Pinball tables as we know them have been around for many years now, most might remember them in Arcades or grill bars where one could spend hours with friends and try to beat the highscore. The early tables, going back to 1850 where not coin operated or electricity powered, they didn't have flippers like we know them these days. With the introduction of electromechanical bells, chimes, lights and buzzers in the late 1930's, the interest of pinball's grew largely. Humpty Dumpty from 1947 was the very first table to have flippers, this is known as the golden era of pinball tables. From then on tables later expanded with features like ramps, multiballs, matrix dot displays and digital soundeffects. The older tables where often very difficult but for every game you get 5 balls, where most of today's tables you only get 3 balls. Pinball are not so popular today as the golden years. Stern are the only company still manufacturing tables and its becoming a rare sight to find a pinball table. However it is possible to play these tables on a computer, including the old ones from 1930's. Many tables are emulated. Titles such as 4 Square, No Fear, Fish Tales and many others are playable. So anyone out there in the hunt for Pinball games for your computer, look no further. Visual Pinball is free and many recreate or even make their own original tables which are available to find on the web. Its a great community. If you have the time, you can also try creating your very own pinball game and share it with other pinball fans. The graphic interface allows you to simply drop ramps, flippers, targets and other Pinball elements onto the playfield. You can design the graphics in your favourite image editing program and import them in VP. Sounds effects are also ready to import. As for the technical aspect such as a scoring system, this will need to be programmed. It can really help to open other tables to use as references and learn from these.
Irina Pinball is one example of an original table available for Visual Pinball which tries to highlight the simplicity from older pinball tables while still blending in the recent features as we know them today. There are bumpers, highscores and multiballs. Irina Pinball has theme of a Russian ice skater and most of the music during gameplay being classic music. The main challenge in this table is to beat the highscore. This is done by winning the Olympic gold medal, getting the highest 6.0 score. Experience a friendly game made for all ages. Enjoy.
Author Resource:-
Article written by Koral Wilkins. Creator of the free pinball game Irina Pinball.