When the Gen Z and millennials came along. Same as the buy more lives and never die games over the three lives and done and maybe..... earn an extra life with kick a$$ skill.

Was the first ball save for the F-14 kicker?

You could say a ball save was almost always part of the game. Williams and Bally EMs return your ball if you don't hit anything at all. That carried into the solid state era.

A ball save lasting a few seconds/few switch hits was becoming standard by the early 90s DMD era. Like T2 has a standard ball save. It was the norm by the time all games had autolaunchers/dual-launchers. Only a handful of plunger games have a ball save.

what are you babbling about?

I'm a millennial. Ball saves were invented when I was like 2 years old. They weren't built into the game for my generation, let alone zoomers...

Ball saves becoming standard probably did have something to do with the perceived value of playing pinball vs a 90s arcade game.

T2 was the first one with a consistent, traditional ball save. By around 1993 all games had it. There are odd exceptions before it like snail time in time fantasy and flight insurance which I’m mentioning only to head off the inevitable 800 word post telling me I’m wrong - but I put t2 in 1991 as the first.

The endless multiball ball save was pioneered by Sega in the late 90s when they were making dumbed down games for the masses. I guess they thought this would encourage noobs. This continued through the early Stern years.

So ball saves came along at some point in a time span of about 30 years. Great answer.

It is getting pretty old that we have dozens of people here who are laser focused on pouncing on any thread with gen Z or woke rants. Wish we could just keep that stuff on Facebook as it’s getting seriously tiresome and derails countless threads.

I admire the dedication of these folks whenever a new one comes along (remember when it was SJW rants?) but surely you guys have more to offer us! You love pinball just like everybody here!

There are lots of creative things you can do in the code for ball saves:

Ramp returns that send the ball SDTM, are returned to play in my games, as 'Cheap Drain Save'. In my Bond game, a SDTM drain is returned back through the flippers as the Astin Marton ejector seat.

I added fun quotes to Austin Powers if you drain within a few seconds of play... each one more insulting than the other.

I have ball saves that only activate when the player makes the opening Skill Shot.

...lots and lots of fun you can have with the boring ball save, if you have the creative imagination.

I like the ball save mini game concept. Drain the ball a certain way, and get a chance to complete an objective for the chance to keep the saved ball. (Though I can imagine this being confusing and frustrating to novice players who may not understand why the game kills the flippers on their ball)

I think WoZ overuses the concept (trying to do something with all that widebody space). Godzilla's Oxygen Destroyer is a better implementation. Not sure what the first version of that ball save mini game was. Maybe NBA Fastbreak?

I know! All those millennials who designed and built games back in the late 90's we're total bitches! Basically a participation trophy.
What losers!

Those posts keep popping up like damn ball saves.

I've always been annoyed that TAF doesn't have ball save.

Strange Science (1986) had a manually activated ball saver that you could recharge called Power Saver. I'm sure it wasn't the first but it's the earliest one I could think of.

TAF was my first pin and man I had some embarrassingly short multiballs after the amazing, dramatic build up -- showtime indeed.

100% agree with this!

It’s interesting to see how B/W kinda did a slow rollout with the feature too.

CftBL has it, but it’s defaulted to be turned off in the settings.

BSD has it defaulted on, and the feature gets it’s own playfield insert—as opposed to just flashing the extra ball insert.

White Water doesn’t have it at all, unless you’re running the home ROMs.

Twilight Zone has the most interesting approach. You get exactly 1 ball save per game in the traditional way, but only on ball 1 or 2. Never ball 3, even if you never cash in on the ball save. Weird.

I think TZ had no ball save originally, just like Addams. But I think Addams was simply because it wasn't a "Thing" yet
I think TZ left it out intentionally, because of the powerball, you could just let the ball drain if the powerball was next in the trough.
When the code got slightly updated several years back, the ball save was added, with the odd rules.

Totally agree this is a way to keep the game interesting, and with so much to see and do in these games, it’s a compelling way to keep the home player connected to the game, especially since quarters don’t matter (and since a lot of locations are doing the play cards or unlimited game-per-timeframe model, they may never matter again)

I’m shocked that you’ve been here for 10 years and would still post something so ignorant. This is a pinball website, at least know correct pinball history!

Stop feeding trolls. It was funny the first 400 posts, but now the stale troll posts are almost as groan-inducing as the subsequent inevitable Levi retort.

Same question 11 years ago:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/when-did-the-ball-save-feature-start

T2 was the first deliberate, manufacturer-default ball save.

Most Data East machines will return a ball that has not hit 3 switches or solenoids. And plenty of EMs will also give the ball back if you don’t score any points. So there have been many versions of “ball save” usually due to limitations in the logic of the machine, but T2 was the start of what we all traditionally agree on as a ball save.
A nod given to F-14 but it doesn’t function in the way the average person is referring to as “ball save”

Can you tell me the name of this local pin museum?

Interesting take on the ball save. Funhouse has a similar feature, I believe, where a soft plunge that sends the ball through the right diagonal lane and through the right outlane without hitting any other switches will be returned to the player.

Tangentially related to the ball save is the concept of playfield validation

That started in the EM era. I assume to stop an outhole kicker failing to serve a ball from counting its failures as a played ball?

What some are calling a ball save is really playfield validation, which is its own separate thing.

