THE BEST THING ABOUT PINBALL?
That's the question I posed in 1975
to the immortal Harry Williams (founder of Williams Manufacturing
Company and the Williams pinball brand name). He paused as he thought
for a moment. Then he answered:
"The ball is wild."
The simplicity of that statement stunned
me. I guess I had expected a long drawn out analysis. But then I
started thinking about what Harry meant. Unlike other types of games
where the player is always in control, pinball is a game where one
only gets momentary control of the ball as it comes within reach
of the flippers or when the ball can be influenced by a gentle nudge.
Yes, that's the key. Although you
can exhibit great skill, you can never completely master a pinball
machine. That certain element of randomness that makes every play
a totally unique experience keeps us challenged and entertained.
For every play of the game, the skills required to play it are slightly
different. This wild, unpredictable tendency creates a constant
challenge for the player who attempts to tame it. Harry felt that
other games eventually fail to hold the public's interest because
they can be "tamed", or mastered, too easily.
A pinball machine is a wonderful,
crazy contraption, with its steel balls flying like streaks of silver
as its lights flash and its sounds announce awards. When you see
a pinball machine, you are drawn to it, something like Alice pursuing
the White Rabbit into Wonderland or Dorothy following the Yellow
Brick Road through the land of OZ. Somewhere over the rainbow of
pinball's beckoning multicolored lights is a frenetic, electric
fantasyland where you do not go off to see the Wizard - you go off
to BE the Wizard.
At those very special times when you
and the machine become one entity through some mystical merger of
your nervous system and its electrical circuitry, you enter another
realm, a place where time stops and everything around you disappears.
It's what we're hoping for every time we feed the game a coin, buying
our fun one play at a time.
We try to humanize the machine. We
want it to respond to us, to care. We feed it. We nudge it gently
and hit it hard. We caress it almost, perhaps in an unconscious
imitation of love making. We curse it when it makes us angry, beats
us, or disappoints us.
We challenge it because challenge
is part of human nature; it's in our guts and genes. We want to
beat the machine because, after all, we made it, created and nurtured
it. We fashioned it in our own image, or at least our own imagery:
slick chrome and sturdy birchwood, tempered glass and glowing plastic.
Pinball's voice of crazy noises speaks a language we can all understand.
We listen for answers. The machine is sensitive, defending itself
with the threat of instant revenge. But we all know what it is like
to be turned off; we all get a little tilted sometimes ourselves.
So if we must be, we are gentle. We are wary and respectful of its
protective mechanisms. We know that inside, in its guts, it is complicated
and intricate, though all that is hidden from view. Outside it is
bright and lurid like our Technicolor dreams.
But no matter what we do, whether
we succeed in our challenge or fail, the only responses we mortals
can hope for from pinball machines are programmed, predetermined.
COMPLETING A-B-C SEQUENCE OPENS
GATE. nbsp;HITTING 1,2,3 LITES ROLLOVERS FOR SPECIAL. SPECIAL AWARDS
1 REPLAY.
TILT PENALTY - BALL IN PLAY.
This brings us to another aspect of
the game: pinball as a sport, a game of skill. You can learn maneuvers
and techniques that will allow you to demonstrate much greater ball
control than most people realize is possible. Like any other sport,
this requires coordination, quick reflexes, and practice, plus complete
awareness and involvement.
Those mystical unions only occur when
you are totally concentrating on your game, completely in the now.
The slightly altered state of consciousness you sometimes feel is
possible in every sport. It may be integral to every sport. Tennis
players talk about it; race car drivers often say that they feel
like an extension of their automobiles during a really hot race.
Jockeys say they feel one with their horses. Long distance runners
don't stop to admire the view; hockey players' skates and golfers'
clubs become extensions of their bodies.
Why does this happen? It's not only
because all their concentration is focused on the event. It's also
because they put all their respect, love, devotion, and confidence
into what they are doing. Not every time, sure, but during the truly
great times you remember. The kind of times that make you stick
with it, go back for more, whatever it is.
If it's pinball, you'll remember the
game where your fingers were so fast on the flippers you couldn't
possibly lose the ball. Where you made all the right moves. Where
it didn't matter if you were playing against someone or all alone;
only the machine mattered. Only that mystical connection between
your nerves and its circuits. Even the word that describes the ultimate
pinball mastery has a mystical, magical association - WIZARD.
With pinball, sometimes the flippers
become extensions of your fingers. You become as sensitive as a
conservative tilt, as taut as a stretched rebound. Sometimes you
become the ball itself, caroming wildly in and out of control. Sometimes,
probably most times, when you go to shoot some pinball all that
happens is just that - you shoot some pinball, and that's great
too. It is amazing how much fun pinball can be hour after hour,
over and over again; whether you're trying out a new machine or
sticking to your old favorites, whether you are alone or with friends.
What all this adds up to, this talk
of mystical mergers, surrogate lovers, sports and skill maneuvers,
symbolism and survival instincts, is simply PINBALL. This is why
we love it. If you detect a kind of missionary zeal here it is because
so many people still misunderstand pinball - what it is, the skills
involved, it's place in our history.- pinballwizard
