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Physical Pinball Tables - TV Tropes

  • ️Sat Jul 06 2013

Physical Pinball Tables

Can't put these in your pocket.note 

On this wiki, "Physical Pinball Table" refers to a Pinball game that originally existed as a tangible machine in its history. Many of these pinball tables may be emulated or adapted for Video Game Systems or home computers, but their origins are in cabinets that can be touched, nudged, slapped, and jostled.

Despite popular misconception, the rise of Video Games has not stopped pinball machines from being made. Stern Pinball continues to release a half-dozen new titles every year in several different editions, with a majority of them going to private owners over commercial establishments. New companies like Jersey Jack Pinball, American Pinball, and Multimorphic are releasing new tables with original ideas for gameplay, modularity, and maintainability. Meanwhile, individuals like John Popadiuk and Ben Heck continue to make original machines with very limited production runs for truly devoted players, while companies like VirtuaPin and Pinball Controllers sell cabinets, hardware, and control boards to let hobbyists build their own tables.

Video Game adaptations of pinball tables have existed since the beginning of video gaming, but those early ports tended to be overly simplistic due to technical limitations. With advances in computing power, however, digital simulations have become accurate enough to re-introduce physical tables to new generations of players, giving pinball fans more ways to easily enjoy their favorite tables. The companies and titles in this realm include:

  • FarSight Studios' Pinball Hall of Fame series (with The Gottlieb Collection and The Williams Collection), and its successor series, The Pinball Arcade.
  • Visual Pinball is a freeware computer application that works with a pinball ROM emulator (Visual PinMAME) to play recreated and original 3D-rendered pinball tables, similar to Microsoft Pinball Arcade.
  • Future Pinball is another freeware computer application, using a fully-modeled, real-time 3D engine. Has not been updated since late 2010.

More recently, the line between physical and digital pinball is being blurred further with the rise of virtual pinball machines. These are pinball cabinets with flatscreen displays that play digital versions of physical games, allowing hundreds of titles in a single cabinet. More elaborate models include shaker motors, knocker solenoids, and physical plum bobs to better replicate the actual gameplay experience.

For a list of games by decade, see Pinball of the 2000s and Pinball of the 2010s. Also see Digital Pinball Tables and Licensed Pinball Tables.

Physical pinball tables with their own pages:

* Pirates of the Caribbean pinball tables:

Other notable physical pinball tables include: