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Pinball Map: Crowd-sourced worldwide map of public pinball machines
- aodonnell2536 3y agoAs I come to the comments to advertise my hometown pinball museum, I’m surprised to see there’s so many! Cool to see an old arcade game live on so strongly. Anyways, to anyone who finds themselves in Southwest Virginia and wants to relive old pinball and arcade games, the Pinball Museum of Roanoke, Virginia has a floor dedicated to pinball, and another to retro arcade games (in the cabinets). Everything is free too after the entrance fee!
- 0lll_-_lll0 3y ago[dead]
- eschneider 3y agoAh...they note what machines are where. This is quality.
- yawn 3y agoI use https://pinside.com https://pinside.com. It's been around for a long time and is an amazing resource for Pinball info.
- schrectacular 3y agoIt feels like the maps have different goals - I see people's basements on pinside, but it's missing local small businesses with machines.
- ryantgtg 3y agoYeah, pinside is a great resource. Surprisingly, the pinside map was created four years after pinball map (source: wayback machine; disclosure: I'm a pinball map dev).
- SnooSux 3y agoReminds me of similar tools for DDR machines near you. https://ddrfinder.andrew67.com https://ddrfinder.andrew67.com https://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/arcades.php https://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/arcades.php
- soupfordummies 3y agoSadly, it's REALLY uncommon to find both pinball AND DDR at the same place. Logan Arcade in Chicago has it. One of the best arcades period.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y agoPinballz on 183 in Austin also has both DDR and of course pinball machines. I can’t remember if the other locations in Austin and Buda also have DDR but I know that one does for sure.
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y agoThere's a municipal airport less than an hour drive from me that has a pinball machine from 1975. I'll have to check that out next time I drive through there.
- mustacheemperor 3y agoOne of my favorite aspects of pinball is finding and playing those odd machines tucked away here and there, thanks to some enthusiast at a local business, or because it’s always been there. Fond memories of an old laundromat in CNY that had a machine of similar vintage..and an equally old coke vending machine.
- nineplay 3y agohttps://pinside.com/pinball/map/where-to-play/19493-cool-cat-cafe-maui-lahaina-hi https://pinside.com/pinball/map/where-to-play/19493-cool-cat... I played on the ones in Maui just before they were lost in the fires. Not a great tragedy in the grand scheme of things, but still a pity. Star Wars was a delight.
- cowboyscott 3y agoRelated: Pindigo is a great tool for tracking high scores and has global and friend leaderboards. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pindigo-social-pinball-scores/id1027062831 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pindigo-social-pinball-scores/... https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ascrewaskew.pindigo2&hl=en_US&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ascrewaske...
- kbxkgxkhdlhxkhz 3y agoScorbit is a neat alternative to Pindigo, and has hardware integrations for capturing scores automatically. Also interestingly, one of the founders also founded Equinix, Rev3, Digg, Opsmatic, and a handful of other companies... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Adelson https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Adelson
- cowboyscott 3y agoWow, that's a name I haven't heard in a long time (Diggnation was an early podcast fav of mine)! Glad to see he's still at it.
- needz 3y agoI'm Pindigo's dev. Thanks for the plug! Our locations are sourced from Pinball Map; scores can be tagged with locations which allows us to maintain leaderboards for specific machines (in addition to global/social/event leaderboards).
- cush 3y agoPindigo is my favorite social media app.
- sixothree 3y agoWhat amazed me on my trip to Seattle was just how many pinball machines are available to play there. And not only that but just how insanely well maintained 50 year old machines are. These are machines getting played on a daily basis. Where are they finding parts for these machines? It's just crazy to think about.
- fourteenfour 3y agoSeattle is great for pinball, most of the bars with 8+ machines host a team or two that play in the Monday night league. Ton of parts available at https://www.marcospecialties.com https://www.marcospecialties.com
- soupfordummies 3y agoYeah AFAIK Seattle is the top pinball spot in the world for some reason. You would think Chicago since that's where it started and where most of the big companies are based. But Seattle has the most machines I'm pretty sure.
- bdash 3y agoFolks in the industry bought licenses, tooling, and parts for games from manufacturers that shut down. Others were reverse-engineered after the fact. Between https://www.pbresource.com https://www.pbresource.com, https://www.pinballlife.com https://www.pinballlife.com, https://www.marcospecialties.com https://www.marcospecialties.com, https://www.actionpinball.com https://www.actionpinball.com, and https://www.planetarypinball.com https://www.planetarypinball.com you can find parts for many machines going all the way back to the 50s.
