For 31 hours, the tournament area, set up in the Imperial Regency Ballroom of the Ramada Inn Convention Center, was open for practice, ceremonies, competition, milling around, picking up tips, studying rules, hitting the change machines and-for the contestants, who came from 16 states, Canada, England and, in one case, Hungary-standing up to be measured.
They were up against four new machines, the latest variations of a pastime that goes back to ancient Greece, where people in chitons played games with round stones and holes dug in hillsides.
In Milwaukee, under rules that required ”neat, clean, untattered clothing and appearance,” contestants used spring plungers to propel steel balls to the tops of glass-covered, sloped playing areas.
Body English is important
Then, with help from gravity, flippers and physical torques known as
”body English,” they guided them through gates, between posts, off bumpers, over sensors. There was flashing of lights and clanging of bells.
”Pinball,” writer Andrew Cohen recently observed in GQ magazine, ”is garish, gaudy, loud and tacky. A game of cheap theatrics and visceral pleasures, of delicate tactile feedback from bumper and flipper action. It also caters to a short attention span.”
Like pool, the allure of playing pinball rests partly on its poor reputation, an atmosphere gained, GQ went on, by spending ”nearly its entire life hanging around in bars and bus terminals.”
Several years ago, the modern sport, which goes back 60 years to the birth of contemporary pinball machines, was buried by such video upstarts as Space Invaders and Pac-Man.
These days, pinball is back, reports the Amusement and Music Operators Association and the International Flipper Pinball Association, co-sponsors of the championships.
Industry bounces back
The organizations` figures tell the tale. In 1975, pinball machines took in 80 percent of all coin-operated amusement revenue. In 1984, after a wave of video games, they sank to 5 percent.
Last year, fueled by new ideas taken from TV and the movies, revenue from the more than 1 million pinball machines in service in the United States bonked up to 33 percent, compared with 45 percent for video games and much of the rest for compact disc jukeboxes-a fair slice of change in what is now, for coin-driven amusements, a $7.5 billion-a-year market.
Here`s what`s hot these days:
– Bally`s ”The Addams Family,” a game with a plotline, like the movie, of trying to crack into the hiding place of the family`s wealth.
– Data East`s ”Hook,” based on last year`s Peter Pan movie.
– Gottlieb`s ”Operation Thunder,” mindful of recent high-tech adventures in Iraq and Kuwait, with zooming jets, identified as ”Freedom Fighters.”
– Williams` ”The Getaway,” updating one of the industry`s all-time hits, and ”High Speed,” with a SuperCharger that ”spins balls at dizzying speeds.”
They were playing `em all last weekend, hunched over 20 copies of each model, the noises from 80 machines, all in play, drowning out all but shouted conversations. There was money at stake, about $15,000. But the top prizes-about $500-were not as important as the sense of mastery that comes from playing pinball-and playing it well.
Over the years, pinball has evolved from marble-based machines that cost a penny to play to whirly-bonging mechanisms that, for 50 cents, offer such breakthroughs as thumper bumpers, drop targets, electro-mechanical ball returns and multi-ball operation.
Yet, it was the flipper, introduced in 1947, that changed pinball from mostly chance to mostly skill, a game requiring considerable hand-eye coordination.
Practice is the key
The key to winning is simple.
”Practice, practice,” said Dave Hegge, winner of the Pin Master singles competition, who by day is an installer of pay phones for the Illinois Bell Telephone Co.
”My biggest problem was the flu,” Hegge added, ”but towards the end everything fell into place.” His reflexes were good, he said. ”That`s a big part of it. Also, anticipation, sensing how the ball is going to come at you. It`s not just banging the ball around. Every shot should have a point to it.” Hegge, 31, has been playing seriously since high school days, when he started at an arcade near a summer camp in Eagle River, Wis. Now he plays ”a couple of hours a week,” hopping between game rooms in the western suburbs.
An intense player, he has developed his own stance, resting one leg against a machine leg, leaning in. ”Some players squat, to get a closer view,” he said. ”Some stand back. Some get up high. It`s whatever you`re comfortable with.”
With today`s faster machines, ”you need faster reflexes, to handle faster balls,” noted Lyman Sheats Jr., 26, a top-rated player from Wayland, Mass., warming up for competition (though he eventually lost out). ”You need to be able to stop the ball, set up shots, endure.”
Sheats recently played 20 games during a tournament in New York. ”That might not seem like a lot,” he said, ”but it is when you have to keep your concentration in focus.”
