I will always remember the first night I played Tales of the Arabian Nights. My friend and I were at the local barcade, we were there to play Scared Stiff but it was replaced by TOTAN. Naturally we felt compelled to play this as consolation.
We played a few games, but neither of us were really getting the hang of much except hitting the genie, which didn’t always end well. (The magnet wasn’t spinning. If you didn’t furiously flip while it started a mode it would go straight down the middle every time.)
She went on to play another game, I stayed on TOTAN because we got a match and I couldn’t walk away from a credit.
It ended up being my best game ever. I completed one mode quickly, started the next and then just kept wailing on the lamp until the wish with ruby was lit. (At the time I didn’t know that would happen.) I ended up getting all 7 gems and saving the princess. I thought I tilted at first when I defeated the genie!
At the end of the game I ended up as Grand Champion (for a brief moment, anyways!) with 25M. I’ve been chasing my ghost trying to do better than that ever since.
This past Pinburgh in the B quarter-finals, I had 2 points going into game 4. I needed a perfect runout of all 4 players in the final game to force a 3 way tie at 5 points. I got to go last on Aquarius (1 player em). The other scores came in the exact order I needed and then I won the game forcing the 3 way tie! Then, in the playoff game on Genesis, I step up to ball 3 (I am last again) down by 2 million with no progress and proceed to scratch and claw my way to the victory, advancing to the semi-finals.
In a related note, Gene X got a sweet picture of the moment the comeback was complete that now sits in my gameroom.
Not only that, if you didn’t have targaryan mode lit before this, you may have scores upwards to about an extra 75 million just for hitting the dragon during 5x, assuming the combo multipliers were still going.
Not a mindblowing story but I was pleased: during quick multiball on Whirlwind, I got one ball in the saucer and, just before it popped out, hit another between the low pressure bumpers. They collided and rolled down towards the upper flipper together, almost touching, and when I flipped, one went around the inner loop and one went up around the 3-toll ramp, and I managed to catch the one that went around the inner loop and hit it up the ramp as well. Sadly, it didn’t count for a three-way combo but it was still pretty nifty.
Defeating targaryan as greyjoy is extremely difficult to do and I was able to pull it off in the circuit finals this year. Too bad @KCB passing Ben Granger prevented me from advancing
Also, a very funny and yet horrible moment was in the last ball, last game of funhouse in a tournament we had here outside oslo. I was thinking for some minutes, and then I told a friend my whole plan, the succession of shots I was now going to make which could make me win the game. So, finally, I get prepared, aiming to soft plunge, and shoot into the mode start in center.
I soft plunge, the balls rolls towards the flipper bat…I flip, hit the P target and SDTM. Everyone broke out in laughter, included me. the most anti-climatic happening ever. Ive never hit that target earlier in the tournament from the right flipper
Except that in that sequence, after reading the rules, Neil correctly completes the next trick by knocking down the last drop target. The fact that the ball subsequently drains is unfortunate, but really, it’s not a “fail” on Neil’s part because he hit exactly where he was aiming!
Had a cool moment at the sportsplex yesterday. Two young boys came up and started watching me play GB. Older kid is old enough to see over the glass, younger isn’t. They looked like brothers. Older kid starts watching while younger is quickly getting bored (can’t see the action). So older kid gets behind younger kid and lifts him up so he can see. This lasts about 30 seconds before older kid gets tired of holding younger kid, so he puts him down. They wander away.
A few minutes later, they come back. This time younger kid is sitting on older kids shoulders. Everyone is happy and they watch for a good 5 minutes, clearly entertained by what they are watching. They wander away again.
A few minutes later, older kid comes back by himself. He had asked a few question earlier. Did you win? Not yet, you’ll hear a loud noise when I do. After that, I won a game and the noise startled the kid. I tell him that’s the noise, I won a free game. He gives a look that says ok, I get it now.
So after a few more minutes of watching, I ask the kid if the other kid was his brother. He says yes. I told him that was nice of him to hold his brother up to watch. At this point I was at ball 3 and getting bored. I had one credit left and figured I’d give it to the kid. So after a half hearted effort, the ball quickly drains and the game matches. Kid looks knowingly at me as if to say you won another one. I ask him if he wants to play a couple of games and he says sure. I tell him to push the flashing green button and walk away. Nice work looking out for your little brother, kid.
My first game of the day on Saturday was 67mil on Cirqus Voltaire which included joining the cirqus. Once I finally started up the wizard mode, I flailed till I was down to two balls. The last shots I needed were the two orbits and I had both balls trapped on the left. Pulled off a beautiful up/over cradle separation and then gave those orbits a one, two punch. It felt super pro and I was glad I had a buddy there to witness it!
