For Amusement Only Em And Bingo Pinball Podcast

Galaxy and other Sega games used several interesting mechanisms: Slings that work via pressure from the ball hitting a large piece of plastic instead of ganged switches, and pop bumpers that are a single piece of plastic rather than using a rod and ring assembly.  On top of that, Galaxy has an under-playfield magnet that will move the ball from left to right, similar to the Mist ball on Bram Stoker's Dracula. Neat stuff! Gameplay video: https://youtu.be/bBFtqw0rKpY

Freedom is a fun game from the bicentennial.  Bally's take has some more interesting artwork and a fun ruleset. This was one of the changeover games that was made in both EM and solid state versions. The early production had 1776 and 1976 on the backglass, but operators asked that this be removed as it would make the machine 'dated'.  Kind of funny for a game themed on the bicentennial. http://ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=952

Spirit of '76 came in three flavors: The four player was Spirit of '76. The two player version was Pioneer and the add-a-ball version was New York.   Spirit of '76 is all about increasing your bonus, but the player can double the bonus on each ball, earn extra balls or replays by completing the A-E sequence, hitting all 8 drop targets and landing in the kickout hole. Fun game!   Chicago Coin Rapid Transit Restoration:   Ryan Claytor's Latest Pinball Artwork: Pinball at the Zoo: Stern pinball shirt: http://costore.com/sternpinball/productenlarged.asp?ProductId=5516824

My interviewee tonight is Chris Dade, a man who has done quite a bit for the bingo hobby! He has scanned, touched up, and reproduced many of the Bally bingo backglasses, as well as several of the bingo playfields. He also started the Bally Bingos in Britain forums, located at  - this is an excellent resource, with many clever people providing help and information.  It also gives a neat window into the UK bingo scene for us folks in the US! Take a moment and look over Chris' collection at  - click 'My Machines' to see his beauties. He also has some great stories and other information on his website.  He notes that whereas in the US, 20 replays would be a dollar, to earn a pound, you needed 80 replays!  That's quite a jump! Thank you to Chris for his patience and time answering my questions.

My 1947 Mystery started blowing fuses - it was time to pull it out from the wall and troubleshoot.  Here's the story of how I corrected the issues and what went wrong.

Nags is a unique game from Williams with two interesting features -  It is one of a small handful of horse racing themed games that Williams made with a horse racing unit with six horses that can move independently along a track, until one finishes. This game is also the only game from the 'big three' manufacturers that had a rotating platter of six pop bumpers.  Each bumper hit would advance one horse toward the prize. 25 cents on 'Stinky' for me! http://ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=1654

Bally bingos made after 1960 had multiple tilt states - a 'hard' state, from which the game could not be revived without additional money or credits, and a 'soft' state or 'sleeping' state that would allow the player to revive the game by pressing the 'R' button, or playing for extra balls.

A unique mechanism in later Bally bingos, the auto-mission coin divider allowed operators to automatically set aside a portion of the game earnings in a special cashbox for the bar owner.

What if the game you purchased accepted nickels from the factory, but you want to put it on route and collect quarters to match other games that you may have in various locations? You have to add extra switches or change adjustments to accept the new denomination. If you wish to just do a one-for-one coin exchange, you just change out the coin mech, but if you want to provide some extra value for higher denominations, you have to add additional circuitry.  This gets more complex in Bally bingos, since you have multiple systems that are already working together in the start circuit.

Moon Shot is a neat game with a unique set of ball return gates (shaped like metal flipper bats) on the left and right outlanes. The layout looks like a skilled player can really rack up points easily by running up the rocket values to 500 points and collecting. Extra balls, two separate bonus steppers and cool Christian Marche artwork complete the package.   http://ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=1628

In 1963, Bally was hunting around for a replacement for their bingo business in the U.S. Things were looking rather bleak, until they hired Ted Zale, the designer that would add multiball, chicane lanes, etc. to later games. For his first effort, Moon Shot, he made a 100% carbon copy of Gottlieb's Tropic Isle from the year before. I've had the pleasure of playing Tropic Isle, but I've never seen a Moon Shot. Tropic Isle has two sets of two pop bumpers, and an A-B-C-D sequence to make a monkey climb a tree on the backglass.  Once you get three monkeys up the tree (this is a carryover feature), the game will award specials!  You can also light special by completing 1-5 at the top rollovers. Moon Shot is very much the same with a space theme.   Tropic Isle: Moon Shot: http://ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=1627

Continuing last night's episode, some interesting tidbits learned while in Ohio, some games I've been working on recently, and various other things going on in my world. Follow along on the Turf King fix-up:    Vote to add bingos as a separate topic of discussion on the Pinside forum: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/do-we-need-a-sub-forum-for-bingo-machines-poll

I spent a few days in Ohio recently, and wanted to discuss some of the games I played and various features that I was either incorrect about in my speculation, or thought would bear in-person impressions. Had a blast losing on all these bingos!

