(Topic ID: 158489)

Do you remember your first pinball game/experience?

By str8cash

7 years ago


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    #1 7 years ago

    Do you remember the first time you played a game of pinball? For me it was 84 and my parents took me to a xmas party at their friends place in Winnipeg, MB. I got sent into the basement and there was a row of games including a bally Playboy, Williams Black Knight and a Fireball. As a 6 year old I was immediately hooked. I remember crying when my dad said it was time to go. I begged him for weeks to go back. Lucky for me it was one of his drinking buddies so I got to go and play them regularly for the next couple of years.

    #2 7 years ago

    No, but I remember playing this in my bedroom, as a kid.

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    #3 7 years ago

    I have two, and I'm not sure which came first:

    -Went on a camping trip with my Cub Scouts troop in the 90s to a KOA site above Santa Cruz. The rec room at the center of the camp had a Whirlwind in it, and apparently I did well enough to get the fan to turn on (an achievement for a six-year-old), which absolutely blew my mind.
    -My mom would hang out with her work friends after picking me up from school at a bar attached to a 50s diner. Kids technically weren't allowed in the bar area, but they let me in there to play the FH they had.

    Both stuck with me for years, even when pinball almost totally disappeared in my area a little later.

    #4 7 years ago

    Never played it as a kid. Gun games and racers gave more bang-for-buck for a newbie with very little pocket money.

    Playing TOTAN on The Pinball Arcade when it released on iPhone in early 2012 was a revelation. I had played virtual pinball before but the recreation of TOTAN showed me just how amazing a real game is. So I had to find one to play.

    Indy 500, Congo, T2 and Demo Man where at a local laser tag venue had an arcade that put everything on Free Play two nights a week for $15. Free Play is the best way to get into pinball because you avoid the "all balls gone in one minute, I suck, and I wasted my money" problem that all newbies experience.

    #5 7 years ago

    I'd say it was some where around 1984. I played a Black Knight in a Showbiz Pizza. I remember the machine kept matching and giving me free games. Between that and the Knights voice, I thought it was pretty cool.

    #6 7 years ago

    I remember playing Whirlwind at Chucky Cheeses and Addams Family at a bowling alley as a kid. I didn't play any pinball again until I bid and won a Super Mario Bros pin at an auction about 10 years ago.

    #7 7 years ago

    Barely as I was about 5 years old. There was one in a donut shop, and one in the grocery store down the street. As best I can remember one of them was a Williams Hot line. But I'll never forget the first time I saw a brand new Bally Fireball at the local bowling alley a few years later. That was the most awesome looking pinball machine I had ever seen.

    #8 7 years ago

    Williams Yukon single player @ Cherry city bowl in Salem, Oregon. This was probably about 1973, so the pin was about 1-1/2 years old.

    #9 7 years ago

    1987. I would frequently go on the military base with my Dad. The grocery store had a little game area with a Williams Comet. For a five year old, the size of a pinball cabinet was rather intimidating. I loved the translite and shooting the ramp with the screaming sound effect. I will always have a fondness for that game for this very reason.

    #10 7 years ago

    My parents would take me to this local ice cream and snack bar in the town where I grew up, in upstate NY in the early 70s, and where my dad grew up. My dad frequented the place when he was young, and he would take me there to get lunch or out in the evening for ice cream and play when I was really little.

    They had pool, EM pins, EM Shuffle bowling, and occasionally rotated in an EM shooting game. I remember playing tons of EM pinball, but just CAN NOT remember the specific games. I vaguely remember they had a pool themed EM at one point.

    Once I was old enough, my friends and I would ride our bikes there to play. I remember when it changed owners they started selling pizza and had a sign on the solid state pin: 'free pizza if you set the high score'. I remember a big crowd of friends watching me win the pizza and sharing it with me, and seeing them promptly take down the sign. I can't remember what that pin was either. grrrr

    Here is a historical photo of the place. My dad is not in the pic, but I know a few of those old guys from around town when I was growing up. There must still be a Malt shop with pins somewhere??? Road Trip!