- sixothree 3y agoGreat stuff. Thank you very much for sharing.
- phpforever2001 3y agoone of the best metal songs ever created https://invidious.protokolla.fi/watch?v=SNalvo1ydJU https://invidious.protokolla.fi/watch?v=SNalvo1ydJU never knew what the hell a "pinball map" could be despite playing many versions of pinball, now i know
- KingFelix 3y agoPinball map is brilliant, I use it everytime I travel. So many new pinball machines coming out. The latest one I've been searching for is Labyrinth. Only in LA at the moment, but looks super fun. Once you create an account you can make a note if the machines aren't working well and the owners will usually get someone in quick to fix too.
- soupfordummies 3y agoJaws just came out too and I've had fun checking Pinball map every day to see it spread out from Chicago (Stern's HQ) and populate more and more of the country.
- bdash 3y agoIt could be fun to use this data to build a visualization of new games rolling out to locations across the world.
- KingFelix 3y agoI am super curious about getting data from Stern since they have added Stern Insider. They record all your scores and give you little icons for achievements etc. I don't know what other data they store, but it would be pretty rad to do some stats on it and look at the time of day when balls get drained, and multiball run times against a population. So curious to see if any outside factors influence gameplay. Outside of proper leveling, operation etc.
- bdash 3y agoThey collect a lot of information, but make very little of it available. What is available isn't exposed in a particularly friendly way. Some of the extra data they gathered makes it into the Year in Review stats they make available at the start of the year. https://social.bdash.net.nz/@mrowe/111779120066480793 https://social.bdash.net.nz/@mrowe/111779120066480793 shows an example of this. I'd love to be able to see a moving average of my score on a particular game so I can see how I'm improving (or not) over time. Beyond that, I'm not sure what data would be useful other than as a curiosity.
- Einenlum 3y agoI really like pinballmap. I try to add gigs and machines all the time. But another app that has way more pinballs is Pin my balls (at least in France). Regarding pinballs I recently built a self-hosted app to track scores between friends. https://demo.pinball-friends.com/ https://demo.pinball-friends.com/
- Einenlum 3y agoLink to Pin my balls: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pinmyballs https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pinmyballs
- Einenlum 3y agoThere's also https://findapinball.com/en/ https://findapinball.com/en/
- bsimpson 3y agoI wonder if the (presumably French) creator realizes how crass that name sounds in English.
- Einenlum 3y agoI hate this name. I unfortunately think it was made on purpose.
- ryandrake 3y agoIf you're ever in Vegas, I highly recommend a trip to the Pinball Hall of Fame museum south of the Strip across from the Mandalay Bay convention center. My family put it on the list as just some rando thing to do between the "real" Vegas events, but our expectations were very much exceeded!
- paulnpace 3y agoPinball Hall of Fame is the only place in Vegas I've found The Addams Family, and it is the only place on this site with that game. The problem with the Pinball Hall of Fame is not only do they have the rear studs at max height, they put blocks of wood under the back feet. It just isn't fun.
- fourteenfour 3y agoI do only see the one listed in Vegas which is strange since it's one of the most popular tables made. The webpage returns 483 Addams Family machines in other places though.
- paulnpace 3y agoYeah, it's really peculiar.
- busterarm 3y agoVegas doesn't have a lot of arcades. Outside of the PHoF there's two in reasonable driving distance and neither of them focus on pinball machines. One is pretty much only rhythm games.
- fourteenfour 3y agoYes, as a fan of arcades Vegas is disappointing. You'd think casinos might be interested in people who put money in machines without expecting a payout. The rows and rows of fancy slot machines with HD monitors do nothing for me.
- busterarm 3y agoAs a fan of arcades, Vegas is better than most other cities. The one rhythm place has all the Bemani stuff that I like and I can spend a day getting Drum Mania out of my system. Then the other one has a 2 screen Darius, Bishi Bashi Champ and other goodies and then PHoF has me covered for the rest. Maintaining old arcade machines is a pain in the ass and CRT (especially those that can sync down to 15Hz) days are numbered. 25 more years and you won't find any classic cabinets anywhere if I'm honest.
