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Your daily video from Pintastic NE 2023 today is a glimpse of the Extra Ball Lounge consisting of games Gabe has brought from his own large collection for people to play
Pintastic NE 2023 the story so far:
I have spent the last week reposting videos from previous Pintastic visits to not only highlight the Rumble account that I am now using instead of Youtube but to illustrate why you should consider Pinball in general as a hobby and Pintastic NE in particular as your introduction to it.
The modern pinball machine is an incredible marriage of mechanical, electrical, programing and artistic skill both in image and in plot as there is usually a story or path to take, in order to create a game experience and you can see the evolution of that marriage in the from the time the first computer boards entered machines to today. It’s a thing to be admired.
Even the old purely mechanical machines without the programing driven by physics and gravity and the mechanical limits of the day are wonders to behold.
And what do those highly skilled people produce with their time and effort? A hobby and a gaming system whose gameplay is the perfect combination of skill and luck and depending on the game and design will have features that enhance the gameplay in terms of an actual quest or goal to complete.
And while I can’t speak for anyone else, I find that if I’ve had a particularly bad day a pinball machine is a perfect place to vent the day’s frustrations.
Furthermore as almost every game has the capacity for four players at a time it becomes a social event, something to do together, with family and friends and even acquaintances ,anyone interested in a game.
It’s not a thing of the left, or a thing of the right. I don’t care what your political, religious or gender beliefs are, because once your hands are at those flipper buttons we are all the same, a pinball player trying to keep the ball alive as we aim at our targets.
It’s something to be enjoyed by anyone of any age or mindset for what it is: A good clean hobby that celebrates all those skills that I mentioned, it unites rather than divides.
So if you think there are 8473 genders or if like me you say there are two, if you love or hate Trump or Biden or DeSantis or RFK, if you think open borders are wonderful or a disaster, if you think God isn’t real or if you’ll be attending mass nearby, in fact even if you’re a Yankees fan I say you should come and join me in Marlborough MA because I submit and suggest you will not find a better use of your recreational time for you and/or your family this weekend then a visit to Pintastic NE 2023.
Come on down, you’ll have fun.
Back in the days before Youtube decided to ban me for daring to question the 2022 election the most popular Pintastic NE videos I had were all the various interviews with Todd Tuckey.
If you go to my rumble account and do a search for Todd Tuckey you will find interview after interview with Todd Tuckey at each Pintastic NE and once at his shop while I was passing through so there is a lot to choose from so for our final day before we visit Pintastic in its new location I have picked last year’s interview with Todd to showcase here.
His youtube chanel is legendary in pinball circles. His latest talks about his upcoming visit to Pintastic tomorrow. Here it is:
One of the sad things about my ban from youtube is that I couldn’t leave a comment to say that I’m looking forward to seeing him this week.
Back before I was banned the single most popular Pintastic NE video I had was this interview with pinball designer extraordinaire Steve Ritchie
In terms of Pinball Royalty you don’t get much higher than this pair.
One of the more interesting developments in the Pinball industry has been the “Homebrew” machine, basically single machines or sometimes two machines that are made out of the whole cloth or occasionally made using other machines with new art and roms.
Example 1 is Ferris Bueller
What’s rather interesting to me is that with a home brew game you don’t have to worry about buying the rights because it’s not an item for sale. The fellow who made the Sonic the hedgehog pinball machine didn’t have that problem as Sega apparently embraced the whole idea of the machine.
And there are also others that are more basic, made completely out of the whole cloth to wit:
The great thing about a festival like Pintastic is that these one or two of a kind games get exposure to the general public who can enjoy and appreciate all that comes with this hobby.
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