Tittle says it all. Visiting with non pinheads but they are open to an outing for pinball. They like to play, but not obsessed like me.
Where are the best games to play? Best diversity? Any must see pinball in Seattle?
Thanks in advance.
Seattle Pinball Museum,Shorty's,The Unicorn and Full Tilt Ice Cream are a few.Try www.skill-shot.com or Seattle Pinball Map.Probably won't want to wear your cheesehead hat after the game though…..j/k
Shortys is usually good, although last time I was there the games were piss poor.
http://www.shortydog.com/
Full Tilt Ice Cream...looks like they have multiple locations now but I only knew of Ballard
http://fulltilticecream.com/
Quoted from Slugmeister:Seattle Pinball Museum,Shorty's,The Unicorn and Full Tilt Ice Cream are a few.Try http://www.skill-shot.com or Seattle Pinball Map.Probably won't want to wear your cheesehead hat after the game though…..j/k
If you would suggest only 1, which would it be?
Thanks
I have yet to make my way to Seattle. Considering it is only 800 miles away I better check it out someday. lol
Quoted from Whysnow:If you would suggest only 1, which would it be?
Thanks
Seattle Pinball Museum
Quoted from Whysnow:How is game quality at add-a-ball in fremont/Wallingford area?
Thx
Answered my own question. Game quality is very bad. For future reference, this is not the place to go.
Quoted from dasvis:Shorty's
This. Shorty's is the oldest and best barcade there is. It's the measuring stick for all other barcades. Yes it's a dive and the games can be rough, but it should be a bucket list location for any pinhead. If you're going to Seattle and you've never been there, you have to go to Shorty's. Best on Saturday night. Bring a friend (or a concealed weapon d
.
Seattle is pretty easy to travel around during the day. Go to the pinball museum its a no brainer to play a lot of pins get a beer and a Seattle Pinball Museum shirt to take home. Play my old Batman Forever while you are there! The Pinball Museum is in China Town and its interesting on its own. Shorty's is in Belltown and its a bar so no kids etc. Belltown can get a little crazy at night and parking can be difficult. The games a Full Tilt are fun and they play well. I like to end the night by melting an ice cream cone into a pin, it usually creeps slowly under the lock bar (yes, they let you do that)... kidding...
Bobby just had a small heart attack 
Quoted from Clawhammer:Shorty's, the Seattle Pinball Museum, and Full Tilt Ice Cream. Seattle is a great town for pinball.
.... But for a real pinball town, head South to Portland. Many, many more games on location.
Ground control, C-bar, etc..
If you want to drink beer while playing, go to Shorty's. If that's not important, then go to Seattle Pinball Museum (they have a really nice collection, and the ticket's are very reasonably priced
Damn Hilton, you get around as much as I do!
Shorty's is awesome as many have said.
Seattle Pinball Museum is a must IMHO.
If you can only do one, tough call, depends what you want to do all day.
Lots of great food near SPM.
--
Rob Anthony
Pinball Classics
www.LockWhenLit.com
Quality Board Work - In Home Service
borygard at gmail dot com
Quoted from Borygard:Damn Hilton, you get around as much as I do!
Shorty's is awesome as many have said.
Seattle Pinball Museum is a must IMHO.
If you can only do one, tough call, depends what you want to do all day.
Lots of great food near SPM.
--
Rob Anthony
Pinball Classics
http://www.LockWhenLit.com
Quality Board Work - In Home Service
borygard at gmail dot com
WI doesn't want him. Seems no other state does either.
Thanks all for the input.
Hitting up SPM today and then hopefully full tilt Ballard for ice cream this evening.
SPM was an easy sell once I told the others that it was in the international district as we all have fond memories of Chinatown in Chicago and daring each other to eat crazy crap. They like eating rooster feet and I like playing pinball. Done deal!
If you're with non-pinheads, Shorty's is the way to go.
