The prehistory

This is supposed to be the history of Pinballs on Macintosh. But before the Mac, Apple turned out some sleek machines and, at least on Apple II, a host of games was available.
Sam Gabrielsson on the Tower of Pin website is giving a brief presentation of the (probably) best known pinball game on the Apple II: Raster Blaster. This was not the only one. Christoph Simon has kindly pointed out that David's Midnight Magic did exist for the Apple II, as well as the Pinball Construction Set. (I must confess that I never played these games on the Apple II. On the other hand I spent hours playing Serpentine, a game which inspired Slithereens of Ambrosia).

I have tried to find some indication on the Web for games developed for the Apple III and Lisa but to no avail. We can safely surmise that no pinball did exist on these machines. So we can move to our main topic:


Mac Pinballs

When the Mac first appeared it was a supersleek machine but the only available games were of a quality well below that of Apple II games. The lack of colour was a serious limitation for players and developers and it plagued the Mac till the appearance of Mac II. The first, to my knowledge, Mac Pinball was the Pinball Construction Set (1985). I have never seen this game in action. The only time somebody tried to show it to me, the game bombed immediately and we had to abort the test. From what people say the physics was, well, totally irrealistic but the fact that you could build your own pinball table might have been interesting. There were probably shareware tables for Pinball Construction Set but I do not think you can find them any more. Moreover Pinball Construction Set plays only on old Macs like a MacPlus. Consider it as museum piece.

The first pinball, LittleWing and Amtex

The first Mac Pinball worth the pinball name was Tristan (1991) by Littlewing. This game was the first in a long series by Mr. and Mrs. Fujita. You can visit their web-site by clicking on the link above. Although the table was a little simplistic the physics were marvelous with that special Littlewing touch (realism but also some cheating with the gravity laws whenever it's needed in order to make the game interesting). The game was produced by Amtex and had a crazy protection (look-up table; but at least you could photocopy it). The game played on all Macs but it was a pain in the neck since it required a math co-processor. Fortunately Littlewing released what they call the Internet Edition: it plays without FPU and with just a serial number protection. The price is so low that I believe that all Mac-pinball fans should make this minimal investment be it only for nostalgia's sake. Soon after Tristan, Amtex produced 8 Ball Deluxe (1992) a simulator of the pinball with the same name by Bally. The code was written by Littlewing again and it represented a substantial improvement over Tristan. Amtex announced also Royal Flush and Funhouse for both Mac and PC's but only the PC version of the first appeared and the Funhouse project was cancelled. Well, we know now that Amtex was moribund at the time: no more pinball will be coming from this direction. The downfall of the Littlewing-Amtex collaboration is that 8BD may be tied up in some legalistic imbroglio and I don't know if and when there will be an internet edition of this superb pinball.

8-ball Deluxe passed away in 2001, when Apple moved to OS9. MacOS has been ensuring a fair backwards compatibility over the years. Mac pinballs have been around for more than ten years (since Tristan, 1991) which means they appeared at the same time as MacOS 7 (which at that time was called just System 7). It is thus more or less natural that they play under MacOS 9.
This is indeed the case for all pinballs except for 8-ball Deluxe. The reason is that in MacOS 9, Apple introduced a new file system, incompatible with the one used previously. Now, most pinball games do not care about these things ... with the exception of 8-ball. Because AMTEX had some crazy high-score contest (I would be interested to know if anybody has ever collected an AMTEX high-score prize) they had to have some special score file. Unfortunately this breaks the game at startup under MacOS 9. (The protection of 8-ball where it detects system changes and asks you to reinstall is also another factor of instability). Fortunately, in spring 2005, Ted Bailey (thanks, Ted) came up with a simple fix for 8-ball: one must start in OS9 with the extensions deactivated. However before doing this you must make sure that the colour depth is set to 256 colours. Since you cannot do it with extensions off it must be done beforehand. Just to be on the safe side set and lock the monitor prefs file. Then you must reinstall 8-ball. The whole procedure is a hassle but playing 8-ball is worth it.

back to our history...

Littlewing moved to StarPlay and produced two more great pinballs. Both were 2D but they had a better 3D look-and-feel with ramps and tunnels. The physics were top quality as always. The first Crystal Caliburn (1993) is by far the most challenging and indeed the most interesting although quite frustrating at times. Loony Labyrinth (1994) came soon after and was clearly a much easier game. The only point is that once you learned how to play, every game took so long that it became boring. This was taken care of with a patch that limited the number of extra balls. (Both games exist today in what Littlewing calls the Internet Edition:you can download them from the website and buy a serial number online. If you don't have them I recommend that you invest in them: they are classics!).

