Hello and welcome to Technology Connextras Sights and Sounds.
It's been a long time since I've done one of these.
Sorry about that.
But today we are looking at and listening to Aztec by Williams.
This is an electromechanical pinball machine
from 1976, and being electromechanical,
it is chock full of weird doodads and mechanisms,
which means it makes quite a lot of interesting noises.
Which is the primary purpose of this video
is to record those noises and let you hear them.
Now, right now I have the microphone set up
pretty close to where my head is as I play the machine,
and I've already tested.
That's a very faithful sound to what the machine sounds like.
Also, the machine is closed up
with the glass in place and the back panel on.
That way the mechanisms are not overly loud.
I have a structure planned for this video, which is going to begin with me
simply playing this game with no commentary at all.
I will let you know the score I got at the end of each game,
but really, I'm just going to play it.
Next, I'm going to explore all of the individual mechanisms
that are on the playfield, and I will also
also verbally describe the playfield.
So hopefully you have a better understanding
of where all of the parts are.
And then I'll do some more recordings of the mechanisms.
And finally, at the very end, I'm going to do some more gameplay
where I actually explain what I'm trying to do as I play this game.
But for now, I'm just going to start.
And that involves putting in a quarter.
So I'm just going to play a few games through
and then we'll check in later.
And that's game over.
I realized I forgot to give you a little context
on what the flippers sound like.
I didn't actually have a lot of flipper action in that game.
You sometimes don't with these electromechanical games,
but we ended at 243,000 points,
which is actually only a little more than 100,000 away from a replay.
It's set up to 350,000 points.
So I'm going to start another game and give you a little bit more context.
Okay.
At this point the ball is in the shooter lane.
But before I shoot the ball, I just want to make sure
that I explain this noise.
Those are the flippers.
If you're hearing a buzzing,
that means I'm holding the flipper up.
But that buzzing is not always the same volume.
The flipper linkages are a little worn,
and so depending on each individual flip, sometimes the buzzer
is louder than other times.
But those are the flippers.
If you hear this sound,
that's me actually using the flippers.
And if you hear this sound,
I'm holding a flipper up to try and catch the ball.
And then the very next sound you will hear is me
releasing the ball into the playfield using the plunger.
Ball two is now
in play. The.
Ball three is now in play.
And that's game over.
This one stayed going for a while,
but I was never able to get into the real strategy to get a bunch of points.
So we're at 191 950.
You just heard me
open the coin door to get my two quarters back, because I only have two.
Let's start another game.
Let's.
Ball two is now in play.
That was quick.
Ball three is now in play.
And that's game over.
That was not a very good game at all.
Only 127,000 points.
I'll play one more game before we move on to the next section.
Oh, and by the way, I should explain the pop bumpers.
Whenever the two on the top are not lit, the bottom one should be lit.
The light sockets in the bumpers
are notoriously bad for corroding
and having a poor connection
with the actual light bulb, which is what you're seeing happen.
It doesn't help that they physically move
and the lights tend to get loose over time.
But anyway, that's what's going on there.
The bottom one should be lit when the top two are not.
Ball two is now in play.
But boy.
Ball three is now in play.
Oh! That's horrible.
That was an awful game.
So we're playing one more.
I saw that happening, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Ball two is now in play.
Ball three is now in play.
Okay.
Ended at 210,810.
All right.
And now that we've gone through some gameplay,
I'm going to describe what the machine looks like,
as well as the layout of the playfield.
This section of the video is for those who are not sighted.
So if you can see the playfield and the machine,
there's probably not a whole lot for you here.
I will be putting visuals on screen
as I describe things,
and there might be some extra trivia peppered in here and there,
but if this doesn't sound like your jam,
you might want to skip ahead to the time that's on your screen.
Now, where I will resume gameplay.
I'll begin with a dimensional overview of the machine itself.
If you've never run across a pinball machine before,
these are pretty large objects.
You might have heard them described as pinball tables
because that's effectively what they are.
It is a slender table that the player stands
at one end of as they play the game.
The machine is made of two simple wooden boxes.
There is the main cabinet which contains the playfield,
the flipper buttons, the flippers, the coin door, the shooter,
basically everything the player interacts with.
And then there is the back box.
I'm going to ignore the back box for now,
and instead we'll focus just on the main cabinet.
Again, this is a simple wooden box
and it has dimensions of 22in wide.
51.5in long
and between 16 and 19in tall.
That's 56cm wide,
131cm long,
and 40 to 48cm tall.
The reason for the varying height is that the top of this box follows
the slope of the playfield, which is slope towards the player.
That way, the ball always rolls towards you.
Now, you may have noticed
that 16in or 40cm does
not a very tall table make.
And that's because this box is in fact sitting on steel legs,
which elevated 21.5in
or 54.5cm off the ground.
This place is the front of the main cabinet,
37in or 94cm off the ground.
Quick note about those legs.
They're bolted to the corners of the cabinet
and flare out a little bit as they approach the floor.
And then at their bottom, they each have a leg leveler,
which allows you to change the height of the leg.
It's basically a circular foot on the end of a threaded rod.
Now those as the name implies, help
make sure that the playfield is level side to side,
but it's very common for the back legs
to be much more extended than the front legs.
That way the playfield has a more aggressive pitch.
This makes the game faster and more difficult, but also more exciting.
Then at the far end of the main cabinet,
away from where the player stands, is a small black pedestal
which is supporting the back box.
This is another simple wooden box,
and this one has dimensions of 30in wide,
27.5in tall,
and about ten inches deep.
That's 76cm wide,
70cm tall, and about 25cm deep.
Now, you may
have noticed that this is wider than the main cabinet, and in fact it is.
The back box overhangs the main cabinet
by about four inches on each side or ten centimeters.
This was done for a couple of reasons, in part
when you have machines lined up side to side,
there needs to be space between the main cabinet
for people to put their hands, but also the back box serves
almost like an advertisement for the game.
the surface which faces the player, is quite large
and has dimensions of 30 by 28in
or 76 by 70cm,
and it holds the back glass.
Now, the back glass has quite a lot of colorful artwork on it.
It has the game's theme, the game's name, the manufacturer
logo, and various things that are enticing you to play the game,
including often rather risque elements
to attract young male players.
This game actually has pretty tame artwork for its time.
Additionally, the back glass has the score displays.
In this game, there are four six digit displays
which show the players the scores,
and those displays are made of white plastic drums
which have black numbers printed on them, and the drums
rotate as the machine advances.
Points.
In addition to the score displays, the back box also serves
as an informational display of the game's status.
And this is done using light bulbs that illuminate behind it.
Some of these informational displays are visible
even when they are not lit.
For example, on the bottom right,
there's an area which says 1 to 4 can play.
And there are four clear markings of the numbers
one, two, three, and four, only one of which is illuminated right now.
But other elements are hidden until they are lit up.
For instance, the ball in play indicator shows as a symbol
a yellow rectangle on the bottom left of the back glass,
and you cannot see any of the numbers until they are illuminated.
Right now the words game over are illuminated,
but when the game is started, that light will go out
and you will see A14 ball in play.
Additionally, at the top of the back glass are the match indicator lights.
They shouldn't be visible,
but this fact glass is falling apart a little bit,
so you can see the outlines.
Just slightly.
And then there is also the one up, two up, three up, four up lights
next to each score display which tells the players which player is up.
so as you're looking at the machine head
on, you basically see a skinny looking table
with a weird box on one end of it.
And if you're looking at the machine from the side,
you're seeing an L-shaped contraption sitting on top of legs.
now when it's put together, the machine is quite large,
it has a pretty big footprint and it's very tall.
But of course the back box can be removed
and the legs can be taken off.
So the machines themselves are not actually that huge,
but they are pretty big when they're put together.
During this time period, the back box
had to be completely removed from the game
if you wanted to make it smaller, but later games incorporated hinges
which would allow the back box to be folded
down on top of the main cabinets.
This game predates that though, but that's not important.
Anyway.
Now, as interesting as the back glass is,
of course the most interesting thing is the playfield,
which is underneath a second sheet of glass
on top of the main cabinet.
