I have been in the pinball hobby since 1974 (When I bought my first pinball machine) and was an active participant in the birth of the hobby. I remember when there was only a handful of pinball enthusiasts who would rack up high long distance phone bills (“Toll” calls) from the 1970s through to the early 1980s, just talking about pinball. I played competitive pinball from the 1980s until the middle 1990s and attended most pinball shows. I never heard of anybody else doing the move or mentioning seeing the move done by other players. Provenance goes a long way here.

My issue is that with all I have contributed to pinball over the years, that one of my best contributions is attributed to someone else. That’s wrong IMO and I will point out the history of the alley pass every time I see the term “Shatz”, till the day I die! Maybe I will never eradicate the term, but at least people will learn a little pinball history. (No other pinball skill is given an attribution)

Best of luck with that Jon. I think you have numerous things to be proud of. If we had a "Norris" that wasn't an alley pass, what would you want it to be? A particular move, or skill, or playfield design element, or code idea?

Also what are your thoughts on this question

I played a lot of Jack’s Open. I think that the open drains were more to prevent players from trapping the ball easily. Jacks Open didn’t have slingshots at bottom to help game with side drains. I could still usually run the replays up to the credit limit by dead flipping and making safe traps.

Pinball Skill- Maybe the Levitation. I never see any using levitations when watching streamed pinball events.

A “Levitation” is when an unpowered flipper bat. Still moving upward hits the ball. In other words, you make a micro-flip and time it so that the flipper impacts the ball when the bat is still going upward but the coil of off at ball impact. The result is that the kinetic energy of the flipper mech counter-acts the balls momentum and the result is that the ball seems to “Levitate” for an instant, so you can trap it or control it. It is possible to “Hacky-Sack” the ball for several levitations’ multiple times. I’ve been doing levitations since the 1980s.

Pinball Feature- Many to choose from: Hurryup Countdown Bonus (Diamond Lady), Mode based Pinball (Lights Camera Action), Super Jackpot (Vegas), In-Game Currency (Freddy), Achievements (Operation Thunder & Shaq), Tournament Mode (Cue Ball Wizard), PinGolf, and a lot more features.

But in the end, I don't really need an attribution. I'm just opposed to having an attribution when there shouldn't be one.

I feel that. I try to avoid naming things after people (because I think there is more downside than upside to the practice). People wore me down on "shatz" ....

A levitation sounds somewhere in between a "live catch" and a "drop catch". I know what you're talking about though. I unintentionally do it while trying to do those two other moves.

I wonder how long people were doing alley passes. Seems like the sort of thing a few players might have independently thought of, but with few ways to demonstrate it to others. The traditional inlane-outlane form didn't really become popular till the 70s to my knowledge. No need for the skill pre 70s if there were very rarely any inlanes to shoot

So John, has coach finally checked in?

That trailer was put together really well. I really enjoyed watching that. Good editing with intriguing characters and a great soundtrack. Thanks Frolic.

I remember when that trailer first showed up years ago, it was my first introduction to Rick Stetta and I really wanted to see what would come of it. Too bad nothing did and I guess Rick didn't get his comeback that he wanted, although I think a documentary can still create a compelling story even without a "rocky" type ending.

I’m not a scientist, but by the looks of it, you post more often than John.

Good thing I've donated.

I was like, huh? How is that comparable lol.

Thanks for the history lesson!

For the record, I like alley pass much better than shatz for the reason that the name tells you what the move does - it’s way more useful descriptively! Shatz is so “insider knowledge” imo.

Pinball is nerdy enough without us shatzing it up in public!

No the coach did not call today. I was under the weather & took it easy. Got out to one of my basement bars & had 2 pitchers of Bud tonight. No cell signal in basement bars. Almost tempted for a 3rd pitcher but I passed. Got to wait at home for a UPS delivery on Wednesday. Jon Norris seems like a good player, hopefully I get the chance to play a few games with him.

Yes, thanks Frolic. The shot of his trailer brought back memories. I visited once when purchasing his Eight Ball Deluxe.

