Skill ShotDorky’s Valentine Day Couples Tournament 
(Feb 14) 1. Gordon Brown and Amida Kunzi. 2. Couple unknown (contact SS and we will list you). 3. Jay Hatch and Amzeah Smith.
AC/DC Launch Party at Dorky’s (Feb 17) Division A. Jeff Gagnon. Division B. Eden Stamm.
AC/DC Tourney at Seattle Pinball Museum (Feb 18) 1. Dale Garbuth. 2. Barian Formosa. 3. Andrew Cole. 4. Matt Cohn.
Congrats to all!
Seattle Pinball League (Feb 12) 1. Raymond Davidson, 2. Cayle George, 3. Jeff Gagnon, 4. Rodney Olsen
Pinbrew at Dorky’s (Feb 4) 1. Jason Hatch, 2. Raymond Davidson, 3. Cayle George, 4. James Edes
First Sunday at Shorty’s (Feb 5) 1. Paul Sonier, 2. Jason Hatch, 3. Gordon Ornelas, 4. Jesus Garcia, 5. Erin Cox, 6. Adam Jenkins
Another excellent new way to play pinball with your friends: King for a Day! Here’s how to play: Go to a pinball-related event and find the host or person of honor. He/she then picks their favorite (or least favorite) pinball machine in the room and plays a one-player game on it. That person’s score is recorded as the King (or Queen) for a Day score. Contestants try to match that score in a one-player game. The contestant with the closest score wins! You can play for money (I like $1 buy-ins for 4 tries, winner-take-all) or prizes (bragging rights included). You can go over or under the King’s score, and the decision to allow tilting is up to the tournament official. It’s more fun to play on a game that the King or Queen dislikes (or is bad at) because the score will likely be low enough to allow for more inexperienced contestants to have a chance.
King for a Day is a super-easy way to play and it’s usually a big hit. It works great at 
birthday parties (mine, won by King Micah Parrish, who took Sagel’s prize money and used it to get drunk), holiday get-togethers (Thanksgiving at Liberty House, won by Queen Katy Jacobson, who gave her prize money to Kevin Pittman to buy socks) and babyshowers, like the Add-a-Baby Tournament held at Headley and Claire’s and won by King Brian Chesbrough and Queen Katy Jacobson. And congrats to Simon and Stephanie Stocker on their new arrival!!
Bola Salvada!
Originally published in Skill Shot 22, January 2012
Back in October, Stern’s latest release Transformers debuted with both a bang and a 
whimper. There were a total of five different launch parties and tournaments held locally, and from what we heard they were all well attended. The Seattle Waterfront Arcade, Seattle Pinball Museum, Dorky’s, Shorty’s, and the new Full Tilt Ice Cream in Ballard all held events during the last two weekends in October. It’s pretty cool that our region has enough interest in pinball to support all of these events (even attracting people from out of state), but there seems to be some stress involved with the moving of all these machines from one venue to another and hosting the tournaments in a timely and efficient manner.
The Launch Party at Shorty’s was the site of some anguish with two different start times published. Some would-be participants were denied entry to the tournament even while they were waiting for their turn to play. Since we were not there, it’s not possible for us to know all the facts. It seems that a combination of miscommunication, poor timing on a busy night, and perhaps some inattention on the part of the tournament officiators may 
have contributed to the hurt feelings and anger of some of the attendees. Since this was the first time Shorty’s has hosted a Stern launch party, we hope that won’t be the last and that lessons were learned by all involved. Hopefully any future launch parties will happen at a better time (for everyone). May we suggest a Sunday afternoon?
In less anguished news: Full Tilt Ice Cream in Ballard has finally opened after a summer of delays. They were able to squeak out an opening in time for the aforementioned Transformers launch with a few other pins (and free beer!). Because of their 10+ pins, Full Tilt Ballard has established itself as a hot spot for underage pinball players over the past months. Unfortunately they have also gained a somewhat shaky reputation as many of their pins are in less-than-perfect condition, sometimes breaking down within hours of 
being placed onsite. While older players may take this in stride (Space Age Amusements services all the Full Tilt locations), the youngsters seem to bristle at this because they don’t have as many venues to play. Welcome to pinball, kids!