I played in a smaller tourney over the weekend and the games were on smooth concrete floors with reasonable tilts. Playing Kiss on ball one around 30m I pulled off a 3-4 inch double danger slide save that would’ve made @pinwizj proud. Proceeded to get 277m on ball one.
Well, the thread title says “Sweet Pinball Moments” and although my competition experience is really limited (I’ve been playing for less than 2 years), here are my moments:
-Playing my first machine (Avatar) two years ago in a bar with my wife for about an hour. I turned around and said “I want one”. Now I have 8 (I am finishing my basement because I’m out of room now), I’ve traveled to PAPA twice and started a league. Can you say addiction.
-Walking into PAPA headquarters for the first time two years ago. That was effin’ awesome. I love that place!
Two of my favorite pinball stories happened while playing alone on location. They’re both sort of bittersweet, but they were some of the best pinball I’ve ever played. And they both involve me being late…
Story number one happened at the illustrious Hawthorne Hideaway in Portland on a very specific Attack From Mars. Back story is that I used to be a regular at that bar when I lived in the area, before I was a pinhead. For a long time they didn’t have any pinball at all, but one day I walked in and they had this Attack just sitting there. I probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought except that I remembered going to this pizza place called Murray’s with my dad when I was a kid. By this point it had been closed for probably 10 years, but when we went it was the mid 90s, and they had a brand new AFM and a Scared Stiff that I would play every time we went. AFM was always my favorite. Eventually we stopped going there and it closed down, and I forgot about pinball completely until that moment at Hawthorne Hideaway when I saw the Attack From Mars, standing in all its glory. A funny coincidence is that Murray’s had literally been in the building right next to where the Hawthorne Hideaway is, so my head canon is that it’s the same machine I played as a kid.
So eventually by being a regular at this bar and playing this Attack over and over again, I caught the bug and searched out the competitive scene in Portland. I learned how to play pinball on that machine. Drop catches, post transfers, inlane passes, live catches, multiball cradling. But I could never quite get the GC on it. It wasn’t a crazy high GC, and it didn’t play super hard, but I think I had a mental block and whenever I would get close I would choke. I got all the way to lighting Rule the Universe but bricked the shot on ball 3. Eventually I moved away and didn’t go there very much any more. But one day before work I decided to go in there and play a few games for old times sake.
I had trash game after trash game. At some point I decided I’d play one more game and then I’d probably take off to catch the bus for work. Of course everything starts coming together. I start playing fucking amazing, I’m dialed on every shot, I can hardly miss, the ball isn’t going anywhere near the outlanes. I could have played 20 multiballs. I didn’t miss the lock shot. On my first extra ball on ball one, all I had to do was destroy mars and I would have Ruled the Universe. But suddenly the realization hit me that my bus was coming in 5 minutes and if I missed it I would be super late for work. So, I had to walk away from the best pinball game of my life. It was such a shitty feeling, because I was absolutely certain that I would have GCed that machine and Ruled the Universe for the first time. It would have been like overcoming my pinball demons by GCing that machine, but it wasn’t meant to be. They took out the AFM there a while back and I don’t know where it went. I’ve still never Ruled the Universe, but I know it’ll happen someday. It’s kind of funny that one machine has been such a part of my pinball journey. Kinda makes me wonder where it’ll pop up next.
I know I said I had two stories but this post is getting long and I need to stop interneting right now. I’ll tell my other story some other time!
Had a one in a million incident yesterday. I still cannot believe this happened.
Jurassic Park. Had an air ball that flew over the slingshot, outlane guide, shooter lane guide and found it way back into the trough. Added to the amazement. Jurassic Park has decoration attached to the shooter lane guide. How the ball found it way through there is impressive by it self.
Had a GB game a week or so ago where one of the balls drained down the right outlane really fast, but the combination of the speed and slight spin caused it to jump to the other side of the drain, then bounce upward at just the precise location where I could raise the left flipper and boop it over safely.
The best way to explain this was: a ball that death-saved itself.
There are precious few milestones left for me in the Williams-era games but I finally knocked one of them off today when I defeated Final Battle on Shadow. I have always sucked at this game and it came out of nowhere, I definitely didn’t expect it. There was a little crowd of locals watching too so I got a cheer when I nailed that last shot which is always fun. I’ll remember that one for a while.
Way to go Greg! I’ve owned a Shadow for only a couple months now and I’ve only made it to Final Battle one time. Not even close to finishing it. Such a fun but difficult game.
