Pinball History, Arcade Gameplay, and Rules

Chris DeLeon guest speaking at USC, April 2016, about pinball's relevance to digital gameplay design and research.

[@Shipwright1918]

Actually, I think the term "1-Up" comes from the phrase "Player 1 is Up", which stems from multi-player pinball machines and early arcade video games, some machines literally display this verbatim. How it came to mean an extra life, well I really don't know, though I suspect it has a large part to do with Super Mario Bros. and the green mushrooms..

[@Chad-mf5vo]

Thanks Chris Was surfing around as I will soon be getting a virtual pinball, and stayed for the whole video, very interesting so my thanks. Interesting dynamics in the virtual space due to developers are recreating not creating, plus the battles between the virt pinball machine makers, love verses profit. Regards...

[@paulsolfelt8452]

The old pinball machines counted the balls from how many you have and went down, the newer machines count them 1 . 2 . 3

[@jsnadrian]

I loved this -- thanks so much for posting.

[@HomeTeamGameDev]

Thanks Jason!

[@JoySynthesis]

I absolutely loved this lecture. I've only a passing interest in game design but as a massive pinball nerd I found myself frequently hitting pause to jot down notes. Thank you for sharing! P.s. can you post a list of the title+author for that stack of books?

[@JoySynthesis]

P.p.s. Gottlieb made qbert?! No wonder it's one of my favorites.

[@HomeTeamGameDev]

Thanks! I'm glad you found it interesting :D For list of title and author check out page 110 (Bibliography) in the PDF of my master's thesis at chrisdeleon.com/gatech/chrisdeleon_pinball_thesis.pdf

[@JoySynthesis]

Thank you!

[@thinkpol1984]

Humpty Dumpty was released by Gottlieb on October 25, 1947, not 1948.

[@HomeTeamGameDev]

You're correct, good catch. Thank you

[@badger-6377]

18:45 I've never heard the argument that widebody pinball cabinets "screw up" gameplay. In fact there's some really great widebody games--the Bally games Genie and Roller Derby from the early 80s come to mind. And in the modern era, Jersey Jack tends to develop widebody games by default. I've never played Atari Superman (so maybe it does play like crap, idk) but in my experience widebody pins don't really play all that differently from standard-width games of a similar era. edit: great video though edit 2: 1:26:50 I love giving myself multiball on those old woodrails and wedgeheads with the manual ball elevator lol

[@HomeTeamGameDev]

Thanks for letting me know! I hadn't realized that Jersey Jack's have been widebody. My direct experience with widebody tables is admittedly very limited to just a few museum visits, secondhand comments from what pinball industry folks have said in interviews, or digital simulations. It's nice to hear there are some good ones. I wonder if something else about manufacture/shipping (non-standard dimensions?) or usual business logistics for location owners about machine footprint per earnings somehow factored into their not picking up more traction.

[@badger-6377]

@@HomeTeamGameDev I'm guessing that it was just regular cost stuff back in the halcyon days of pinball. As for the modern JJ games, it seems that extant pinball manufacturers (and JJ in particular) survive by targeting the very upmarket, which widebodies can better serve just because it gives the designers more space to cram cool toys in--the cost and boring logistical details just don't matter as much when what you're selling is effectively prestigious novelties that cost 8 or 10 thousand dollars anyway. Always great to see more pinball content out there! Especially from the more academic side of things, definitely an under-studied art form.

[@lunarmodule6419]

What a great vid. Thank you.

[@qurklewss]

43minutes in. Only a few manufacturers!? "Stern pinball, cactus jack" lol

[@tonyj09]

When did humpty dumpty have girls in bikinis? That was classic!

[@Seemsayin]

Uhhh