Since many of the good nominations come from competitive players, I hope this is a welcome topic to encourage people to post ideas.
And now, the spiel.
The mission of The New Pinball Dictionary is to gather terms used by the pinball gaming community which may or may not be a part of the official lexicon. Besides, some of these terms are just made-up âŚ
If you have a suggestion for a nomination to the New Pinball Dictionary, or you would like to support, âsecondâ, or improve something that has already been nominated, please use this forum topic to participate.
Thanks for your contributions!
I want to provide as many ways as possible for pinballers to make suggestions, without having to wait for me to post them.
Those terms that receive a large amount of support will be promoted to the âHall of Fameâ main page. http://pinballdictionary.org/
As an aside, I am so glad this can find a home here. New competitive players will most likely see this topic on TILTForums first before they see âThe Main Pageâ so thanks for your participation!
I nominate âmoonwalkâ for when a ball goes up the inlane to the outlane. Bowen also had that right wire form DM moonwalk on his tutorial. Not my phrase, but definitely surprised to not see it on the NPD page.
Weâve taken to calling this the âTaxiâ or âGetting Taxiedâ in Seattle. Probably because there are several Taxis on location and it happens a lot on Taxi
I noticed recently that there was a term for when a fast drain ball flying over the flipper back into play. I have been refering to this as a Super lazarus.
But I also have a Magic lazarus. On older games with an outhole kicker, something quite spectacular can happen when draining two ball with very unique timing. When the first ball is kicked to the trough it can push the second ball in such a way that it is accending slowly up between the flippers and back into play. I have only seen it twice. Once on a Funhouse and once on a Fish Tales. It is so amazing to see. So, I named it The magic lazarus.
The cat paw
That light flip to deaden the momentum of the ball. Like a flip catch but without holding the flipper up. When performed idealy, the ball is resting over the flipper and will land calmly for trap on a subsequent flip. You know what I mean.
The term âcat pawâ is used in Danish on football players (that is, what we address as football) that deaden the ball on a fast passing/air ball with a subtle tip of the foot.
As seen in the first couple of segments in the Messi highlight compilation.
"When a playfield element or toy ejects a ball STDM. Some instances have tiny ball saves to compensate, while others immediately end your ball. With the exception of a small few, most of these are due to mechanical errors and can be remedied.
Examples of these include the Gene Simmons toy on Stern Kiss, the Snake in Metallica, the scoop in Monster Bash, and the Dragon shot in Game of Thrones."
Nominated for the giant Gene Simmons head on Stern Kiss and its tendency to spit out balls STDM to the point where a ball saver was added on eject.
I believe âmoonwalkâ is used more commonly to describe when a ball comes off a ramp into the inlane like it should, but then floats into the outlane. Seems to be common on DM, W?D, and Pinbots.
I always refer to what you are describing as âup and overâ
What Iâd be interested in is some common lingo for plunger/skill shot stuff. Over the weekend at Pin-Masters I took notes on how I was measuring the skillshots. I found that when trying to share that information with other players, it was really confusing to them. If I say the âfourth notchâ, does that mean 4 from the top or 4 from the bottom? Am I measuring from the tip of the rubber, the bottom of the rubber, the washer, etcâŚ? Not that everyone plunges the same anyways, but that kind of info can at least help someone get in the ballpark.
In a 4-player Pin-golf group, when 3 people have passed the target score and are no longer playing, the last player has to stand there and plunge through everyone elseâs balls in order to get to their next ball in play.
âIn the Pin-Masters finals, Keith Elwin was Last Man Plunging on that Fish Talesâ
I sometimes have hesitations for proper names, because what if âperson Xâ becomes famous or is famous for something else entirely.
(e.g. a reason why the most recent member of the main page stayed âin the chamberâ for a while before I posted it. - but it got supported by over 30+ likes on Facebook.)
But, âElwin Poseâ is used so much that it really needs to be in the âHall of Fameâ. Now that there are lots of good screenshots available, I can remedy this.
Massenkoff was doing a version of this off of the feed from the GOT right loop with much higher success rate than I saw anybody get with live catches, dead bounces, loop passes, or just shooting on the fly. Sort of a similar action and timing as a loop pass, dropping the flipper just as the ball touches it in a way that sucks enough momentum out of the ball to just pop it back up a bit, allowing just enough time to bring the flipper back up for a trap.
Unfortunately didnât end up on the stream, but Iâm pretty sure he stuck it every single time. A nice move to have on a tilty GOT with no ball-save and wide open outlanes that was punishing botched live catches left and right.
The first similar non-pinball action that comes to mind is the way seals bounce and spin a ball on their nose I guess you could call it a âswipe catchâ? âloop dropâ? âfade catchâ? I dunno, but itâs definitely a thing!