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    -1
    #11 7 years ago

    I was just a young boy visiting the local tap with my G'ma who was a recently retired sheet metal worker, she was bad ass!

    She would give me a stack of Quarters to play while she drank dime taps.

    I popped them in whatever pin it was, random old guy would cozy up behind me and taught me the nuances of nudging, good times!

    #12 7 years ago

    My friend's dad had a Big Guns machine in the basement. I thought it was awesome. Now I can't really stand Big Guns. I always wondered why I have no nostalgia for it since it's the only pinball I played as a kid.

    #13 7 years ago
    Quoted from centerflank:

    , random old guy would cozy up behind me and taught me the nuances of nudging, good times!

    Creepy.

    #14 7 years ago

    When I was 7 my parents signed me up for a bowling league. I hated it because it was Saturday morning when cartoons were on. There was a black hole in the arcade. I played pinball instead of bowling. Didn't last long b4 they pulled me out of the league!

    #15 7 years ago

    When I was young (6-7 years old), my father was usual to take me to the fair. He loved to play at a game similar to pinball, "cannoncini" in italian: the player shoots a steel ball in order to knock down some pins like a bowling game, then with the flippers he have the chance to hit and control again the ball just shot to knock down the remaining pins.
    What a great times!!!
    Those memories led me to buy my first pinball machine for him!
    Thanks dad!

    #16 7 years ago

    No,
    the earliest games I remember playing was Williams Grand Prix and Space Odyssey, both new in '76
    but there must have been other games before

    #17 7 years ago

    Bowling alley for me. Mom was on the bowling team and the arcade was an easy babysitter. lol
    space station , high speed, tron arcade, double dragon are the ones I remember the most. Good Times!!!!

    #18 7 years ago

    Pizza place, I think. Pops used to take us there on Wednesday nights, with a roll of quarters. We'd play SI, Asteroids, and whatever pinball machine was in the joint.

    I got the pinball bug bad. My brother never did. He was more of a video game dork.

    #19 7 years ago

    Lakeside campsite sorta place. It was a Boy Scout day trip, and I was 12 or so. Everyone else was swimming, but I had sunburn and had to stay out of the sun. They had a Whirlwind sitting next to a crane game and a Street Fighter II cabinet. I was drawn to Whirlwind mostly because I noticed it had a fan up top and it was a hot day. I remember thinking the fan would run the whole time the game was playing, but alas, that wasn't the case. I kept pumping in my quarters just to hear those sweet tunes and maybe get a light breeze.

    #20 7 years ago

    No chance. Probably the first game I ever played was one of those "Poosh Up" games you find all the time, with a bunch of little balls that you shoot up at basically a bagatelle type game. They're on eBay all the time for sale. It belonged to my grandparents and I played it all the time when I went to their house. After my grandmother died, my aunt let me take it as I was the one who cared the most about it. I still have it. Thing is definitely not PC.

    The first real pinball I played, I have no memory. I'm sure it involved not much more than shooting the ball up and then continually pushing both flipper buttons at the same time. Little kids still do that today. Some things never change.

    #21 7 years ago

    Probably not the actual first, but the first I really remember, Black Knight at the American Legion in Bastrop, TX. I used to play that and the Star Castle Vid in the corner, when I spent the summers with my dad. I also used to play the games they had at the local grocery store at home I remember pac man plus, and omega race in particular.

    #22 7 years ago

    Most likely in a campground arcade in the mid 60s. I still remember my favorite at the time, Buckaroo for 5 cents a game and free games with special when lit. All the poor cowboy................

    #23 7 years ago

    Aladdin's Castle in St. Louis, 1980, at the age of five. The pinball machines terrified me.

    The lineup (as I recall) was Medusa, Space Invaders, and a few others. Scary imagery for a toddler. I may have tried one game, had no idea what to do and ran back to the cuddly cartoon characters on the video games - Pac Man, Donkey Kong, and Space Invaders (the electro-alien on the cabinet looked like a teddy bear or a Wookie).

