a little mexican banana joust challenge...
(there's a karate champ behind the banana)

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I love that game!

As we were handing out candy this year, I threw this idea out to put out the CFTBL and RFM, next year its a sure go long as we don't have snow....5 cm on the ground this morning....

Time to necro the thread as it's getting close to Halloween. I'm thinkin of throwing out a couple of pins this year. Anyone else?

If I would leave a pinball unattended outdoors for even a few minutes, it would be gone.

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Still planning on this, hoped to have more ready to go, but work has held me up, so probably a couple. Weather permitting(we have snow yesterday/today)....

if there were an easier route to my garage from my basement, i would, but i'd have to either go around the outside of my house up a big hill on grass, or up a winding staircase.

Guy just had a BBB stolen from inside his garage, and you're considering putting one on the porch?

not worried about it. it's a great neighborhood and i'd probably be there the whole time anyway.

people die in automobile accidents every day, too. Should we stop driving?

*edit* Nevermind... apparently facts still don't matter over people's feelings. Whatever. Enjoy your glass house.

race card? you're the one blaming a race for crime.

*edit* Nevermind... apparently facts still don't matter over people's feelings.

I def want to do this. The wife would be the biggest negative/obstacle in the way. Be a great way to meet the neighbors and get word out that I have a kickass IM for sale.

I agree. If I didnt have a wife to worry about when I am away, I may be more keen on this idea. I agree though, this just invites people to get an idea of what you have inside your home. If you can afford pinball machines, chances are you have already afforded a nice big screen TV, and other expensive toys.

I recall one year at one of my old homes (rental) I had my Bally Wizard! close to the door. On halloween the parents would stay and play a game or two and send the kids off down the street without them.
Having a pin for them to play is nice. Giving out great treats (like regular sized candy bars, bags of chips) will keep your place from getting egged...

Yes. You friggin' people on the road are making me late for work.

Just in case anyone cares/wonders... the mental patient/stalker that lived temporarily next door somehow forgot to tell anyone that he was also a registered sex offender. Apparently he tried to rape a couple of minors a few years back. Which means that when he was arrested at church for severly beating my neighbor with a folding chair, trying to choke her to death, and giving 2 people who tried to pull him off her black eyes... the sex offender charges were brought back up since he was 0.5 miles from an elementary school and hadn't declared his new address. So he's now in jail. And she's changed her tune on boarding mental patients for now after he tried to murder her over a disagreement over his phone bill charges.

Maybe I'll actually get to do Halloween this year, but won't do the pins since we have less than 10 people total anyway. I may have a Halloween party instead and invite friends to come play.

No f-ing way would I do this. And you, Bakushan should rethink it, especially since you live outside Dallas...future site of the zombie apocalypse.

I'd be out front with a gun telling everybody passing by, "Don't you get your damn Ebola on my pinball machine...keep walkin'!"

Scary stuff until it's completely contained.

Well, only half of it was a joke. When you actually start bleeding out of every orifice, it's not so funny anymore. But I wish you the best of luck. Hope my Cowboys don't all die...they've actually managed to win a few games this year!

We have been doing this every Halloween for about the past 8 years. We pull around 4 of the appropriately themed games for the kids to play. Last year it was TAF, MB, SS, and CFTBL. Some folks completely ignore it but a good number stay and play a few games. Some parents do as well. We live in a big Halloween neighborhood, I think we have a couple of hundreds kids most years.

For some reason I don't have any pictures on this computer, I'll post some up later.

I like to think that these stories we here in the news are just rare isolated cases and that the majority of people living on this Earth are truly good, then I read this.... Thanks Blondetall for further removing my faith in humanity!

Have some dirty pigpen kids with chocolate all over their hands play my pin? No thanks. My kids can't even look at my games why would I let strangers touch them?

This was all for humor.

I live in the middle of a forest and never get any kids, but this year I am putting my machines in my garage and see if anyone shows up. They probably won't though

I'm putting my Space Invaders and Fix-it Felix out for tonight. The only pin I have is still in a million pieces...

We have been doing this for years, our neighborhood has come to expect it. We are scaling back a lot this year because the weather is supposed to be really bad but we still brought 3 pins around to the garage for the trick or treaters tonight. I normally turn my old truck into part of the display in the front yard but predicted rain and wind says that isn't happening this year either, and no smoke machines. It's honestly a pain in the butt (especially since my kids are all away at college and can't help us anymore) but I would not stop doing it out of any fears. We had about 270 kids last year and I feel like I'm doing a civic duty to introduce them (and their parents) to pinball. If you aren't sharing these games with anyone what is the point of having them?