Continental is the very last Bally bingo pinball produced.  In 1980, a Belgian firm ordered the entire run be shipped overseas.  This firm ended up using the designs and creating their own line of bingos - which have been produced up to this day (over several company name changes)! Note that at least some of these games were put out on location in the US - interesting! Continental is a six card bingo - in fact, it's a feature-for-feature remake of 1978's Dixieland.  The only difference is the solid state boardset that drives all of the computation. Backglass: Cabinet: Playfield: http://bingo.cdyn.com/machines/bally/continental/resources/pf-continental-1.jpg

Malibu Beach was the last EM bingo that Bally produced, and the final Magic Screen game. This game has exactly the same feature set as Laguna Beach (produced twenty years earlier!). Rumor has it that Nevada asked for a rerun of Laguna Beach to put in the casinos in 1980, and Bally would not agree to reproduce the earlier title.  Instead, they agreed to make an entirely new title with the same features. Nevada changed their mind after Bally went to the trouble of producing the games... and as such, "somehow", the games got out into the world.  It seems to be a fairly common game for home collectors, as I've seen several. Backglass: Cabinet: Playfield: http://bingo.cdyn.com/machines/bally/malibu_beach/resources/pf-malibu_beach-1.jpg

Tahiti is a love/hate game - the last of the 20 hole machines that Bally produced, Tahiti brings back the ball return feature from Galaxy.  Instead of returning half of the card, it will return only the balls in either section B or C. The Mystic Lines return, but this time, can be awarded in any order.  You can earn only C or B and so on. The red letter game does not return, nor do extra balls. Bally also reduced the amount of replays earned for all four numbers in the star zones to 100. Backglass: Cabinet: Playfield: http://bingo.cdyn.com/machines/bally/tahiti/resources/pf-tahiti-1.jpg

Galaxy is a one-off bingo with a 24 hole playfield. You cannot bring the ball back to a ball return on this game.  You can actually return one half of the numbers to shoot again.  You can also move two columns at a time up or down one position (on this 6x4 card). This game does not have the spotted numbers features from Miss Universe (another interesting experiment), but it does have extra balls. Galaxy looks like it was completely engineered to make you lose a ton of money, quickly. Backglass: Cabinet: Playfield: http://bingo.cdyn.com/machines/bally/galaxy/resources/pf-galaxy-1.jpg

ROMANCE!  Another holiday visit from Fake Nick Baldridge, this time with a very special guest.  Miriam Cobblebottom, widow of the Nantucket Nickel company figurehead, Eustacious Cobblebottom, provides some revelatory insight into the little-known pingame manufacturer’s company history. Thanks, FNB!

Miss America Deluxe is the last of the Miss America games made by Bally. It contains all the features (extra card, magic lines that move each row of numbers one position left and right, the red letter game, corners scoring on the main card, all 4 star zones score your green 5 in a line odds, and roll overs to extend your time for the moving numbers feature) of Miss America Supreme from the year before. This game adds the 'red diagonals' feature from High Flyer!  In this case, they call them 'Striped Diagonals'.  This allows you to win on the odd diagonals, but only on the extra card. Backglass: Cabinet: Playfield: http://bingo.cdyn.com/machines/bally/miss_america_deluxe/resources/pf-miss_america_deluxe-1.jpg

High Flyer is another great six card bingo.  This machine has an eight coin max.  Your first six coins light the bingo cards, and coins 7 and 8 light the red diagonals (diagonal connections between odd diagonals) on each card. There are rollovers to light super lines and corners for each card, and the Double or Nothing feature returns! Backglass: Cabinet: Playfield: http://bingo.cdyn.com/machines/bally/high_flyer/resources/pf-high_flyer-1.jpg