That's quite impressive!
I really like Stargate, and quite a big part is because of it having modes and missions/achievements and the Quartz trading system. Those are all your inventions/ideas? I don't really know Freddy, but I suppose the Quartz is like the mentioned 'in game currency' you mention?

Tilt champion. How many tilt registers you get within a 3 second period. It's a great idea when mixed with booze! (as an aside, I love games with a tilted bonus high score table)

All of the recent JJP games have inserts dedicated to tracking tilt warnings. I wish more games did that along with gifting extra tilts as bonuses.

Tilt warnings are a novel reward for advance pinball players, but totally meaningless to non-players. Heck, a lot of players hardly touch the machine either. But I guess you can program the game to be smart enough to only give out extra warnings to players who are actually getting warnings while they play...

Tangentially related: secret death save awards. A few Data East games have them. But I imagine someone yelled at someone about not encouraging that sort of rough play, which can damage the cabinet and floors and greatly extend game time (ie decrease earnings)

Have unused tilt warnings cash out as an end of ball bonus. I’d swear I’ve already seen something like this already…

I'm almost positive it is, but now I can't think of the game(s)

How about a mode that you qualify by accumulating a certain amount of tilt warnings?

Interesting.....

Is the building that bad?

How about a nice game of chess?

Yes I am sure TPF would love to see extremely abusive stuff at the show. Do not think the coach would like people trying to destroy his game at the show. Contrary to popular opinion here I do not go to shows & pound or shake the shit out of pinball machines. See lots of swearing & other people into the bad stuff. Never kicked the legs of a game ever in my life. I do remember the guys putting the steel toe boots to games (coin doors) in the 70's & 80's
Still not feeling the best, hopefully this could is going to be over soon. 2 weeks now. Thursday I might be getting back into the swing of things again at the workshop. A new younger guy wants to learn more electronics to hopefully get a job in that field. I will guide him when ever he finds the time, at no charge. Always good to pass on my years of knowledge towards the guys wanting to repair or service pinball machines.
I spent my day home waiting on no show UPS. Finally got my package paid for brokerage, tax, etc. The first call seemed to go to India for customer service (bad hum on the line), called back likely got someone in Canada. Paid another redirect fee to send the parcel to the workshop for safety! I do not trust dump & go at my slum apartment. No beers today so far, but I might hit The Local Bar. My left foot is bad today (likely need surgery before I die).
I do not wear rings, & see lots of damage done to lock bars.

I verbally abuse the games and use hand gestures. I let em know who's boss.

John, I am with you here. I have seen some people be pretty rough with games that did not belong to them . I was at the Pinball Life Expo Open House one year and there was a significantly modded Stern Pro Mustang that belonged to one of the custom guys, can't remember which, and there was this dude playing and just beating on it badly. He wasn't nudging or shaking, he was full on dragging the legs left and right because it was obvious the tilt bob wasn't hooked up. I told him off and he was a sniveling little jerkoff. That ain't cool to abuse another's machine, especially one brought for FREE Play for the attendees.

John, I am with you here. I have seen some people be pretty rough with games that did not belong to them . I was at the Pinball Life Expo Open House one year and there was a significantly modded Stern Pro Mustang that belonged to one of the custom guys, can't remember which, and there was this dude playing and just beating on it badly. He wasn't nudging or shaking, he was full on dragging the legs left and right because it was obvious the tilt bob wasn't hooked up. I told him off and he was a sniveling little jerkoff. That ain't cool to abuse another's machine, especially one brought for FREE Play for the attendees.
Imagine a crisp September day at high school , hanging around your 67 firebird..another orange Dart parked beside You.
Some dude walks up and says , hey man nice cars —thanks buddy, and then the dude kicks the fenderS What would the guys hanging around the cars do to that dude?