I'll post pictures after the event tonight. Again, we will be way scaled down this year because of predicted wind/rain/temperatures.

Most of my games are in the basement and I don't feel like being visited by the police or angry parents for inviting strange children downstairs.

However, this does sound like a fun idea and my project F14 is still in the garage... This could be fun it it's not snowing.

On my previous heroic post I should have mentioned what makes it possible for me to do this is we had a continuous concrete sidewalk poured at our house from the walkout basement door all the way around to the driveway. No steps at all. Without that I would not be doing this either.

We did have one block party where we invited strangers and their children into the basement arcade. Never again! Never ever ever again. Worst experience we have ever had with the pins...

Going at it again this year. Will have Centipede, Spiderman, Ironman, and XMEN out there. Avengers will stay in the house, since it's going up for sale and I don't want to have to re-shop it after tonight.

Pics later.

-Wes

I'll be handing out candy from the game room garage tonight. All machines/pins will be on & set to free play! Next year when the bar is completed I would like to have a party w drinks & refreshments as well.

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weather looks to cooperate, will probably go for a couple hours, grab a treat and have a free game....figuring CFTBL, SS, TOM, NGG, maybe F14 or SOF.....contemplating setting up IJ4 as some of my parts have arrived and could then work on it next week...

Same as last year. If I open my house up to strangers, I will eventually be robbed. This year I will just crack the door open and throw candy out the door. lol J/K

I was hoping my TWDLE was going to be here by Halloween. I definitely would have put it in the garage temporarily for the neighborhood kids to play tonight.

I live pretty close to you and the weather we're supposed to get is stopping me from putting any games out too. I was thinking I might drag my Dracula out of the basement and put it outside for people to play but given the weather conditions and all, I don't think so.

Some year, it might actually be nice on Halloween and I'll be able to put a game out.

Dave

Well don't leave us hanging, what happened??

My Halloween challenge is to jack up the volume on my pins, play the crap out of them, and see if I can actually hear the doorbell ringing. Good luck, kids!!!

I couldn't agree more. This year I have Spin A Card, El Dorado, Funhouse, and Grand Slam pitch and bat all ready to go. Cool temps but it should be dry.

I had the exact opposite of you. Spent three hours moving all my pins to the garage and as usual not even one kid showed up. Sometimes it sucks to live rurally.

27 kids showed up. I'm starting to think some of the kids were by twice. One 5 or 6 year old looked past the foyer and said 'Wow nice pinball machine Mr.!'

Think we had around 100 (all the candy is gone...), lots of enjoyment, parents liked it and played, some inquiries as to where to buy one etc. I found a lot of them:
1. pushed the start button repeatedly (once they found it)
2. were trying to push the plunger, instead of pulling it
3. weren't sure what to do with the flippers...
...but did get educated and exposed to this game.
Also some put up some decent scores.
Casualties.....a couple stuck balls, two shooter rod handles need to be re-epoxied(minor), and some switch errors (from having to continually reset after all the false 4 player games. But everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and were careful with them, no wanton abuse....

2014

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Had a good turn out, but you always have that one miserable person that ruins the whole thing...

Nice! I see that big purple/white ribbon hanging there...

Neighbor next door decided to organize a block party. Being right next door with a gameroom and a walkout basement we decided "why not open up the basement?". We had one rule, kids could come in if accompanied by a parent, and everyone needed to stay in the basement. Basically, we didn't want parents to dump their unsupervised kids in our basement while they got drunk at the block party.

Rules quickly got ignored. Parents saw our basement as a dumping opportunity for their wild kids while they got drunk at the block party. We found kids upstairs in our house (even though we had a polite sign asking them to stay in the basement). The whole neighborhood used our basement bathroom and it looked like a Waffle House bathroom by the end. At one point kids were walking on the bowler alley and climbing glass to glass on the pinball machines.

My neighbor was smart enough to not open up his home at all during this. Smart move in hindsight. Still it was a bad enough experience even for him that it never got mentioned again. One and done for the neighborhood block parties.

I will post up some pictures of Halloween as soon as I can find my cable. Seeing some of the others I'm already a little embarrassed, we need to step up our game a bit compared to some of the folks here...

Spooky arcade, check.
Gin and tonic, check.
Huge bag of candy, check.
10 trick or treaters, check.
Guy hanging out in his garage by himself for the majority of the night, check.