Craig Pullen, UK Pinball Champion, takes us on a tour of a pinball machine to describe the anatomy - the names of the different areas of the playfield. This is to help the less experienced player understand the names for the different pieces on the playfield, when Craig refers to them in his other videos.
Written By: Andy Beresford
Video Transcription:
Craig: Okay, so this is Stern's latest offering, which is Star Trek. And I'm just going to talk you through the general areas of a pinball machine, and what the general makeup is.
So we'll start off down here. We've got the start button, which obviously starts the game. And we've got the plunger, which obviously you pull to fire the ball. Okay, so -- and then we move up here, and this is the shooter lane, so the ball obviously rolls up here. And then the ball will go up into these lanes up here, okay, which are just kind of -- they're called standard rollover lanes, all right?
And obviously we've got the lights here. And what will happen is, at the beginning of a game, one of these lights will be flashing, and you've got to try to get the ball to roll over that lane. Okay.
So then if we move back down here, we've got your standard setup, in terms of the flippers. Okay. So this is your general outlay -- the way that the normal flipper arrangement looks. But then we've also got the one upper flipper here, all right? And in particular, on Star Trek, you can actually lift this. So once you shoot this flipper here, there's actually a gap underneath the flipper, all right? So you can shoot it from this flipper underneath here, which is a really important shot in the game. Okay.
So these two lanes here, which is obviously when the ball drains and dies, okay, they are called the out lanes, okay? And then we've got the in lanes, which are the ones in here, which if the ball rolls down the in lanes, then the ball is safe. So you don't want the ball to obviously go down the out lanes. And here, obviously this is just straight down the middle. We don't want the ball to go down here either, okay?
And then I'll just talk around the rest of the play field. So this shot here is, off of this flipper primarily, is your lock shot, okay? So that's to lock balls for multi-ball. If you manage to get three balls locked in the lock area, then that's how you get multi-ball, okay? Only if it's slightly further round.
Now, this is called your left orbit, okay? So this is your furthest leftmost shot. But it's also got a spinner, okay? So when the ball goes through, the spinner goes. And that's your spinner lane, all right?
Moving up. So then we've got the warp ramp, which is the shot that you play off of this flipper. And so as the ball comes round here, you're going to shoot it round this shot. That's a particularly difficult shot to make, and it's also a very dangerous shot to make. Okay.
So then this is your left ramp, which is called -- on this game, it's called the Alpha Quadrant. And so you can -- this is actually able to be shot off either the left or the right flipper, and this will -- the ball will come back round to the left flipper.
Moving across, this is a center area where we've got a drop target here, which at the beginning of the game will come up, and then the ball will go in here, and there's a magnet that just goes behind it. And that's also an area for locking the ball for multiball. All right?
So then move over to here. This is the Beta Quadrant, which is the right ramp. Again, you can shoot that off both the left and the right flippers. And then we've got the right orbit, so it just mirrors the left orbit, basically. And then that will -- the ball will come back round pretty fast pace.
That's the kind of general map area for this particular pinball machine.
Narrator: For more pinball videos with Craig Pullen, please visit homeleisuredirect.com/pinball.