By Brittany Herren
Sept. 1, 2024 – In an age where our little pocket computers —with the nag of their buzzing notifications— occupy nearly every aching need of socialization and entertainment, there is something wistfully nostalgic about the kinesics involved in playing a pinball machine. The feel of the plunger grasped in your hand, the tension that swells in the coils as you pull, the slight inhale of a breath lingering with trepidation and the eventual respire when the plunger launches your ball into a form of simulated imagination that teeters between the fiction of good versus evil and the reality of your field of vision fixating on the obstacles, lights and the sharp clacking of the flippers frantically keeping you in the game. It’s euphoric, child-like ecstasy that can usually only be summoned in the back of a dimly lit dive bar. But there is another way…
Pinball wizards of yesteryear have developed an underground world of homebrew pinball machines that don’t necessarily replicate the look and feel of a familiar table, but certainly emulate the game for a mere few-hundred dollars. The community that primarily flourishes in online chatrooms is playing a small role in helping a generations-old game make a comeback in America.
Dr. Robert Terry —or Doc Rob as he goes by on Discord, an online forum focused on gaming, is a Savannah-resident and an associate professor at Georgia Southern University who moonlights as an amateur, virtual pinball artisan. Over the course of the last 12 years, Terry has built a handful of virtual pinball cabinets for family and close friends (strictly out of love and not profit).
“The first one I built was in 2012 when I was doing anything to prevent myself from working on my doctorate dissertation,” Terry jokes. “I just followed an Instructables guide.”
A virtual pinball machine uses computer software and a series of screens inside a crafted, cabinet of sorts to simulate the experience of playing a physical pinball table.
“The best way to describe it is it’s a special kind of fan fiction that is highly playable,” explained Terry.
The game, which is uploaded from an open-sourced virtual pinball platform, is displayed on a monitor and players use buttons and flippers to control the aspects of the game.
“It’s basically an off-the-shelf computer,” said Terry.
Open source refers to the software that the developer who made the source code has made available for public use, and this alone has created an interesting foundation to the underground world of homebrew machines. In 2000, programmer Randy Davis was developing a commercial, virtual pinball project. Around 2008 when the U.S. economy collapsed, the development of the virtual table went under, and Davis made the decision to open his software for public use.
“Over the years, a very dedicated core of people has kept changing and developing the engine and currently, it is really sophisticated and can do a lot,” said Terry.
While serious pinball enthusiasts will spend copious amounts of money (ranging anywhere from $3,000 to $25,000) on a traditional, single-game table, virtual pinball cabinets open the market and make the game more accessible.
“Because of that cost, virtual pinball is a way for people who love pinball to get something close and they can learn a lot about the pinball experience through an emulation,” explained Terry. “I have built a table for as little as $300.”
Virtual pinball cabinets, while cost-effective, can also escalate in price when enthusiasts enhance the basic components of a table by adding features such as rumble motors to create a realistic sense of vibration when the ball hits a bumper, and target solenoids that provide haptic feedback when a target is hit.
In addition to accessibility and convenience, virtual pinball cabinets allow an owner to have access to thousands of open-sourced games as opposed to just a single game on a traditional table.
“The goal is to get as much fidelity as possible,” said Terry.
The individuals who engineer, code and build the games from open source are bonded together in various virtual pinball forums, the largest being VPUniverse.com.
“It’s a whole, weird world,” Terry endearingly explained. “Everything is created by extremely dedicated fans who do it purely out of the love for the hobby and not for any monetary gain.”
Like any venture branched from commercialism, virtual pinball cabinets have in turn, helped to grow the market for traditional pinball. It is not uncommon that once an emulation for a game is built, the interest for the game is revived and the value of the physical table increases.
A great example of this is the Ripley’s Believe it or Not table, which is one of Stern Pinball’s (the world’s leading pinball manufacturer) earliest machines, whose second-hand value has grown exponentially since the game was made available on open source.
Virtual pinball has helped to bring pinball to new audiences, including generations of fans who were born decades after the game’s initial popularity. In recent years, pinball has seen a resurgence in popularity, and this is even reflected in Savannah’s own local culture. Nostalgic fans and retro-loving Gen Z’s can play pinball at various places around town, including Graveface Records and the Graveface Museum, The Portal, Totally Awesome Bar, The Wormhole and more.
Terry himself, while completely immersed in the world or virtual pinball, remains a dedicated and prolific player. If you come across him at your favorite pinball dive, buy him a beer and ask him about his latest virtual pinball venture.
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