Is this decent league on the correct side of the river?

Not a professional reviewer, but three games in it is a ton of fun. Battles and multiball feel good. Tight shots, but really satisfying.

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They are live streaming Deadpool here locally from the MN State Fair. Looks fun, but ball times are super LONG.

https://www.twitch.tv/MN_Pinball

Yeah, that's my problem too. I was looking forward to Sun Ray and then they moved. I used to live in Hudson - awesome town!

My brother in law used to live in Hudson. Now they live in Bayport.

There's a good collector scene in the Twin Cities and some good location pinball too. If you're patient, you can find a nice working machine that you'll have to tinker with occasionally and it wont break the bank.

@ Seven9er

I agree also - if you have the $ - get a NIB.

I wholeheartedly disagree with the idea to buy a NIB for your first game.

$5500 is a very steep entry fee into the 1st game market and that only gets you 1 game.
If you think you are going to actually get into pins then you are going to want more than 1 and $5500 can easily set you up with a very nice and diverse collection of 3+ games... 1 game will get boring no matter what it is. Also NIB takes typically a 10% (sometimes as much as 30%) price ding in the first year and often have problems right out of the box. Reality is that bang for the buck you are always better off buying a game that is either completely gone over but a competent tech or a new game that you are 2nd owner and let someone else take the ding and the risk of blown node boards, ghosted pf inserts, cracked cabs.

I do agree that buying a solid game is always good for a first timer. You want to be able to play and not get burnt out with having to fix. That said, every pinball owner needs to be prepared to start working on any game as the reality is they all will break.

Seven9er check out pinballwarehouse.com
For around $2500 you could get Hook, mousing around, road Kings, twister, grand lizard and maybe others. He has inventory online. Some will say he is expensive, but based on prices I've seen on CL lately, I would disagree. He also has them in good shape and I think provides support. Good luck!

update > Schwoeglers was completely flooded so DP wont be going in there.
For those that dont know, Madison westside saw approximately 9-13 inches of rain on Tuesday early morning.

I spent the entire afternoon along with 2 buddies (HUGE thanks! to you guys!!! Ryan and Mike kick ass!!!!) moving all 14 games out of the bowling alley.
Stay tuned and we will keep you posted as things unfold over the next few days.

We hope to have games set up at another location in the next few days. They will return to Schwoeglers once it is all fixed up, but I expect that to take a bit while they figure out insurance and rebuild (bowling lanes were likely 3 ft underwater at the worst part of the flooding)

Our insurance does not cover any of the cost associated with this, but with a little luck I dont think any of the games were impacted (only ~6 inches of water on the bottom of legs; dodged a bullet there). Please come on out and support location pinball once we get them all set back up.

thanks to all those guys that reached out yesterday with words of encouragement and offers to help. I am continually amazed at how amazing this community is!!!!

WOW you guys got hit bad.

Whew! I was worried all of your games would be swimming in 3 ft of water! thankfully it was just the legs and hopefully drying them off is enough!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! That sucks the bowling alley got flooded (for more than my own personal reasons...haha). I figured they would probably be OK in that area since they weren't built on a swamp unlike most of Middleton.

If you guys need help with anything, give me a hollar.

thanks all.

The alley got it very bad. Appeared that much of the rain in that immediate area funneled straight to the alley. Parking lot was likely 2ft deep, steps up to the concourse level, then steps down to the lanes and of course the mechanicals are below the lanes and most people dont realize but they also have a basement.

I am hoping for them that the insurance covers all this. It could be devestating for that family business but they all seemed in good spirits and dealing with it well. Lots of hard workers and they are busting their butts already.

Madison Pinball should be fine in the bigger picture and maybe we will even make lemonade out of this by the time it is done.

I have a coworker looking to sell his Royal Flush Deluxe $700. PM me if you're interested.
It has been shopped recently and works 100%.

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Sold

Glad you had help and could save your games.

LTG : )

Tongue and cheek statement only. I love living in a small town near the Twin Cities. Absolutely looking for any league that's relatively close to me.

Yeah, that's the problem. In the east metro there isn't much within 30 minutes one way and I don't have the time nowadays for 1 hour plus of just driving time to play in leagues or events on a regular basis. After Eastside Pinball moved to Mermaid, we are left with random locations with 1-2 broken machines here and there and that is it. Gameworks at the Mall of America is closest to me now and that's still 20-25 minutes away, everything else is 30+ minutes one way.

I’m selling most of my arcades if anyone is interested. Cash sale or poss trade for pin or tempest arcade. No shipping as I want to go over each with prospective buyer. They all function but are “players”. All original parts, original routed condition. I even have some extra parts and boards. List is moon patrol, galaxian, centipede, 1943, Pac-Man, space invaders. I may yet keep pac and si. All have positives and negatives, I’ll be happy to go over. Would be great to do one lump deal before expo. I may part with my alien poker as well. I don’t play the arcades much since I got bsd, and was thinking another pin would be a better use of space. Trades could be with cash going either way depending on title. Some I’m interested in: stern Star Trek, Met, fh, pb, bop, galaxy, meteor, many more...

Acnc now out for play in Madison! Check it out and like us on fbook

https://www.facebook.com/MadisonPinball/posts/2079731105384886?notif_id=1535059362789829&notif_t=page_post_reaction

Gonna have to make it out there this weekend!