There is still no panic or concern on my part towards the 6 month time line. October is the month things get really going. Like I have said the coach just needs to let me know the direction of his Texas theme build mid to end of October. So I can figure out the lenses needed, & placement on the playfield.
The other pinball service tech about a hour+ away was looking at the panel test whitewood. He was impressed & went to trade school for avionics repair. Also has a large collection of scale model planes of his own & repairs others at his shop.

Next time, have the package delivered to your favorite bar. Then you can kill two birds with one stone.

Yes, the timing is more like a "live catch" but you release the flipper button before ball impact. The "live catch" relies on the flipper rubber popping up a little bit when the flipper reaches the top, so the timing must be absolutely perfect. With a 'levitation', the timing isn't as precise as a "live catch" but is more difficult than an easy "drop catch".

I agree that other players may have figured out the alley pass just like me, playing a game that had an extra ball in the return lane. All that was needed was to have the extra ball lit and the player making a flipper save that accidentally sends the ball up the lit lane. Then the Aha moment where they realize that it's a shot. (Most likely how I discovered the shot).

In-Game denomination was just that (Quartz, etc.). My favorite implementation was on Shaq Attaq, where you could trade “game balls” for the potential of a higher Wizard Mode total, then try to accumulate exactly 14 game balls to trade them for doubling your score. This meant that there was always a new strategy to play for after the Wizard Mode. (Was not easy to do!)

Yes, I invented all of those and more. Gottlieb was a very small company. We typically had 90 days to take a game from napkin sketch to the assembly line. The entire engineering department was 10 to 15 employees and everybody worked on every game. We were competing against Williams, where they had separate development teams for each title who typically had a year to tweak their games.

We were forced to keep trying to stay one-step ahead of Williams with regard to rule set features and concepts. The strategy worked and I was given free-reign with regard to game rule concepts. I also designed the rule sets for the other playfield designers (due to the short game development time).

I think some people are getting confused about tilt warnings. They are there to use them. But yeah, abusing a machine is not cool. There is definitely a delineation between nudging into a warning and JO behavior like lifting, slamming or striking a game.

Oh yeah, the J.O. I was talking about was full out leg dragging left & right

Beechwood isn't Wednesday the weekly wrap-up? I understand if you've dropped the bit. That said, I figured you'd be grateful for the prompt on the off chance it simply slipped your mind. Wouldn't want you to feel regretful come Thursday morning.

Had 4 beer today. Some vendors do not listen to updated address info at times. Something you have to work through. 8 balls will be in play in this game build.

If there are some additional switches behind the up/down post on the left, it could lock/stage some balls. Think of how fast the game could be if it released a staged ball to the inlane on those orbit shots. (Spectrum tries this idea. Rick and Morty does it for the portal shot)

I noticed it would happen when I flailed as a beginner. Realizing the strategic benefit of doing it on purpose took much longer.

I've thought more about if open ball guides, like Jacks Open, were about preventing easy points from alley passes. I now lean they were for the ball save opportunity because they could have cut the inlane switch to be one way, which was common on outlane switches to prevent balls from coming back into play. So I don't think they were designing to discourage the move. And shortly after games like Road Runner would encourage the move

Just got the call from the coach. He will likely start giving more input on his plans for the first built game with a Texas theme. 3rd $1k USD towards the build will be mid October.

Well it can’t end up any worse than September did so I’ll keep my fingers crossed on your behalf.

What will get all of us worried is when you start to panic or have concern. Is that even possible ? I suspect no matter the outcome or state of the machine in March you will deem it as all having proceeded according to plan.

If the world is truly deterministic then that will be a 100% factually correct observation you will have made there. Maybe we all could use a little more teaching from the master of zen.

Yes everything is going fine. The game(s) will be ready & finished for SXSW & TPF in March 2023.

Well of course they will. I'm not panicking.

No panic here either. All according to plan.

What do you need to have completed by the end of October to still be on schedule?

I would be surprised if there is an actual schedule. The only dates that have been mentioned were:

1. When whale search would be cut off
2. When mini whale search would be cut off
3. When project begins
4. TPF reveal

John says a functioning whitewood will be complete

Let me fix this for you, The GAME............or not.