Category: Recaps

Hello all you pinballers out in Lansing League Land. I hope you’ll forgive me for the brevity of this recap for the league night of 2/11, as I was first under the weather and then had a huge pileup of exam grading, all of which has left me short of time. Last time we played the bank Ceryneian Hind, which commemorates the labor in which Hercules (or Heracles if you’re old school) had to chase down and catch a deer sacred to Artemis. I went into the attic and dug out a pair of home-made Bambi ears that I wore to a costume party wedding reception (the theme was “The Movies”) back in the mid-2000s. I already have a deer hat (famously used as the sorting hat for league) and a pair of light-up antlers with ears lying around, but I thought I had to be a hind specifically, which is a female deer, so I couldn’t wear antlers. I later learned that a peculiar characteristic of the Ceryneian Hind in mythology is that she had antlers. Oops.

I went to both school and league despite being well into coming down with some sort of cold (which later turned quite nasty). I desperately wanted to avoid giving it to anyone, so I had planned to wipe down the flipper buttons and lockdown bar after each of my balls using some sanitizer wipes the upstairs bar had lying around. Unfortunately this backfired almost immediately. On Star Trek, it started registering switches as I wiped over the flipper button, then eventually fired the ball into play for no apparent reason. Our new player Jay rushed to take control of his ball, but unfortunately he drained quickly and the phantom switch hits had killed his ball saver. I called Joseph over for a ruling as I thought I might have to be DQ’d for playing out of turn since it may have been my actions that caused the ball to go into play. Joseph studied the rule book for a long time before coming over and saying that he believed it to be “accidental interference” rather than playing out of turn since it could not be expected that touching the flippers would launch the ball. We also could not be sure that touching the flipper was related to the switch hits because it seemed to continue after I was no longer touching the game at all. Joseph ruled simply “play on,” meaning I may yet avoid getting the “worst score” award again this season.

In any case, I was afraid to touch the game after my ball after that, so I switched to rubbing my own hands down with the sanitizer wipes after that. This turned out not to be the wisest idea either since that night I looked down at my hands and suddenly realized my knuckles had a red rash all over them and one spot was even cracked open and bleeding. Yes, I gave myself a chemical burn using surface sanitizer to disinfect my own hands. I really hope no one got the damn cold after that. I ended up getting so sick by Wednesday night that I cancelled my Thursday classes.

This league night saw the return of a long-ago familiar face, Rick of Nomad Kitchen (the bar’s old restaurant). We used to all love his fries with Nomad Sauce! Apparently Rick is going to start playing in the league. I can’t recall if he ever played in league before (in the Matt days) or just played with us casually. I know a couple of times he ran his own equivalent of Tuesday Night Smackdown before we started having those, which awarded a free burger from the kitchen as a prize.

We had a lot of other stuff going on this night including qualifying for Destrier of Death (the Black Knight tournament designed mainly to let people put authorized scores up on Stern’s leader board), the Stranger Things launch party, and the usual Tuesday Night Smackdown which was on Jurassic Park. I put my two Stranger Things scores in knowing I would not have time on the next league night, and I ended up ranting much too angrily afterward about how I never should have tried to do scores while sick (they were not good). This broke my New Year’s resolution not to get angry about pinball, which I have mostly been pretty good about, but I think being sick tends to make me more emotional and my bad behavior can be forgiven. Joseph did a new leader board-eligible score on Black Knight, though it has since been knocked totally off the board by a last minute rush of high scores in a tournament that got barely any attention for most of its run. Mike has also lost his first place standing and is in the middle of the pack.

The Tuesday Night Smackdown was on Jurassic Park and our champion was Danny. Joseph had designed the medals since I forgot to do it before work, and I think he put candy hearts on them. Donny won the B division on Guardians of the Galaxy and was well pleased to get his plastic medal since it was his first pinball hardware. I definitely remember how excited I was to win my first trophy (a Zen tournament, with Joseph) and in fact it is still in pride of place on my mantel.

Tonight we will be vying for the Girdle of Hippolyta, commemorating the time Hercules persuaded the Queen of the Amazons to give him her magic girdle (which unfortunately ended in tragedy due to a misunderstanding of his intentions by the other Amazons). We will also have Stranger Things qualifying before league and finals afterward, plus a Smackdown on Star Trek: The Next Generation. See you all soon!

