Pinball isn't as random as it seems (2018) [video] | Hacker News Reader

Pinball isn't as random as it seems (2018) [video]

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17 pointsmanaskarekar18 comments

I only watched a little bit, but pinball machines have been trying to tell you all this for decades. Sometimes the instruction cards go missing, but if they're there, on the left side of the apron, you'll have a summary of the rules / what to do, and the right card should tell you the pricing.

Additionally, many pinball machines will tell you on the displays what to do. I've got a Pin-Bot (1986) and in addition to the instruction card, the attract mode has a detailed description of rules you can see here [1] this video doesn't show it, but while it's telling you what to do, it also flashes the lights near the feature it's describing. Pin-Bot only has alphanumeric displays for the top displays, so it takes a while to get through the whole thing.

I don't think all machines have that detailed instruction, but I don't think it was only Pin-Bot.

But, the rule of shoot at the flashing lights basically works.

You can also get a lot of mileage out of not doing anything. To practice that, if you've got access to a machine on free play or at lost cost, try playing one handed, moving your hand from button to button. You'll miss a ton of shots because your hand is on the wrong button, but a lot of the time, more often than you'd expect, it'll be ok, or at least, the ball will take longer to drain than you'd think it would.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SxSI-SsuEg&t=135s

Is this something that people commonly believe? I don't think I've ever heard anyone make a comment about pinball being random. It's a game of skill and I just don't understand how someone who has played pinball would think otherwise.

Cool video though. I like the clear explanation of goals and all the flashy lights.

These days, it probably has to do with pinball being a second-tier curiosity that exists in many places mostly as a change of pace from purely electronic arcade machines.

From what I understand, early pinball looked a lot more like pachinko. There weren't flippers and there was much less opportunity to consciously guide gameplay.

This made it a lot more of a game of chance than a game of skill, so it was closer to a gambling device. Some places went all the way-- the operator would award prizes for getting specific outcomes, and a lot of places banned or regulated them for decades.

There were apparently court trials where experienced players demonstrated that they could call specific shots, to prove that it was not a pure-chance endeavour.

People commonly believe that pinball has a random element (which it de facto does), and I assumed TFA was going be a dive into the precise (and technically deterministic) Newtonian physics underlying things like bumpers. But this seems to be attacking a dubious-bordering-on-straw-man position claiming that it's purely random.

Even the people shown calling it random sound less like they're calling it inherently random, and more like when I talk about something that I'm sufficiently bad at that any success is more a matter of luck than skill.

(Of course, as hakfoo points out, early 'pinball' was basically roulette in cartesian coordinates with more complications, but I don't know of anyone who non-trick-questionishly means that rather than actual pinball when they say "pinball" without disambiguation, so that's if anything a even-more-straw-stuffed position to be trying to correct.)

I never played pinball that much since we never had a lot of money when I was younger, but even with little time on them it was clear there was a sequence you need to hit. I just never had the time to figure it out. Also the video states most people randomly move the flippers -- can't say I saw this too much, most people I saw tried to slow down the ball as shown in the video.

They really are amazing, that feeling if the ball gliding on the surface is incredible.

It's definitely not random, because arcade games are never random. They're usually worse than random. Whatever its position on a "game of chance" vs. "game of skill" spectrum, the machine has rules about how much winning the customers are allowed to get away with, and/or how much profit it's supposed to generate in a day; once the threshold is crossed, it'll happily interfere with your play to guarantee you lose.

Like, you thought you suck at reaction time games despite playing them a lot, because you always hit the button a split second too late or too early? Your reaction time was likely stellar - it's the game code that rejected your hit and animated it as near-miss. You'd never know without a high-speed camera - but these days those are ubiquitous, and YouTube has plenty of recordings of games cheating this way.

It's one of those things you learn as an adult and realize that people suck much more than you thought when you were a kid.

Pinball doesn't have any internal systems that force you to lose like a claw machine or other arcade games would.

There are those holes that briefly hold your ball, and then something may or may not happen, like getting the ball back with extra kick, getting multiple balls, or having the ball launched on a precise trajectory that makes it fly exactly between your paddles. There is a decision point there, and the decision is made by a program (software or purely hardware). That program is a system that could force defeat.

It may feel that way to you but that's 100% not true :)

Yeah... No... You are correct in that there are rules on whether you get an extra ball it a multi ball. But those rules are known and don't happen randomly. Yes there are occasionally a random event, but those are rare. As far as launching the ball, that is generally also a known factor. There are other variables in play, but none have to do with the game deciding to defeat you or not.

How could anyone who has played even a single game of pinball and/or observed anyone who is skillful at pinball think that it's random?

Of course the ball motion is not random. When I was a kid, probably around 1962, my brother and I bought a real Gotlieb Brothers pinball machine from a neighbor who didn’t want it. Over the years I got so tuned into that machine that I would about once a month ‘max score’ the machine with just one ball. It got to be relatively easy to max score it with the allotted 5 balls per game.

I've never played on an actual pinball machine, but spent a lot of time playing Space Cadet Pinball when I was a kid.

I think I initially saw it as a random thing with bright shiny lights and funny sounds, but I eventually understood the game. I was never very good at it, but it is most certainly a game of skill.

Space Cadet pinball is a fair game. Real pinball there are magnets under the playing surface that direct the ball and control whether the player loses the ball or not.

Some pinball machines have electromagnets under the playing surface that will ocassionally activate, but those usually don't specifically direct the ball into the outholes. Magna save on say Black Knight, is there for the player's benefit.

Some tables have an electromagnet under portions of loops to hold and release balls for specific modes, for example on Twilight Zone.

Other tables have electromagnets in more open parts of the playfield like Stern's BatMan with the electromagnet on a crane, and as I recall, SpiderMan has an electromagnet feature. There's some that use an electromagnet to get randomish motion near the flippers, but they usually pull the ball upwards, not downwards.

> I've never played on an actual pinball machine

Do yourself a favor and change that ;)

Check out PinballMap.com and find a machine near you. It’s a surprisingly fun and zen hobby.

For those in the Bay Area, check out the Pinball Museum in Alameda (not too far from where they used to keep the nuclear wessels ).

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