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Pinball is a type of arcade game in which a player uses paddles to manipulate one or more balls inside a pinball machine. A pinball machine is a glass-covered cabinet containing a play field populated with lights, targets, bumpers, ramps, and various other objects depending on its design. The primary objective of the game is to score as many points as possible by hitting targets and making various shots with the flippers, before all balls "drain" at an exit usually situated at the bottom of the play field. Most pinball games are divided into turns. The game ends when all balls have ended.
A glossary of terms, commonly used in discussing pinball machines.
Medieval Madness is a Williams pinball machine released in June 1997. Designed by Brian Eddy and programmed by Lyman Sheats, it had a production run of 4,016 units. It is often regarded by many to be the greatest pinball machine of all time.
The Addams Family, is a pinball machine released in March 1992. It was designed by Pat Lawlor and Larry DeMar and manufactured by WMS Industries. It was based on the 1991 film of the same name, and features custom speech by the stars of the film, Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston. It is the best-selling solid state pinball machine of all time with 20,270 units sold.
In games, score refers to an abstract quantity associated with a player or team. Score is usually measured in the abstract unit of points, and events in the game can raise or lower the score of different parties. Most games with score use it as a quantitative indicator of success in the game, and in competitive games, a goal is often made of attaining a better score than one's opponents in order to win.
Gee Bee is a block breaker/video pinball hybrid arcade game developed and published by Namco in 1978. The player controls a set of paddles with a rotary knob, with the objective being to score as many points as possible by deflecting a ball against bricks, pop bumpers and other objects in the playfield. It was developed by Toru Iwatani, known as the creator of Pac-Man and Pole Position. Outside Japan, it was published by Gremlin Industries.
Star Trek: The Next Generation is a widebody pinball game, designed by Steve Ritchie and released in November 1993 by Williams Electronics. It was part of WMS' SuperPin series, and was based on the TV series. It is the only pinball machine that features three separate highscore-lists. Apart from the regular highscore-list and the buy-in-list, it also features a reminiscence to The Machine: Bride of Pin*Bot billionaires club. It is also the third pinball game overall based on the Star Trek franchise, following the 1979 pinball game by Bally, and the 1991 game by Data East, and preceding the 2013 pinball game by Stern.
Twilight Zone is a widebody pinball machine, designed by Pat Lawlor and based on the TV series of the same name. It was first released in 1993 by Midway. This game is part of WMS' SuperPin line of widebody games alongside Star Trek: The Next Generation and Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure.
Golly! Ghost! is a 1991 light gun shooter arcade game developed and published by Namco. It employs a diorama which is controlled by the game's driver board to open and close mechanical doors which are connected to solenoids, much like the moveable items on a pinball table. The diorama has five 24-volt globe lights that come on only during gameplay to light up the rooms - and they are all on when the game is being played during the shooting scenes, and off for the cutscenes, title screen, and high scores. The globes are not individually controlled, and are either all on or off; the driver board powers the diorama unit's solenoids and lights via several connectors on the driver board and the guns also plug into the driver board via another small connector. In 2012, the game was adapted into a webcomic for Namco Bandai's ShiftyLook webcomic service.
Timber is an arcade game manufactured by Bally Midway in 1984. The goal is to amass points by chopping down trees, then logrolling in bonus rounds. Two players can compete simultaneously in the same play area. Timber was designed by Steve Meyer, who also designed Tapper, and both games have a similar audio/visual style.
Fish Tales is a fishing-themed pinball game released by Williams in 1992. It is one of the top 20 most produced pinball machines of all time, selling more than 13,000 units.
The Flintstones is a pinball game released by Williams in 1994 and based on the movie of the same name. This machine is not to be confused with another pinball machine, a redemption game, based on the TV series and also released in 1994, manufactured by Innovative Concepts in Entertainment (ICE).
Doctor Who is a pinball machine designed by Bill Pfutzenreuter (Pfutz) and Barry Oursler, and released by Midway in September 1992. It is based on the television series Doctor Who. As stated in the Gameplay section, the rulesheet is rather different from other pinball machines released at the time, which didn't help popularity as casual players did not understand the complex rule changes that occur during the game.
Jack-Bot is a 1995 pinball game which was designed by Barry Oursler and Larry DeMar, and released by Williams. It is the third game in the Pin-Bot series, following Pin-Bot (1986) and The Machine: Bride of Pin-Bot (1991).
Pin Bot is a pinball video game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was released in North America in April 1990. It is a conversion of the pinball machine by the same name. The NES version of the game accurately reproduces some of the game-play and aesthetics of the pinball machine, while introducing new features and added challenges.
Police Force is a 1989 Williams pinball machine. The pinball machine was initially supposed to be released as Batman pinball, the police car was to be the Batmobile and the Jail was to be the Bat Cave. The machine features anthropomorphic jungle animals in the roles of police and robbers.
Harley-Davidson is a Midway pinball machine released under the Bally label in February 1991. It was designed by Barry Oursler and Mark Sprenger. It was the first game by Bally to use the Williams WPC (Alphanumeric) board and also the last Bally pinball game to use an Alphanumeric Display.
Genie is a widebody pinball machine designed by Ed Krynski and released in 1979 by Gottlieb. It features a jinn theme and was advertised with the slogans "Gottlieb's WIDE and Beautiful BODY" and "A Wide-Body Pinball absolutely bulging with player appeal and proven massive profit earning capacity!".
Hurricane is a pinball machine released by Williams Electronics in August 1991. It was designed by Barry Oursler as the third game in Oursler's amusement park themed pinball trilogy. The first being Comet, released in 1985, and the second being Cyclone, released in 1988.
An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily games of skill and include arcade video games, Pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games or merchandisers.