”Use the right flipper to shoot left and the left flipper to shoot right,” said Roger Sharpe, 43, director of marketing for Williams Electronics Inc., 3401 N. California Ave., the world`s largest designer and manufacturer of pinball and electronic games.
”Most people just want to survive, but like tennis, you learn to swing early, or late, or in the sweet spot.”
Sharp pinball players learn to think many moves ahead, Sharpe said. They know about passing shots, backboarding, catching a ball with a flipper, aiming and hitting a target.
”It takes time to plot strategy, to be consistent. Also, no pinball machine ever plays the same twice. Pinball has a great ability to bring you back to reality. Just when you think you`ve got it made, it defeats you. That`s what`s kept pinball popular for 60 years.”
”My favorite was `The Addams Family,` ” said Barb Chablewski, activities director at a nursing home in Park Ridge, and a member of the winning women`s pinball team. ”There`s a lot to do. A lot of features. It keeps you going.”
In recent years, pinball machines have moved beyond pure mechanics into themes. Avid players fondly recalled Gottlieb`s ”33 Bad Girls,” with hot-pink bumpers saying ”Kiss Me.”
And three machines from Williams: ”Truck Stop,” with its `50s diner motif; ”Taxi,” based on a cab ride around Manhattan; and ”Whirlwind,” with a voice box (”The storm is coming! Return to your homes!”) and a fan to blow wind into a player`s face when the storm finally broke.
Machines are costly
According to the competition sponsors, it takes about a year, and about $1 million, for a team of six people to bring a pinball design to fruition. Machines sell for about $3,000.
In Milwaukee, manufacturers representatives and designers mingled with the crowds of spectators, answering questions and pointing out nuances that players might have missed. Talk was that ”The Addams Family” might be a major hit, moving in excess of 20,000 units.
”The opening Skill Shot is to Thing`s Eject Saucer,” Sharpe said.
”From there, the ball is fed to the middle-right flipper. You have two choices. You can shoot for Train Wreck, for 1 million and then 5 million points, or up the left ramp.
The ramp feeds to Thing`s Mini Flipper, a chance for you to shoot into the Swamp. Any ball in the Swamp scores Graveyard Value, built up by the Jet Bumpers. But if it`s from Thing`s Flipper, you get five times that.
”Hitting the Bookcase lights the letters in G+R+E+E+D. That opens the path to the Vault and a potential Multi-Ball. You can go to the Electric Chair to activate whatever feature is lit on the Mansion.
Then there are added bonuses for Hit Cousin It. Or getting into Fester`s Tunnel Hunt. Or Raise the Dead, where a hit on each of five bumpers awards 3 million points.”
10 billion points?
On ”Hook,” done up with lavish pictures of pirates and mutilation devices, there are chances to play around Lost Boys` Island, the Tree House, Windcoaster ramps and the Crock Clock. If an ace were caroming combo shots off certain ramps at certain times, scores could reach as high as 10 billion. ”Is that possible?” programmer Neal Falconer was asked. ”Sure, if you take off the glass,” he said, and let players manually keep the ball in play forever. According to its designer, Ray Tanzer, ”Operation Thunder” provides
”the excitement of being in a war zone,” flying through mountain passes, ducking rocket blasts, attacking a power plant, strafing trains and bombing enemy bunkers. For successful warriors, a loudspeaker announces, ”The mother of all battles is about to begin. This is what you`ve been trained for, Eagle Three!”
Players, if they survive, receive ”a message from your country`s president, promotion to five-star general and a fantastic light show.”
”The Getaway,” based on aspects of movie car chases, has a gear shift at the front to launch balls into a succession of ramps, freeways, target banks, speed loops, hairpin turns and tunnels, while dodging attack helicopters, police cars and other perils of modern traffic.
Its background noises, as designer Steve Ritchie recently noted, include
”a recording of us laying about 150 yards of rubber on California Avenue, crossing Irving Park.”
The universe of pinball, it seems, is expanding. Along with picking up brochures for Pinball Expo `92 (”Games from the `50s to the `90s”) in mid-November at the Ramada Inn O`Hare, players at the Milwaukee championships were asked to fill in survey forms.
Did they participate in flipper pinball leagues? Would they like to?
How much time did they spend at bars, taverns, arcades and bowling centers?
Did they also spend money on jukeboxes, soft drinks, cigarettes, liquor, beer or food? Where would they like future conventions to be held? Florida?
Las Vegas?
Meanwhile, a novice wondered as the results were being tabulated, did the experts have any suggestions for beginners? ”Yes,” advised player Tom Cahill. ”Read the instructions. Most people don`t do that.”