Over in Fremont, Add-a-Ball Amusements has reopened as a pinball coffee shop/tavern, and is definitely not for kids. The scooter repair shop that once shared the space has been totally removed and replaced with a nice selection of tables and unique games such as an old-school soccer game. The pinball machines here are in great shape and include older games you won’t find anywhere else, such as Dragon Fist, Jumping Jack, and Mr. and Mrs. Pac-man. Plus — they are almost all 25 cents a game! Add-a-Ball’s face-lift seems to be a big hit. You should go there, have a beer and be sure to try the vending machine popcorn. Tasty!
The Seattle Pinball Museum also received a bit of a face-lift recently when they rearranged all the machines and added a row of tables and stools in the main room. The games are still in chronological order (except for Galactic Girl, for some reason) with the newest machines now closest to the front. Pins like Flipper Football have been brought down from their upstairs Upper Playfield. The SPM has decided not to open the Upper Playfield daily and instead leave it as a place to hold private parties, which is probably for the best – although we won’t be able to play the pins up there very often. Still, it looks nice and it’s great how they are always working to improve their space. Nice!
Another nice happening was Shorty’s 14th Annual Pinball Tournament on November 5th. Originally planned as a two-day event, the tournament this year drew about half the number of players expected because Portland’s Cascadia Cup tournament was scheduled that same weekend. The Shorty’s tournament was able to go from start to finish all in one day, which ironically made it possible for players to go to both events if only they had known ahead of time. Hosted by Larry Reid, this Shorty’s Tournament was a mostly local affair. It was a lot of fun! Shorty’s Avout seemed a little distracted by the reduced turnout, but maybe it was because he still hadn’t received his pre-ordered 
Transformers LE from Stern yet? Many folks who don’t normally go far in these bigger tournaments did a lot better than usual, especially Selfick Ng-Simancas, who took 3rd despite wanting to leave early. Cheese Boat was crowned the highest-scoring woman and won her second PBR Toaster, while Sagel Frasier won the tournament after beating local pinball superstar Cayle George on The Rolling Stones. Winning!
The Seattle Pinball League held three different tournaments since our last issue. October’s tournament was held in Ballard at Andrew Nunes’ house. After Cayle had to 
leave early it became a three-way battle for first on Wheel of Fortune between Kevin Birrell, Sagel, and Skill Shot’s Gordon Gordon. It was a nail-biter when Sagel almost knocked the pin off the wooden board supporting the game, but Kevin came away with the win. Sagel did get the win at November’s tournament at Byron Raynz’s house in Renton. This created a controversy amongst some SPL members because: Kevin and Sagel were not members when they won; only the top sixteen players of the year advance
to the December Finals; and it was previously decided that any tournament winner would automatically advance to the finals. Since a total of four “guests” won during the 2011 season, that meant there could potentially be four SPL members bumped from the Finals (although no one really expected Martin Ayub to travel from London to be there). While this created a lively debate about the SPL rules on Facebook, it ultimately didn’t matter much when Kevin was the only guest to attend the finals, and he had since become a member.
The SPL Finals were held in December at Rod Olsen’s house, and it was a fabulous end-of-the-year blowout! It was a competitive, fun, drunken extravaganza of pinball that not only had an exciting finals tournament but also featured side contests on Spider-man 
and an all Data East tournament. The Data East tourney was particularly cool because it had a variety of pins rarely seen around Seattle, including Phantom of the Opera and 
Rocky and Bullwinkle. Bobby Conover and Kayla Ellington officiated the main tournament and provided an overhead camera that allowed everyone to watch the action on a screen in another room. It was a really neat idea and very well done. Later that night, 
Kayla went on to win SPL’s Greatest Loser title. 11th-ranked Sean Burris was the surprise player of the day when he joined Cayle, Raymond Davidson, and Maka Honig in the top 4 showdown, but his skills didn’t take him any further as Raymond maintained third place and Maka beat Cayle to become the SPL 2011 Champion! Go Maka Go!
