It’s time to begin another season of the Lansing Pinball League. It’s hard to believe, but this is going to be the fifth season. I joined during the third meeting of the first season, and it hardly seems like so much time could have passed already. The league is still going strong – growing, in fact. Capital City pinball is here to stay!
It’s traditional to play anything that’s new to the Avenue alongside the usual random selections. Iron Man has recently been moved into the Avenue in place of Monster Bash, which although I am sorry to see it go, had not been usable for league recently due to straight-down-the-middle scoop shots. Here are the selections for the night, barring contingencies:
Iron Man. Woe is me. This is the game that got me starting off the last Arcade League playoffs with a leaden thud.
Tales of the Arabian Nights. I hope the sound is working because it honestly throws my game off a bit when it isn’t. This is not a suggestion about how to sabotage me…
Austin Powers. Don’t feed quarters into the left slot. Or was it the right? One of them eats quarters. I’m going with left.
Junk Yard. Go on, Mike S. and Chris… give it a little nudge!
I’m looking forward to seeing everyone at the Avenue tomorrow at 7 p.m. for the grand opening of Season 5.
Tonight at 7:00 p.m. is the traditional post-season Zen Tourney. This is a split flipper tournament in which each partner may only touch one of the flipper buttons. The tournament is usually handicapped by pairing the top finishing player with the bottom, the second with the second-to-last, and so on. Because it’s impossible to know exactly who will show up, the teams are anyone’s guess until the tournament starts. Unless Matt P. makes any rules changes this time around, it will be double elimination, best two of three, with every team playing the same three games.
The Zen Tourney is just for fun and has no effect on the season’s rankings. No one takes it too seriously; it’s really just a chance to unwind at the end of the season, drink some beer, and enjoy each others’ company. I always have a great time. I hope to see everyone there!
April 21 was the eighth and final regular season meeting for Season 4. As Addams Family had been repaired, and in keeping with the tradition of always playing games that are new (or in this case, newly returned) to the Avenue, it was selected to be one of the league games for the night. World Cup Soccer did not repeat the mid-game resetting issue that had hit Joseph and me three times in a row during our previous night’s practice, so it made the cut too. Indiana Jones, on the other hand, was now resetting instead (I blame the gremlin), so it got turned off and removed from the night’s lineup. Also in the mix for the night were Getaway and Medieval Madness.
Greg wants you to know he is definitely not up to no good.
We had not played Medieval Madness in a while and I was glad, but nervous. Although it had once been my best game, in recent times I have been in something of a slump. I decided to play a practice game on it. This broke my superstitious rule against playing a game in practice that I’m going to play in league (a good game in practice seems to predict a bad game in league), but I decided it was worth it to check on how the ball was hitting the flippers today. Then my game started going on a while. Then I hit a replay. Then I was on the fifth castle. “Joseph,” I yelled with genuine dismay, “my game is going too well.” Afterward, Mike S. reminded me that I had broken the rule against practicing games before league play. I tried to brush it off with a show of optimism.
Mark surprised me, Matt, and Joseph with some gifts from his pinball memorabilia collection. He had promotional plastics from The Machine: Bride of Pin-Bot and Fish Tales, and gave Matt first choice, with the suggestion that he could use it as a prize for the Zen Tournament. Matt chose Fish Tales, so Mark presented me with the Bride. I was delighted to have it, as I quite like that game, and touched by Mark’s generosity. He was apologetic because he had once offered to give me the plastic Rudy head that he knew he had somewhere, but ultimately was not able to find it. I told him it was just as well, because my brother had given me that very Rudy for Christmas. (It now sits on a shelf in my office, where it provides silent backup and moral support. My officemate has not yet complained of nightmares.)
“Um, Alex, I think Chris was just messing with you when he told you about the secret upper flipper buttons.”
Mark also had a small gift for Joseph: his very own pinball. Unfortunately, he has not figured out any way to add it to The Simpsons to make his own multiball.
Medieval Madness, or as I called it afterward, “Medieval Sadness,” proved to be cruel to a lot of people. Before I stepped up to play, Joseph tried to calm my nerves by pointing out that Chris had managed a score of around 11 million. Lucky Chris. I managed to get a score of about four and a half million – just about exactly a tenth of the score I had done during my practice game. I try not to be so superstitious, but circumstances keep encouraging me like that. I was so dismayed to end my night and my season on such a disappointing game that I almost went home without going to Theio’s, but Joseph convinced me I should go anyway and after a short time of chatting with the rest of the Theio’s regulars (minus Mike S., who had to leave early) I felt back to my old self.
