I was about 5 or 6 years old at the height of the video arcade craze and loved PAC-Man, Donkey Kong and Q-Bert, but the pinball machines at the arcade terrified me. Their lineup (as I recall) included Black Knight, Medusa and maybe Xenon - scary imagery for a toddler. My dad encouraged my to try Black Knight and I gave it one game, but I didn’t understand what was going on or how to play. Seemed like a waste of a quarter.

It was decades later when I discovered what I’d been missing. I found a local arcade and discovered that these games could actually tell a story and have characters and be just as engaging as video games.