PINBALL
"OCTOBER" PARTY 2002
Here are some pictures from my "October" pinball party held on October 26, 2002. They were all taken with disposable cameras and scanned. Click on any picture to enlarge (or on the first one to view it as a slide-show). Below the thumbnails are some stats as originally posted to the rec.games.pinball newsgroup.
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PARTY STATS:
I counted about 40 heads (which included 5 kids ranging from 5 - 10 years of age). It was a great turnout. The amazing part is that the people who came.....stayed! The party lasted over 10 hours and the final-four snuck out around 2:30AM. Whew!!
Unfortunately, before the party I blew out my CPU on No Good Gofers when I went to replace the Gofer heads with new NOS ones. Apparently the interlock switch says it had cut the high-power but did not actually do so. Therefore, NGG was out of commission. DOH! Oh well, live and learn.
Even though I could have swapped CPUs from my Medieval Madness or Monster Bash, history dictates that particular action would have been hazardous to my health. So I slapped a "Temporarily Out of Order" sign (that I got from Putt Putt Golf 'n Games before they closed) on the coindoor and proceeded to just pout all afternoon.
I reset the audits before the party so I could find out the number of plays and information on each game. The results were rather interesting. There were nine games available for play. Each of them were waxed up and ready to go. And each of them worked almost flawless, minus a ball-hangup or two. I hate it when three balls get caught in the Medieval Madness catapult. I think it is time to remove the entrance gate.
Keep in mind that my games are set to 5-ball
play. No replays. Medium-Hard settings. Max 2-EB per play.
Here are the stats (in year order):I thought this was a very interesting set of audits. Obviously the game with the highest number of total plays doesn't necessarily mean it was the more popular machine. But, it was interesting to see Taxi in first place for total number of games followed by Funhouse. Gotta' love their classic designs!1. TAXI
Avg. game time: 2.05
Total plays: 131
2. FUNHOUSE
Avg. game time: 3.07
Total plays: 1013. THE GETAWAY
Avg. game time: 4.30
Total plays: 794. THE ADDAMS FAMILY
Avg. game time: 3.15
Total plays: 765. FISH TALES
Avg. game time: 3.91
Total plays: 636. WHITE WATER
Avg. game time: 2.80
Total plays: 967. MEDIEVAL MADNESS
Avg. game time: 6.03
Total plays: 778. MONSTER BASH
Avg. game time: 5.35
Total plays: 689. MONOPOLY
Avg. game time: 3.75
Total plays: 81
But, then again, the average Medieval Madness game was almost twice as long as the average game of Funhouse and three times as long as the average game of Taxi. So, in reality, MM was played a lot more than the top two on the list. That is where the entire "total number of plays" gets tricky. It doesn't factor in all of the variables (like how much time a game is actually being played verses sitting in attract mode and waiting).
So, using the equation (total plays x gametime) and figuring out which game was played the "longest"......we find Medieval Madness at the top (which seems to be the "norm") followed by Monster Bash, The Getaway, Funhouse, and Monopoly. It is great to see Funhouse still pulling in the fans even along side its dot-matrix brothers. I also was surprised to find The Getaway in the #3 spot. "What kind of car is that?"
The bottom four played the "longest" would be White Water, Taxi, Fish Tales, and The Addams Family. This was the first party I held where Addams Family was toward the very bottom of the list. Perhaps it was the three new games available this time. Or, maybe a bulb was burnt out. Hmmm........
Until the next time!!
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