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Pacific Pinball Museum
- starkparker 4y agoThere are a bunch of murals related to PPM: https://danfontesmurals.com/pacific-pinball-murals https://danfontesmurals.com/pacific-pinball-murals
- crtified 4y agoGood work, Thing! You're really on the ball...
- shove 4y agoReally enjoyed this spot although we could only stay for an hour or so. The Asheville Pinball Museum (East Coast) is mentioned in the comments but I personally prefer the one in nearby Hendersonville NC (owned by the same folks from what I understand)
- snide 4y agoIf you're nearby, I highly recommend going to California Extreme at least once in your life. There's a great collection of old Pinball and Arcade games you can play for a nominal weekend charge. It's always filled with knowledgeable folks that are excited to see their games in play. You'll find a larger selection from a variety of local hobbyists. Sadly, I've since moved from the area, but always think back on some great times there. https://caextreme.org/ https://caextreme.org/
- adrianparsons 4y agoFurther afield, but may I also recommend the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas and the smaller but also great Silverball Museum in Asbury Park, NJ. http://www.pinballmuseum.org/ http://www.pinballmuseum.org/ https://www.silverballmuseum.com/asbury-park/ https://www.silverballmuseum.com/asbury-park/
- colanderman 4y agoWhat serendipity; my wife and I are visiting the area and looking for things to do, and recently developed an interest in pinball (via AtGames virtual pinball). Thank you for posting!
- EricE 4y agoWe need more arcade museums! If you are in Vegas, there is the Pinball Hall of Fame: http://www.pinballmuseum.org http://www.pinballmuseum.org
- ravenstine 4y agoOh dude, looks like they have Indiana Jones Pinball Adventure! This is the pinball machine! I've wanted to play it again for a long time. It had really crisp sound effects for its time, the plunger is a pistol grip you pull the trigger on (with gunshot sound effect!), and intermission games where you punch people. Pretty friggin' awesome. I'm so glad someone still has one running, and I think I'll be visiting this place rather soon.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- CharlesW 4y agoIt's not the same experience (although it might be close on a virtual pinball cabinet), but: https://zenstudios.com/games/indiana-jones-the-pinball-adventure/ https://zenstudios.com/games/indiana-jones-the-pinball-adven...
- itake 4y agoMy parents have one in their house, and it's going to be a huge problem when they die and my brother and I have to fight over who gets to keep it.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mhink 4y agoOne of my local spots has it! One feature I think is especially cool is there's a small upper playfield which, when you manage to get the ball up there, has you controlling the tilt with the flipper buttons. Getting to the end without dropping the ball through various holes scores a bonus. I thought it was really inventive- although there are several games with similarly inventive features, it's always cool to see a new idea.
- mulmen 4y agoIn the Streets of Cairo mode you fight a man with a sword. You can just pull the trigger on the plunger to win the fight. These are somewhat rare but they are definitely still on route. Check pinball map to find one near you.
- Bud 4y agoI lived a few blocks from here for years. So I can vouch. The museum is amazing. It's a time capsule.
- system16 4y agoI'm glad this exists but at $22 admission I don't think you're going to attract anyone but hardcore pinball lovers and maybe the odd person trying it out as a novelty once and then never returning. Pinball for most people is not an all day activity so an hourly rate seems like it would be a better fit.
- TylerE 4y agoSilverball in Asbury park is $25/day and always packed out. If you play for even an hour or two you'll be well ahead of where you'd be paying a buck or game or whatever pinball in the wild goes for these days.
- K7PJP 4y agoIf you haven't played pinball in a while, you'd burn through quarters pretty quickly. They're not a quarter per play anymore, it's usually 50¢ to 75¢ for older games and $1/play for anything from the 1990's or newer.
- ts4z 4y agoAn hourly rate was tried and it was a pain in the ass for staff and now it’s gone. (Source: I am an irregular volunteer technician, and have been going there as a customer for 15 years.)
- mrbrownt 4y agoPlaying for an hour at an arcade can easily drain a roll of quarters. $22 for a day is a pretty reasonable deal imo.
- bigbillheck 4y agoI went there maybe ten years ago and it was pretty full of people, not jam-packed but enough that you had to maneuver around them. (Only went there once because when we lived in the Bay Area it was an hour-plus drive)
- mikepavone 4y agoI've been there recently and can confirm it still draws a healthy crowd.