In other Seattle Pinball League news: When Aaron Bendickson announced that he had joined the SPL board of directors on Facebook recently, tensions erupted and misunderstandings surfaced (again) about League rules and regulations. Our guess is that the disclaimer with some League members is because many local
players are trying to increase their ranking points in anticipation of the International Flipper Pinball Association (IFPA) World Championship that will be held in Seattle later this summer. At this exclusive event, only the top 150 ranked players are invited to participate, but as some of them won’t be able to make the trip to Seattle, the invitation will then extend to other players according to their ranking. So the points obtained at SPL
finals (and all other eligible tournaments) 
could determine whether or not someone is invited to the IFPA championship. Local players have the advantage of being included not only by their ranking but also the convenience of proximity to the event. (For example, the last World Championship was held in Sweden, so Swedish players had a big advantage.) While it’s cool that pinball is taken seriously as a sport, it shouldn’t be forgotten that it is also something that is supposedly fun. So let’s not forget about the fun. Fun!
In other fun tournament news: On Halloween there was a Ballard Pinball Tournament where points could be obtained not only by winning matches but also by dressing up in costume, with an extra point awarded for costumes that matched one of the pins in play. Julie Gray won the Best Costume award for her Dracula costume (Monster Bash) while Adam Bro-Bro Chesbrough went for a Medieval Madness look. Host Jawn Wakefield eventually took the win on Bobby’s tilt-happy pin. Another 
holiday-themed contest was The Leftover Turney held at Mitch Anderson’s a few days after Thanksgiving. At this tournament you could get a few dollars taken off your registration fee by bringing some Thanksgiving Day leftovers. Aaron Garberding ended up winning that one. Yum!
Seattle Pinball Museum held their last quarterly tournament of the year in December, hosted by Jeff Groper and attended by 23 contestants with at least that number of 
people just hanging around. It’s always a merry time at the SPM, and even more so that night with all the Christmas decorations 
brightening up the space. Despite the seasoned local crowd, Todd Pelkin visiting from Tampa, FL won the event. The First Sunday Tournament at Shorty’s also continues, although there are no longer brunches since the departure of co-host and bartender Jawn. Longtime host Paul Sonier still runs the monthly tournaments. He has also completed work on his Tourney Helper, an Android 
App for creating and running single-elimination pinball tournaments. If you have an
Android you should check it out. Bridle Trails Pizza in Kirkland has also been holding regular tournaments, and apparently the machines are mostly from the owner’s own collection. The last event pulled a pretty good crowd and was won by Kevin. They will be IFPA-sanctioned this year, so we expect even more people to attend their next tournament. More Points!
Skill Shot created a new tournament format for Bernard’s birthday at Shorty’s, called King For A Day. It won’t get you IFPA points, but it could get you cool points (and a few 
dollars). It’s a fun way to play, and you can read about it elsewhere in this issue. Bernard’s birthday week was loads of fun with karaoke, zines, dinner with Claire and Headley, and a trip to Wallingford to play the non-tilty Elvira’s Party Monsters at The Grizzled Wizard and Henry’s broken Fire Ball. The
best part was the addition of Theatre of Magic to the Skill Shot Office! Thanks, Rod! We were sad to see Xenon go, but we are excited to now have a Theatre of Magic! And also thanks to Ben Flaster for helping us move it in at such short notice. Sorry, neighbors.