But before I explain that,
I want to touch on the side art.
Pretty much all pinball machines
have some form of artwork that's been printed on their sides,
and during this time it was done,
cheaply and sloppily.
The machine's sides are painted
an off white color, and then there are very basic
stenciled graphics that were spray painted on,
and they are a red and gold color in this machine.
Up the sides of the back box,
there is an Aztec motif with an Aztec pyramid.
Basically going up the side.
And then on the sides of the main cabinet, there are
what I would describe as dragons,
but there's likely some sort of Aztec
creature that I just don't know what it's called,
but it does actually does look like a dragon to me.
And I should also note that although
the main cabinet is basically just a wooden box,
there is a stainless steel side rail
which is going on both sides of it,
and it actually has a channel which holds on to the glass.
So most of it is white with that gold and red artwork.
But the top portion of it has a large stainless steel rail.
And also embedded in that rail are these small red
flipper buttons that the player will press to move the flippers.
But now let's get to the meat and potatoes and talk about the playfield.
The play field itself is nothing more than a wooden board
that the steel pinball rolls around on,
and this wooden board is sunken below
the top surface of the main cabinet and covered by a piece of glass.
That way, the players can't touch the ball and cheat.
From the beginning of pinball up through the late 1970s,
the playfield was essentially two dimensional,
and this machine is no exception.
The glass, when installed, sits only two inches,
about five centimeters above the playfield surface,
and it's positioned perfectly parallel to the playfield,
meaning that two inch gap between the wood
and the glass is consistent throughout.
Starting in the 1980s, the
manufacturers were experimenting with more three dimensional designs,
moving the glass much farther from the playfield,
especially towards the back of the machine, which made room for elements
such as ramps and wire ball guides,
which could carry the ball over other playfield elements
and increase the number of targets.
But this machine predates those features,
and so everything is flat.
But there's a whole bunch of stuff sticking out of the playfield
which the ball is going to run into as it rolls around.
Some of those are targets which you need to hit.
Others are obstacles which get in the way,
and others still are active elements
which repel the ball when it gets near them.
Those are the fun ones,
but the simplest elements are the ones
which end up making the game unique.
Obstacles can divide the playfield into different sections,
and giving those obstacles unique shapes
can guide the ball along certain paths.
The simplest obstacle you'll find is the humble post.
This is simply a round molded
plastic post roughly one inch tall
and a half inch or 13mm in diameter,
which is fastened to the playfield with a screw.
Each post has a thick groove molded in it,
which is designed to hold a rubber ring one half inch above the playfield.
This puts it at the midpoint of the ball's diameter,
assuring the ball always touches the bouncy rubber
and not the hard plastic.
You'll find dozens of these posts in any pinball machine.
They are often used individually to protect
some of the more fragile mechanisms from being struck by the ball.
And in that case, there are also tiny posts made of metal,
which are sometimes used for that purpose when space is limited.
But the more common large plastic posts
can be paired up to create a tiny little fence
position two posts with a gap between them,
and you can stretch a large rubber ring across both of them.
And since they all have that groove
which keeps the rubber rings at the appropriate height,
this forms an effective and bouncy linear barrier.
And there are plenty of those in this machine as well.
In fact, various types of obstacles often
get combined to create large out of bounds areas
with eccentric shapes.
Now, what amounts to a bunch of rubber bands
stretched across pegs isn't very visually interesting.
Plus, in some of the larger off limits areas,
there are often rather unsightly
mechanical elements taking up space in the middle.
That doesn't look very attractive.
So wherever there's a cluster of ugly doodads,
flat decorative elements called playfield
plastics are fastened atop the posts in a similar way
that a tabletop rests on the legs of a table.
This not only hides some of the more unsightly stuff,
but also makes the shape of the out of bounds
areas much more visually apparent.
These regions also provide a good place to tuck light bulbs
the ball can't get under the plastics
thanks to the rubber rings and posts,
which protects the light bulbs under there from impact.
And light shining from the sides of the light bulbs
provides a wash of light on the surface of the playfield,
so the game can be played in a dark room.
Plus, the plastics themselves become gently backlit by the bulbs below,
which is very pretty.
When artfully combined with the graphics
that are printed on the playfield.
The plastics also help highlight the objectives of the game.
For example, the negative space
between two barriers can form a pathway which guides the ball,
which is a feature found twice in this game.
The floating plastics provide visual depth,
which makes those pathways more obvious.
And although plastics are usually just covering things
which block the ball, they can also be barriers themselves.
Kind of anyway.
This game features two curved plastics,
which guide the ball along a curved path.
Though the decorative plastic is in fact above the height of the ball
and a second, identically shaped piece of clear plastic, below
is what the ball actually touches.
I will do my best to describe the layout of the playfield
and the shape of the areas the ball cannot go.
But I want to start at the bottom of the playfield where the flippers are.
And this is actually a pretty wide open area.
That's usually the case due to the nature of pinball,
and as a matter of fact,
the bottom third of this machine's playfield
is identical across many,
many games with only minor differences between them.
It's a symmetrical design, where the left hand
side is a mirror image of the right
and the game's two flippers are positioned at the bottom center
of the playfield and right in front of the player,
approximately 10in or 25cm from the front edge of the cabinet.
Flippers changed a few times over the years,
but from the 70s onward they more or less
standardized on slender plastic bats
about 3in or 76mm long,
with a slight taper along their length,
which makes them somewhat pointy.
They are surrounded by a thick rubber ring
and attached on their outboard ends to a vertical shaft,
which travels through a hole and below the playfield.
That shaft is not visible to the player.
In their resting position, they're pointing inward at each other
and are angled downward about 20 degrees from horizontal.
This means if you allow the ball to roll along the flipper,
it will roll off the end and fall into the gap between the flippers.
That gap is slightly smaller than each flippers length,
and is one of the three ways you can lose the ball.
There is nothing below the flippers but the out hole,
so if the ball goes between them, you've lost it.
But when the player presses
one of the flipper buttons on the sides of the cabinet,
a solenoid below the playfield is energized,
which rotates the corresponding flipper shaft
and causes it to quickly pivot upward
by about 45 degrees.
Press the button when the ball is touching the flipper
and the flippers movement will throw the ball
back up the playfield,
where along the flippers length the ball is,
as well as whether and how quickly it happens to be moving.
At the instant you press the flipper button will affect its trajectory,
making the player's perception and timing
extremely important for ball control.
Now, the flippers aren't just sitting by themselves.
For one thing, they're only three inches long,
but the playfield is more than 17in wide,
so their pivot point is positioned at the end of a rigid wire
guide sticking up from the playfield,
which is aligned with the flippers top edge
to effectively extend the length of the flippers
almost to the sides of the cabinet.
Once those wires are an inch and a half
about four centimeters away from each side,
they change direction and point straight up with their vertical component.
4in or 10cm long.
This means at the bottom of the playfield,
there's effectively a large funnel shape,
which so long as the ball doesn't go around, it
will sort of catch the ball and guide it onto the flippers.
Now there's a complication to this funnel,
which I've skipped for the moment, but what's important to note
is that when a flipper is held up by holding in a flipper button,
the bat's upward angle relative to that wire
forms a corner between the flipper and the guide.
Almost like the shape of a check mark.
This allows the player to catch the ball
and hold it stationary.
This isn't always possible depending on the ball's speed and trajectory,
but if the player is successful at catching the ball in this way,
they can exert very precise control.
Once the player releases the flipper button
since the ball was stationary, it will begin rolling from a stop
in a slow, controlled, repeatable fashion,
which makes flipper timing and thus aim much more predictable.
So what's the complication?
Well, what I've described so far might sound like a large,
unobstructed catch basin at the bottom of the playfield,
but this isn't the case.
Above each flipper and slightly outboard from their pivot
points are active elements known as slingshots.
Slingshots are our first example of an obstacle
formed by posts and rubber rings.
Three posts are arranged in the shape of a triangle,
and a large rubber ring stretches across all of them.
