When Dad was a kid, summer vacation meant going to the coast. And going to the coast meant pinball. There was a Star Wars machine he was completely obsessed with. He saved up every coin he had and spent them all on it, one ball at a time, with the flippers and the lights and the bells all going at once.
So many good memories came from that machine that we wanted to make a pinball game of our own, and try to bring a little bit of that feeling back.
How it started
This is how it started. A grey box, three bumpers, two flippers and a ball.
No colors, no lights, no aliens. Just checking that the ball felt right.
It does not look like much, but this is the part that matters most. If the ball does not roll and bounce the way you expect, nothing else you put on top will save it. So we played with that grey table for a long time before adding anything else.
Trying on different looks
Once the ball felt good, we had to decide what the game should look like. We could not pick just one, so we tried a lot of them.
Like a little plastic toy.
Like an old game console.
Like a cartoon.
There were a lot more than these. Every one of them was fun to look at, but the cartoon one was the one we kept coming back to. Bright colors, thick outlines, easy to read even when the ball is moving fast. That was the one.
Little by little
Then we started building the real table, one piece at a time.
The table in our editor. Move it, play it, tweak it, repeat.
We moved every bumper, ramp and target around many times. Put it here, play a few balls, move it a little, play again. A bumper that looks great in one spot can be boring in another, and a ramp that is too hard to hit is not fun for anyone. We kept going until each piece felt like it belonged where it is.
And while we played, we kept asking ourselves: what crazy things could happen in this game? What if the aliens could abduct the ball? Maybe it gets swallowed by a swirl and spat out somewhere else, or carried up a ramp across the galaxy.
Give it a try
Charge the plunger, send the ball up the rails and keep an eye on the sky. Someone up there wants your ball.