I was very proud of the work I did creating banks this season. I had to balance having only a certain number of games designated “long” (based on looking at average scores from the previous season, or guessing in the case of new games) in each bank, along with trying to keep to having vaguely thematic sets. I spent hours switching around games to make them match 7 of the 12 Labors of Hercules. One of the banks with the tightest and most obvious themes was the Lernean Hydra, for which I chose games with dragons or serpents in them (including Black Knight which literally has a hydra in it). Unfortunately the bank may have been more thematic than intended. The hydra, with its regenerating heads, represents a seemingly never-ending task. It also lives in a swamp. And this league night threatened to never end, and we were all crammed into the morass of the alcove together.

I was looking at themes and lengths, not at where the games were physically located, so I accidentally made a bank that all takes place in the alcove. It was pointed out to me that I had done this last season too. Further, a game that had been designated as merely “medium” (Monster Bash, which used to play a lot tougher) had decided it would be “very long” this time, in no small part due to Mike having a game in which he got to Monsters of Rock on his first ball. We also had to contend with Danny putting up a huge, huge score on Black Knight, incentivized in part by wanting to make the leader board in Stern’s “Ransom” tournament. It took so long for the first round of games to finish that groups ended up stacked three deep waiting for Monster Bash. Everyone was also in each other’s way due to the cramped space, with people accidentally elbowing and kicking each other. We had a few new members this time (Alicia, Jay, and Donny), and I felt awful thinking they might never come back after this especially crazy night. I hope they took it in stride! I know people were trying to tell them that, no, league night doesn’t normally involve this much waiting. This bank will definitely be reconsidered next season. Keep in mind, though, that it’s getting hard to find enough “short playing” games anymore due to everyone in the league getting better and the introduction of more long-playing games into the lineup.

We had a Tuesday Night Smackdown as usual, and for a change Biff actually stuck around to play in it. Why? Because it was Batman ’66! Biff won the Smackdown medal (a Bat Signal logo on a bat-themed ribbon) and Pat got the Undercard win on Guardians of the Galaxy.

After league we continued to have qualifying for Destrier of Death, our Black Knight tournament designed mainly to let people qualify for the Stern leader board (Ransom) tournament. Mike put up an even higher score than the one Danny did during league, and as of this writing has the top spot in Stern’s tournament.

Shortly we will be reconvening to chase down the Ceryneian Hind. I think this should be a more chill league night than the last one, if only for being upstairs instead of in the alcove. We will also have qualifying for the Stranger Things launch party and Destrier of Death, a Tuesday Night Smackdown on Jurassic Park, and of course Royal Rumble (but that’s always going on and needs no supervision). See you soon!

The first league night of Season 14, and also the first of a new decade, saw two new members joining, Travis and Erik. Lexi and I had both been trying to recruit some new members on Facebook but were not ultimately successful. There’s still time yet to join, though! You only need to play four nights to qualify to compete in finals. We noticed the absence of Tim, who later let everyone know on Facebook that he will be unable to attend league this season. He’s become one of the big powers in the league so I hope he will be able to return soon.

League night started terribly late and I was very flustered when I arrived. Through most of this season I have arranged alternate activities for my evening class for when I need to attend league, but I could not do so this time because it was the first day of classes for me and I needed at minimum to go over the syllabus before dismissing class. Normally Joseph would start league for me in that situation but he was out of town on a work trip. Fortunately, Mike stepped in at the last minute and got attendance taken, groups organized, and the Smackdown running so that when I arrived things were all ready for me to just give the signal to start. That was a great relief as I was imagining there would be total chaos when I arrived. I tried to get out of class as early as possible but of course a student stopped me with questions, so I didn’t arrive at the bar until about 7:30. Despite this late start, we finished around the same time as usual, at least compared with our longer running nights.

This season we have a new set of banks, which I laboriously organized to take into account new games, changes of some games’ designation as “long” playing or not, and an attempt at a theme. Some of the banks are more thematic than others but there is at least some rationalization I can give for every game’s placement (even though I was constrained by not putting too many epic-length games in the same back). The theme is the Labors of Hercules, and this week was the Nemean Lion, probably one of the better known labors and also one of my more tightly themed banks. All the games had felines in them, sort of. The Simpsons (Scratchy), Deadpool (Sabertooth), Theatre of Magic (Tiger Saw), Kiss (Catman), and Batman ’66 (Catwoman).