Russell fueling up.
The regular season ended with Alex taking first place back, Chris knocked to second, and Matt P. in third. This is the first time the season has ever finished without Chris in first place, but this is also the first time final rankings will be determined by playoffs. In the first three seasons, the final rankings were based entirely on the number of points earned during the eight regular meetings. The end-of-season “Zen” (split flipper) tournament was just for fun. This time around, prompted by a suggestion from Mike S., we will instead have a double elimination tournament. Seeds will be based on points earned during the regular season; the tie for fifth will be resolved by a one-ball tiebreaker between Joseph and Aaron prior to the start of play. A division will be the top eight seeds, and everyone else will play in B division.
Will Chris manage to battle back to first place, and continue his undefeated reign over the Lansing Pinball League? Or will he have to hand his pinball crown to Alex? There is going to be a crown, right? Does B division get a tiara instead? Find out the answer to these questions and many others on Tuesday at the first ever Lansing Pinball League final tournament! You can view the seeds for the final tournament by checking the most recent results and sorting by overall standing.
Hard to believe it’s already time for another league night – the seventh of Season 4. Here is the (very) tentative list of games (and a couple of notes about maintenance issues):
Theatre of Magic: watch out for Midnight, because the magnet likes to drop the ball straight down the middle.
World Cup Soccer
The Addams Family: I will be surprised if this actually gets played, since it is still intermittently suffering from the ball-loading problem.
Tales of the Arabian Nights: skill shot is still not working, but no one cares besides Joseph and me.
Medieval Madness (if more than 16 players)
Matt will be gone again this time, so I presume Aaron will preside over the revelry like Dionysus in a hoodie. Sadly, Joseph and I will also be gone, our first absence since joining the league. (I had to buy tickets to a concert before our league season was scheduled and I knew there was a 50/50 chance I would end up missing a league night… and I got unlucky. Sniff…) Here’s hoping someone gets some good pictures they can pass on to me for the blog.
7 p.m. tomorrow (Tuesday 4/7), the Avenue: be there, even though I won’t!
It’s that time again (or at least it will be in about four hours): time for the sixth meeting of the fourth season of the League. Our benevolent pinball king, Matt P., tentatively selected the following games:
Lord of the Rings
Austin Powers
Indiana Jones
Getaway
Attack from Mars (if more than 16 players show up)
We haven’t played Lord of the Rings once this season, mostly because it was confused and giving out unearned multiballs and jackpots for a while, and I suspect certain parties will be happy to see it return. Austin Powers is almost certainly not going to get played as it was still disabled last night. (A ball has gotten lodged in one of the bonus lanes by some debris that’s fallen there and until that’s cleared, it’s unplayable.) Addams Family has just made a surprising return to the Avenue and we usually will play any game that’s new, but it’s also unlikely that it will end up in rotation since it is intermittently failing to load balls.
Will Chris regain his #1 position? Will anything get slam tilted? Will Addams Family be playable? Will we be able to see our hands in front of our faces? Will Austin Powers just explode already? These and many other mysteries will be solved tonight at 7 p.m. at the Avenue!
Tonight’s the night: the fifth meeting of the fourth season of the incomparable Lansing Pinball League! Aaron is going to be running things again this time, as Matt is traveling during his Spring Break. As for me, well, the saying among professors is that Spring Break is neither in spring nor a break. In my case it is definitely not a break from pinball; instead it’s an opportunity to play pinball when I’m not utterly wrung out from a long day at work.
Aaron’s stewardship of the league in Matt’s absence last week was received with mixed reviews. Some were relieved by the paucity of hugs, others were unsettled by his unorthodox methods (such as rotating through games counterclockwise). Rumors that his broken nose was caused by a scuffle over the slam tilt rule are unfounded; I have it on good authority that it resulted from losing a fight with a sidewalk. Like any pinball player, he had the good sense to protect his hands from injury by taking the fall with his face.
We will also be down a Mike, specifically Mike S., who went early to PAPA with Todd. This should bring our Mike levels back within recommended allowances.