Did you go to one of the New Years Eve tournaments this year? The first one was a Round Robin tournament at Full Tilt in Ballard. It started at noon and was organized 
by Bobby Conover and Raymond Davidson as a way to get younger players involved in competitive pinball. Contestants came from as far away as Portland (points!) and included 5 under-21 players. The final match was a head-to-head battle on Attack From Mars between Cayle George, Noah Davis, Julie Gray and Kris Fast, with Cayle taking the win on the last ball of the game. Later that evening, Add-a-Ball Amusements hosted a
single elimination head-to-head winner-take-all tournament that lasted until almost midnight. This contest had more casual players, highlighted by the fact that Skill Shot’s Gordon made it to the final match against a more seasoned Mitch Anderson on Bally’s Captain Fantastic. As Mitch is a Bally fanatic, it was a stunning upset when Gordon took the win at the end of game three amongst a cheering crowd. It was a heady victory that only goes to show that everyone has a chance to win and it only takes one ball.
Another addition to the Skill Shot Office is a 1955 Bally Gay Time backglass given to us by the Seattle Pinball Museum. Our last The One To Beat was Rolling Stones 
at SPM, but since no one was able to beat BMH’s grand champ score we are once again moving it, this time to the Whirlwind at Full Tilt in Ballard. Hopefully the score isn’t too high and we will see some competition for a new high score to print in our next issue. Nearly all of our Skill Shot t-shirts are sold out, with only a few of the larger sizes left. Expect to see a new t-shirt later in the year, most likely during the summer when we celebrate our 5-year anniversary! This will happen when 
Skill Shot 25 comes out, and we will probably have a big event at Shorty’s. Details to come! We would also like to thank everyone who came to help us fold our last issue at The Lookout. Once again we were able to get all of the issues folded in record time and we truly couldn’t get it done without your help. Awesome!
Check out our new and much improved database-driven Pinball List at www.skill-shot.com! We also have all-ages pinball locations conveniently marked both in the zine and online.
Pinball Tidbits: The third Georgetown Tournament is returning after skipping last year. A fourth venue has been added to this year’s tournament, most likely The Mix * 
C.C. Attle’s on Capitol Hill has added 2 pinball machines to their game room and plans to add more in the near future. Don’t let some of those catty regulars scare you away, girls! * Dr Marten’s Store downtown has a Captain Fantastic set on free play, if you’re a customer. * There may be Sunday pinball 
brunch/tournaments again in the near future, possibly at Add-a-Ball? * The Unicorn is very close to opening Narwhal, their basement bar and pinball room. Apparently they want a lot of pins, but are having problems finding a vendor. Stay tuned. * Liberty House is sadly no more. Kevin Pittman and Jeff Groper are moving out in February and Groper is selling off a bunch of his pinball machines. Hopefully the broken ones! * Hula Hula in Queen Anne once again has pinball. 
That’s where the CSI from Hooverville went. * Stern’s next new pinball machine is AC/DC. Its playfield is similar to
Terminator 2 and it has a big ugly face in the middle of the playfield. Out Soon. * Farewell to Andrew Nunes and family, who moved to Australia this month. Andrew is a great asset to the Seattle Pinball Community and he will be missed. We at Skill Shot especially appreciated it when he held SPL tournaments on Sundays at his house because he knew that we usually work on Saturdays. You are a stand-up gentleman, sir, and we salute you!
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Come help us fold the new issue at The Lookout on Capitol Hill!
Python Anghelo is a crazy genius that changed and inspired the pinball industry. He described pinball machines as “miniature amusement parks” and is best known for his carnival themed games. He got paid to have fun. Innovator, wreck, elusive, bitter, proud, patriotic; he’s all these things and more. Read his own words, these are excerpts from a 2007 Topcast interview.
For the full audio interview, including an hour and forty minutes of Python talking about himself in the third person and trashing almost everyone in the industry, check out show 42: http://www.pinrepair.com/topcast
I went to Great America and I paid those guys 2 thousand dollars to go on a roller coaster and turn the front seat backwards, so I could see the people. ‘Cause it seems to me you got to see what other people experience. And when we went down I see these people screaming like they were getting murdered or having multiple orgasms. So I said hang on a second, I need fireworks, and I need people screaming.