The three sides of the slingshot
have lengths of about two and a half, four, and five inches.
That's roughly six, ten, and 13cm.
A simple triangular playfield
plastic with Aztec graphics printed on it
obscures the center void of each slingshot,
and there's a light bulb below for illumination.
Now, the two shorter sides of the slingshots
exactly follow the profile of the wire
guide funnel thing, which redirects the ball onto the flippers.
They're positioned slightly inboard and above that guide,
so there's a consistent gap between the slingshot and the wire,
just a bit larger than the diameter of the ball.
This means that the slingshots,
in conjunction with the wire guides,
create a pair of lanes on the extreme edges of the playfield.
Remember how the wire guides change direction and go vertical
when they're an inch and a half from the edges?
That means the ball can end up
between that wire and the edge of the playfield,
and if it does, then it will fall straight down
with nothing to keep it from entering the area below the flippers.
This makes it an out lane.
If the ball goes there, you've lost it,
but on the inboard sides of the wire,
the slingshots create an L-shaped
channel formed between the wire and the short sides of the slingshot,
which will redirect the ball onto the flipper,
and that makes it an in-game.
Now, the only thing separating the in lane from the out lane
is that rigid wire guide.
And because it makes a 90 degree bend
down into the surface of the playfield,
it forms something of a skinny post that the ball might hit.
And that makes a pretty distinctive sound because
it's metal to metal contact.
When this happens, the
pinball will often nearly come to a stop,
which creates something of a nail biter moment
as it's teetering on that edge
and you can't quite tell if it's going to fall to the left
or to the right.
Better players than I am
will be able to nudge the cabinet to help influence
which way the ball will roll, but I'm useless at that.
Now lanes as a rule.
Award points.
In this game, the in lanes are marked
5000 by the playfield graphics,
and when the ball rolls through the vertical portion of either end lane,
it will depress a trip wire sticking out of a long,
skinny slot carved in the wood.
Once depressed, the trip wire closes a switch below the playfield,
which energizes the 5000 point relay and awards 5000 points.
The out lanes award
10,000 points and advance the bonus,
which serves as some consolation for losing your ball.
And if you've completed other objectives,
they may also award a replay or extra ball
indicated by a red playfield insert
directly above each out lane, labeled special when lit.
What it awards is configured by the operator.
That's why it's a special, not replay or extra ball.
Also of note,
the trip wire that the ball depresses
is different for the out lanes.
Every other lane in this game can be activated
by the ball rolling through it in either direction.
The trip wires sticking out of the slots are shaped
like the peak of a rooftop,
so the ball can push it down from either side,
and it will award points
even if the ball is traveling through it
backwards against the pitch of the playfield.
But the out lanes have a trip wire,
which only pokes out from the top side of the slot
and ends in the center.
That floating end will prevent the ball
from rolling backwards and up through the out lane.
Should the player happen to get ridiculously lucky
with the ball's rebound trajectory.
In other words, if the ball is out, it's out.
This game is not getting.
But the in lanes and out lanes
are at the extreme edges of the playfield,
and since the adjacent slingshots are fairly narrow,
there's a pretty wide open space above the flippers.
Now, in large part this is
simply to allow for wider shots.
Generally, it's easiest to shoot the ball across the playfield
using the flipper on the opposite side as your intended target,
meaning you shoot for targets on the left
with the right flipper and vice versa,
so the path between the flippers and the sides of the cabinet
needs to be relatively unobstructed, which it is.
And as a matter of fact,
the slingshots are shaped to stay out of the way
at their bottom, closest to the flippers.
They're 7in or 18cm apart,
but their long edge is angled slightly outward,
which means that their top they are 10in
or 25cm apart.
In other words,
they're sort of leaning back and out of the way of a ball
being launched by the flipper across from it.
But as much as that helps.
It's also terrible because that side of the slingshot is active
behind the long edge of the rubber ring as a pair of switches.
Either one of these switches will close
when the ball pushes on the rubber ring,
and that will energize a solenoid below
the playfield, which fires a kicking element
that pushes the long edge of the rubber ring outward from the center.
And it's not a subtle push.
It will move the rubber ring
about a half inch away from its resting position.
The result is when the ball
touches the long edge of the slingshots.
They push the ball away at very high speed,
which makes them a dastardly element
because they make it very hard to control the ball.
If the ball so much as brushes up against them,
they face each other.
So if the ball hits one at the right angle,
it can end up rapidly flying back
and forth between the two slingshots.
That's hard enough to recover from.
But to make matters worse, the slightly upward angle of the active side
makes it likely that the ball will be propelled across the playfield
just over the other slingshot
and land directly in the outlane,
which will cause you to lose the ball.
The slingshots are only worth ten points,
so this playfield element is all about creating chaos
and it's best to avoid them if possible.
But assuming you manage to avoid the slingshots
and are able to catch the ball, where can you launch it?
Now it's time to get into what makes this game unique.
The area above the flippers
and slingshots is mostly wide open space,
but it's absolutely littered with playfield inserts.
I mentioned those before when discussing the outlines.
Playfield inserts are indicator
lights embedded in the playfield surface.
This was done by drilling a hole in the playfield,
then filling it with a translucent piece of plastic called the insert.
When installed, the inserts are flush with the playfield
so they don't influence the ball's movement,
or at least shouldn't.
They can warp with age.
Below each one is a light bulb,
which causes it to glow when needed.
This game has many,
many inserts 36 if I've counted right,
and most of them are simple white circles with thick black outlines,
but the extra ball when lit and same player shoots again.
Inserts are a transparent orange red
and the special one lit inserts mentioned
before are translucent red.
There is also a single arrow
shaped insert pointing at the spinner,
which is a translucent yellow.
Graphics could also be screen
printed onto the inserts, along with the playfield artwork,
which we see in this game as stylized red letters
atop each of the five Aztec lights,
which are found below the central target and in the kickback lane.
Those are there to indicate which and how many letters have been lit.
For the purposes of determining
how many points those targets will be worth.
Lighting those letters is the main objective of this game.
But before I go over where their corresponding targets are,
I want to talk about the bonus ladder.
This isn't a target, it's just a status indicator
which informs the player of the current bonus value.
It fills most of the open space above the flippers,
and is incorporated into the game's largest
and most prominent piece of playfield artwork.
An Aztec man who has blue skin for some reason
in ceremonial dress, holding his arms
up to give the appearance of having wings
on the white feathers of the wings.
Below his arms are ten playfield inserts, which together form an arc
with the center of that arc closest to the player.
Each individual light is labeled
a point value, starting at 5000 points on the left,
then 10,000, 15,000, and 20,000, and so on
until the max value of 50,000.
These points are awarded at the end of the ball,
but each ball begins with 5000 points on the bonus ladder,
so the 5000 light is lit.
Targets which advance the bonus
will step the bonus unit forward, which illuminates
the next light on the bonus ladder.
This game will not award
any more than 50,000 bonus points, so if you get that far,
it's just going to stop there and won't advance the bonus unit again.
Right below the Aztec mans face is a slightly larger
than typical white insert labeled double bonus
when lit and well, when it's lit,
the machine will double the bonus value as it awards the bonus points.
But points are the point.
So how do you get points?
Well, you got to hit targets, so let's get to those.
Everything you can deliberately hit in this game exists
at roughly the midpoint of the playfield or higher.
And to help get a sense of this,
imagine that at the midpoint, there's a barrier
which gently curves towards the player as it meets the sides.
Something like a section of a ball.
Now imagine there are two large holes
in that barrier on either side of its center.
That's pretty much what the landscape looks like.
Targets and posts cause the extreme left and right sides of the playfield
to curve inwards somewhat towards the midpoint.
And at that midpoint, there's a center target sitting by itself,
with a large gap on either side of it
where the ball can go around it.
For now, we will ignore everything above the midpoint,
and we'll focus on the five stand up targets
which are closest to the player.
stand up targets are the simplest form of target in pinball,
and most of the time they take the form of small
plastic circles with a metal rivet in the center.
The targets are about the same size as the ball's diameter,
which is one and one sixteenths inches, by the way.