The pinball museum is awesome and so is Full Tilt, but for a night out with non-pinheads, go with Shorty's. A lot of other bars in the vicinity too.
Quoted from Bryan_Kelly:WI doesn't want him. Seems no other state does either.
he's a bears fan. nuff said.
Quoted from Bryan_Kelly:WI doesn't want him. Seems no other state does either.
Deb told me I am welcome in MN anytime...
Quoted from Whysnow:Deb told me I am welcome in MN anytime...
That's only because she's currently in Nevada.
Quoted from Whysnow:Great game last night...
it was an awesome display of dominance. pretty much what's going to happen every time they play at home and probably on the road. it's too bad $hitcago doesn't get to play them in the regular season.
Quoted from Whysnow:If you would suggest only 1, which would it be?
Thanks
Shorty's. Good overall game selection and playability.
And they pour generous Crown and cokes to boot.
- Tim
Quoted from davewtf:it was an awesome display of dominance. pretty much what's going to happen every time they play at home and probably on the road. it's too bad $hitcago doesn't get to play them in the regular season.
Yeah, I need to get a dig in before the bears actually play. My hopes are not high this year.
Wow, Shorty's lineup has sure changed when I went there two years ago on a business trip to Seattle. I was almost afraid to go in what with all the drunken vagrants asleep in the bar area leading to the arcade in back. Back then it had Champion Pub, Rolling Stones (Stern), Batman (DMD Stern), Indiana Jones (Stern) and the first Monster Bash I had ever played. At the time, all the pins were in fantastic condition and only 25 cents or 50 cents a game.
Seattle Pinball Museum has a great, diverse lineup of games, though condition can be inconsistent. They probably have about 40 games.
Full Tilt in Ballard has about 13, but basically all in good shape. Basically Bally/Williams DMDs and a couple Sterns. Both good choices. If you do Full Tilt, MAKE SURE you do the Ballard one. The one in the university district just has a single arcade game.
The SPM might have 55 games but I don't think all are out (at least there wasn't 55 out there two weeks ago) but I would recommend it as well excellent place. Compares very favourably to Modern Pinball in NYC (as well as Reciprocal in NYC) not that those aren't good places but SPM was awesome.
Pinball museum was very fun. Probably 15 games that were non working, but the vast majority were in nice shape and good playing. We had a good time.
Full tilt Ballard was OK. Pinball Museum by far the best I was able to visit.
Full Tilt seemed each game had a issue or 2 and many had flippers aligned a bit odd.
Huh, really? All games at Full Tilt are aligned with a ruler to the inlane to minimize flipper hop (and generally pretty dialed in since the operator is a very good tournament player), but they might have shifted since the last time I went there (I've been out of town for almost a month). I play the shit out of those games on the weekly tournament night and the operator is very good about fixing problems if anyone mentions them to him (which casual players at an ice cream shop are unlikely to do), so if you remember any of the problems you had you should definitely shoot him a message (20xxamusements at gmail dot com) or post about the issues here so they get fixed!
Hey guys, thanks for all the nice comments about Full Tilt Ballard! I really appreciate it. As some of you know I operate the games there. I'm a long-time collector, player, and all-around game enthusiast so I do try hard to make sure all my games play well. In fact the whole reason I got into operating games was because I was so sick of playing shoddy machines out on location and wanted to try to approach it from the eye of someone who cares about the games playing correctly.
I'm a total stickler and I know the games aren't home-use-perfect -- try as I might, this is very difficult to achieve at a high-traffic location, especially in the brutal summer months at an ice cream shop -- but I do try my hardest to jump on problems as soon as I know about them. I also do a ton of preventative maintenance and preemptive strikes when I even suspect something might eventually go south. Some problems are solvable and others have to eventually just be chalked up to design flaws or "just how it is," though I'm always looking for new ways to fix problems in creative ways and go above and beyond what most ops would ever bother with. Most people would probably laugh if they knew how many hours I've put into trying to iron out even the most benign issues that 99% of players will never notice or care about.