Danny was in a jolly mood and began telling me an epic story about the time he and a friend got detained at the Canadian border returning to the US after a casino trip, for 16 hours. Just as he got to the climax of the story, I realized randos were walking up and about to start on the game we needed to play next, so I had to cut Danny off and rush over there. The rest of the night I kept wondering how the story ended.

The Smackdown game was Medieval Madness. Danny was the top qualifier and I sent Josh to find him. Josh came back leading Danny slowly down the stairs, as by then Danny was really in his cups and couldn’t really walk straight. I put up a pretty decent qualifying score but got smacked down in actual play, once again. Danny, on the other hand, completely ran away with the game, playing for ages while intermittently closing his eyes during slow moments in play. He got the catapult animation and I thought “Oh, no way he’ll hit that” and instead he got the 500K award easily on the first time through.

In between two of his balls, I thought this might be a chance to ask for the end of the story. I opened with, “So Danny, anyway, you really needed to pee and then you farted and it smelled bad…?” indicating the part of the story where he left off. He just stared at me. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I realized that I probably should have given him a little more context for that sentence.

Danny ended up winning the Smackdown, with the only person who came close to making a run for him being Lexi. This was Lexi’s first appearance in a Smackdown finals but it probably won’t be the last. Meanwhile, the B division played off on Ghostbusters, causing Josh to concede and let someone else play because he hates Ghostbusters so much. The winning score set by Derik was something like 12 million, which offended Jon so much that he later dragged me over and forced me to look at his 50 million score to prove that he could have easily beaten Derik.

After league I was tired, I hadn’t eaten dinner, and I wanted to get home until someone said the magic words “dollar games.” So, I hung around playing dollar games with people on Stranger Things (and for some reason Derik and Mike each made me do a shot with them). I put up 96 million for my last game, my best ever, but Mike still beat me. Too bad I didn’t designate that as one of my launch party games. I got home, looked in my purse, and realized the dollar I was going to pony up was still in there. I sent Mike a message on Facebook telling him I realized I forgot to put in my dollar and he immediately replied with a money request for $1. I laughed for about five minutes, and then laughed again when I told Joseph about it later. I did finally pay up when I saw Mike in person, saying, “I don’t want it to be said that I don’t pay my gambling debts.”

Our next league night is tonight, of course, and this time I should be there by about 6:30. Joseph will be present from around 5 on to take scores on our various running tournaments including Destrier of Death, Stranger Things Launch Party, and our Smackdown game, Batman ’66. See you soon!

Remember our last league night before the July hiatus? Almost two months ago? Yeah, neither do I. Let me check the photos from the night to jog my memory… er, oops? I somehow didn’t take any photos. What the heck? I can’t explain that. But wait! This is what I keep notes for! Let’s see what my notes say.

Well, first of all, the one thing I did easily remember is that a historic event occurred: the first ever perfect score. Someone had the top score on every single game for the night, and that someone was Mike. This is certainly the first time it has ever happened under my era of the league. I don’t recall it ever happening during the Matt era either, although since I don’t have records of that, it might have happened early on (and if it did, the winner-spinner-chicken-dinner was probably Chris). Mike’s achievement was unlocked on bank Calliope, the “movies/TV” bank. This means that one of the games he had to blow up was South Park, and as Tim once pointed out, that’s a game you really feel more ashamed than proud to put a good score on. Luckily this is the last time we had to play it in league, since it (along with Elvis, which I’m a bit sadder about) left for Guardians of the Galaxy and Batman ’66.

Aha, my notes also remind me that we had a few new members joining this time, namely Biff, Jett, and Logan (I swear those are real people and not extras from Captain Scarlett). At one point Logan came up to me to ask who that guy in his group was, the guy who’s really good. I figured out that he meant longtime league member Chris “Dr. Turtle”. I said that we have a lot of good people in the league now but that Chris is rather legendary for having won the first 10 seasons of the league before his winning streak was finally broken by Mike.

After league we had Tuesday Night Smackdown, as usual. The Smackdown champion, on Black Knight: Sword of Rage, was Danny, but my notes say the real excitement was in B division, where Josh ran a huge score up on Deadpool. Speaking of Deadpool, the Deadpool BOOM! tournament from Stern ended during our hiatus with Danny, Mike, and Josh in the 4th, 6th, and 7th places, respectively. That’s right: our little old Lansing Pinball League owned 30% of the worldwide leaderboard.

