Pintastic 2022 June

Pintastic New England was in Sturbridge, MA, and I was able attend Friday, 24-June. Thanks to everyone who was able to bring games to play, including the Southern New Hampshire Pinball Club.

In addition to trying out a bunch of new games, I played a couple games on a Data East Star Wars. I suspected the flippers on my table were a tad weak, and this confirmed it. Much less trouble here with balls going almost all the way up the center ramp before rolling back down. So a flipper rebuild is in my future.

I was also able to spend time with some old friends, included a Night Rider–not quite the one we had at the dorm my first year of college. That was solid state (SS), while the table at the expo was electro-mechanical (EM).

In general I enjoyed the older games more. The play is more straight forward–here are your targets, here are your spinners–particularly in an expo situation where you get one game before letting the next person play. The newer games have more complicated rules and might have more replay value for a home-owner, but to me sometimes they feel more like video games than pinball.

I will also note a lot of tables have issues with ball visibility. With all the ramps and scoops and toys, I don’t generally enjoy pinball when I can’t see the ball. And with a scoop, when the ball goes in, I’d like to know where it comes out. Not a problem if you own the game and have time to learn all the motions, but an issue again in the expo where you get one game then move on.

But I enjoyed every game I played, and again thanks to everyone (vendors and regular people) who took the time and effort to bring their games and allowed me to play!

So what’s the order for these pictures–alphabetical? Chronological? Autobiographical. This is the order I played them.