- mdip 3y agoOh man, we have a place nearby that has easily 40 machines, and some serious classics (they had the Elton John machine with the recalled artwork). They've been around for a few years -- simple setup: $20 gets you a wrist band and you can play for 4 hours[0]. And I think that's the crux of it: I am unwilling to pay a buck a play for pinball only to -- often -- find out that it has multiple mechanical imperfections (like a side bumper being dead) that make it nearly impossible to play. There is a bowling alley nearby that bills itself as a Pinball Museum (with 20 or so machines) but they're all quarter driven. I went once, dropped $15, got annoyed and never returned. My kids and I go to the other place every other month or so. [0] Except for one machine -- they have this giant thing that uses a pool cue as a ball -- it's a Sega game ... Mammoth or something, and apparently very rare
- bowmessage 3y agoI had to look up the large ball machine you mentioned, it sounds amazing. I found it's called the "Atari Hercules". Adding it to the bucket list! https://www.reddit.com/r/gamecollecting/comments/1dkoox/this_is_the_atari_hercules_pinball_machine_its/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gamecollecting/comments/1dkoox/this...
- K7PJP 3y agoIt’s a terrible game, very slow and boring, but you must play it once. I really appreciate the dedication of any collector who brings that behemoth to pinball shows and keeps it running.
- myself248 3y agoI keep seeing these little niche sites, like "map of pinball machines", which is for some reason not just a filter or data layer or set of metadata tags on some larger mapping infrastructure. Likewise, there's the "internet movie firearms database", and the "internet movie cars database", and several others, which are not just object classes in some larger internet movie attribute database. Why?
- 2024throwaway 3y agoPresumably because the `larger mapping infrastructure` doesn't deem a filterable list of pinball machines to make monetary sense, or fit into their overall product without adding clutter. I presume the same is true for the IMDB. They have their own list of things they are interested in, and firearms or cars may not be on that list. It's almost like different people/organizations have different interests and priorities.
- weaksauce 3y agobecause the pinball map serves a purpose that would not fit well in a larger mapping thing. people want to know what pinball machines are nearby them so they can go there and play them. very different in scope than a movie gun/car database. they also don't share the same playerbase that a more general arcade machine app might have; people like pinball and will seek that out in a different way that people who like arcade machines will not do the same.
- ryantgtg 3y agoIs there an internet movie song database? I'd like to look up a song and see what movies and tv shows that song has been in. I thought I saw something like that many years ago... but wasn't exactly what I wanted.
- ranger207 3y agoIt's easier to build a community when you're running your own site. Also, it's just easier to get started. You don't have to figure out someone else's data format and object classes if you just start from 0, and most people working on these kinds of niche hobby sites don't always care what an object class is anyway
- Semaphor 3y agoHah. None in my town, but I was a bit confused why the small nearby town had 52. Turns out they have a pinball museum ;)
- CptanPanic 3y agoIt would be nice if it showed how much the games cost to play in the map. Some are pay by hour, some $2, some .25$
- weaksauce 3y agothe description usually has that kind of info in there... and it's crowdsourced s you can add that info in if you want to.
- busterarm 3y agoGuided by the pinball map... The driver - still unknown to me
- vannucci 3y agoGlad to see that the Silverball Museum in Asbury Park, NJ has more machines than anywhere else to the state. Love that place.
- bob-bot 3y agoThat place is awesome. Couldn't believe they had the dual player pinball Joust there. https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/joust https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/joust
- themcaffee 3y agoIf you are ever in Portland, Next Level Pinball Museum is bonkers with over 500 machines. About half of them are pinball machines and all are in top notch condition. Portland in general has a huge pinball scene with several large arcades in and around it.
- kyledrake 3y agoI've had the rare privilege to meet the Pinball map creator (or at least one of them), an awesome person that has been maintaining this project for a long time. Definitely give them some support if you're a Pinball fan. Portland was the original base location and then IIRC they expanded to other cities. Portland's reputation as the pinball capital of the world is well founded.
- larrik 3y agoI thought Chicago was the pinball capital of the world, given every pinball manufacturer basically ever was based there.