Don't know if I mentioned that yet.
Very normal number and the targets stand vertically,
peeking out from the front edge of a hole drilled in the playfield.
The targets lean forward slightly,
but when the ball hits them and pushes them back,
a switch is closed which registers points and or something else
on the left and
slightly below the midpoint of the playfield,
nearly parallel to and at the extreme edge of the cabinet,
are the E and Z targets.
These targets are nearly parallel
to the sides and facing inward.
The E target is below the Z target and is nearly as low
as you could possibly hit something from the right flipper
without grazing the left slingshot.
Then, about an inch and a half
or 38mm above the E target
and just a tad bit inboard
is the Z target,
as explained by text on the playfield.
Both of these targets are worth 1000 points whenever they're hit,
but they will also light their respective letter
when first hit by the ball.
They both feature an illuminated insert in front of the target,
which indicates that they have not yet been hit.
Once they are hit, that insert goes dark
and the corresponding letter inserts on the Aztec
display lights become illuminated.
Now there's a pretty huge gap of about 6in
or 15cm between the Z target on the left and the center.
Target, which is smack dab in the middle of the playfield.
Well, actually, that gap is
not between targets, but in fact between posts.
Stand up targets are usually protected
by a post on either side of them.
Those posts keep the ball from hitting the target
at a weird angle and breaking it,
but they also have a rubber ring around them,
which ends up causing the ball to rebound in unpredictable ways.
Anyway, the center target is just as small as the rest,
but since it has a post flanking its left and right side,
it takes up a bit shy of three inches in width, perhaps seven centimeters.
This is the game's most complex target when it comes to scoring.
It advances the bonus value and is worth 500 points
or 1000 points for each lit letter.
And there's a row of Aztec inserts just below to remind you
how many are lit, and it will award an extra ball
when indicated by an insert directly below the light.
It's got a lot going on, all indicated
by a bunch of written text screen printed onto the playfield.
Now on the right hand side of the center target.
Things are pretty similar to the left.
There's another gap which leads to areas higher up the playfield.
And then flanking the right side of the playfield
is another pair of stand up targets.
This time, the T and C targets.
They score the same as the other letter targets 1000 points on each hit,
but of course they like T and C.
However, on this side
the targets are following a much more aggressive curve inward.
The Z and E targets are actually in a line
almost parallel to the left side of the cabinet,
but the C target is pointing towards the flippers
and the T target even more so.
Plus is positioned much farther inward.
This is done to accommodate the mechanism for the kickback lane,
which is adjacent to the T target,
but I'll explain that in a moment.
So to recap, from left to right we have the E and Z targets.
Then there's a big old gap.
Then there's the center target.
Another gap though not quite as big.
And then there's the T and C targets.
That represents everything in the bottom half of the playfield.
And those five shots are all very important to the gameplay,
as you need to light some letters to score points quickly.
And you need to hit the center target to get an extra ball.
But what about those gaps?
Well, they lead to the top half of the playfield,
and it's much more complex than the bottom half.
In the center, we find the
game's three pop bumpers.
These are a staple in pinball and appear to the player
as round, mushroom shaped objects
protruding from the playfield surface.
There are 3in or 76mm in diameter, and are 1.5in tall.
That's 38mm.
They're not very tall,
but they almost touch the playfield glass in these early games.
That's how two dimensional these play fields were.
A light bulb below a plastic cover can illuminate the bumper,
and in this game they are marked 100 points
or 1000 points when lit.
In this game, the bumpers are arranged in a triangle
close to, but not quite equilateral.
One sits by itself in the dead center of the playfield.
In fact, it's adjacent to and behind the center target,
and the other two are above it.
On average, they're spaced about 5in
or 13cm apart center to center,
but the top left bumper is just a little too high
and a little too left to call this a truly equilateral triangle.
Anyway, when the ball gets close to these bumpers,
it rolls over a circular plastic skirt,
which, when disturbed, closes a switch below
the playfield that energizes a solenoid coil, below
which pulls an angled metal ring
straight down via two connecting rods.
That ring is normally above the height of the ball,
but it will come crashing down against the ball when the solenoid fires,
and the roughly 45 degree angle of the descending ring
will force the ball away from the bumper at high speed.
And because there are three of these bumpers in close proximity
and they can launch the ball into each other.
The results are often chaotic.
Rapid movement of the ball.
Fun fact
because the rings of the pop bumper
jammed the ball into the wooden playfield,
it's very common for there to be a lot of wear
around the pop bumpers to prevent that.
Many games are equipped with a transparent mylar
protective sheet surrounding the pop bumpers,
which is visible here as a faint ring surrounding each one.
Now, this central area with the pop bumpers
is sort of enclosed on three sides.
To the left of the pop bumpers is a pair of linear
barriers, the standard rubber ring stretched across posts.
These two barriers are not quite parallel to the side of the cabinet.
The longer of the two is above the other and is leaning
towards the right a bit,
and the shorter one below is leaning in the opposite direction.
That means they meet in a corner
that sort of hugs the top left pop bumper.
On the other side of these barriers is a curved
pathway hugging the left side of the cabinet.
But we'll get back to that in a bit.
Because of the corner where those two barriers meet,
the ball will often bounce back into the pop bumpers
if it's propelled into that corner, which can make for quite a show.
Then to the right of the pop
bumpers is another linear barrier,
this one straight and very long, about ten inches 25cm in length.
This barrier is nearly parallel to the machine's sides,
and it's so long that it's actually made of
two rubber rings stretched across four posts,
the lowest of which is adjacent to and protecting the T stand up target.
This long, skinny barrier ends up
top in a point which the ball can get around,
and on the other side of that barrier to its right
is another path of sorts.
But again, I'll get back to that.
And finally, above the pop
bumpers are four posts which are themselves
at the bottom of three lanes.
Those lanes lead to a small area
at the very top of the playfield that I call the entry point,
which is where the ball first enters the playfield.
At the start of each ball.
I'll describe that more in a bit,
but while the pop bumpers can absolutely send the ball
back up through one of those lanes, quite often the ball
bounces off the posts which separate them and back into the pop bumpers,
which is why I described this area as being enclosed on three sides.
There are a few other details to note in this central area,
but most important to understanding the layout here
is that the ball can go completely around this area
by going through the spinning target on the left.
This element doesn't really fit neatly into a single region,
which is why I haven't brought it up yet.
Remember how the lower half of the playfield
has a gap between the center target below the center pop bumper,
and the E and Z targets on the left edge?
Well, that gap is in fact split in two
by that two piece linear barrier,
which is hugging the left pop bumper.
The lowest post, which makes up that barrier
is sort of floating 4in or 10cm
to the right of the cabinet's left hand side.
If the ball travels to the right of that post,
it will end up amongst the pop bumpers,
but if it travels to the left of the post,
it will hit the spinning target,
which is less of a target and more of a doorway.
The spinner itself is a simple metal plate, which is suspended on an axle
and supported by a square archway, roughly 2.5in wide.
That's 63mm.
The arch is spanning the gap
between the left side of the cabinet and the floating post.
It's attached to the.
The left side of the arch is in fact slightly inboard from the edge,
fastened to a second post directly above the Z target.
The archway, and thus the plate, is angled
slightly with its right side higher than its left,
which means it's sort of directly facing the right flipper,
with an easy shot possible across the playfield.
When the ball hits this plate,
it gives way and begins to spin rapidly in a tumbling motion.
Each rotation causes a crankshaft to pull up on a rod,
which closes a switch contact below the playfield
that awards points, so you'll end up with a rapid
chattering of the score reels and chimes.
If the spinner is hit hard and straight enough.
Ordinarily, this scores
100 points per rotation, but if A is lit,
the yellow arrow shaped playfield insert pointing at the spinner
illuminates to indicate that the spinner is now
worth 1000 points per rotation.
Fun fact the spinners plate is painted white
and has a simple red Aztec mask graphic
on the right hand side, facing the left
and on the other side of the plate, which you can't
normally see is a matching blue Aztec
mask on the left hand side facing the right.