- gxqoz 4y agoRelatedly, there's a new drama out about the history of pinball: https://pinballfilm.com/ https://pinballfilm.com/ It's good!
- sheepybloke 4y agoThe coin operated machine museum on Fisherman's Warf is also quite cool! They also have free admission, but you can play all of the games.
- jer0me 4y agoLe Musée Mécanique
- flounder3 4y agoThis place is amazing for hosting events. They have a side room that’s perfect for a birthday party.
- itake 4y agoAre there any open source pinball machines? I have the Indiana Jones Pinball adventure and there are a few minor game design decisions that need modifying (partially due to the physical condition of my machine).
- relwin 4y agoa) Convert your game to run the P-ROC system: https://pinballmakers.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page https://pinballmakers.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page Then run this code (or modify it per your needs): https://github.com/mypinballs/indianajones https://github.com/mypinballs/indianajones b) or repair your game.
- itake 4y agoThere are software-only bugs (game design decisions?) that I'd like to modify. I found that source code, but they also have made modifications from the original and don't include the original assets. I emailed the creator asking for what hardware they are running for this.
- jydftshdrga 4y agoboth the poster above you and the repo tell you what it runs on -- a p-roc controller (which hooks up to a pc) if you want to modify the original game, you're going to need to get into 6809E disassembly and manual rom hacking.
- itake 4y agoAh, I missed that. > into 6809E disassembly and manual rom hacking darn. I was hoping someone had a c/cpp code dump somewhere :-/. the repo doesn't have assets.
- koz1000 4y agoIndiana Jones and all other Williams/Bally pins were written in pure 6809 assembly language up until the launch of the Pinball 2000 project.
- vgeek 4y agohttps://www.pinballmap.com/ https://www.pinballmap.com/ As already mentioned, The Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas is probably the most well known collection on a national level. Pittsburgh has two good collections-- Pinball PA, with various solid states up to modern machines, and Pinball Perfection, with more old (wood rail) tables and rarer tables like Banzai Run and the often-broken Circus Voltaire. There is a growing number of public collections of modern Stern/Jersey Jack/CGC/American/etc. typically in barcade or enthusiast collections made public environments-- like The Pinball Garage outside of Cincinnati (the owner builds/built vpin cabinets), The Pinball Museum of Corbin in rural KY (50 or so modern tables, mostly Stern) or The Asheville Pinball Museum. They will all vary in quantity and quality (both in games and maintenance)-- so use Pinball Map and see where your favorites (or rare tables) are actually at. Visual Pinball X and Zen Pinball are probably the two most prominent emulators. If anyone likes other coin operated esoterica, Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum outside of Detroit is worth a visit. Lots of 19th-early 20th century rare mechanical attractions and maybe 10 new pinballs.
- busterarm 4y agoI wanted to add Modern Pinball, in NYC to the list, but sadly they closed due to COVID. While it was a small shop, they rotated machines frequently and had a number of historic machines available for play. Also the legendary Steve Epstein was involved in the business. Steve ran Broadway Arcade, which at its height in the 80s had over 144 pins. It was my local arcade growing up and sat where the Times Square Church and McDonalds on 51st st now occupy today. Palace Playland in Old Orchard Beach, Maine used to be a great location for pinball as well but has long since gone the Family Fun Center route instead. I think most of what they had moved to Maine Silverball Tavern in Saco. I also hit the PHoF in Vegas every time I go. Great collection.
- Projectiboga 4y agoYes Modern Pinball closed in 2020. It was fun to live a few blocks from there. I think we did two birthday events for my Son there. Always a nice rainy day event for me and my kid. Glad to see a list of these places. There used to be on in New Jersey near Philadelphia and it is now one of the mentioned Bay Area ones.
- sys32768 4y agoI believe PinBallz in Texas has ~80 pinball machines at their main location. I was there a few years ago and the place is massive with a friendly vibe: https://pinballz.com/original/original-classic-games/ https://pinballz.com/original/original-classic-games/
- jnovek 4y agoI was a regular at Pinballz for 5 or 6 years. I love it and it's one of the number one things I miss from Austin. They maintain a great selection of games and they route a lot of games around town as well. Pins at Pinballz get a lot of play and can be in rough shape or out of service at times.
