I’ve still been getting in the occasional round or three or ten of pinball when time permits. So here’s what I’ve been up to behind sets of flipper buttons.

May 22, Darkhorse Tavern

I know I’ve done far better, this was mainly to ensure the game was still there.

May 23, Little Dipper

Didn’t play a whole lot tonight. The game on Creature from the Black Lagoon was someone else’s unwanted replay.

May 27, Cidercade

There was a good chunk of this visit (about an hour or so, judging by the photo timestamps) where I was playing Killer Queen. Unfortunately KQ doesn’t lend itself to being documented in the same form as there are no real scores to speak of, just a winning team. I’ll have more commentary about KQ in an upcoming post.

June 6, Little Dipper

Note: The 172M+ on Creature from the Black Lagoon was without the aid of a multiball jackpot.

A few more scores from this past Monday. The Monster Bash score was from a game interrupted by a malfunctioning slam tilt switch, or could have potentially been much higher.

I played Creature from the Black Lagoon the most on this visit. I enjoy this game but the requirement to start multiball is a bit tedious, not to mention the frustration when one finally gets multiball lit only to drain on the last ball.

There was a little time for pinball before and after trivia, so I have a few scores to post. Of particular note is the 215.0M+ on Creature from the Black Lagoon, by far my best game in recent memory if not my best game ever on this title to date.

Not much else to add, as this was a short night.

The night of Friday, April 22, brought a great reason to pop into Cidercade as a friend of mine was celebrating a birthday. The higher scores on Star Wars and Iron Maiden were mine; the one on Rush, unfortunately, was not. We also played some Pac-Man Battle Royale, one of my favorite modern video games which unfortunately does not lend itself easily to score photos of this sort. (The format is up to 4 players playing 5 rounds, with the winner being the one to win the most rounds. There are no real “scores” to speak of.)

Perhaps the highlight is the 22.1M+ on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The one at Cidercade is a Pro model; the others I’ve played are both LE. The main difference is that the Pro model does not store balls inside the van toy, but instead launches the balls for Turtle Power multiball out of the plunger lane. It really does not affect game play that much, but seeing all four balls come out of the van toy like they do on the LE (and Premium?) is kind of cool to watch.

I know this is a bit stale by now but going through my notes and pictures wound up being a bit more of a challenge than originally expected.

The main items that are remarkable are the video game scores. I mean, sure, there’s another roll-over score on Charlie’s Angels but those are barely newsworthy now (though it still takes me a few games to get to one every time I play it). There are two Joust pinball scores as one is from a one-player game (only the highest one-player score) and one is from a two-player game.

On Elvira and the Party Monsters, it seemed like the right  flipper was incapable of making the left ramp, and the left flipper making the right ramp was only possible with considerable effort with a much smaller than usual margin for error. (Since jackpot is to make both ramps in multiball and many other awards are keyed off of the left ramp, one could make the case this makes the game nearly pointless versus the designer’s original vision.) Given both of these I consider my what’s normally a rather lousy 2.1M+ to be actually quite decent.

It had been a while since I had made a trip out to The Game Preserve. My goal is to make it out to each location at least twice a year going forward, possibly more depending on certain other things happening.

The Tuesday night of April 12 brought with it another opportunity to visit Cidercade and try to put up some good scores. And that I most certainly did; it seemed like once I got in a groove on certain games that I almost couldn’t lose. The 206.9M+ Cactus Canyon run was one such example. Now, granted, this particular machine is set to give a nearly ridonkulous number of extra balls. However, this did give me the opportunity to learn that you still need to make the right shots and not do anything overly risky that will result in instant drains to get to this kind of a score. (For better or worse, this score did not stay on the high score list for that long as I saw even higher scores on a later visit.)

The 179.2M+ score on Rush will also boost my confidence significantly going forward. Granted, it’s not on the same type of tournament settings like the one at Texas Pinball Festival where I put up the lovely 21.09M+ good enough for a whopping 96th and 2 qualifying points. This one, too, awards an extra ball by score on top of the “normal” extra balls. At least now, though, I feel familiar with the game should I see it in a later competitive event (whether a tournament or league night).

I’m also feeling pretty good about the 6.81M+ on Heavy Metal (which is a very high score for this game as a garden variety score rarely goes much past a million or two). The Avengers IQ score of 85.99M+ as well as the Black Knight: Sword of Rage (Pro) score of 81.85M+ were also what I’d call the highlights of the night.

I’m starting to enjoy some of the newer games now that I’ve had a chance to play them and get into them. I am finding that Cidercade is a great environment for that, where I can pay once and not have to worry about getting more change or reloading a game card after so many rounds.