    It wasn't until decades later that I discovered pinball.

    #24 7 years ago
    Quoted from centerflank:

    I was just a young boy visiting the local tap with my G'ma who was a recently retired sheet metal worker, she was bad ass!
    She would give me a stack of Quarters to play while she drank dime taps.
    I popped them in whatever pin it was, random old guy would cozy up behind me and taught me the nuances of nudging, good times!

    Random old guy cozying up behind you is "good times?"

    I must have a different definition of "good times."

    #25 7 years ago

    OXO at Stardust Lanes on Friday nights, Dad's bowling league. I needed a chair to see the PF. Still want to own one.

    #26 7 years ago

    It was the holidays (probably Chirstmas), very early 70s (I would guess 1972, but it could have been 73). My uncle, who lived a couple of hours away from us, had a game room in his basement with a jukebox, pool table, shuffle bowler, and a Bally Gold Rush.

    My most vivid childhood memories were in that basement, and I still get a little verklempt thinking about it. By the late 80s his kids had all moved out, and the shuffle bowler was removed at some point when it stopped working... but that Gold Rush still sat there.

    When my uncle passed away about 5 years ago, he willed that Gold Rush to me, and it kicked off my own collection (and I had to go buy a puck bowler just like the one he had too!).

    #27 7 years ago

    My first memory with pinball was with my dad at a bowling alley playing TAF. I was small enough that I couldn't see the playfield without sitting on a stool. And pretty much since then, I don't turn down excuses to go anywhere to play pinball

    #28 7 years ago

    I grew up in Maine. Back in 1976 when I was about 5 I went to Old Orchard Beach which has amusement games and rides and a huge arcade. I played skeeball and shooters like Haunted house and Artic something? I was mesmerized by all the pinball games though and my Dad played a game with me with his hands on mine on each flipper. I remember the ball going up and draining really fast. Game over. I guess my Dad did not think I was ready for the big time yet and we did not play again for a long time. I can't remember what I played, but I vividly remember seeing all the "older" people lining up to play all these games whenever we went there.

    The arcade is still there today with mostly the ticket machines and $1 for a 2 minute game arcades, but there are still 4-5 games in so so condition there to play. I can still smell the pier fries and Bill's Pizza now. Good memories to have. All of it.

    #29 7 years ago

    When I was a youth, my family went on a camping trip and drove up to Canada and we stayed at a jellystone camprground IIRC. I remember the first game I ever saw there at a Rec Hall, was a Williams Smarty !! And from that point on, it was true pinball love !
    On the way back to Illinois, we stayed at a campground in Wisconsin and remember seeing Majorettes, Jolly Jokers and Square Head at a gameroom in the campground. I remember how amazing at such a young age, the art work on the square head back glass was.

    #30 7 years ago

    It would have been around 1970 in the seaside arcades on the Norfolk Coast in the UK. I would have been around 7 or 8 years old. We would have been staying in a holiday beach house for the week, with just the beach and the nearby arcades to amuse my brother and myself.

    I vaguely remember seeing rows of EM machines sitting in the arcades waiting to be played. I ended up playing them as I could make my pocket money last a lot longer playing pinball rather than putting it into the slot machines. I remember being fascinated by the sparks from the slingshot switches, the clicking of the reels and the bright colours on the playfields. I think most of the games would have been Gottlieb wedgeheads.

    I went back to have a look around the place a couple of years ago. The beach and the arcades are all still there, but sadly not a single pinball machine to be found.

    #31 7 years ago

    I do not remember, as I grew up with games in my grandparents basement. My first real memory is playing the pitch and bat as well as the big ball bowler there, and a non-working pin sitting near the pool table (I wish I could remember what game it was!) I also remember being scared to death of the gun game noise because of the vacuum needed to fire the gun.

    #32 7 years ago

    Around 1991, High Speed at Chucky Cheese.

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