Tag: Pinball Expo 2023

Got to play Elton John right away in the morning when the line was the shortest. Shoots wonderfully. Steve Ritchie is back, baby! I put up over 200M and got on the board. Four multiballs started and Joe Katz started calling shots for me. What a blast!

Played some more Pulp Fiction. Also shoots nice and the single-level layout is very cool. Excited to have this on location soon.

Also got to play Big Lebowski. Gorgeous pin with great theme integration. Also played a game of the bowling-only mode in the sub-playfield.

Played all the Atari pins I could find. Five of them (including Hercules but I didn’t play the one they had there because we have one at right brain).

Galactic Tank Force is cool. I really love the theme and was fully convinced it was a real show at some point. We went to the panel with the cast and got some more stories of how it was made.

Star Wars home pin is silly. The screen is so small.

Some photos and notes from day 1 of expo:

Started out with the Stern factory tour. They recently moved into a new, bigger factory building. It’s Huge.

I liked seeing the process from individual parts to a finished pin, but the vibes were off. I don’t think a single factory worker was white. I don’t recall seeing a designer/programmer/etc that wasn’t white. Let alone the crowds being led through the building gawking at the whole process.

The Jersey Jack tour last year wasn’t much better for this dynamic, but the scale was quite a big smaller.

Got to play Pulp Fiction and even met Mark Ritchie in the line to play it. Played Labyrinth after chatting with Bowen Kerins. I learned that pinball isn’t even his full-time job!

Tons of cool homebrews on the floor and even a transparent cabinet build for an EM.

Saw a couple talks including a panel of some folks that built Pulp Fiction. It’s been in the works for over a decade. Quentin Tarantino is as strange as suspected.

There was a screening of the Pinball film including a lovely intro by Roger Sharpe and Michael Gottlieb. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it!

Drove down to pinball expo today. Disappointed with the communication on the pre-expo tournament. I ended up on the waitlist and didn’t know it started at 4pm!

Played some silly arcade games and a round or two on galactic tank force.

Also signed up for the mains tournament and played my first couple qualifying games. Terrible scores but I have plenty of submissions left.