This causes a visual effect when the plate is spinning,
which allows you to see both masks at the same time,
so it looks like the red and blue mask are facing each other.
It's a fun little effect.
The designers put in their.
spinners since the ball passes through them when they're hit,
usually form the entrance to some sort of pathway
and directly behind the spinner is a long curved path
which bends to the left, running right at the edge of the playfield
before it curves back to the right and delivers
the ball to the entry points at the very top of the playfield.
That path is to the
left of the central pop bumper area
and effectively provides a bypass around it.
However, you have to hit the ball fairly
accurately in order for it to make it to the top.
If it doesn't hit the plate straight on
and instead brushes up against either of the posts
protecting the entrance,
it will rebound into the sides of the pathway, lose speed,
and won't make it to the top.
Also, just before the top of this pathway,
there's a rollover switch sticking out of a slot
which advances the bonus value.
It also has a playfield insert below labeled lights.
Double bonus when lit after the Z or T target have been hit.
That feature is activated,
and this rollover switch is one of two that will lock in.
Double bonus once hit.
So the spinner provides a bypass
around the left of the pop bumpers and back to the top.
But what's going on to the right of the pop bumpers?
Well, that long, skinny barrier
to their right ends in a point above
which is a rigid playfield plastic with a semi-circular shape.
The combination creates a negative space between the two elements,
which is shaped like a cane.
The hook of that cane is pointing down at the top right pop bumper,
and the stem of the cane is on the other side of that linear barrier.
Parallel to the side of the playfield
and ending to the right of the target.
This is what I call the kickback lane.
The hook shape forms something of a scoop,
so if the ball is hit upward into that area,
it will be caught and deflected back down into the stem of the cane,
where it will then fall to the bottom.
The ball would be trapped there,
but at the bottom is a wired trip switch poking up through a slot
to register that the ball is there and award points,
and then a solenoid powered kicker will propel the ball
back up and out of the kickback lane.
This is the highest value target in the game,
worth 5000 points, or 10,000 points for each lit letter.
A second set of illuminated playfield inserts
for each of the five letters in Aztec is positioned
down the stem of the kickback lane
to make it more obvious how many points will be awarded
based on how many letters are lit,
and this target will also activate
double bonus indicated by another insert
at the top of the entrance to this area with a large graphic
which says lights double bonus when lit.
Because of that scoop shape at the entrance of this target,
it's actually quite easy to hit.
There's an unobstructed shot between the left flipper and that scoop,
so as long as the ball clears the center target,
even though it's quite far up the playfield and near the top,
you don't need a very accurate shot to get the ball in there.
And of course, since the scoop is pointing at the top right pop
bumper on occasion, the ball will leave the kickback lane
and then get pushed right back in there.
If you're lucky, that can be a quick 100,000 points.
If all letters are lit.
There is actually a second way to get lucky with this target,
and that is if the ball bounces when it hits the bottom on occasion,
the ball will bounce with the right timing such that it is above
the kicking element at the moment it kicks,
which means it misses the ball
and it lands on the trip wire again,
so it scores twice in a row.
This isn't that common though, because the game designers were clever.
They put a second wire guide at the bottom of this channel,
which is designed to knock the ball to the side a little bit
and hopefully prevent it from bouncing in the first place,
which is pretty effective, but it's not always effective.
So sometimes you get a double scoring just from pure luck.
now there's really just one area left to describe,
and that's the entry point.
And the lanes below it.
Something that's a little weird
about most pinball games, including this one,
is that everything we've been talking about so far
is not actually centered in the cabinet.
That's because of the shooter lane to the right,
while the shooter lane is part of the wooden board,
which is the playfield.
It is functionally adjacent to the playable area and on its right.
And in this game it serves merely
as a ball delivery mechanism.
It exists as a narrow channel formed
between two long pieces of wood that are sticking up from the playfield.
The wood piece on the right is literally the edge of the wooden board,
which everything is fastened to,
and the one on the left defines the right hand
side of the playable area.
The shooter lane is not much wider than the ball,
and it extends nearly the entire length of the cabinet.
When the game is started, the machine uses
a solenoid to knock the ball sideways from where it sits in the out hole,
after which it finds itself at the bottom of the shooter lane,
where it will then rest on the tip of the spring loaded plunger.
The plunger sticks out the front of the cabinet on the right hand side,
and the handle allows the player
to pull back on the plunger, which compresses the spring.
When this is done,
the ball rolls back only slightly as the plunger
tip is protruding through a piece of metal which holds the ball in place.
You can pull the plunger back
about 4in or 10cm, which compresses the spring quite a lot.
So when you let go of the plunger, handle
it rapidly moves forward and strikes the ball,
propelling it upward at very high speed.
At about three quarters of the way up the playfield,
the shooter lane begins curving to the left
thanks to a large metal piece which blocks the corners of the playfield
and forms a semi-circle at the top.
So when a ball is shot up by the plunger,
it follows the path of the semi-circle and starts curving to the left.
It quickly reaches the apex of that semi-circle
at the center line, the very top of the playfield,
and then it starts curving back downward
as it continues towards the left hand side,
but it quickly encounters an obstacle.
At roughly the 10:00
and 2:00 position of that semi-circle
are simple mechanisms called gates.
These are metal brackets akin
to archways which the ball will travel under.
And they have a moving flap which the ball can push open from one side
but not the other.
The gate at the 2:00 position prevents
the ball from traveling back down the shooter lane.
Once it has entered the playfield,
but thanks to the second gate at the 10:00 position,
once the ball enters the playfield, it rapidly
bounces back and forth between the two gates
until it loses enough speed that gravity takes over
and it starts rolling towards you.
That's this sound here.
The ball moves so rapidly during this
that it's sliding more than it's rolling,
and over time it has carved a wear line into the wood of the playfield.
I want to note that this basic arrangement of a shooter
lane on the right, sending the ball up and along that semi-circular top
was quite common going back to the 1940s,
but it's less common for there to be two gates.
In many games, the left hand gate is instead
a simple rubber bumper which the ball bounces off.
But here that's replaced by a gate
at the top of the pathway behind the spinning target.
As a matter of fact,
the top of the curved pathway behind the spinning target
joins up with the semi-circular metal shield at the top.
So if that gate weren't there,
the game would start with the ball
making a very fast trip up and over the top of the playfield
before curving back and being shot out of the spinner
and across to the right flipper.
That'd be fun.
But anyway, because of the gates,
the ball will always get trapped in this area.
If it comes up either through the shooter lane
or through the path behind the spinning target.
This entry point at the very top is shaped
almost like a slice of pizza.
The semi-circular top forms the shape of the crust,
and linear barriers under playfield plastics forms
straight lines perpendicular to that semicircle,
which extend inward and downward from the gates,
similar to the sides of a pizza slice.
And by the way, I've already talked about these plastics.
The one on the left is the same one
which covers the linear barriers
separating the pop bumpers from the pathway behind the spinner,
and the plastic on the right is the same one
that creates the scoop shape for the kickback lane.
These are very oddly shaped
playfield plastics because of all the stuff they're covering up.
But each one has a straight section
which comes inward from the gates,
creating the sides of our pretend pizza slice
and funneling the ball towards the center.
But rather than converging to a point,
those sides stop short and lead into three
parallel lanes arranged left to right.
Those lanes are created by simple dividers
made of two posts with a plastic cover spanning them,
and they break up an otherwise open area into three distinct paths.
The ball could take as it falls towards you.
The game registers the ball passing through the lanes,
using the same piece of wire
sticking up from the bottom of the playfield through a slot.
Trick.
The outer lanes award 1000 points
and may also advance the bonus if that lane is lit.
When the ball passes through it,
the lanes are lit by a white playfield insert directly above each lane,
and which lane is lit varies throughout the game.
The center lane awards 1000 points as well,
but it also lights A in Aztec
and the spinning target for 1000 points.
That's right.
If you've been wondering where A is this whole time,
it's the center lane at the very top.
And that means whether or not you'll light
A is mostly down to chance,
especially since it's in the middle and isn't helped
by the funneling effect of those linear barriers.