Anyway, I'm surprised to hear that every game had problems, since I'm not aware of many right now. If you could give me the details on the issues you ran into, it would be very helpful. The more people report, the more I know, the more I can deal with. Nothing is more frustrating than having someone tell me "oh, your game is still doing that thing that it has done forever" and then proceeding to describe a strange intermittent issue I have never personally encountered and have never been told about. Then I dig into the game and sure enough, the problem exists -- if I had known a month or two before, I would've fixed it.
About the flipper alignment, I'm not sure what to say. I am really picky about flipper alignment, put a lot of time into it and think I have the best aligned flippers around, so maybe it's just a difference of opinion? Like Kevin says I always use a guide to align them in parallel with the guide rails to ensure as smooth a transition as possible. I also give attention to making sure they flip to the same point on both sides and look symmetrical. Which games did you notice wonky flipper alignment on? I'll go look at them and see if maybe they've come a little out of alignment if you let me know.
Thanks for coming out!
Hey Bobby,
A few issues I remember off the top of my head to help you out. (Side note : I tried to tell the ice cream servers and they did not care to hear about my opinions, so I left it be)
On Jackbot, the tension spring on the plunger is likely too hard. I had many balls go all the way up the spiral and blast over the top and then down the pf. This is likely what also has cause some plastic cone posts to break on the upper pf area. Plastic tip for one post was lodged in one eye socket when I was playing.
On WOZ, ball had a tough time kicking up on the left VUK (near crystal ball). Not a big issue and have seen in on may WOZ. I think there is an adjustment ion the setting to increase the power a touch.
WhoDunnit. Left skill shot kickout thing (can't remember what it is called) would kick it out the left out lane 50% of the time. From my experience it should be a safe kickout down the left inlane.
For the flippers, I always align using the holes in the pf and a toothpick. Ball hop from inlane is typically not from flipper angle but rather from inlane guide adjustments/ beat up guides IME. On older games, a replacement with the ones Cliffy makes will usually get you back on the right (originally intended geometry) track. Aligning with a straight edge parallel to an old beat up inlane guide may get rid of ball hop but also makes the game different than the original geometry. In other words, aligning flippers to guide rails is only as good as the inlane guide rail itself.
I also suspected that a few games had the larger coil stops on the flippers than intended. The stops were changed at some point and the flipper rebuilds for newer B/W have a longer stop which means slightly less flipper travel. I have made this mistake in the past, so just passing along what I have learned from experience.
Thanks for even having the games on location. I had a good time playing them. With the amount of traffic you get (I am jealous) it would liekly be VERY tough to keep that many games runnning well all the time!
Hope the info helps
Quoted from Whysnow:On Jackbot, the tension spring on the plunger is likely too hard.
just like mine, huh? I've only played mine but i think a lighter spring takes the skill out of the skill shot but i hear you on the broken vortex ramps.
I should also just say that you guys in SEA are spoiled rotten with so many games to play on location!
It was fun to be able to check out some of the local hot spots. Pinball muesum was the best bang for the buck, diversity of games, and overall condition of games. I would highly reccomend that anyone visiting be sure to visit and reserve at least 3-4hrs for play time. I enjoyed getting some time on GnR and BatmanForever the most.
Quoted from davewtf:just like mine, huh? I've only played mine but i think a lighter spring takes the skill out of the skill shot but i hear you on the broken vortex ramps.
no, I think yours is one degree lower tension. On the one there, the ball would easily blast over the top of the spiral and in any random direction over the upper pf with a full plunge. I don't know what is factory but this particular one seemed to be a heaviest tension rating (is that white?; can't remember).
Quoted from Whysnow:On the one there, the ball would easily blast over the top of the spiral
the top of his vortex ramp must be broken off. it should hit and go back down the spiral otherwise.
Hard to imagine a stiffer spring than the one on my game. lol.
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