I have a 7 year old that loves to play pinball. For the past 5 years I've mainly had recent Stern games and Wizard of Oz. He really enjoys the super hero pins like Iron Man, Spiderman, Batman Dark Knight, and Avengers Hulk LE, so I decided to get them all to make sure the theme was something that really attracted him. His favorite feature out of all those games is hitting the ball on the crane in Batman. The crane is a cool interactive toy and will really help him learn how to aim the ball.

Now that he really enjoys playing pinball, the theme doesn't need to attract him as much. I recently picked up a Black Knight and Stellar Wars, which are early solid state Williams games. His new favorite game to play is Black Knight. He even runs downstairs to play it before he goes to school. It's easy to play and he loves shooting the ball to the upper playfield and using the two flippers on the upper playfield. He said it's like having two pinball machines in one.

If your budget is $5k, you could easily find 2-3 early solid state games that have 3+ flippers. You might as well start planning for more than one pinball machine, because these things have a bad habit of multiplying quickly!
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