But because you're able
to get the ball back up to this point through the spinner,
you can theoretically have as many goes at it as you like.
Now, those entry lanes are the most important part up top,
but they aren't the only thing going on up there.
Just below the semi-circular path, the ball first bounces back and forth.
Along are three rollover buttons.
Those are literally small translucent
red buttons that protrude from the playfield slightly
and are depressed by the ball when it rolls over them.
These buttons may be depressed by the ball once it loses
speed and falls toward you, but they might not.
The two outer buttons award 100 points,
and the center button, which is faintly illuminated
by a light bulb below, advances the bonus value.
And fun fact that's all it does.
You don't get points, so the chimes do not sound.
All you hear as a player is the stepping action of the bonus unit.
When the ball rolls over, it.
Also,
the straight lines of our pizza slice are in fact made by rubber
rings stretched across post,
like most of the linear barriers found throughout.
And they have a switch behind the rubber ring to register
ten points whenever the ball hits them.
But once the ball has fallen through one of the three entry lanes,
it will roll directly into one of the game's three pop bumpers.
In fact, the pop bumpers are nearly perfectly centered below each lane,
though the lower center bumper is much farther below the other two.
This means
every ball in play starts out by flailing around a bit at the top,
falling into one of the three lanes,
and then falling down into the pop bumpers, where chaos ensues
and eventually either by force of the pop bumper or through a gentle roll,
it will make its way through one of the gaps between the center targets
and the sides,
and wind up down by the flippers, where the player can hopefully catch it,
or at least flip it back up for some more points.
Now, at this point, I've described everything on the playfield,
but there are a couple of things to note here.
First, nearly every linear barrier
which is made of a rubber ring has a switch behind it
which awards ten points.
Those aren't likely to get you over to a replay,
but that's how the match units, which quasi
randomly awards free games, gets advanced.
And since the pop bumpers tend
to bounce the ball off those other linear bumpers,
this moves the match unit a lot.
Plus, in this game, the match unit causes
a few of the targets to alternate point values.
For example, the pop bumpers are worth 1000 points when lit,
but they're never all lit together.
It's either the top two that are lit or the bottom by itself.
And when the match unit advances, it alternates between these two states.
So hitting a ten point bumper is what switches between them.
That can lead to some interesting patterns of chimes sounding
when the ball keeps bouncing
between the same pop bumper and a ten point bumper
every other hit of the pop bumper is worth 1000 points,
which changes which chime is sounded.
Oh, right side note.
Which of the game's three chimes sounds
depends on the point value of the target you hit.
Or more accurately, which point relay is firing in the back box.
In this game, the highest
tone sounds for 100 point targets.
The middle tone sounds for ten point targets,
and the lowest tone sounds for 1010 thousand point targets.
Some games had a fourth chime, but that's pretty rare.
And on that note,
there's one target I've left out.
Tucked into the corner formed between the top
post of the linear bumper to the left of the pop bumpers
and the bottom post of the left entry lane.
Is another stand up target.
This one is worth 1000 points and advances the bonus value
when that target is lit again, indicated
by a white playfield insert next to the target.
That target is only lit to advance the bonus
after every other ten point bumper hit.
So it often does not do anything but award 1000 points.
The position of this stand up target makes hitting it
deliberately using the flippers nearly impossible.
The top left pop bumper is in the way,
although that pop bumper will often send the ball
right into the target, sometimes repeatedly.
And if it helps to get your bearings.
The position of this target is effectively opposite
to the entry scoop of the kickback lane.
From left to right,
it's stand up target left lane, center lane, right lane,
and then the post at the bottom of the right lane forms
the left hand edge of the scoop shape, which directs the ball downward.
So that's everything going on with this playfield.
As you can probably imagine, the playfield is a blank canvas
that game designers could do pretty much anything with,
and there's a huge variety of games out there.
Plus, there are many more elements that this game doesn't feature at all.
I'll now be switching back to more gameplay
where I describe what I'm trying to accomplish as I play.
But before I do, I want to provide a brief recap
of what happens when you plunge the ball and what you can do.
Every game starts with the ball at the entry point
and falling through one of the three lanes.
You might get lucky and light A, or you might not.
The ball is going to bounce around in the central area for a while,
thanks to the pop bumpers hitting various targets
and possibly getting shot into the kickback lane,
but eventually it will roll towards the flippers.
If it touches a slingshot on its way
down, you'll have to be on your toes
and try to catch it before things get out of hand.
And assuming you have caught it.
You then have eight basic things to shoot for.
The four letter targets flanking the sides,
the center target in the middle.
The scope of the kickback lane at the top right,
the spinning target at the center left
which will take the ball back to the top.
If you hit it well enough.
And the eighth option
is just to fling the ball back up into where the pop bumpers are.
Though that's not much of a strategy really.
You might get lucky and light a
if the pop bumpers push the ball back up through the center lane.
But for the most part,
there's no reason to deliberately send the ball there.
You'll just be asking for trouble,
as it's very possible for the outer pop bumpers to launch the ball
right back and straight down the middle between the flippers.
Oh, and real quick, I just want to apologize
for the audio quality from my voice in this next section.
I did a test recording with the microphones
set up similar to where I had it,
and I thought that I was actually being picked up pretty well by the mic.
But then when I did the actual recording, something changed.
And I'm not that clearly audible.
I should have been wearing a laugh mic, but I wasn't.
So I am sorry for the audio quality here, but the machine itself
sounds just as good as it did at the beginning.
All right.
And now I'm going to play some more games.
But this time I'm going to slow down and explain
what I'm trying to do as I play the game.
I woke up to the fact that at the beginning,
I wasn't really trying that hard.
I needed to slow down myself, but, it's often
very hard to do that in the moment.
So now I'm going to play some more
and actually explain the strategy behind this game.
Okay.
So with the ball now served, to me,
the most important thing about this game
is the fact that the center target and the kickback lane,
their value changes depending on how many letters are lit.
And critically, the kickback lane, which is at the top
right of the playfield that awards 10,000 points for every lit letter.
And that's a fairly easy target to hit regularly.
You have, it's easier from the left flipper,
but you can also backhand it from the right flipper
so it's much harder to backhand it.
I tend to find it's easier if it's rolling down the lane.
I give, let it bounce, then kick it back up.
But, regardless,
the real strategy of this game is get some letters lit.
Hopefully Z and T are part of them
because that will activate double bonus, but get at least two letters lit
and then keep going for that target.
That's going to rack your points up faster than anything else.
The temptation to complete as tech is actually quite risky,
because all of the side stand up targets,
they all have the ball rebound in disastrous ways.
The layout of this playfield is quite good at having the targets.
You need to make that target worth more,
be a risky shot, and that's really the wonder
of how pinball works as far as I'm concerned.
I really like that aspect of the game.
It just makes it challenging.
These old games are surprisingly replayable,
even though they are so simple, and it's because of how
risky those target combinations are, I think.
But anyway, when I plunge the ball,
I may light a if it goes through the center lane
and a is useful
because it's another letter, it increases the value of those targets,
and it increases the spinner value from 100 to 1000 points.
However, it's generally not too worth fixating on that,
because even if you give the spinner a right whack, you're
not really going to get any more than 30,000 points.
And that's if you're lucky.
So anyway, let me just start the game and I'll explain
what I'm trying to do.
I also explain what's happening as we're going along.
So we did light a.
And we lost the ball already.
We happened to light E
but I didn't even get to hit it with the flippers,
which again is something that happens with these games.
It's just what happens.
So we only got 23,000 points on that ball.
Did not light a.
The ball was pushed
back up through the lanes by the bumpers,
but now I have caught it in the left flipper.
So what I want to do right now
is probably try and light t,
and in order to aim what you're hitting at,
it's a it's not that complicated,
but when you think about it too much, it becomes more complicated
because the speed of the ball
as it's rolling down the flipper is going to influence
the angle that it departs the flipper from when you hit it.
So a lot of this is just timing.
You get good at recognizing
how long, I should say, once you've caught the ball.
A lot of it is timing.