Sierra and Maxis

At this point Starplay went on to publish other, non-pinball games, Littlewing disappeared and the Mac-pinball fans started becoming frustrated. Still two new actors entered the scene: Sierra and Maxis. The first published 3D Ultra Pinball (1995) a three-table game with a 3D look and really lousy physics. At the beginning of computer pinballs I was thinking that it would be interesting to include effects impossible in a real pinball. (Already Crystal Caliburn contained some such element with more than one balls locked in the dragon's cave but this is a minor effect). The first Sierra pinball contained several such effects and this cured me permanently: effects just spoil the simulation. The first Maxis pinball, Full Tilt 1 (1996), a three-table game, was slightly better than 3D Ultra Pinball, as far as physics is concerned, but its interest was limited. Moreover the code was so processor-intensive that it could not play on my 180C, 68030 equiped, powerbook. This was due probably to the fact that the first table (Space Cadet) was specially developed for Windows 95 and had somehow to respect the Microsoft tradition that you must constantly upgrade in order to keep up.

Pro Pinball...

While playing the old Littlewing pinballs out of frustration I came across an announcement in a french Mac magazine of a new pinball. It was produced by an english company, Empire. I called them, ordered the pinball and a miracle happened. Pro Pinball, The Web (1996) arrived and metamorphosed the computer-pinball world. The simulation was smooth, the game interesting; everything was done cleverly and with exquisitely good taste. Moreover the code was so nice that it played perfectly on the very same 180C that chocked up on the Maxis pinball. The protection by that time had become standard: CD in the drive. This was the source of a further problem for me and another occasion to appreciate the Empire people. When I upgraded my powerbook to a 3400 with a CD drive (even Mac people must upgrade from time to time) the program could not recognize the drive and refused to play, requesting the presence of the CD in the drive. I called the support at Empire and (after some time, admittedly) I obtained a patch that allows everything to run smoothly.

1996-1997

Sierra continued to produce pinballs for the Mac and the second in the series of 3D Ultra Pinballs, Creep Night (1996), was a substantial improvement over the first. The physics was better, the 3D effects more realistic and a touch of humour made the game more playable. Still this was clearly not a simulation and after having tasted ProPinball everything else was bound to look bland. Maxis came back again with the second installement of its series, Full Tilt 2 (1997). Contrary to Sierra there was no improvement in this second pinball. There were more special effects, the graphics more 3D looking but the game was even less interesting and the short tables quite unrealistic. Sierra continued with the third pinball of the series, The Lost Continent (1997), in fact a mixture of pinball and arcade game where the pinball part does not play the principal role. Given the delay between the publication of a PC game and its Mac counterpart at that time we already knew that Empire was preparing the second ProPinball: Timeshock for the Mac. It came out in the early 1998 and it was a small marvel. The simulation was even better than before, the table even more interesting, the graphics gorgeous. What is really amazing is that a 10-ball multiball plays as smoothly as a single-ball game.

1998-1999

Then a resurrection occured. Royal Flush (remember the Amtex project) resurfaced (1998) as a freeware pinball. Its author, Gerard Putter, had been hired by Amtex to port the game to Mac. Since Amtex disappeared without paying him a dime he considered that he could do as he wished with this pinball and thus he offered it to the Mac pinball fans at large. The port is great: the game plays even more smoothly than the PC original. As I keep playing it I cannot help thinking that the simulation part of the code must have been written by Littlewing. Probably Amtex got the code from them (they were collaborating at the time, remember) and would use it to build the simulations of classical pinballs. I guess that we have to ask Fujita-san if we wish to learn the truth. And this brings us to the second miracle of 98: the rediscovery of Littlewing. They have not disappeared and somehow Sam Gabrielsson managed to locate them. They are always active and had produced another Mac Pinball: Angel Egg (1996-99). It stayed for years in demo version and came out as full product only late in 99. It is a great multiball machine. However Angel Egg had not been a priority because the Fujita's were actively preparing another Mac pinball: Golden Logres. It came out at the end of 98 and (to my opinion) it is a great pinball: you have the impression of a game inside a painting gallery. Although the physics are excellent (with slightly unusual "sticky" flippers) the effort needed in order to graduate to a higher table is based on many repetitive tasks and, unless you are very patient, you cannot progress.