- mumblemumble 3y agoIt was for manufacturing. It's not as great as one would hope for actually playing. The city has an ordnance that says that you need a special "public place of amusement" license if you have more than 3 machines and are open to the public, and it can be rather expensive. So places to play are generally limited to a relatively small number of barcade-type venues that tend to be loud and crowded. I prefer the pinball scene in Milwaukee. Seemingly every neighborhood has at least a few relaxed, cozy bars with a decent number of machines in the back room, and there are also a few decent venues that are open to minors. I don't know Portland as well, but based on what little time I've spent there it seemed like the situation was more similar to what it's like in Milwaukee. I've stumbled across some great old classic machines when I was there.
- feedsmgmt 3y agoHave you been to Galloping Ghost's pinball arcade?
- mumblemumble 3y agoI haven't. Brookfield isn't really accessible if you live in the city and don't have a car.
- JeremyHerrman 3y agoOne of the APIs powering the Pinball Map is the excellent Open Pinball Database (opdb.org). OPDB came about because an older site IPDB doesn’t have an API (and doesn’t want to have an API) in order for various pinball software to communicate with each other. I'm in some pinball leagues with the developer, Andreas Haugstrup, who also makes matchplay.events, pintips.net, and other sites that serve the pinball community.
- pbj1968 3y agoIPDB is run by an odd dude that refuses to modernize. God bless him, tho, his internet 1.0 website is invaluable.
- trbleclef 3y agoWhat is the best way for an amateur to synthesize a similar site? I have used Google My Maps for a much smaller, manually updated map of air hockey tables.
- weaksauce 3y agoit's completely opensource so you could host it yourself and retheme things.
- waterheater 3y agoIf you ever go to Budapest and even mildly enjoy pinball, you need to visit the Pinball Museum (https://flippermuzeum.hu/en/main-page/ https://flippermuzeum.hu/en/main-page/). You pay an admission fee and get to play unlimited pinball from machines across the ages, even the old wooden units.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bsimpson 3y agoPinball is a community sport. Most cities have at least one pinball bar with a weekly tournament. The same sorts of people go every week, and there are always beginners joining. If you're in a new place and need some social exposure, look for a pinball bar. I've met people at pinball tournaments who have found the confidence to move because they knew they'd meet new friends at the pinball tournament in wherever they're moving to.
- blockwriter 3y agoIt would be great if you could find the machine that is closest to 2 or more different locations, like if I want to challenge several friends across the country to post our high scores in a group message, and we needed to know what the shortest drive each of us would need to take in order to play the same make and model machine. Maybe it’s in the app, or I missed it.
- mustacheemperor 3y agoWorth noting the performance characterizations of an individual machine can depend on how it’s maintained and how the operator chooses to set it up - so this may not be a completely level playing field. On the other hand, if you’ve figured out which Medieval Madness in your city you play best at, you can leverage that information to your advantage :)
- weaksauce 3y agothere’s an api you can use to get machines near a gps location and then you can look through that for machines that are the same. not a feature of the website proper but something you can do if you know a little scripting
- cdchn 3y agoThis is pretty great not just for finding pinball machines but finding venues that I never even knew existed. I found a small vinyl shop and a barcade close to me that I never even knew were a thing til I searched locally on this site.
- jaredwiener 3y agoMy wife is very into Ghostbusters pinball -- just found it at a combination pinball arcade/all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ, that seems to also have fried oreos covered in nutella. This is going to be a very unhealthy weekend for me.
- ryantgtg 3y agoAYCE Gogi? If so, very cool place, and good food!
- Boogie_Man 3y agoThere is zero (0) reason I don't currently own a pinball machine. There are several listed on my local Craigslist right now for between $500 and $2500 USD. I could simply play pinball whenever my heart desired. The fellas who bankrupt early and rode with someone else when we play cards could have something do. I could maintain it obsessively, finding original manuals and schematics. They don't depreciate significantly if maintained. Am I a moron for not owning one? Why don't you people own one?
- feedsmgmt 3y agoThey're big and heavy and have a lot of wear parts that are expensive to maintain. Standing in one spot not blinking isn't great. I can play pinball in VR and have about an equally good experience these days.
- ProllyInfamous 3y agoMy father had several of these mechanical machines during my early adulthood. It was one of the few things we "did" at family reunions, and was always worth a few hours playtime... but damn if they didn't require a "first name basis" with the repairman, and they were absolutely not able to be transported without a team of helpers. When we sold the house most of them were "given" to the new owner [sort of white elephant?]. -- I could never get in to the virtual pinball machines [it's been about a decade], but I guess they "play" identical to a "theoretically perfectly-operating" mechanical type?
