I had three families over last night, a total of 9 adults and 8 kids were present including my family. This was my first get together since I've had pins in the house. The pins were wildly popular and pretty much got played constantly. There were good stretches when all four were being played at the same time. Between the pins and Rock Band on the Wii, it was pretty noisy downstairs. And I have to say it was the best New Year's party I've had with my friends since we all got married and had kids. I thought the old days of crazy fun parties had died, but now that the kids are older and can participate, I think they have returned.
Thankfully nothing broke and I didn't have any problems. I didn't have to remove the glass from anything even once, which surprised me. And wow, kids can sure hammer flipper buttons! I finally got most of the monkey flipping under control but it is tough to watch your machines getting beat silly, you can just picture having to fix and replace stuff. I'm not saying I was a party pooper and yelled at the kids to stop, I let them have their fun and by the end of the night things were pretty good as the kids learned how to play.
Only one guest had a good knowledge of pinball and what machines are popular to pinheads. A lot of the play was by the younger kids and it was just pounding the ball around. So the play numbers may not really mean much, but I still found it kind of interesting.
I have four machines set up, Data East Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Attack from Mars, and Simpsons Pinball Party. Here's the breakdown after the evening:
DE SW: 125
AFM: 96
JP: 84
TSPP: 68
Grand total plays: 373
No big surprise on SW being the most played. I expected that. I was kind of surprised that AFM was #2, I expected JP to be in the second spot. Only two of the guests really knew of AFM's pinhead stature. One of my friend's son really likes the game so a lot of the plays were probably him. And it didn't really surprise me that TSPP was last, I expected that. It is a tough game, especially for novice players.
By far the machine that got the most comments was Star Wars. People just like the way it looks and the toys. I understand, it is a cool looking machine, and it is a fun machine to play with other people. I find that I actually like it more than I was expecting based on the comments you hear about its gameplay.
Only one of my high scores fell, and that was on AFM by my pinhead friend. I'm not a great player and my score was nothing special, but I've now got my work cut out for me.
Next year I'll set all the games for 50 cent play, I would have made $186.50 this year!

Thankfully nothing broke and I didn't have any problems. I didn't have to remove the glass from anything even once, which surprised me. And wow, kids can sure hammer flipper buttons! I finally got most of the monkey flipping under control but it is tough to watch your machines getting beat silly, you can just picture having to fix and replace stuff. I'm not saying I was a party pooper and yelled at the kids to stop, I let them have their fun and by the end of the night things were pretty good as the kids learned how to play.
Only one guest had a good knowledge of pinball and what machines are popular to pinheads. A lot of the play was by the younger kids and it was just pounding the ball around. So the play numbers may not really mean much, but I still found it kind of interesting.
I have four machines set up, Data East Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Attack from Mars, and Simpsons Pinball Party. Here's the breakdown after the evening:
DE SW: 125
AFM: 96
JP: 84
TSPP: 68
Grand total plays: 373
No big surprise on SW being the most played. I expected that. I was kind of surprised that AFM was #2, I expected JP to be in the second spot. Only two of the guests really knew of AFM's pinhead stature. One of my friend's son really likes the game so a lot of the plays were probably him. And it didn't really surprise me that TSPP was last, I expected that. It is a tough game, especially for novice players.
By far the machine that got the most comments was Star Wars. People just like the way it looks and the toys. I understand, it is a cool looking machine, and it is a fun machine to play with other people. I find that I actually like it more than I was expecting based on the comments you hear about its gameplay.
Only one of my high scores fell, and that was on AFM by my pinhead friend. I'm not a great player and my score was nothing special, but I've now got my work cut out for me.
Next year I'll set all the games for 50 cent play, I would have made $186.50 this year!