There 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?
I'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.<p>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.
One of the APIs powering the Pinball Map is the excellent Open Pinball Database (opdb.org).<p>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.
Pinball 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.<p>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.
Related: Pindigo is a great tool for tracking high scores and has global and friend leaderboards.<p><a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pindigo-social-pinball-scores/id1027062831" rel="nofollow">https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pindigo-social-pinball-scores/...</a><p><a href="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...</a>
If 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.
Reminds me of similar tools for DDR machines near you.<p><a href="https://ddrfinder.andrew67.com" rel="nofollow">https://ddrfinder.andrew67.com</a><p><a href="https://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/arcades.php" rel="nofollow">https://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/arcades.php</a>
Between 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.<p>Perhaps the database started too long ago and there's a licensing issue.
If you ever go to Budapest and even mildly enjoy pinball, you need to visit the Pinball Museum (<a href="https://flippermuzeum.hu/en/main-page/" rel="nofollow">https://flippermuzeum.hu/en/main-page/</a>).<p>You pay an admission fee and get to play unlimited pinball from machines across the ages, even the old wooden units.
I 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).<p>Regarding pinballs I recently built a self-hosted app to track scores between friends.<p><a href="https://demo.pinball-friends.com/" rel="nofollow">https://demo.pinball-friends.com/</a>
I use <a href="https://pinside.com" rel="nofollow">https://pinside.com</a>. It's been around for a long time and is an amazing resource for Pinball info.
I 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.<p>I also miss reading the manual and fixing little things every so often.<p>It looks like this machine has either moved on from MuMaLab, or was never listed in the first place.<p>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.
<a href="https://pinside.com/pinball/map/where-to-play/19493-cool-cat-cafe-maui-lahaina-hi" rel="nofollow">https://pinside.com/pinball/map/where-to-play/19493-cool-cat...</a><p>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.
It 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.
Oh 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.<p>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.<p>[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
What 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.
I made a 4 hour trip to <a href="https://www.pasttimesarcade.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.pasttimesarcade.com/</a> 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.
If 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!
As 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.<p>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!
Pinball is a community sport.<p>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.<p>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.
I 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.<p>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.<p>Why?
Pinball 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.
I 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.
This 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.
Two 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.
There'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.
What 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.
one of the best metal songs ever created<p><a href="https://invidious.protokolla.fi/watch?v=SNalvo1ydJU" rel="nofollow">https://invidious.protokolla.fi/watch?v=SNalvo1ydJU</a><p>never knew what the hell a "pinball map" could be despite playing many versions of pinball, now i know