I said to them let’s do a layout of an amusement park, like aerial view. Cause to me a pinball game is like an amusement park where you are the ball.
Pinball, to me, was a miniature amusement park that poor kids could go to fulfill their fantasies, changing to the ball, and have power at their fingertips for 25 cents.
To me the only most important thing is that I kept my promise from my childhood. That I want the kids that put a quarter in a game not to feel ripped off.
I have a sit down pinball where you sit under the playfield with your head in a bubble and the flippers are in front of your nose and balls fly around your head.
He’s my hero, George Lucas.
Read The Fountainhead.
I’m 53 going on 17.
[With] Pinbot, I started with the artwork and did the anatomy of the robot and the robot girl, The Machine, and then I built the playfield around it.
[Pinbot is] talking about our conquest of the universe through Voyager.
[I wrote] a poem about The Machine. It’s about the future of man, and that robots will conquer the universe through our fingertips.
To me a pinball machine is a robot. You’re basically controlling, like an exoskeleton robot in Alien, your fingers control the robot and through you, through your fingers, the robot is an extension of you. I wish I could do that to a woman. That would be the perfect woman. That’s why The Machine.
I use my art when I do a pinball game; it’s not just me making money. Or doing a stupid f***ing thing, I have social responsibility. I’m going to thousands of American bars. It’s an art form; it’s an American art form, pinball.
[John Popadiuk] is a chameleon, a lizard. And Python knows it because Python is the king of snakes.
I’d rather have people hate me for the truth than like me for a lie. I will tell you like it is, because, by the way, I’m also a wild and crazy guy and I did a lot of stuff that I regret but I take credit for it anyway.
Jack•Bot was a copy of Python’s Machine, PIN•BOT and Jokerz!. Jack•Bot: you got cards, you got the bride of PIN•BOT and you’ve got PIN•BOT. And they said “Oh Barry [Oursler], if you take the best game designs you did with Python, combine them” it’s like saying, listen to this analogy, your biggest successes on our menu were pea soup, the shrimp pizza, and apple strudel with vanilla ice cream. Now you take those motherf***ers and put them all in a bowl and they’ll taste great.
I have a movie script where Popeye builds a space cruiser and he’s fighting the oil companies and he decides that it’s bulls*** that he has to save the Earth by getting oil on other planets.
The Monday Night Football Pinball Showdown at Rod Olsen’s happened on the same night as the first Monday Night Football game on TV on September 12th. It was originally going to be two player 
match-ups, double elimination head-to-head on two Monday Night Football pins that were next to each other. Just like in a real football game, the winner was determined by the number of touchdowns, and points only mattered if there was a tie. This was a cool idea except that over 40 contestants turned out for the event and (then) one of the pins broke down. It was a work night and players were dropping like flies as the night wore on. Eventually sometime after 2AM Cayle George became the winner of what will hopefully become an annual event. Night Owls!
Another fun tournament was the September 17th Seattle Pinball League (SPL) Tournament. This was an all Bally tournament hosted by Mitch Anderson and the format was PinGolf! As we have never played golf before, it was a bit confusing when people talked about pars, strokes, tops and bottoms, but once we started playing, it made more sense. Martin Ayub from pinballnews.com was visiting for the event and showed why he is the #1 player in the UK. His final match on Paragon against Raymond Davidson was one of 
the most exciting we had seen in a while. With a par of 90,000, Martin was quite a ways behind when he totally choked on the final ball but then received a rare “ball saved” that he didn’t even notice until the crowd gasped aloud in unison. Martin went on to score 91,800, making the par and winning the tournament! 2nd Place Raymond was second place again!
Other tournaments since our last issue: The First Sunday Tournament at Shorty’s (8/7) which was won by Paul Sonier; 
The SPL Tournament at Randy Pouley’s (8/20) won by Robert Gagno (with great Thai food!); The First Sunday Tournament at Shorty’s (9/4) won by Jeff Groper; The quarterly Seattle Pinball Museum (SPM) Tournament (9/19) won by Maka Honig; and The Ballard Pinball Tournament (9/19) won by Bobby Conover. It’s more fun to compete!
