arborelia

Silver Ball Century ep. 51 - 1987 in Spain

Tables in this episode: Wolf Man, Star Wars, Space Train, Terrific Lake, Odisea Paris-Dakar, Iron Balls, Quijote, Thunder Man, Pole Position, Lortium, Moon Light

Spain had its own pinball industry from the '60s to the '90s, and it reached a peak in 1987. There are so many Spanish pinball machines to see from 1987 that I've given them their own episode.

This Pinball News article by Waldemar Banasik is an excellent summary of the history of Spanish pinball, and there I found the answer to why the number of Spanish pinball designs steadily increased until 1987 and then dropped to almost nothing:

Juan Paredes, the founder of Petaco and Juegos Populares, described by Banasik as the "moving spirit of the Spanish pinball industry", was killed in a car crash in 1987. The industry he left behind simply moved on to video games and gambling machines. The decline was very sudden - there were a few more Spanish pinball machines in later years, but there won't be a need for a "1988 in Spain" episode.

All these games are going to be less familiar to us than American pinball games, of course. The rules won't always fit our intuitions, and they tend not to be covered by guides like The Pinball Primer. This means we need to discover how to play them during the stream. I'm looking forward to it.

Silver Ball Century is live at 8pm Eastern on twitch.tv/arborelia.

Tables in this episode

#pinball #silver ball century