- buzzert 4y agoThe best part about Pinballz is that it’s just an arcade. Not mixed with a bar, venue, or borderline gambling. Really great place!
- kstrauser 4y agoIn this post: Alameda represents.
- duxup 4y agoAs a web dev I am as excited at the idea of going there as I am by their website. What a fun website, it's just a happy site. The site just looks fun.
- callalex 4y agoMy partner who works in UI/UX was really fascinated by this place because it offers a neat timeline view of how people have interacted with machines through the decades.
- chriscjcj 4y agoI've been here numerous times. There's a lot to like. When you walk to the left side, there are some very old machines going back to the very beginning of pinball. They're interesting from a historical perspective, but not so entertaining to play. Still, it's neat to see how the art evolved and the fact that you CAN play the really old machines is really cool. I do have a few complaints about the place. 1. The place is loud. And I guess that's not really their fault. If you get a bunch of machines that make noise all in the same room together, it's just going to be loud. However, one of the most wonderful things about these machines was the strange, unique, and beautiful noises they made. I was excited to find a couple of my favorites, but just couldn't hear them over the din of all the other machines. :-( It would be amazing if they could install a headphone jack on at least the digital machines so that if you wanted to play and really listen to the sounds, you could bring a pair of cans and immerse yourself. At the very least, they should disable attract mode on everything so that it only makes noise if someone's actually playing it. That might help a bit. 2. Weak coils. It's so frustrating to play a pinball machine knowing that you should be able to maneuver the ball to certain places but can't because the coil that's actuating the flipper is just shot. Williams' Black Knight was one of my favorites back in the early 80's and they have it. But once the ball falls to the lower field, it's pert-near impossible to get it back up there because the coil has just lost its oomph. 3. They purportedly have many more machines in storage and will swap certain ones out periodically, but I haven't seen that all the times I've gone over the last few years. It seems to be the same selection. I'm always hoping to see Xenon when I go, but I never do. When I ask about it, they tell me they have one in storage and that it may show up soon when they rotate machines, but it always seems like the same ones every time. Anyway... I don't want it to seem like I'm bad-mouthing the place. It's great and a lot of fun. I would go more often if they could fix the annoyances. That's all.
- ts4z 4y agoI’m an occasional volunteer. Sometimes I show up and fix games (although it’s been a a long time since I’ve done it). Machine rotation is an issue. They do change them out but it is always trading out somebody’s favorite for somebody else’s favorite. Weak flippers are probably not the result of weak coils, but of wear of flipper mechanisms. A complete flipper rebuild is hard to do on a budget. Some games (and BK is one of them) have flippers that haven’t worn well. (I think BK might still have 25V flippers, for instance.) But next time I’m there I will make sure to look. It’s important to be able to kick the ball upstairs on Black Knight. I will say noise is always a problem, but the museum isn’t always crowded. I’ve been going a long time, and it’s been ten years since I could go early in the afternoon, but it is worth a shot. Thanks for playing. Do mention any issues to the front desk. They will get attention, albeit triaged, and fixed on a budget.
- ElijahLynn 4y agoThere is also Next Level Pinball Museum > https://www.nextlevelpinballmuseum.com/ https://www.nextlevelpinballmuseum.com/ in Hillsboro, OR (30m outside Portland) and it boasts "One of the World's Largest Arcades with over 475+ pinball and arcade games on free play!".
- djbusby 4y agoBack in the 90s this space was the best record store in Alameda.
- starkparker 4y agoRecord Gallery kept going into the late 2010s; it moved across the street to 1451 Webster in 2008, though it had declined pretty steeply toward the end, and I think didn't make it out of the pandemic fully intact. 1451's now a vintage boutique (I think) with a few records left in it. They started auctioning a bunch of stuff from the old store in December, including wall art and promo posters: https://www.facebook.com/RecordGallery/ https://www.facebook.com/RecordGallery/, https://www.ebay.com/str/alamedamusiccompany https://www.ebay.com/str/alamedamusiccompany
- icelancer 4y agoFor those hoping that Pacific = Pacific Northwest, fear not, there's one here too! https://www.seattlepinballmuseum.com/ https://www.seattlepinballmuseum.com/