I just wanted to give another shout out and recommendation to hire John Ross at Pinball Plus for any of your game fix needs. I had him out to my place for a few hours last night. He got my Doctor Who tuned up and working perfectly again, replaced some broken parts on the Bally KISS, worked some magic on the T2, made the Guns N Roses even more rocking, and is currently servicing the boards on my Pharaoh. Great guy who is a genius at fixing games.

None listed on location on the Minnesota Pinball Map.

LTG : )

Yeah, he pulled it from Tilt. I talked to him about it and he still has it, but hasn't put it back out anywhere because it's not a great earner and needs to be with a large lineup.

ACNC plus DEADPOOL now at Marias in Madison.
25 total games to play currently in one location.
Stop on out and say hi to Jack the awesme bar owner and have a cheap drink while u are there!

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Now THAT'S a line up! Gotta make it out there for sure!

I really need to find a job and move to Madison for all the pinball action

How much are the games? I'm going to try to get down there this weekend and want to budget. And do they have PayRange or is it cash/tokens?

EMs are just a quarter
Early solid state are .50
Classic dmd are .75 or 3for2bucks
Brand new are a buck or 3for2bucks

Enjoy and thx for the support.

Some games have payrange but we are largely removing them right now (it was a failed experiment)
Cash is king and easier for most. There is an atm on site and a change machine.

Has Maria's expanded their hours at all or are they still not open until 6 most days? I've actually got some free time tomorrow afternoon and would love to stop by and play some pinball!

Wed through sun they open at 6 pm.
Depending on bands they do open earlier. Really just depends on the day. That said, all the previous scwoegs games are in the back big room whoch means those are accessible anytime parched eagle is open also.

DP and ACNC are in the man Marias bar area though.

Thanks. And those are the two I want to play . The hours are brutal for me but this may warranty a special trip sometime even with the distance!

Anyone by chance have a paragon they would sell? Does not need to function.

I see some of the games have cup holders, do people actually use them or do they put their glass or can on the pf?

Since everyone is posting pictures, our Deadpool joined the lineup at the Blue Moon Bar, which just opened back up following our own flooding disaster. Ghostbusters should make it to Ale Asylum before our Craft Beer Pinball League meetup tomorrow as well!

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Whysnow and @kettchxxii.
I work for a copier place up here but wanted to suggest you ask over at Gordon flesch about silica gel packs. Up here we can fill a box quickly and I always take the bigger ones home and keep them in Games. After all the water controlling the moisture inside might not be a bad idea. GF or other copier places may be happy to fill a box and let you pick them up later. Ask for the office service manager.

some use them. some do whatever they want with their beer. Just the reality of the route.

Deadpool is up for play at Cafettos in Minneapolis.

Thanks for posting! We went down and played Deadpool this afternoon. It may have to be my first new Stern purchase.

So what are people's thoughts? Better than iron maiden?

Long ball times. I think I saw all the code has on my 3rd game.

Not better than Maiden but I like it better than recent games like GOTG and BM66. The layout is great! It may be Gomez's best. For a 2 flipper game it has some cool and unique shots and I thought it played smooth and wasn't clunky like I thought it might be. Ball times are really long but that can be corrected via game settings and physical game setup. The rules and software are pretty simplistic. I think I saw most of the modes and got to Sauron and both quest modes in my first game. I think it's another hit game for Stern and think they know how to put together a great Pro game.

Fun layout to shoot. Some tighter shots but they feel good. Lots of easier shots but they als feel good. Super easy with current code and hope Tanio gets it balanced to the ease of the layout to maintain replay value.

So probably not good for a home setting, at least in its current software version?

It's probably better at home since you have more control. I think even making small changes like setting the difficulty of Lil' Deadpool, the left outline save, and the modes to "hard" and tightening the tilt can make a big difference. Another option is removing the metal outlane posts completely but I would start with software first.

Games like Iron Maiden have proven that you don't need a ton of modes to make a fun and challenging game but the modes themselves should have depth and extra and even multiple stages to really challenge you. Currently the modes on Deadpool are too easy on default settings. Code is still early though so I'm guessing that with time Tanio will add more depth and challenge. Smart thing is to wait a few months and make a decision after playing 1.0 level code.

Code 1.0 will be tightened up quite a bit per lead programmer - this will make the machine go from good to great. Also, we will have options of modified music and sound by super pinsiders like CLELAND.

I for sure have faith in Tanio!

I enjoyed Deadpool. Was surprised by hearing the classic Williams soundbytes in there. Like the callouts & art package. The ball times are indeed long.

Sadly, the MN State Fair is just down to 1 arcade. "Playland" is gone. Gone are the days of the State Fair having 3 arcades, and having classic arcade games(some from the 70s) lasting well into the 2000s. It was doing retro arcades before they were cool. Now I can't even remember where they used to be.

Gone entirely ? Or just no pins there this year ? Blainebrook had pins in there last year.

Sad if gone. It started a couple spots south of there where the concrete slab with the snakes and reptiles tent is now. Huge metal building with three big metal round signs on top, smallest on top, medium in the middle, largest on the bottom. Had the letters spelling F U N on them. The corner where Playland is ( was ), Nelson and Carnes, originally was an empty lot. An old guy had a red cart there and sold kazoos. When he died Liebermans was able to build there and named it Playland. Probably early 1960's

LTG : )

According to the Minnesota State Fair website it's still there - https://www.mnstatefair.org/vendor/21.1/

Did you mean gone and something else in there ? Or no pinball machines ? Or arcade games ? The picture looks like all redemption equipment.

LTG : )