Then the best pinball simulator ever made its appearance: Big Race USA. I refer to it more often as "Taxi". When The Web made its appearance, I was amazed by its physics, its graphics, the cleverness of the layout and the fact that the play could lure you into multi-hour games. Timeshock, was too difficult to me, so I never became an addict. Then the "Taxi" came and managed to surpass everything we knew. Once you have played it, every other pinball (with the only exception of its sibbling Propinballs) looks not-worth-playing. I cannot imagine how Empire can improve on BRUSA.

At the beginning of 99 Fox interactive surprised everybody (well, at least, myself) by announcing a pinball set, for both Mac and PC. They delivered on their promise and the Fox pinball saw the light of the day. Frankly I regret having paid 40 dollars for this game. The only thing that is interesting is the general theme (four different ones, in fact) but, the physics are below average, the graphics mediocre, the table layout not better than that of the PC pinballs of 10 years back, and the play quite boring. The only tables worth something are "Predator" and the vintage "The Fly" table. Moreover the Fox Pinball is the lousiest port I have ever seen. It does not run on most machines (I suspect that screen resolution has something to do with this), although it plays smoothly on my iBook.

On the other hand a freeware multiplatform pinball, which to my delight has been developed also for the Mac, Roll 'm Up,! made its appearance. It is meant as an ad for the beer breweries Dommelsch. The team behind this pinball are the LostBoys: they were at www.lostcity.nl but the link does not work any more. The game is not bad, with physics acceptable (but, so-so flippers) and special effects that are of a far better taste than the ones of Sierra. In particular the rubber balls (with different elastic properties than the steel ones) are a very fine idea. It has even a multiball mode. It is only the second freeware Mac pinball (to my knowledge) and, as such, a most precious contribution. (A piece of advice for people who are looking for this pinball and cannot find it: did you look for it through p2p protocols? They are not there just for illegal file sharing: sometimes they may be of help in a perfectly legal setting).

2000-2001

In the meantime Sierra has not been inactive and announced the fourth pinball in the line of the 3D Ultra Pinballs: Nascar Racing. (It's the usual Sierra product: mediocre at best). This is an incredible example of lousy marketing. I had played the demo and some Mac-game sites had announced the availability of the full product but, when I enquired at Sierra, I got the answer that the game has never been developed to the end. Then one day visiting Sierra's site I discovered that the product did exist. I do not know how many they sold but if they decide to cancel further development for the Mac on the basis of bad sales of NR they are the only ones to blame.
They did definitely better with their next pinball: Thrillride. The game came out for both Mac and PC as scheduled. It is the usual mediocre quality, Sierra simulation. (When will they improve their ball to something not polygonal-looking?) However it is somewhat more fun than Nascar and Lost Continent. Given the situation I am afraid that we will have to contend ourselves with such quality pinballs in the future.

The best moment of the year was when I visited the Apple expo in Paris. Entering the hall I saw Fantastic Journey running on a G4 machine. I looked for telltale signs of VirtualPC emulation but there was none: the game had been ported to the Mac. More than a year after the game became available for Wintel machines FJ was finally there! Fantastic Journey is the usual Empire product: superb simulation and excellent graphics. The table is rather dark but this is probably related to the fact that the setting is a 19th century one. However I must say that the game is somewhat less interesting than the previous ones. (So after all my prophecy that Empire would have trouble improving over BRUSA did, unfortunately, come true). And I am furious at whoever designed the video game: the crystals and asteroids look so alike that you are bound to make some blunder and botch your game.

Is that all?

Well no!
First there was the strange announcement of a new pinball: JMM, produced by some swedish company. I contacted them and tried to obtain more details. Unfortunately at a certain point they just disappeared and the whole project went down the drain. I got to play the only existing demo of this pinball thanks to Sam Gabrielsson. The game looks somewhat amateur-made. Sam thinks it was made using Macromedia's Flash: if this is true then this opens whole new possibilities in pinball creation. The game is not very bad. The simulation is not worse than Sierra's commercial products although the graphics are rather low-quality. Well, anyhow this game does not exist and I do not think one can find even the demo anywhere.

