How about those rope lights like I seen on a DE Hook machine? Never really took off long term right?

To be fair to P2k, it wasn't a failure at all. They sold a TON of them. It was a business decision to close B/W Pinball due to small profit margins.

I wish pins like circus (vertical playfield) took off. The footprint of an arcade game, with the volume of pinball. I also like the challenge of flipping a ball vertically, same reason why the gottlieb lower playfield titles are highly sought, and are making a comeback (ac/dc)

Not sure how many Stern used it on, but the mini tri-colored dot matrix that TSPP, Monopoly and RBION have seem to be a short lived innovation.

Embryon had a "Flipsave" timed flipper for 5 seconds, you have to get the A lane on the left and the B lane on the right to enable it. If it went into the drain you can use the right flipper button to push it back in play. It was the first and last game Bally ever put that feature in a game.

The spinning magnet disc from Lost in Space. Oh, wait...

Zipper Flippers- Fireball (Don't see those anymore)
Ramp Diverters - Shadow
Magna Save- Black Knight and many others
Pop Up Pop Bumper - CV
Gun Molded or unusual shooters - IJ, Shadow, GNR, TFTC
Flipper Handles - DM is the only machine I know that had these.

What pin had a metal cabinet? Always wondered why this had never been tried before.

Safe Cracker sized cabinet and board game in head. More were planned but never got past Safe Cracker.

LTG

Wasn't there a wierd pin that fit in a video size cabinet?

You're probably thinking of Varkon which was already mentioned in this thread. Pinball Circus is also in an upright cabinet.

That would be Pinball Circus. Too expensive, earnings didn't justify cost. There's one to play at the PHOF.

Directional saucers - like it nbafb

SuperGame - only used on Judge Dredd (as far as I know). It's a game that cost 2 credits, but has 4 additional unique modes and starts every ball with a 2-ball multi-ball.

Extra Ball buy-in buttons have died off as well.

Overall, backbox toys seem to be very hit-or-miss. I find these to be more enjoyable than video modes.

Later,
EV

Also in Spetrum if I am not mistaken.

Af-tor, Wico's only coin-op pinball

Ramp diverters like ok Shadow turns 2 ramps technically into 4 genius wish more games had them.

Raised flipper like No Fear.

Monopoly has a rotating flipper that you don't have any control over - haven't seen that anywhere else as far as I know. And ramp diverters - High Speed had 'em as well.

The token that SC spits out.

Head to head phone connection on nbafb
Head to head gameplay on Joust and I think there was another one or 2.

Yeah when you told me about the supergame I had never even heard of it.

And I am shocked by the buy-in ball leaving. Seems like such an easy way to get extra monies quick.

How about backbox bulbs? Just a flouresnt tube these days eh?

Surprised nobody mentioned pin2k.

1st & 3rd posts

Like the first post ?

LTG

This is what happens when you skim read a topic while watching the Euro 2012 football/soccer matches, and wow I feel silly now

P2k was a failure. It did not earn. RFM's were puked back out at auctions within the year for half price. South Park crushed it in earnings. SWE1 also outearned RFM, but it wasn't enough with the price hikes. They put all their eggs in the P2k basket, but the flaws caught up to it.

One could argue that the unprecedented hype and sales push to get ops to buy RFM was what closed B/W. The product did not live up to the hype. (This isn't to say P2k isn't an amazing game and invention, but hype and invention did not fill the coin boxes).

Banana flippers (Time Warp and Disco Fever)

Varkon is fun as hell too. Played one a few months ago before TPF..there were only like 100 made, right?

Gottlieb Street Fighter 2. The Chun-li mech is pretty much the same thing.

I think more than 100....but definitely not a huge run. I always saw it as an expiriment to get vid players to play pins in the middle of the vid boom. Vid cabinet, vid controls, etc. It's definitely really cool in small doses. Very similar lower playfield to ACDC actually, in size/aspect.

Manual outlane and center drain post saves on Sharkey's Shootout.
Manual left outlane kicker save Strange Science.

Lol @ system 11!

I wouldn't say that this idea was rejected....it was on way more than 2 pins. There are A LOT of Spanish titles that were produced with the Perspex playfields. It was a brilliant idea that just never caught on over here. Maybe it was cost, or maybe it was the fact that the games would never wear out....who knows why, but the games play great and are a breeze to clean!

when I first saw the marsaplay "new canasta", I was like "GENIUS!". No more planking, no more fading paint, no more cracking paint, no more playfield wear (that stuff buffs out like nobody's business). The ONLY drawback I can see is if you have a worn hole, it's "potentially" harder to fill than wood

Friend...be careful when you use the term, "Super-Sized"! McDonalds ended up in mucho double triple trouble for those two words! I would not want a fellow pinsider to get into trouble like that!!!

Well, you're in luck because there's no problem there either. The Perspex sheet is on top of a wooden playfield. So, you have the best of both worlds here. The playfield is virtually indestuctible and the fasteners for all the mechs. are secured in the wood, just like normal. It's truly a great system, and those guys over there have perfected it over the last 3 decades.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<Pinballdad has no clue what everyone is talking about here Time to go launch wikipedia in another window and find out

Have you played the Pinball Circus though? It looks like it would be fun, until you get the ball to the top. Once that happens, there really isn't any more to it at all. I played it a number of years ago when it was at Expo, and I got the ball to the top on my first game. That was more than enough to me.

The extreme cost to do something like that (so much metal in that game) combined with the fact that I don't know how you could make the game deeper kind of doomed that one. Not to say it couldn't work, just not like that.

Sega did get Mini-Viper to test too. Wasn't that one first, actually? I know it didn't have the board game in the head, but I thought it actually played better than Safe Cracker did.

South Park earned more, but the P2K machines held their own. RFMs popped out quickly because between Williams closing the pinball doors and the system not being completely reliable, a lot of ops tried to get their money back on them quickly, foreseeing them as a bad long term investment with such little to repair, from what I've heard. SWE1s tended to stick around a lot longer, as they earned really well as you mentioned. There is still at least one on route around here.

For innovations, I'll say blinders like on Tommy.

Keep in mind that pinball circus code was never complete. No multiball, very little going on. Who knows what it could have been if finished.

Hey friends. I have another one but need your judgement/input after I post this. I am relatively new to the hobby...14-15 months (not a total newb Anyway, I picked up a Wipeout recently. On the left side it has drop down targets...but...once they drop, behind them are stand up targets too. This feature is not present on any other pin in my small humble collection. Here is where I need you to chime in. Is this combo drop and stand up target common and still done on pins (or done on pins after Wipeout)? Or did Gottlieb only do this on a pin or two and then it was phased out?

Thanks,

PBD

Yes I have, and I couldn't barely get past the 3rd level. Not saying it has to be like this (get to the top, I'm done). It could be really deep, having to get to certain sections of the the playfield (and height) during a mode. The only thing that would suck is shopping that thing out. It's one thing to deal with posts, then layers of ramps. To keep everything straight tearing something down vertically like that has to be a nightmare.

Hi PBD,

It's not a real common feature, but there are many games out there that have it. Oddly enough, 6 of my 11 current games have that feature....

that was just a gimmick.

and as for DMD at playfield level pinball 2000 is kind of the same idea.

Love the tri-colored DMD TV on TSPP. Wish Stern did more of those.