Games played: Austin Powers, Junk Yard, Medieval Madness, Star Trek, Theatre of Magic
To my dismay, I missed the season opener for Season 9, held on July 11. I was on a long-planned trip up north with my parents, brother, and Joseph. I heard that only six players made it there in the flesh. This season there is going to be an attendance bonus (10 points, if memory serves) to discourage makeups. I fully endorse this change even though it’s hurting me this season, as I think a league should mean getting together in person to play as much as possible, but I also think that a flat zero for a missed night here and there is too harsh for a casual league.
Matt and Kristen, the Team of Destiny.
Since I can’t report on the night I missed, I will instead say a few words about Super-Ball VIII, AKA the Zen Tournament, held back on May 23. It was the first league meeting of new player Tim T., who ended up paired with Chris in what we swear was not intended to be hazing. It must not have been too bad, as Tim has gone on to become a regular league member. Chris, however, still has not gotten his coveted Zen trophy. The final match was between Mike B. and Mike S. (a repeat pairing), and Matt and Kristen. Matt and Kristen, AKA the Team of Destiny, won the final game on Star Trek, inducting Matt into the prestigious circle of two-time Zen tournament winners. No one has yet won three times.
The next league night will be this Tuesday, July 25. It’s not too late to join for the season, and you still have time to do makeup games before then (since Matt asks that makeup games be played prior to the next league meeting).
Team Mike makes a show of beating up the Team of Destiny.
Chris watches Mike play Ghostbusters in the final match.
The final tournament for Season 8 of the Lansing Pinball League, held May 9 at The Avenue Café, ended with another win for Chris. Chris has won the league all 8 seasons, and once again did so without losing a single match in the double-elimination tournament. The final match was between Chris and the ultimate second place finisher, Mike S. Rounding out the top three was Adam, who forfeited his first match due to a late arrival but battled through the second-chance bracket to take home the third place trophy.
Mike plays Ghostbusters in the final match.
In past seasons, A division has been the top eight qualifiers, but due to the low attendance at finals, Matt put the top six qualifiers who attended into A and the rest in B. Kristen, who returned to the league this season after a long absence, won B division, with Russell in second and Dan in third. Kristen looked very happy and said that this was her first pinball trophy.
There is one bit of unfinished business left in Season 8: the traditional post-season Zen (split flipper) tournament, Super-Ball VIII, taking place at The Avenue on Tuesday, May 23, at 7 p.m. The dates for Season 9 are yet to be determined, but will be posted at lansingpinleague.com when they are announced.
Mike, Chris, and Adam with their A division hardware. Mike is, in his words, “always a bridesmaid, never a bride.”B division winners Kristen (1st) and Dan (3rd). Russell (2nd) ran off before I could get a photo.
Games played: Star Trek, Tales of the Arabian Nights, Junk Yard, Theatre of Magic, Getaway
Russell looks rather disheartened at the prospect of playing Star Trek.
This was the last league night of the regular season, so the results after this would determine seeding for the final playoff tournament, and (of special interest to me) who made A division playoffs. I was in ninth place going in, only one point behind Parker, so I needed to do better than he did to finish eighth and qualify for A division. Alas, I didn’t do quite enough; I ended up with one more point than Parker for the night (because he had a bad night, not because I had a good one) and so tied rather than passing him as I’d hoped. (It turns out he isn’t going to make it to finals tonight, so I’m safe after all. This is some very good luck for me, as I’d not looked forward to a tiebreaker game against him.)
I think we were originally going to have Demo Man in the lineup, but in typical Lansing fashion, it went out of commission just prior to league play starting. This was our first league night using the new Star Trek LE, but it still wasn’t on its best behavior. It would sometimes auto-launch before players got to choose a mode, and at least in my frustrating experience, tended to reject lock shots to the center fairly often.
