The making of a homebrew pinball machine + new iPhone pinball app

While homebrew video games are a dime a dozen these days, homebrew pinball machines are quite rare as there are more people out there willing to make their own video game than their own pinball game. Making a fun and playable pinball machine is not an easy endeavor – I am not claiming that a homebrew video game is either but even though I ama bigger fan of video games than pinball, I find homebrew pinball machines to be a cooler item. I actually have thought about designing my own pinball machine for fun, I’ve even drawn out the playfield, created some rule sets and planned out some unique things I haven’t seen in pinball games before. But that is much easier said than done as you have to get the physics right, the electronics to work properly and I just lack those things known as time and money to start putting something together.

Fortunately for us, there are people out there who are working on some homebrew pinball machines of their own and are documenting the process. In particular I am finding these recent videos by Jeri Ellsworth to be worth the time to watch as she goes over her pinball design on a daily basis. She is taking a number of parts from older pinball machines and throwing them together to create something unique (kind of like a kitbash with models). Here are three videos from her progress so far, I for one am looking forward to seeing the final product!

Also this might be of interest to pinball fans out there – there is a new app for the iPhone called Pinball Wizard, designed by the guy who made real pinball machines like Theater of Magic, Arabian Knights and Cirqus Voltaire. If you have an iPhone, this is worth checking out (thanks to Andrew for tipping me off on this one!)