National tournaments also drew local players, including PAPA in Pennsylvania and The Pacific Pinball Expo in California. 
There is a lot of determination among some local players because the 2012 IFPA World Pinball Championship is happening in Seattle next year. The players with the highest IFPA Rankings are invited first for the limited 64 spots in the tournament, and people in Seattle have a good chance to attend, as some higher ranking players will choose to opt out. Cayle George won last year’s Championship, which was held in Sweden and almost cancelled when a controversy developed after government officials discovered that the tournament had a cash prize. The Seattle tournament is reportedly being held at Todd MacCulloch’s and we will have more details later. Stay Tuned…
Stern Pinball’s Transformers is set for release later in October and will be a very public affair with four different release parties planned in the area. Events are planned for the Seattle Waterfront Arcade (10/21), Seattle Pinball Museum (10/22), Dorky’s in 
Tacoma (10/28), and the soon to be open Full Tilt in Ballard (10/28). The new Full Tilt has been anxiously anticipated since it was first announced at the beginning of the summer. Conveniently located in the heart of Ballard, their new location will have 15 pinball machines! Look for our report on their grand opening next issue. Sweet!
The Seattle area is experiencing a pinball renaissance with a multitude of new venues and machines. Both Dorky’s (22 pins) and the Seattle Pinball Museum (40+ pins) have opened in the last year, along with the new Full Tilt (15). The Unicorn on Capitol Hill is in the midst of constructing their long awaited pinball room with space for 19 pinball 
machines. Meanwhile, Shorty’s has been expanding locations by picking up The Iron Bull and the Comet Tavern, as well as adding popular pins to places like the Fun House (Funhouse) and Jabu’s (The Shadow). Even Space Age Amusements has serviced their games more often lately and moved things around, so we’re definitely expecting to see a Wheel of Fortune at a downtown location any day now. Right!??
Don’t forget: The 14th Annual Shorty’s Pinball Tournament on November 5th and 6th!
The Lookout has been expecting a Fish Tales for a while now and 
chances are it will arrive right around the same time our new Seattle Pinball List is printed. The Lookout is the location of our Skill Shot Folding Parties, and last issue we had a great turn out. We want to give a BIG shout out to everyone who helped us fold every single copy in just 3 hours! Speaking of the Pinball List, this issue premieres our new color coded all-ages system to help people under 21 find pinball machines. Check it out!
Another change in this issue is The One To Beat, which has now moved to The Rolling Stones pin at the SPM. Since no one could beat MAK’s Grand Champ score on either of the last two games, we’ve decided to pick one that he hasn’t dominated (yet). Have you been to www.skill-shot.com lately? Along with an archive of past articles, we have a calendar of Seattle pinball events, including a bunch of Halloween-themed pinball tournaments! You don’t have to go to Facebook to find out what’s happening. Wow!
A link to our Calendar is located at the top of this web page!
Pinball Tidbits: If you noticed that The Addams Family at 
Shorty’s looks and plays differently that’s because it is a new machine; the old one went to the Comet • By the time you read this the SPM’s Upper Playfield should be open with even more pins and a view of the main room • We had an awesome time at the Summer Tilt Birthday Bash in Redmond this summer. Thanks to Birthday Boys Byron, Dave and Keith • Gunfire and a SWAT team heralded the closing of the Tiger Lounge for good. Rumor has it certain employees plan to relocate a similar business downtown • We lost the Skill Shot camera at the last Ballard Tournament • With Xenon still broken, the Redwood has now become Skill Shot Office East. Gofer Trouble!
SUPPORT LOCAL PINBALL
Special thanks to Cathy Cartoon for providing many of the above photos!
For photos of the pins currently at the Seattle Pinball Museum at press time please check out this gallery.
When/how did you first get into pinball?