Playfield validation seems to be more about making sure the player doesn’t loose a ball because of an issue on the playfield. Not necessarily because they immediately lost it, though it can serve as a very short ball save (and can be exploited for game progress if you know what you’re doing)

I recently played Jurassic Park for the first time and was surprised at the length of the ball save. I really appreciated it as I learned the machine. Later I had my 7 year old try the game, and again, I appreciated having it as it made it much more approachable for her.

Looks like T2 may have been the first mainline traditional ball save. However, I expect why it was copied was because it makes playing much more accessible and enjoyable. This is a positive evolution in my book.

Weren't the timer based ball saves blocked until real time clocks became cheap, generally reliable enough and ubiquitous?

In my opinion, the insane amount of ball saves on current games is a refection of pins moving from arcade use to mostly home or tounament use and the added complexity of modes that would never be reached without the free extra balls.

Just played a tournament in UK where the multiball ball saves were turned incredibly low. Made for an interesting weekend and changed my strategy on games like walking dead.

Ballsaves in multiball have nothing to do with the home market. People like multiball and it makes them longer, which was good for operators. This was around since long before the home market was anything anybody cared about (1990s).

Doing some math based off my birthday…

I exist because of Spring Break ‘87. Thanks Premier!

I can verify this; At least as far back as Torpedo Alley if you hit nothing and drained the ball was returned to you.

I think the question is what is the first EM that did this. Most EMs and (all?) solid state games give you the ball back if you don’t hit a switch as a part of playfield validation.

Ball saves have been around since EMs. There were also EMs with up posts between the flippers and zipper flippers to prevent drains DTM. There have been timed ball saves on most every game since 1993. Solid state games have only been around since 1977. Basically that means ball saves have been the standard for close to 30 of the roughly 44 years of SS games.

Let's all agree that on some level there has always been a loose concept of a ball save

Except Gottlieb EMs. They don't give a shit if you literally hit nothing on the plunge.

Not to nit pick, "ball save" is a typical solid state term. I have owned a lot of EM's and I never saw anything in the literature indicating it as a feature. Yes some EM return the ball to the shooter lane if there is no switch hit.

A lot of gottlieb EMs will return the ball if you hit get a score of 1000, 2000, 3000, etc. Basically the last three digits are zeros and it gives the ball back.

Just tried it on Melody and not true.

Ball one if it hits nothing (which is impossible on Melody) will get returned to the shooter lane with no deduction.

However if the ball scores anything at all, even an "impossible drain" will deduct from that point forward. So basically ball one is the only ball you get a freebie.

Data East will return the ball to the shooter lane on any ball if there is no score without exception.

This is correct on how Gottlieb EMs generally work. Now go try that on a typical Bally or Williams in the 60s or 70s...

Also it's true a lot of games have some sort of forced playfield validation off the plunge

Bally Night Rider will return the ball regardless of which ball it is if no score, this function is not even listed in the manual under features and sequence of operation.

Correct. It seems to be an early form of playfield validation, ie making sure the game served the player a ball in the shooter lane which may/must hit a playfield switch on the plunge. It must validate the playfield before the outlane switch is triggered before advancing the ball count index.

I think this was a design in case the outhole kicker failed to serve the shooter lane

Some musings on early “ball saves” :

Many EM games had outlane gates that could be opened to return the otherwise lost ball to the plunger lane.

There were also many EMs with outlane kick backs that could be activated/ achieved.

Multiple woodrails in the 50s had a triangle that would rise between the flippers to prevent ball drain. It would stay up until you achieved a certain number of points(more than just playfield validation) , or on some, a certain amount of time had elapsed.

The EM “travel time” has a timed ball save that will keep saving the ball as long as there is time left on the clock, which can be added and stopped through game play. There is a clock that ticks down on the playfield, and the operator can modify the speed and amount of time units given at the beginning of the game.

I would consider a returned ball after a certain amount of time (regardless of points scored) a ball save. Getting a ball back if no points are scored would be considered a consolation ball.

I think late 80s to early 90s the ball save was used on some games and not on others. Addams Gold in 94 might have been the last as a carry over from the 92 version.

F14 Tomcat if that ball drains out immediately cause you missed it then the machine will give you a ball save (flight insurance). quick search "This is the first machine to have a ball save". Also from memory a score reached which is low (under 500,00) which can be adjusted will allow flight insurance, and the Yagov kick back gives you flight insurance as well.

This makes the most sense, since not all EMs had this particular feature, but they still have a playfield validation switch to guarantee that a served ball is counted:

A bunch of Gottlieb wedgeheads have a switch at the bottom end of the trough (in an area that a crossing ball would be guaranteed to be served to the shooter lane) that would advance the ball count unit.

You can easily play a ball, not hit a single switch on the playfield, and the game will still count it as a ball played.

I worked as a repair guy for an operator in the '90s. One location owner constantly complained for "not enabling the ball save" in TAF makes him lose customers. I showed him the game manuals and menus, to prove there is no ball saver in TAF. No luck. He demanded either enable ball saver or take out the game. We then replaced it with a Getaway and he was happy.

Hahaha this is exactly what popped in my head

I didn't say all Gottliebs do this. Try it on a 70s multiplayer game... Last time I saw this work I think it was a Lawman.

Don't have one of them so can't offer an opinion, just have the one Melody.