- bdash 3y agoThey’re heavy, awkward to move, and take up a lot of floor space. They’re loud and require ongoing maintenance. They’re also a lot of fun! I really enjoy both playing and working on mine.
- larrik 3y agoYou people? I have 4! :P They require enough maintenance that you'll need a back up ;)
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- theadultnerd 3y agobeen using this site for years, love it
- Tokkemon 3y agoI have two pinball machines in my basement waiting to be fixed up and restored. But I don't have the motivation to do the work, probably because I was never nostalgic for this era, I'm too young. I do find them fascinating from an engineering perspective, however.
- dewbrite 3y agoI spent a lot of time playing Bally Twilight Zone at the Munich Maker Lab a few years back. I still miss the tungsten bulbs which lit the ball consistently, as opposed to LEDs which tend to "blink" rapidly (at 60Hz?). It makes the ball much easier to track at high speed, and has such a nostalgic soft glow which gently fades off into nothing. I also miss reading the manual and fixing little things every so often. It looks like this machine has either moved on from MuMaLab, or was never listed in the first place. It would be nice to be able to filter machines here by what kind of lights they use. I imagine most places tend to use LEDs to save on electricity. At least that's been my experience checking the barcades I've found from this site.
- fourteenfour 3y agoThe early LED replacement bulbs were bad and flickery, they are better now. They even make add on boards to smooth the on/off state to mimic incandescent bulbs https://www.cometpinball.com/collections/led-ocd-boards https://www.cometpinball.com/collections/led-ocd-boards
- dewbrite 3y agoI would believe it - I just don't think I've seen it. All it would take is better PWM controllers right? I wonder if the places I've been to just don't know, or just haven't upgraded yet (waiting until the originals die?), or are trying to save pennies on the dollar on repairs?
- weaksauce 3y ago> use LEDs to save on electricity a lot of places switch because it produces less heat damage as they stay on for long periods of time and make a lot of heat. this can negatively impact longevity of the backglass and plastics
- ddoster 3y agoI made a 4 hour trip to https://www.pasttimesarcade.com/ https://www.pasttimesarcade.com/ in Gerard, OH. Includes an incredible collection of tables from the 60s and 70s and a few from even earlier. I've been to Next Level in Portland too. It rocks.
- orblivion 3y agoBetween this and the brewery map a few days ago I'm curious why these aren't rolled into OpenStreetMap. You could still have a dedicated site and project like this, it's probably a good idea for the specifically motivated people to be in charge of that data. Just use OSM as your data backend and have bigger reach. Perhaps the database started too long ago and there's a licensing issue.
- wobblykiwi 3y agoDo you have the link to that brewery map?
- zeekaran 3y agoI'm also interested. All I have is this Colorado map https://www.coloradobrewerylist.com/brewery/ https://www.coloradobrewerylist.com/brewery/
- orblivion 3y agoThis is the project: https://www.openbrewerydb.org/ https://www.openbrewerydb.org/ Here's what came up on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39145901 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39145901 Maybe there's not actually a map but it would be easy to make.
- mpol 3y agoIn overpass the query to do is 'craft=brewery'. http://overpass-turbo.eu/ http://overpass-turbo.eu/ With mapbox, this is probably not too hard to create, though I have never worked with mapbox. For arcade games (and pinball machines) the leisure tag would be appropriate: 'leisure=amusement_arcade'. About licensing issues, these are facts and not covered by copyright, correct?
- systems_glitch 3y agoSweet, it finds my friend's arcade the next town over! Looks like he's gotten a new table since the last time I talked to him :P
- twic 3y agoTwo nearby venues in North London have The Getaway: High Speed II. I wonder if that's true, or if it moved from one to the other, and the map reflects an inconsistent state.
- weaksauce 3y agoit's crowdsourced so it may not have been removed from the other location. it's possible though that they have the same machine though... you can call them and find out if you're motivated to update it
- nhggfu 3y agoalways wondered if there is there something like this for playing pool/billiards?
- al_borland 3y agoI really like that the map functions exactly how I’d expect it to on a phone, and doesn’t constantly tell me to use 2 fingers, and then freak out.
- acd 3y agoI love pinball because its a fun activity you do in person together with friends! Akin to other physicall media that you do things together.