While I remember some pinball machines from childhood (my first was a Big Chief at a convenience store, and I remember playing Royal Flush while on vacation at some point), I only really got into pinball after graduating high school. I remember an Earthshaker machine that was my first real experience with hitting “the zone”, and after that, I was hooked.
When/why did you start participating in tournaments?
I actually started playing in a league in college, at a bar called Doc’s Place, in Pittsburgh; it wasn’t very far from my school, and a fellow CMU student named Dave Stewart would come in and play the games a lot. We got to be friends, and when he started a pinball league, I was in! After graduating from college, I moved around a bit, and with work and whatnot, I didn’t have much time to play regularly, until I saw a flyer for a Sunday tournament at Shorty’s, then run by Kevin Lessig. I went, and won every single game (against some seriously good opponents, including Jason Hatch) to win the tournament, and ever since, I’ve been playing in tournaments in Seattle.
How would you explain your role at the Sunday Tournaments at Shorty’s?
I run the tournaments. Simple, eh? I gather entrants, gather entrance fees, take down names, create brackets, create matches, and (randomly) choose the initial machines to play on. The process is a little mechanical and a little annoying, as anyone who’s tried to set up a tournament can attest to.
How long have you been involved with the Sunday Tournament?
I’ve been involved with it for about 3 or 4 years now; initially as a participant, but when Kevin decided to bow out as tournament organizer, I decided to step up and take on the task myself. I’ve been running them myself now (with assistance at times from Jawn Wakefield and Jeff Gagnon) for about 3 years, I guess; it’s kind of surprising to realize it’s been that long!
What advice do you have for someone competing in the Sunday Tournament for the first time?
Have fun! The tournaments are all about having fun, and playing pinball with different people. Competitive play is very different from normal friendly play; you can expect to do worse than you normally do when playing someone else. Stick with it and enjoy playing with someone else; I’ve probably learned more about good pinball play from watching my competitors play than I have from tons and tons of solo practice.
We heard that you are working on a pinball related web project, can you give us any details?
There is definitely a web project in the works, but that’s under wraps right now. However, as a lead-in to the web project, I’ve been putting together an Android app that runs on phones that will help Tournament Organizers create and manage their tournaments; it lets you keep track of entrants and their registration status, track tournament results, etc. It’s going to be published on the Android Market soon, and will be free to download for anyone who wants a little bit of help running a tournament! In fact, it’s not pinball-specific, but can be used for all sorts of tournaments, from pinball to darts to billiards to board games! I’ll be using it to help me with the tournament this Sunday, and that will be a good debugging run, so if you want to see it in action, come on out to the tournament!
What is your favorite pinball machine?
Ooh, the trickiest question. While I’m fond of Tron recently, and I really have a soft spot for some of the older machines such as Surf Champ and other EMs, I’m just a total fan of Pat Lawlor machines. Earthshaker, Whirlwind, Addams Family, Road Trip… even Family Guy shows that brilliant Pat Lawlor design. But my favorite of all of his machines, and the one that I’d just love to have and play constantly, would be Twilight Zone. From the the excellent music (Golden Earring! Yeah!) to the fantastic theme (Rod Serling = the epitome of cool) to the fantastic toys / gimmicks (Powerball!) to the wizard mode (nothing like getting Lost in the Zone!), it’s just a constant joyous experience. So much about that machine just sticks with you… anyone who’s played it for any amount of time can recognize the sounds, from the rocket launch to the Hitchhiker chime to the excellent voice work (“Don’t touch the door!”). The playfield design is marvelous; it SHOULD feel cramped, from the looks of it, but it’s really very expansive, with tons of “hidden” shots that are a joy to discover (Town Square, or the left-flipper shot off the left side of the slot machine to a Camera shot, or any of the seemingly random but surprisingly repeatable ways to hit the piano from the right flipper).
The Sunday Tournament at Shorty’s is the first Sunday of every month. A potluck brunch begins at 1 and the tournament starts at 3. Shorty’s is at 2222 2nd Avenue.