Notable in his absence was Adam, who apparently decided that since he was qualified for A no matter what, he didn’t need to come. Jake was somewhat grumpy about having to solo drive from Grand Rapids (Sam has more or less dropped out, at least for the rest of this season).
Mike at the league field trip to The Grid.
The big event of the night was a trip to the new barcade, The Grid, in Old Town. Several of us went there after league finished up. The biggest appeal of the place for several of us is that the games they have are very uncommon, and they have several EMs and early solid states, eras that are almost totally unrepresented in metro Lansing. One of the first things I did was play a game on Big Guns, a game I’ve played only a few times ever, and put the #1 high score on it. I shrieked “I’m the Grand Champion!” at an embarrassing volume (the place sure does echo) and got a high five from the owner. I talked to him a bit and he asked me to get in contact about starting a league there, which I have subsequently done and looks like it is probably going to be a thing. Stay tuned for more information on that as it develops.
After we left The Grid, Mike S. decided to head back home, so that left Jake, Joseph, and me to go to Theio’s together. It wasn’t strictly the smallest Theio’s crowd ever (since Joseph, Mike, and I have occasionally been the only people there) but it was the only time we’ve had that particular configuration of people.
Tonight – in just a few hours – we will be having the final tournament, which will determine how everyone finishes for the season. Will Chris remain undefeated? Will we see a new champion crowned at last? Will Star Trek break, saving me from having to play Chris on it? Will we have more people playing in B division than trophies? Come at 7 p.m. and find out.
Games played: Jack-Bot, Indiana Jones, The Addams Family, Fish Tales, Austin Powers.
Russell endures a game of Austin Powers.
The penultimate league night was the first one since a Stern Star Trek LE appeared at the Avenue (adding to, rather than replacing any of, the current games), but we were not able to play it for this league night. I don’t actually know why; I just know that by the time I came running in breathlessly after my mad rush from work, it had already been stricken and replaced with, er, Austin Powers. Ghostbusters was also on the originally-announced game list, but it’s still suffering from Wandering Lockdown Bar Syndrome not to mention wonky flipper action (whoops, I did mention it, didn’t I?).
This league night seemed somewhat better attended than a lot of them have been this season.
I did my usual lousy play that I’ve done all season. I blame work. Thanks, work! Screw you and your paychecks… that keep me in pinball quarters… erm. Anyway, since I came late I once again played with fellow latecomer Russell and otherwise was a bit out of the loop about the night’s activities which has left me without much to report on. Mike’s birthday had been the previous night so Joseph and I brought him a card and some flavored popcorn from Horrocks (ranch flavor; credit Joseph with that brilliant idea, since the Theio’s crowd all knows that Mike is obsessed with ranch).
Poor Russell, all alone with Austin Powers.
Also speaking of the Theio’s crowd, Mike used his birthday leverage to insist that we go to the Fleetwood Diner instead this time. Joseph and I had previously taken him to the Fleetwood and he decided it totally blew away Theio’s in terms of menu choices, so he really wanted a repeat visit. Adam and Jake were fine with the change to our routine so we all went over Cedar Street for our midnight breakfast, minus former Theio’s regular Sam, who has been conspicuously absent from recent league nights. Come back, Sam!
We’re just two and a half hours from our final league night of the season as I write this. I know that I’m currently in B division range but within range of making A, so the pressure is really on. I’m sure others are in a similar position. That will be settled tonight. The question of whether we will eat at Theio’s or the Fleetwood from now on may remain unsettled, since there is some talk about going to The Grid (the new barcade in Old Town) after league night instead of having a diner visit. That will probably be my vote, since despite living two miles away I somehow still haven’t gotten out there to check out their oddball game selection.
Games played: Iron Man, Metallica, Lord of the Rings, Medieval Madness, Monster Bash
Your intrepid blogger is, as always, reliable in her lateness. It has been a good while since our last update, since we had one of those months that resulted in two off weeks instead of one. During that time we also had the March Hare Madness charity tournament, so I will update you on both at once.