Then there is a missing item. In my list of Mac Pinballs I have missed one. (I have no excuse whatsoever). Gord Lacey pointed out to me that there was a Mac pinball under the name of Tropic Island (95) which I did not know anything about. Fortunately I have a japanese connection and I was able to track it down. It was produced in Japan for the short-lived Pipin platform. It is still around if you look carefully in japanese sites but I am afraid it will not be for much longer. The game is in japanese but a patch, converting the menus in english, does exist. Tropic Island is cute: nice music and graphics and acceptable play. It's a pity that no demo seems to exist for this game.

2002

In 2002 Littlewing produced another masterpiece: Jinny Zeala. It's a single-table simulation but fully worth its money. The game is 1001-nights inspired, with clearly oriental graphics (superb, by Reiko Fujita) and music (although the harem girls look as if they have been recruited in some old-west saloon). You can spend hours playing this game: it is simple and funny at the same time (although it takes very long to master everything). The simulation is perfectly fluid and moreover it plays, carbonised, on OSX. It's the one and only (as of June 2003) carbonised pinball. Multiball (3 balls) is equally fluid as the single-ball game. My main critique is that the ball can drain a little bit too easily and moreover there is no temporary ball-save at the beginning of each ball launch. Losing your ball during the first 5 seconds of the play can be a major frustration. All in all, JZ is an excellent pinball and all Mac pinball fans should get their own copy.

I do not pretend the list of pinballs above to be exhaustive. First there are some pinball-looking games which, well, kick at a ball with flippers. Do they qualify as pinballs? It depends. The one on Monty Python's Total Loss of Time CD certainly does not. However the Timon and Pumba jungle pinball on the Disney Lion King CD is an acceptable pinball: although not very realistic physics-wise, at least it is funny. There is also Garlic Pinball on Kid's Arcade CD: this one is downright lousy. I cannot imagine people paying for games of such a quality. There is also Pinball Science. This is an educational game which is supposed to teach you basic physics letting you build your pinball table. The game is so-so but it is rather fun to play.
Finally I remember reading that somebody had produced (bad quality) pinball games for the PC using the Klik n Play application. Although Klik n Play was no big success on the Mac there may exist some Mac pinball table out there written with K&P. (It goes without saying that I would appreciate all input on such homemade pinball tables).

2003

The year turned out to be a pinball-disaster as expected. The only pinball game playing on the Mac was the Monsters Inc. pinball. Can I say anything positive about this game? Unfortunately not: the simulation is lousy and the graphics really bad.

2004

Another pinball-disaster year. Fortunately Fujita-san produced carbon ports of his two excellent pinballs Crystal Caliburn and Looney Labyrinth. Moreover this upgrade was at no charge for the owners of these pinballs: a great gesture.

2005-06

That was a so-so pinball year. Littlewing produced a superb new pinball: Monster Fair. (I know that Sam does not like it but, well, I really like the flippers of Fujita-san (although I find that the right flipper of MF is not very accurate)). Not only that but Golden-Logres and Angel-Egg also became OSX-compatible and moreover at no cost for registered users.
Another freeware two-table pinball did also appear: Emilia pinball. It's essential merit is being free.
Anyhow, if it weren't for Littlewing we could forget the whole idea of Mac pinballs. (We cannot thank you enough, Fujita-san). Now we can wait for the new Littlewing pinball which should be out any time now.

PC pinballs on the Mac

On a Mac you do not have to worry about sound or graphic cards and, above all, you do not have to put up with this monstrosity of an operating system that is Windows in its various disguises. Apart from that the games usually play the same, provided, of course, that a Mac version exists. But this is the catch: you get so many more pinballs for the PC as compared to the Mac. So, here's the question

How to play non-Mac pinballs ?

I have written various things in the past on this topic, but all that is now obsolete. With Intel-Macs one can either use Boot Camp and install Windows on a special partition or use Parallels virtualisation and run Windows on the same partition as OSX. Well, that's it. One has to know where to draw the line. I am a hardcore Mac defender but once running Windows on the same machine becomes that simple one has to bite the bullet and accept to work directly with Windows.

There is also another possibility
Play pinball on the Web. My opinion is that the pinballs one can find on the Web are lousy. Please, do not hesitate to send me feedback on your experience with web-pinballs (although I feel that a special page should be devoted to this topic).

Just in case it was not clear from the above: I do appreciate getting feedback and input concerning my historical presentation.

The anti-Microsoft attitude that the readers may have detected in my writings is not a coincidence.