Silver Ball Century ep. 4 - 1958-1959 - It's Wayne Neyens' World
Almost every table in tonight's episode of Silver Ball Century was designed by Wayne Neyens, who worked at Gottlieb for the entire electromechanical flipper era, and recently passed away at the age of 104. If you want to hear the story of how he got his job at Gottlieb and defined an era of pinball, listen to Silverball Chronicles: Pinball's Centenarian - Wayne Neyens.
We're seeing all these Wayne Neyens designs because the machines from the time that people consider worth recreating were all Gottlieb machines, with one silly exception. To hear more about what Bally was up to instead, there's also a Silverball Chronicle episode for this: By Golly It's Bingo.
During the stream, void_lily linked this video of the incredible mechanisms of these incredibly exploitative bingo machines, featuring Bally's "Gay Time" (1955).
Tables in this episode
Whirl-Wind (Gottlieb, 1958) - with Gottlieb's "Roto-Target" feature and a kicker that makes sure the roto-target is in play. This beautiful VPX recreation is by bord.
Contest (Gottlieb, 1958) - It's more fun to compete! This is not Gottlieb's first 4-player machine, but it's the first one we're seeing. VPX by JPJ.
Carnival Queen (Bally, 1958) - It's bingo! It's barely pinball! These pinball-style gambling machines were a huge deal wherever they were legal. There's no flippers and the gameplay is awful, but we should see at least one of them. VPX by HSM, and you need to edit the script to turn on "Authentic Mode" for it to play as designed.
Hi-Diver (Gottlieb, 1959) - Has a gimmicky backglass feature. There's an extremely inauthentic VPX recreation out there on VPForums. I tuned it to have at least some authenticity, but sadly I'm not allowed to distribute my version. I'm going to stream it anyway.
Universe (Gottlieb, 1959) - More backglass gimmicks and some flippers that are very far apart, but not the farthest we'll ever see. VPX by JPSalas, with optional VR features added by Ext2k.
Lightning Ball (Gottlieb, 1959) - A game where you spell the name of the game, and the name is kinda long. VPX by Loserman76.
Schedule notes
This is going to be the last proper Silver Ball Century episode for three weeks. I'm going to Japan! When I get back, we'll resume with some 1960s pinball, and see at least one game that you might actually see in a tournament.
However: stay tuned for a Halloween evening stream, when solar_espeon and I will do some frightening mad science to pinball machines.