You get good at recognizing how long you have to wait,
once you release it to then flip.
And that is sometimes more important
than where the ball actually is as it's rolling down the flipper.
But as a general rule,
the wider the shot you have to make, the more difficult it is.
It's pretty easy to make shots
towards the center of the playfield,
like it's pretty easy to get the ball back up towards the pop bumpers,
but it's fairly difficult
to get them to go to the stand up targets on one hit.
And even if you get there, the rebound is dangerous.
And that's why this game,
despite being so simple, is actually quite fun to play.
So I'm going to try to hit T,
which will involve me letting go of the ball and I can go the flipper,
letting it roll down the flipper probably until about the two thirds
mark, and then hitting it again.
And I was too early.
The ball was bouncing around the bumpers right there.
I've now caught it in the right flipper,
so I haven't really done anything yet.
No letters are lit, the ball is just bouncing around.
So we only got like 15,000 points.
We're at 38,000 points right now.
So again, now I have the right flipper.
I'm going to try to hit Z.
I was just short.
Unfortunately, I'm.
Okay.
Hold on.
I don't have control. The ball
okay.
Unfortunately on this game
when the ball comes in an end lane, it's
pretty much impossible to catch it.
It has just enough momentum to where it will bounce off the flipper.
So you do kind of have to just hit it.
If the ball goes into an end lane and see what you can do.
But again, I'm going to try to hit T.
And again was a little too early.
When I go for Z.
Technically got it.
So I've let Z in a bit of a weird way.
I didn't hit it directly.
It bounced off of the slingshot, then went back up into Z,
but Z is now lit.
That's important because double bonus is now possible.
So I can go into that kickback lane and get double bonus,
which means that the value of the bonus, which is currently
10,000, will be doubled at the end of the ball.
But also now that target is worth 10,000 points.
That's not a whole lot,
but because it's going to double the bonus effectively
just hitting that right now is worth 20,000 points.
So I'm going to go for it.
And that's how easy that target is to get
because it's almost got a scoop shape.
It's going to guide the ball into where it needs to go.
It's a lot harder to get on the right flipper, but you can do it.
But in this case,
I'm going to try to go up through the spinner
and get the ball back at the top of the playfield to try and light
A, because lightning E is very risky.
I'm just happy if he happens to get lit during game.
For now, I'm going to try to get back up
to the top of the playfield,
but I was the one time we did light E just there.
Okay, I have the ball again in the right flipper.
I'm going to try to whack it up through the spinner to the top
and there we go.
The ball is at the top.
But we did not like a we.
We still
never mind.
Okay.
Right there I tried to hit the ball back up to the top,
but it didn't quite have enough, speed.
So it fell back down.
And I have it again in the right flipper.
We have Z and E lit now,
so the kickback line is worth 10,000 points.
It may be worth trying to repeatedly hit that target.
So what I will do is I'm going to try to attempt a post transfer,
which is where I will very briefly let this flipper go,
then hit it again so the ball bounces up into that post
and into the other flipper.
Quick addendum that post is the bottom post of the slingshot.
It's just above the pivot point of the flipper.
So if you briefly let go of the flipper and then flip it again,
the ball is going to get shot right up into that post
and hopefully bounce over to the other flipper.
That's what I'm trying to do.
I find it harder to do that on this game
than my more modern games, but I'm going to try it anyway.
They did it all
right, so now that I have the ball on the left flipper,
I'm going to push it up into that kickback target hopefully
and get 20,000 points.
And I missed.
Oh well.
And go for it again.
It's much much too late.
And the ball's out.
But because we had double bonus,
we got 40,000 bonus points, which is not bad.
So our 142,000 points right now.
We got a.
Okay.
That didn't work.
That also didn't work.
Sometimes you really just cannot catch the ball.
All right I caught it again.
So right now we have a and t lit.
I'm going to try and go for Z actually just to get another letter.
Really?
Well.
Oh, boy.
Okay. All right.
Through sheer luck, we now have AZT and C lit.
So every time we hit that target, it's going to be worth 40,000 points.
Let's go for it. There we are.
And we're just
going to try again the next time we get an opportunity.
That was really bad and dumb of me.
Okay.
I was trying to do a backhanded
kick up into that target, but I hit the center target,
which is also extremely risky.
And it is pop, right? Damaging the flipper.
So we had a really good shot of getting a replay on that last ball,
but I screwed it up with that last move there.
So we ended at 239,930,
and I completely forgot there was a credit on the machine.
I'm recording this out of sequence,
so there was a credit on the machine from when I did the just playthrough.
So I can just hit start.
Let's try again
and hopefully I'm describing decently well what's happening.
When you're hearing a lot of random
chatter, that's when it's amongst the pop bumpers.
And I really I'm just watching it.
I cannot really describe what's happening
because I need to be paying attention to catch it when it gets inevitably
shoved down towards the outlines and or the flippers.
Got a let there?
Oh, I wasn't able to catch the ball.
We just got up in the ticker.
Got 20,000 on the bonus. Now
and lost the ball.
So not a great ball.
39,120 points.
I okay, I have the ball on the right flipper.
No letters are lit right now.
You did hear it go into the kickback lane and awarded
5000 points because there are no lit letters.
Let's try it once again to light Z.
And I did it all right.
So now
that flipper is quite buzzy.
Apologies for that.
Because I have it in the right flipper again.
I'm going to try a post transfer.
All right.
Now I have it in the left flipper
and I'm going to go for that target.
The kickback target.
Have you got it?
That means double bonus is now lit.
Not super useful because we only have 5000 points on the bonus.
Okay, I got the ball again.
I'm going to.
I'm actually just going to go back up through the spinner lane again.
Try to get it to the top.
Well I got there but I didn't have enough momentum.
But now I have in the left flipper.
So I still only have one letter left.
So each time going for that, kickback lane is not that lucrative.
Let's try to get another letter, which again, is risky,
but I'm going to go for t.
Got it.
And we went to the out lane.
Which is why that's so risky.
It really tends to go right back to the out lane.
Again these games,
they're really well designed to frustrate you,
but give you just enough control
to have some skill involved.
You might think it's a wonderful game.
You might think it's a little insidious.
I think it's both.
Okay, well, that was terrible.
Oh, the ball is stuck.
There is a rubber ringed post
right in front of the out hole that may bounce off of.
And anytime there's a rubber ring, the ball can get stuck there.
And that's what just happened.
So we should have ended at 117,000.
But because we tilted we're only at 102,000.
I will do one more game with explanation.
Maybe another.
Let's see.
But before I actually play the game,
I realized I haven't touched on something which I meant to.
You've probably seen me do this many times
now on camera.
It might not come across what exactly I'm doing.
I have not actually hit the flippers
at the same time I'm hitting one, then the other.
And this is actually a really effective strategy
to save the ball from draining,
because the tip of the flipper travels in an arc
as it moves up.
The tip is actually moving
a little bit closer to the center line.
So if you have the ball
rolling between the flippers
and it really looks like you're going to lose it,
you might be able to save it
by hitting the flipper that it's closest to first,
and the tip will just barely pop it into the other flipper.
And then you hit that other flipper
and it will push it back up to the playfield.
This strategy is shockingly effective.
It surprises me how often it's able to save the ball,
but the downside is you don't have control over the ball.
You've just kept it from draining, but you had no idea where it went.
So you have to be on your toes
because it might come right back to the flippers very, very quickly.
But it's still a really effective strategy.
Better players than me will be able
to nudge the machine in that same scenario.
And by that I mean physically pushing the machine from side to side.
Because if you think about it,
when the ball is rolling down the playfield,
this is a flat board and it's pretty low friction.
So if it's rolling down the playfield
and you suddenly push the machines of the left,
well, the ball is not really going to change directions.
It's just going to keep going in the path it was going in.
But you've now moved the flipper to the left
relative to the ball, so you can actually change
what's it seems like you're changing the path of the ball,
but really you're just moving the playfield underneath it.
I'm just no good at that.
Plus, these electromechanical games, they are not forgiving.
Newer games will give you a tilt warning.