After the Smackdown tournament, some folks hung around to play for fun as usual. This led to an instant-classic LPL moment. Derik, while playing Metallica, began complaining, “I feel like I’m playing with a tiny little pinball here.” I asked him what he was talking about (I assumed he thought the game was too low on its legs or something). He insisted that the ball itself was “tiny.” Everyone started laughing at him because none of us could tell just by looking at the ball that anything was wrong with it. Derik got indignant and said he was going to prove it right here and now, and he opened up Metallica and laid all the balls from the game on the upended lockdown bar. We all had to admit he was right: one ball was perhaps 1/16″ smaller in diameter. I could see it when they were all lined up together, but I’m amazed that Derik could see it when they were in motion. As a result of this incident, Derik has been given the nickname “Caliper” by Russell.

We’re just about to resume the season with meeting #3 tonight at 7. We will be playing Clio, the “magic” themed bank, consisting of Black Knight: Sword of Rage, Lord of the Rings, Medieval Madness, Tales of the Arabian Nights, and Theatre of Magic.

April 23 was the eighth and final night of the regular season for Season 12. As such, it would decide who got that juicy top seed position and who would play A and B. We were on the randomly-chosen bank Calliope, the “adventure” bank, sparing us another night of South Park.

The night stands out in my mind because I nearly doubled my previous personal best on Game of Thrones. I got Blackwater going on Ball 1 (contrary to my usual GoT strategy, “just try to lock one ball per ball”), started hammering the hell out of the battering ram and shot whatever else I could. This ended up with my shooting one more Super Jackpot after multiball ended and the announcer voice was giving the final two seconds of a countdown. My group (Lexi, Lupe, and Jon) were all very excited by this. I rarely look at the score while playing as I just find it distracts me, but Lupe blurted out “You’re over a billion!” I was stunned because I have never broken a billion before. My previous best was in the 600 millions somewhere. When Ball 1 ended, Jon began shouting that I was the new queen and that he would gladly bend the knee to me. I think he was more excited than I was! Although I got another Blackwater going on Ball 2, I didn’t do anything like that Ball 1 and ended with “only” about 200 million more on the next two balls. That score earned me top game for the night on Game of Thrones and I can thank it for the fact that I edged out Josh by 1 point for the season. For my troubles I earned the right to play Danny instead of Mike first round. Yay?

Speaking of Jon, he told me again how much he loved the Critical Hit format we used for the March Hare Madness tournament and asked when I would run another one of those tournaments. I had to tell him that I was only planning to use that format for March Hare Madness, once a year, since I like to rotate formats for my charity tournaments. He asked if he could borrow my cards to run his own “just for fun” tournament and I said that as long as it was a day I could come that would be just fine. He said that he would also need my help drawing people to the tournament because, as he said, “you know how to get people to come.” I laughed at his overestimation of my sway, but of course I will do what I can. (Our next official charity tournament, by the way, will likely be in July. It will be the annual round robin tournament known as Rocket Robin.)

The other notable occurrence that I’m aware of is that Mike finally took the Grand Champion on Theatre of Magic back from Joseph, who had held it for at least two years. Joseph’s old score was around two and a half billion, and Mike knocked it down with 3.6 billion in his league game. Mike says Joseph gave him a death glare that he’s sorry I didn’t capture with the camera (although I’m not sure I would have wanted my lens shattered).

The Smackdown tournament for the night was on Deadpool, of course, since we are trying to get our league players on the Stern Deadpool Boom leader board. The league has been well represented so far. SummerSlam has subsequently taken over the job of giving Boom entry opportunities, so we will go back to picking a random Smackdown game for finals and Super-Ball/Zen night. Interest in SummerSlam has been surprisingly high already, with a lot of competition for scores, considering that it will run through the start of August. Mike won the night’s Smackdown on Deadpool and Pat came from behind with a strong third ball rally on The Beatles in the Undercard division.

The league season will be officially over after tonight’s final playoff tournament, with trophies going to the top three in each division. Will we have a third Lansing champion or will Mike defend his title? We’ll soon find out! See you at 7 pm! (And don’t forget you can check the regular season finishing positions on our league’s Google doc, here.)