Skill Shot
Skill Shot is anti-racist and anti-fascist. We strive to be inclusive, build community, and embrace anyone who shares the love of pinball (unless you’re a jerk). The pinball scene is largely white. It’s important to reflect on why, and how to continue to make our community more accessible. Pinball is for everyone.
Here’s something to do when you have time on your hands – print out the images and color them how you like! These pages are full size (8.5″ x 11″) and will probably work best with colored pencils – if you want to use crayons or some other medium you may want to use thick paper.
Team Skill Shot unfortunately did not get our spring issue #56 to the printer before the virus pandemic started. Given that most of our distribution points are now-closed bars and arcades, we’ve decided to publish issue #56 online in the print layout format. Please note that we have not updated any of the ads or text since the outbreak started and you should assume any events mentioned for March and April have been canceled. On desktop browsers, click each spread to open, then click the top-right corner to zoom in. Text versions of each post coming soon.
November 2020 note: the WordPress updates may effect the slideshow feature and you may need to open each image in a new tab to see it clearly.
Printable version of the crossword: Initial Thoughts
Online playable version of the crossword: Initial Thoughts
Play the Skill Shot Crossword Puzzle online or print it out! You can reveal answers individually in the online version.
Play the crossword online or print it out. You can reveal answers individually in the online version!
Try out the new Skill Shot crossword! Play in your browser or print it out. You can reveal answers individually in the browser version.
Observers of the Seattle pinball scene know intuitively that pinball has had a big resurgence in recent years. Still, seeing the graph below is impressive. Seattle has experienced near-linear growth in the number of games on location over the course of 7 years!
We seem to have hit a plateau for games on location, and it’s hard to imagine we could support any other major venues. But the graph shows similar past lengths of flat growth, and new locations are still coming. We may not yet have reached the mountaintop.
Seattle’s pinball boom has been concentrated to a few significant locations: Seattle Pinball Museum, Full Tilt Ballard, Add-a-Ball, and Flip Flip Ding Ding. Those four locations account for 35% of Seattle’s 281 games.
Removing SPM’s additions shows almost no change in the ID
Fish Tales was once Seattle’s most popular game. From mid-2009 to mid-2011 there were as many as 12 Fish Tales on location. Even the current most popular and perennial favorite Medieval Madness only has 11 machines on location. Despite its one-time popularity, there are now just 5 Fish Tales in Seattle.
First Sunday @ Shorty’s 12/1 – 1st Rage Against the Machines (Tim Tournay’s team),
2nd Flipper Babies (Kayla Greet’s team), 3rd Team Warfield (Michael Warfield’s team), 4th Shoulda Stayed Home (Levi Dittebrandt’s team)
Babes in Pinland 12/5 – 1st Nycole Hyatt, 2nd Amanda Kunzi
SPL 2013 Finals 12/7 – 1st Cayle George, 2nd Dave Stewart, 3rd Kevin Birrell, 4th Matt
Cohen, Wild Card Winner Bobby Conover
Flip Off Hunger Seattle 12/14 – 1st Aaron Garberding, 2nd Steven Ackley, 3rd Nicholas Polimenakos, 4th Elijah Nelson
Olaf’s Monthly Pinball Tournament 12/22 1st Andrew Nunes (STRIKELESS 10-0!), 2nd Nigel Colbert, 3rd Nycole Yvonne Hyatt, 4th Levi Dittebrandt
Add-a-Ball Wednesday Flip Off 12/4 – 1st Sergey Posrednikov, 2nd Geoff Simons, 3rd 
(tie) Eric Harris and 3rd Dave Stewart. 12/11 – 1st Dave Stewart, 2nd Geoff Simons, 3rd Sophie Spicard, 3rd Andrew Nunes
John John’s Tuesday Flip Off 12/10 – 1st Elijah Nelson, 2nd Travis Echert, 3rd Sam Atlas, 4th Geoff Simons. 12/17 – 1st Geoff Simons, 2nd Zac Petersen, 3rd Travis Echert, 4th Heather Loudon
Full Tilt Ballard Weekly 12/2 – 1st Bobby Conover, 2nd Aaron Bendickson, 3rd Raymond Davidson, 4th Danny Rashid. 12/9 – 1st Kevin Birrell, 2nd Andrew Nunes, 3rd Raymond Davidson, 4th Matt Galbraith. 12/16 – 1st Kevin Birrell, 2nd Nigel Colbert, 3rd Raymond Davidson, 4th Heather Loudon. 12/23 – 1st Raymond Davidson, 2nd Kevin Birrell, 3rd Bobby Conover, 4th Neri Osmanovic. 12/30 – 1st Raymond Davidson, 2nd Kevin Birrell, 3rd Heather Loudon, 4th (tie) Aaron Bendickson and Bobby Conover