After a successful move to Vancouver from Fraser Valley, the Vancouver Flip-Out returns as the largest tournament in Canada, as the main event of the Vancouver Pinball Expo (VPE). This year, the Vancouver Flip-Out main event is also part of the 2017-18 PAPA Circuit, recognized as one of the premier tournaments in North America.
A summary of the tournaments is provided below. For full tournament details, go to the website: http://vfo.wapinball.net/
Please note that the tournaments start a day earlier than the Expo, on Thursday September 21, with doors opening at 4pm. Playing early is highly recommend to avoid long lines waiting to play, and to ensure you have sufficient time to play all of your games, especially in the Main division.
$10,000 in prizes, in the form of cash, trophies, plaques, and pinball memorabilia to be awarded across all tournaments!
No youngest age. However, we do expect that the kid can play on their own (doesnât need a parent or guardian helping them), and understands the rules enough to take turns and play only their balls. If they donât understand the overall format, then a parent or guardian needs to be present to ensure they are at the right place at the right time.
Both banks are now announced and this event is 1 week from today. Iâm hyped!
Modern:Centaur, Starship Troopers, Spiderman VE, Family Guy, Dirty Harry, Tommy, Elvira, Mario Andretti, Demolition Man, Twilight Zone, Dialed In, and Stern Star Trek.
The rule of thumb seems to be
Classics can be anything before 1990
Open / Modern / Main can be anything thatâs not an EM (unless you are Little Chief)
Which leaves an interesting gap where modern can have games that are classics, but classics usually canât have modern games
I would describe the layout as âsomewhat badâ. (From playing it just a couple times) I remember the rules, however, as being ridiculous. Letâs take a lookâŚ
Mystery is alternately lit and unlit at the left ramp on slingshot, pop bumper and tach hits. If Race Strategy is lit at the ramp, Mystery will not be lit. Shoot the ramp when lit for Mystery to collect a random award:
1 to 10 Gallons Fuel
Post Up
1 to 5 Jackpots
Multiball
Race Strategy
500,000,000 (!!!)
Complete Lap
Ball Saves
Mario Andretti has guaranteed ball time. If you have not had the minimum ball time it will repeatedly give you the ball back after your third ball until you do get the minimum ball time.
I use the words Main and Classics that way people donât bitch when we put an older game in the Modern bank. It is nice to have some different pins in the main bank think Dave and his group did a good job in providing some variety.
We are aware of some unusual features in Mario Andretti that does not make it an ideal tournament machine. However, weâve also had feedback that players, especially the novice and intermediate players (not ranked in top 250) who represent over 85% of the attendees, enjoy the variety, and do in fact like the thrill of random awards occasionally giving them a superb boost. Thus we chose to provide a good mix of some known good and popular tourney machines, with a couple of less-common machines.
Our rules already state that only 8 of the 12 main bank machines will be used in the finals. Last year, for example, we used Rocky & Bullwinkle with double-your-score feature, and had a note on the backglass that it would be one of the machines not used in the finals. As a qualifying machine, many players chose to play it, while some chose to avoid it. The same applies to a machine like Mario Andretti. Nobody is required to play it in qualifying since we only take top 7, and itâs highly likely it will not be used in the finals. If we do use it, itâs because we discovered there is a way to not make it more fair in a match-play environment. But just because it isnât good for Match play, it does provide for an option for some who do like that, and is suitable in a tourney where you can retry multiple times on your favorite machines.
The minimum ball time aspect was also considered. Whereas a few years ago this would have been a no-way, several major tournaments have been using the Beat-the-clock machine rather successfully, and most people enjoyed that. So again, especially catering to the novice audience, having a machine that provides minimum ball time, at least in a qualifying round, is an interesting twist. Weâre experimenting with it, and itâs only one of 12 machines. Anyone attending who doesnât like that, can simply choose to focus on playing the other 11 machines in the bank.
We donât know for certain what adjustments we will be making to the machines. However, as with any other tournament that includes many of the worldâs best players, do expect the machines to be more challenging than your typical arcade setup. However, there are also many novices who play the tournament, so we want to ensure they enjoy it too. Thus challenging but not impossible. Unlikely that weâll be pulling posts, but it is quite likely that posts will be at their hard settings on most of the machines. For some known longer-playing machines, possibly also a rubber or two removed from the outlane posts. Also expect some easy multiballs to be set to hard settings (e.g. Spidey doc ock) and multiball ball-savers reduced to be at their minimum time setting on machines where that is adjustable (e.g. newest Sterns).However, we do expect to keep a short ball-saver on most machines where such a ball saver is typical.
With regards to glo-balls, thereâs never a plan to use them, but they are a tool we have at our disposal. The tournament machines are all selected sight unseen. They belong to private collectors, and the first time any TD sees the machine, it is already setup in the tournament bank, and thatâs in a room totally separate from the main expo hall. Swapping out machines is difficult and not something we have time for during the hectic setup. However, what do you do if one or more of those machines have weak or sluggish flippers, such that you canât hit one of the ramps, or in a classic machine canât get the ball all the way back to the top lanes? We donât have time to rebuild flippers, and donât have an easy option to replace the machine. In general, thatâs when we choose to swap the balls and use glo-balls. For example, last year we had a pristine SF II, except that it was impossible to make the right ramp from the left flipper. With glo-balls in that machine, however, a good shot to the ramp was easily doable. In one of the classic machines, the flippers were so weak that the ball could only go half-way up the playfield, but with glo-balls it brought life back into the game and made it so much more enjoyable to play.
The one other time we might use a glo-ball is if a machine has an exploit, and use of such a ball eliminates or makes using that exploit significantly more difficult or dangerous. Thatâs the one time the glo-balls might be used to increase the difficulty of the machine. Otherwise, they are used to improve the playability of the machine.