What is pinball? It’s an arcade game that is all about manipulating a couple of metal balls in a glass case. What you have to do is score as many points as you can. And then the danger begins, because you’re hooked. And, in no time at all, you start getting withdrawal symptoms if you don’t get your daily dose of “pinball high.”
The game is played on a “field” encased in glass. The surface is tilted at an angle of three to seven degrees. A plunger, which is actually a spring-loaded rod, puts the ball into play and propels it upward onto the field. Thanks to the tilt, the ball keeps coming back towards the player, and the objective of the game is to use the flippers (levers that are mechanically or electro-mechanically controlled) to push the ball back onto the field. On its journey up, the ball could encounter different objects that change its course and win the player points. Sometimes, players physically nudge the cabinet in order to manipulate the ball. This is known as tilting and can be penalized when it is excessive. A violent form of this is called slam tilting.
The end of the game is signaled when all the balls allotted to the player have been “drained” or escaped the player at the bottom of the field.
When did the game originate? The first pinball game appeared in the 1930s. It was a board with pins stuck all over to direct the ball into certain scoring sections. Once the ball was pushed off, it just went and found its resting place, and where it rested determined how much the player scored. There were no flippers to push it back into play.