First, league night. For a change of pace, all of the games chosen by Matt for league were in fact used. I must say I was not exactly pleased with how Monster Bash was playing (it was back to shooting down the middle out of the scoop, so some people were just plain avoiding the scoop) but I suppose it technically worked. I had a really bad night actually, having one acceptable game and the rest awful (I did something like a 4 million Medieval Madness, if that gives you an idea of how bad I mean by “bad”), so I admit I’ve wiped most of this league night out of my memory banks. If someone remembers something notable about the night please feel free to throw it in the comments because I’ve got nothin’. (I forgot to take any notes, in other words… or any photos, for that matter.)
Matt S. shows off the removable lockdown bar from Ghostbusters at March Hare Madness.
Another development of note is that Pete’s has delivered a Stern Star Trek LE to the Avenue, which is now in the downstairs alcove. It seemed to have some odd behavior at first, according to Matt (auto-plunging Player 2 before he/she could choose a mode), but it wasn’t happening by the time I played it. Other than that it seems to play fine. Unfortunately, last time I was over there, Ghostbusters was in bad shape, with the lockdown bar becoming more of a “hold down bar” and a noticeable delay between releasing the flippers and having them drop. As a result we did use Star Trek in the March Hare Madness tournament, but did not use Ghostbusters.
The March Hare Madness finalists. (Danny had to leave before it was over, so he is not pictured.)
So I guess that brings me to March Hare Madness. This was the second annual MHM, held around the same time as last year, and with the same “amazing race” format. This is a format in which everyone plays a set of games in order and the lowest scoring player on each game is eliminated. Last year Aaron G. suffered the agony of being knocked out first; this time it was me. That may have been for the best as it allowed me to put my full attention into running things. Come to think of it, I didn’t have to make a single ruling or deal with a single major malfunction during the whole tournament, which I think is a first for my tournaments.
Mike with his trophies for the main and side tournaments.
March Hare Madness officially became the Stephen Memorial Tournament this year (and will probably continue to be so named in future years), so the proceeds went to the Rabbit and Small Animal Rescue of Westland (where I adopted Stephen). Although attendance was noticeably lower than last year, I did run a “closest to the pin” side tournament on three games (Tales of the Arabian Nights, Attack from Mars, and Indiana Jones) for 50 cents per try, and that helped make up some of the difference in fundraising. Mike S. won on all three games, and took home all three prizes (two Klassic Arcade passes and one $5 Schuler Books gift card). I got some stick from Chris for accidentally putting the target score for TotAN at 75,000,000. “If I may make a suggestion,” he said, “this seems a little high.” It was, of course, an error; I had accidentally carried over the target score from Indiana Jones. The target score for TotAN was actually 3,500,000, and the target score for AfM was 1,000,000,000. Mike’s winning scores were Indiana Jones, 74,753,920; TotAN, 3,484,660; and AfM, 992,248,050.
Meanwhile, in the main tournament, the final four ended up being (in order of finish) Chris, Joseph, Mike, and Danny. Joseph and Mike ended up having a playoff for 2nd and 3rd, and Joseph won the randomly chosen playoff game on Medieval Madness. This was the first time either Joseph or I have taken home a trophy at one of our own tournaments (not counting Fear and Trembling, where everyone who attended took one home).
In total the tournament earned $161 for RASA Rescue. Thank you to all participants for helping me memorialize Stephen. Thanks also to the prize donors. My friend Alesia Tom donated a pair of earrings and a bunch of movie posters for prizes, one of which (La La Land) was highly coveted by Adam, resulting in some bargaining between him and the finalists. Adam also donated a Game of Thrones translite for one of the finalist prizes.
Tonight, after a long dry spell, league is back in action, so I will see you all at 7 p.m. Actually, you’ll see each other at 7 p.m. and I’ll see you whenever I manage to get out of the philosophy mines.