The games for today will (probably) be as follows:
Monster Bash
Tales of the Arabian Nights (warning: last I knew, skill shots were not working)
Junk Yard
Please not The Simpsons Pinball Party, anything but that
Attack from Mars is the contingency game, used if more than 16 people play, but that doesn’t look likely.
In just a few hours it will be time for the fourth meeting of Season 4, the halfway point of the season. Last meeting saw an unprecedented number of players which led us to play five games instead of our usual four. Matt has lined up four games for us to play with a fifth contingent on there being more than 16 players. The games are:
The Walking Dead
World Cup Soccer
Getaway
Indiana Jones
Tales of the Arabian Nights (if more than 16 players)
Joseph asked which game I thought would break this time. After some consideration (World Cup was also a contender) I decided to throw my vote to Getaway. Joseph agreed. Mike S. has threatened to use his gremlin powers against Indiana Jones, which he is not a fan of, but since that one has been treating me a little bit better recently, I asked if he couldn’t target Getaway instead.
Matt has some serious studying to do tonight due to a midterm tomorrow, so he won’t be running the meeting tonight. In all seriousness, I admire his diligence as a student. As for my academic diligence… well, I stayed home from class today. Aaron will be serving as Matt’s stand-in, which will of course require him to do a lot more hugging than usual.
Tonight is the third meeting of our fourth season. Some members of the league have barely recovered from the IFPA state championship in Grand Rapids on Saturday, but last meeting’s shakeups mean that no one can relax! Matt’s random number generator managed to choose the exact same games this time as last (one of our league mathematicians, Joseph, tells me the odds of this happening are 1 in 715); he threatened to make us all play 4 games of Simpsons instead, so we could go home early. I assume he must have changed his mind and rerolled, since this is the slate he has posted:
Austin Powers, which we were supposed to play last time but kept eating quarters.
World Cup Soccer, which we were also supposed to play last time but the right flipper was not working.
Junk Yard, which has no serious issues to the best of my knowledge.
Medieval Madness. Aw yeah, Medieval Madness! Shoot the castle! Shoot the castle! Shoot the castle!! Or be a rebel and go for multiball. It’s your funeral.
I will be mighty surprised if we actually play all those games. Remember, my streak of writing previews with games we did not actually play has been unbroken since I started this blog in the fall. But we shall see soon enough.
It’s time for another League Night, the second of Season 4. As usual, Matt has randomly chosen our games:
The Simpsons Pinball Party. Arrrrghhhhhhhh….
World Cup Soccer. This one seems likely to get switched with something else, since recently the left flipper has not been staying upright when held. That’s fine; I’d hate to break my perfect failure streak. My preview post has never once successfully listed all the games we ended up playing, and this time will probably not be the exception.
The Walking Dead. Joseph is not looking forward to this after playing a Grand Champion game of it during the off week. He says, “I am going to be completely humiliated every single time we play Walking Dead at league forevermore.”
Tales of the Arabian Nights. I’m looking forward to this one: the lamp has been spinning very well and now that there are some lights in the alcove, Lightning Lamp won’t be quite as terrifying. If I’m lucky, I’ll play it after SPP to get the bad taste out of my mouth.
See you all at 7 p.m. tomorrow (Tuesday) at the Avenue!
Season 4 of the Lansing Pinball League starts tonight. It’s traditional for any new addition to the Avenue’s games to be included in the next league night, and this time the new addition is Theatre of Magic. ToM was my original favorite pinball game, back in the days before I discovered FunHouse, and it’s still near the top of my list. The volume is up nice and high so you can hear the great voices and music quite well. I think it is going to be a welcome addition to our lineup.
Matt has announced the games for tonight as the follows:
Austin Powers. I have asked Mike S. to please break it for me so I don’t have to listen to its awful yammering.
Theatre of Magic. If there is any justice, my affinity for bunnies, even devilbunnies, ought to help me.
Monster Bash. A lot of people in the league are really good at this one. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some Monsters of Rock action during league play.
Junk Yard. Handle with care! And hope Mike isn’t in your group.
It’s also been decided that we are going to be changing the league format a little this season, with points determining seeding for an end-of-season playoff for final standings. The exact format for the playoff tournament is still being determined.