These you trip the tilt mechanism balls done.
So I'm would even probably do that very much on this game.
You can only do very subtle nudging.
And, I'm just bad at it anyway.
But I wanted to just explain that's
what you're seeing happen when I'm doing that move.
I'm not just hitting both flippers at the same time.
Okie dokie.
Through the magic of light.
Video editing.
Here's what an actually good game looks like.
I'm going to get a replay this time.
I can feel it.
And no, it has nothing to do with the order
these clips were put into the video.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Here we go.
Got some bonus points, that's all.
Another one of those points.
Okay.
Can't I have the ball in the left flipper now?
It came in through the end lane, which meant I couldn't really catch it,
so I kind of just had to play around a little bit, but I got it now.
Z was lit.
Didn't really try to do that.
I think it just I don't remember when that happened.
We have zealot.
I'm going to now try to get T or C
and I failed
but I have it back in the left flipper.
So let's try again okay I got C.
There's with oh no okay.
When this happens
I'm probably going to tilt the game.
I don't know we say that.
All right.
That's a good sign.
We're going to win this game.
I know it.
The tilt mechanism gave us some grace.
Got three letters left. Now.
Awesome.
Okay, Z, E and C are all lit.
I had the ball in the right flipper.
I'm not entirely sure what I want to do.
I'm going to go up through the spinner, I think.
Try to get some more bonus points because we have double bonus lit.
Okay we did.
We got some more bonus points or 84,000
more bonus.
Oh, we have the bonus ladder filled.
Oh crap.
Honestly though, cannot complain.
We're at one 9898, nearly 200,000 points,
which is great for ball one.
Top bumper pushed it into the shooter.
I just got a lit.
That was nice. I
still have not touched the ball
and we had the outlines.
That's okay.
It makes our odds of winning harder,
but we only need 111,000 points to get a replay.
Very doable.
Oh, boy.
I got Z lit.
There's some miracle we didn't just take me out, Lane,
but I need to slow down here.
Okay.
I'm going to go
because we can get double bonus now
if I go up through the spinner, that's what I'm going to do.
We can get there.
We really can.
In fact, we almost have it in the back.
Oh, crap.
A replay is not guaranteed on the bonus score.
Sorry, I have not gone explaining.
But there we go.
394,680 points, which crossed 350.
So we now have a credit on the machine.
Do we want to play our free game?
Let's play our free game.
Let's see if we can do it again.
And I'll try to explain more what I'm doing.
So all right we're into the popovers.
We got some bonus points
okay.
The ball is going a little wild.
I now have it caught in the left flipper.
I'm going to go for t
I got it.
Can't really catch it right now.
Oh my goodness.
Okay.
Had a hard time getting control,
but I have t let's I'm not going to go for C.
Let's do a post transfer I'm going a left flipper now.
Well that didn't really work.
Okay. Here we got e lit by accident.
So we have TNT lit.
I'm just going to go back up to the top.
Oh, boy. So they didn't.
Okay, well that's all right.
I have the ball on the left flipper
and now it's in a kickback lane.
So there's 20,000 points.
I just picked it back up through the spinner
because I wouldn't have been able to catch it.
I got some more bonus points.
There is 25,000 on the bonus ladder.
When in the in lane
and I just push it back up.
We got a double kicker.
That sometimes happens if the ball bounces.
Just right now we got a land.
So we got a T and E all that.
Oh crap.
Fire the flipper a little early there.
I almost caught it off of a rebound,
but now I have it in the right flipper.
Let's do another post transfer.
Great. Oh,
not great enough, though.
Let's try it again.
What was that?
Well, I was around about post transfer.
Here we go.
There's another 30,000 points off the kickback.
Hit the outline.
But not a problem because.
With those bonus points,
we were at 219,910 points on the beginning of ball two.
That's really good.
Let's keep going.
Hey, is lit.
I have the ball and the right flipper.
I'm going to go for E!
I did it and I also got C,
so we now have three letters already A, B and C
double bonus isn't available, but 30,000 points
per hit on that target is good enough for me.
There's another 30,000 points,
so we're at 258.
There's another 30,000 points.
So we are now at 294.
Loss ball.
No big deal.
I'm at 326,000 points right now.
So if I don't get a replay
that's going to be it's going to be
because the ball is just abjectly horrible.
Hopefully I can manage to squeeze in 24,000 points.
With those bonus points, that puts us in a better spot.
A win's not guaranteed yet, but it's close.
There we go.
Excuse me.
Two replays in a row.
It is possible.
And now I'm going to play another game.
Yeah.
One more.
You're still watching, right?
All right.
We got some bonus points there.
And lot left, though.
Oh, I'm surprised that happened.
Okay, I have the ball in the right flipper.
Let's go for Z.
I was just too short.
The cops are having their fun with the ball.
Okay,
we have t lit now,
but I don't have control the ball now I do.
So it's in the left flipper.
So, we have 20,000 points on the bonus, so it's very worth doubling it.
Even though we've only got t lit.
I'm going to hit for that kickback lane.
And there we go.
There's 10,000 points and double bonus is now lit.
I have the ball again in the left, flipper.
I'll go for C,
even though I don't really want to.
Yeah,
that is a really hard target to deliberately hit.
And look what I just did.
I tried to be clever and catch the ball,
but it was just too far to the left,
so he lost it down the middle.
But not a terrible ball.
70,000 points could be a lot better, but could be a lot worse.
Got some bonus points.
Got some more bonus points.
And some more bonus points.
Okay, that's.
The ball had too much speed to catch there,
so I could just hit it and hope for the best.
Okay, I got t hit on the left flipper there, so T is now lit.
Can I go for Z?
Z is now lit.
Okay.
With z and T lit.
Yeah. I'm going to do I have the ball on the right flipper.
I will try another post transfer.
It's not quite how I want it to go, but it worked.
Oh, shoot.
Okay.
Saved it barely.
Yeah.
Get in that target.
Sometimes the pop bumpers will do it for you.
Not today.
We'll end that link.
And awarded 25,000 bonus points.
We're only at 126,000 points.
It's pretty bleak to get a replay, but not impossible.
Dang it!
Well, that didn't go well.
We're at 152,810.
And with that rather abrupt ending, this is the end of the video.
But I want to leave you with two extra pieces of information.
First,
I wasn't describing what was going on earlier
when I was banging on the machine.
What sometimes happens with these games?
And I think it happens as they age because of the way
the playfield where's the slot in the lanes
that has the wire sticking out
so it can register the ball rolling through it?
The bottom edge of that slot will sometimes get compressed a little bit.
I think that happens because over time the ball,
when it rides in the slot, it sinks down a little bit.
And then as it's coming out of the slot, it kind of impacts the playfield.
And so it gets sunken in just a little bit.
And very occasionally the ball will have
the perfect speed to get stuck there.
And that's what happened.
So the ball was barely caught.
So it was pretty easy to dislodge.
But because the tilt mechanism is so sensitive in these early games
and one firing of it and the ball's over,
I was trying to be very gentle.
The other thing I want to mention is there will be a second
Sights and Sounds video on this machine, focused
exclusively on the mechanisms that make it work.
I was originally planning that to be part of this video,
but while you might have noticed, it taken me forever to make this, partly
that's because I am absolutely no good at recording things off the cuff,
and I wanted to describe the playfield layout as well as I could.
So I ended up scripting most of that,
and I wasn't happy with the script for a long time.
So this video just got back Bernard forever.
And, once I got it all put together,
I realized, oh, this is going to be way too long
to include everything in one video.
So there will be a second video, and it's going to be much more casual
and likely it's only going to be recycled B-roll
from the original video, original main channel videos.
But I've got tons of B-roll
that was not used in those videos, so I can show more
what's going on in the mechanisms, and I will be doing that
hopefully sooner than half a year or however long it has been.
But I have a lot of other stuff that I need to get going on.
So that's going to be, in the
not too distant future, but not very, very soon.
But anyway, thank you for watching and or listening.
And I will have that part two
or whatever we're calling it for you
at some point.
How's that for a promise?