I love a good four-player game! Have a bunch of friends over, everyone drinking and laughing and watching each other play well or poorly. A two-player game is more about head-to-head competition, which can be fun, but four-player gets everyone involved and rooting for each other. Plus you can still play a two-player game if you want.

Also, people complain about the repair work on a four-player game, but it's seriously not that hard. Just buy a schematic and dig in -- if EM maintenance isn't fun on some level then stick with solid-state games. I started learning EMs on a four-player game (Bally Dogies). Four player is my vote.

Yeah for looks or just art wise - 2 players
but for game friends and family go with the 4 player

2 Player:
- Lighter
- Easier to work on,
- More art room,
- Smaller back box,
- 95% of your games will be 1 or 2 player anyway

4 Player:
- You already gave up the crappy rule set compared to a single player, so you might as well get the other two
- The 5% of the time you play with 5 people may be the best 95% of your memories

Truth!

I choose 4 player games for the family and friends factor-

Go with the 4 player first.The 1973 Gottlieb Jack in the Box or Jet Spin should be on your list. Then try to add a 2 player down the road if you have the space.

You can't let them 4 player pins sit for any long amount of time. You have to run them often to keep them trouble free. Great pins when you have players playing against each other competing and having fun.

Agree with Vic's choices - also add the 4P Royal Flush to the list along with 4P Fast Draw or 2P Quick Draw.

Boy, if the question is "best EM mulitiplayer"....Here is my top 15, more or less in order. The bottom 5 (10-15) were mostly included since I know a lot of people like them. Most of those I wouldn't own though at least not much more than "just passing through, it was cheap"

1 1976 Royal Flush
2 1976 Target Alpha
3 1974 Big Indian
4 1975 Wizard!
5 1975 Spirit of 76
6 1976 Capt. Fantastic
7 1972 Fireball
8 1977 Mata Hari
9 1971 Four Million B.C.
10 1976 Aztec
11 1976 Space Mission
12 1975 Fast Draw
13 1971 Sheriff
14 1973 Jack In The Box
15 1976 Old Chicago

There can arguably be less wear on a 4 player game.
For example if I am playing solo(always) and I know I'm going to play at least 4 games I'll set it up for 4 players not 1 player.

That way each set of score reels play 3 balls (or 5 balls). If I were to play 4 solo games on 2 player that would be 6 or 10 balls per reel... or to play 4 solo games on single player one reel would work through all 12 or 20 balls.

If I play 100 solo games in 4 player mode then the player 1 score reel will have calculated at least 300 balls. If I play 100 solo games in 1 player mode then the player 1 score reel will have calculated at least 1200 balls, if my math is right.
The more players activated spreads the work around.

Have at least one 4 player EM for those drunken but fun parties. Chances are you will never use all 4 players on any of these machines and you will end up doing more upkeep then you would want to. 4 players are also heavy as hell. 2 Players are more collectable and sought after. More artwork is a big plus. They made 12,250 Royal Flush machines versus only 3,250 Card Whiz machines. That means for every four Royal Flush machines you see for sale you might see one Card Whiz if you are lucky. I am just a biased 2 player over 4 player fan.

Listed is my top 10 order of either wants (the first 6 or 7) or stuff I would play for a few months and then flip. The first 6 would be keepers. I would only take a Solar City or Target Alpha if a nice one player El Dorado was unattainable.

2 player / 4 player version

1. 72 Fireball
2. 76 Card Whiz / Royal Flush
3. 77 Solar City / 76 Target Alpha
4. 73 Jumping Jack / Jack In The Box
5. 76 Williams Space Odyssey / Space Mission
6. 77 Pyramid / Cleopatra EM (severely underrated...rare but not unattainable)
7. 74 Big Brave / Big Indian
8. 73 Bally Nip It
9. 77 Super Spin / Jet Spin
10. 76 Pioneer / Spirit of 76

I think the MP game will keep the crowd engaged....single player, you're just waiting for the guy to finish his/her game and then you keep track of the score. That being said, I'm starting to enjoy single players though more because of the rule set. Drop targets don't pop up everytime the ball drains, ect, ect...

top score or 300 is a great choice also

in our league we now allow EMs even if they are not four player. A single player really results in a couple of the other players walking away until their turn, but a two player typically keeps all of them around (and certainly the second player). Not sure why, but that seems to be the behavior.

