Silver Ball Century ep. 60 - Early 1991 - The First DMD
One way to define "eras" of pinball tables is the way they display your score, and the Dot Matrix Display era begins this episode. Those funky little pixelly animations that are such a defining look of pinball are finally possible, with components affordable enough to put in a pinball machine. It's the newcomer Data East who got there first, with the relatively unsung Checkpoint.
Everything else this episode is still using alphanumerics, but it's not like they're unplayable just because they're not using the bold new display technology. No, Bride of Pin-Bot ("The Machine", to her friends) is kinda unplayable for other reasons, like having a layout that's way too crowded and the only thing you need is the left ramp. Its mechanisms look amazing, and so does VPin Workshop's recreation of it, but in terms of gameplay, I'll still go to Genesis (1986) for my fembot-building urges.
Silver Ball Century goes live on Friday this week, June 5, at 8:30pm Eastern, on twitch.tv/arborelia.
Tables in this episode
- Car Hop (Premier Gottlieb) - VPX by Goldchicco
- Harley-Davidson (Bally/Williams) - VPX by JPSalas
- Hoops (Premier Gottlieb) - VPX by JPSalas
- Checkpoint (Data East) - VPX by Nestorgian
- The Machine: Bride of Pin-Bot - VPX by VPin Workshop