New site: Find a Pinball

liquidx

New member
Joined
Apr 16, 2008
Messages
65
Reaction score
0
Location
Anderlecht, Brussels
Hi,

On my off hours, I've been working on a little side-project of mine: a site that indexes places to play pinball.

Obviously, sites like this exist already but, unless I've missed one, they tend to be edited manually by a single person and often end up no longer being maintained due to this fact.

So I decided to try my hand at building one that can be edited by the community.

I've got an initial version up and running now. Obviously, as it's new, there's hardly any content in there but you should get the idea and hopefully have some locations to contribute.

The site is at http://findapinball.com/

An example: Search for Brussels, Belgium (where I live, so data exists already)

Introductory Blog post: http://findapinball.com/weblog/2010/tap-tap-thing/

There are plans for more features, like a mobile client that tells you where the closest pinball is, but I'd like to get the initial version bug-free and solid first.

Anyway, feedback is appreciated. Thanks!

Colin
 
Last edited:
they tend to be edited manually by a single person and often end up no longer being maintained due to this fact.

That's the key, for any list to be accurate and up to date, you have to be able to allow everyone to make updates.

Great site, have just added 6 locations in Calgary, AB which are all that I know of. Also added a few I know of in Winnipeg, MB which I checkout out for myself just last month.
 
Last edited:
The Pinball Rebel site has some good info but the other two are jumbled messes.

The guy's site is nice and clean, easy to use and the map is great. Hopefully it catches on, I've been doing a lot of searching for pinball location sites lately and this is the best I've seen, just needs more entries and to pop up with a google search.
 
That's the key, for any list to be accurate and up to date, you have to be able to allow everyone to make updates.

Great site, have just added 6 locations in Calgary, AB which are all that I know of. Also added a few I know of in Winnipeg, MB which I checkout out for myself just last month.


Thanks, much appreciated.
 
Unfortunately, there are tons of these sites. It seems rather than contribute to a central one, everyone insists on re-inventing the wheel, and nobody has done it right yet.

http://www.fspazone.org/ladb/ladb.pl

http://www.pldb.org

This site is the best database online:

http://www.pinballrebel.com/locator/index.php

I like the map integration on yours, but you don't have areas for notes or condition. Any useful database will also have searching based on how old the entry is.


I did google for sites but I didn't even spot that pinballrebel one, that's a shame.
It's indeed got the best content but I don't get why they all make it so difficult to search by sticking the most important form off the home page.

As far as notes or condition go, I did think about them but decided to skip them to start with because any freeform text field is an invitation to spam and I didn't want to end up with locations full of ads for viagra in their notes (and believe me spammers will sign up for that stuff, I'm already seeing spambots trying).

Searching by age is a good idea though, I'll add that to the list. At the moment, it will show the most recently updated ones though but that's about all.

I have plenty of idea for functionality, and the bases for many of them are already implemented, I just prefer to start simple and iterate from there instead of throwing it all out in one go and not knowing what works or doesn't.

Thanks.
 
My take on it is that liquidx is one of us and I bet we can help. I will be uploading all of mine from here very soon.

I like the cut of your jib dude.
 
I really like the site and just added to my favorites. Just added 27 machines in Phoenix, AZ.
 
Thanks guys.

It's slowly getting content added to it as people join.

I've made a few changes based on usage patterns too, hopefully making things easier like adding multiple pinballs to a location. More to come…
 
I know you are just getting started and prob have lots of ideas. I thought of a few.

* a random location is shown on the main page so people get an idea of how it works

* a listing of the cities that have games

*seems you are using gmaps for it. Maybe a link to the master map
 
I know you are just getting started and prob have lots of ideas. I thought of a few.

* a random location is shown on the main page so people get an idea of how it works

* a listing of the cities that have games

*seems you are using gmaps for it. Maybe a link to the master map

Actually, there's already a system in places to show recent locations, changes, top editors etc on the home page but it's disabled until content builds up a little. Puttinga random/featured location is a good idea though, I'll add that in.

The city listing is also planned, also to help google find all the spots :)

There is no master map as such, but I could have it generate a KML file for google maps/earth. I'll see what's possible.

In the meantime I've corrected a few bugs and added some features:

- you can now see locations near the one you're viewing on a map and not just as a list.
- Every location has a short URL to make copy/pasting into IM or things like that easier.

More to come…
 
I would think that the most common phrase to use when searching for a site like this would be "pinball locator". Too bad yours doesn't show up as one of the results.

Is it a pain in the ass to get your site popping up with a google search? Something you're still working on?
 
Looks Great and I just signed up. One thing that I thought would be a nice addition would be the ability to click on the game title and have it linked to the IPDB? That would be cool, just my 2 cents...

-Dave
 
I would think that the most common phrase to use when searching for a site like this would be "pinball locator". Too bad yours doesn't show up as one of the results.

Is it a pain in the ass to get your site popping up with a google search? Something you're still working on?

Google only really indexed for the first time yesterday but I am working on getting better google juice. My priority at the moment though is to kill a few remaining bugs, then I'll really work on SEO.

The "locator" keyword is a good idea though, I've already added that in. Thanks.
 
Looks Great and I just signed up. One thing that I thought would be a nice addition would be the ability to click on the game title and have it linked to the IPDB? That would be cool, just my 2 cents...

-Dave

Well, there's an "ipdb link" to the right of each pinball. I thought about making the pinball name clickable but I was afraid too many people would expect different functionalities from it: see other places with that game, find out more about the pinball, view on IPDB etc... so I decided to make the IPDB link explicit instead.

I have more plans for that area of the page in the long term, including seeing where else you can play it in the area, adding your scores at that particular location, rating game's general state and playability. etc. The hooks are already in place.
 
Back
Top Bottom