There are some two player games that maintain state between players, which for some games is cool, not aware of any four player games that do that.

I've also seen a two player game (Derby Day) where the actions of one player can effect the scoring of the other player, which creates some interesting strategy/skill for an EM.

No doubt a four player game is harder to work on then a one or two player game, but once you have it working right, it is typically not a big issue.

I suggest getting a one player game, a two player game and a four player game. That way you have it all covered

By maintain state, do you mean the other person can "get credit" for the first players work? If so, there are some 4 player Gottliebs from the 1960's that did this. One that I owed was Ship-mates. You needed 1-2-3 for a free ball and if player 1 got 1&2 you could swoop in and get 3, and a free ball. You could also "steal their hundies" and collect 100 point awards the other player had qualified.

Most newer 4 player EMs have a larger head than the 2 player version anyway, so the "room for art" issue is really a moot point. The 2 player versions of some of these games is tougher to come by than the 4 player; for example,
"Super Spin" vs. "Jet Spin", or "Space Odyssey" vs. "Space Mission" so to some, the 2 player might be considered more collectable.

No, I mean the opposite, it maintains state for each player between balls,. For example, the game solid's and Stripes, each player needs to complete their 7 balls, (solids or stripes) before they shoot for the 8 ball, and the game can remember from ball to ball for each player which shots they have completed (using a split bank). Most multi player EM games don't do that, each ball starts fresh or players are able to 'steal' what others have done (which is what you are describing).

Which games do this? I never heard of that and am very curious about it. Thanks.

I prefer 4 player games to invite more competition than a 2, but will settle for a 2 Player compared to a 4 if that is all they made. One such an example would be a Bally Hokus Pokus two player with no four player version made.

Ken

Some games do... at least to some degree carry the efforts of one player to the next. For example, I recently read here someone is refurbing a pin with an inverted "U" where the idea is to knock all the balls to one side. That's carried to the next player. Space Mission's swinging target feature is also that way to a much lesser extent. I wish designers would have put more of those types of things into their games.

Your answer is what you wrote,^^four player fits the bill.
Only negative is some Bg real estate (artwork) is lost with a smidge more of maintenance.

Yes, I can think of many games that do this type of thing. Many games from the late 50s and early 60s even carried over to a new game. Roto-pool comes to mind. In theory, you could have all but one ball lit and walk away from the machine, and the next guy could come up and win a free game by only putting out one ball.

In this particular instance, it leads to several interesting scenarios. The obvious one is someone waiting in the wings and swooping up a mostly complete game.

More subtle, but potentially more lucrative is the following strategy: You put down all but one ball. Then you let the rest of the balls in that game drain. On you next game you put out the last ball and get it in "special" mode. At this point, it is fairy easy to wrack up free games, all you have to do is hit the roto target. Additionally, the special when lit mode carries over from ball to ball. So, if you get a special when lit on your first ball, you could potentially wrack up 5-10 free games.

I restored one of these a few years ago and played around with this quite bit.

I know of two games, both pool themed, that use the 'split bank' to maintain state for each player. The 'split-bank' was developed by Norm Clark, so some of his other games may have it, not sure. However, since it was obviously designed to keep track of 7 items per player (once you collect the 8-ball the bank resets), not sure if any other game used it.

8-ball (williams 1966) was the first game to have it.

solids 'n stripes (williams 1971) -- which has one of the oddest playfield designs you will see, with a saucer in front of the flippers -- the lower half of the playfield is a pool table with saucers where the pockets would be, so also has saucers by the outlanes. Was a fun game to have in my collection for a little while, but when I saw a want ad for it, did not hesitate to sell it -- since I only want a couple of EM games in my collection, it was not a keeper.

Very interesting. You learn something new every day. Thanks for sharing this.