Visual Pinball: 25 years old and still more fun than ever! 🎉🎱

Video games are closer to reality than ever before. We can model entire civilizations, and even galaxies, in pixels. But there's something visceral about pinball: the flashing lights, the shimmering balls, trying to hit targets and ramps within a certain time. Pinball demands skill, quick reflexes, and coordination, all for the chance of an extra ball or even a free game. 🎱

I started playing Visual Pinball over a decade ago, maybe even two. I stopped because life got in the way. But recently I got the urge to play again, and you should too, even if you don't consider yourself a gamer. Why? Because there's a reason Microsoft included a pinball game in the early versions of Windows: we all instinctively understand pinball. And Visual Pinball does it better than ever—and it's all for free! 🎮

A taste of your childhood

Visual Pinball is art, and more than you think. Yes, there are faithful recreations of the tables that you played as a child, but there are also designs brand new, all created by one or two, or five dedicated people who place every bumper, target, and ramp by hand. 🎨

Visual Pinball has been around since 2000; it's a free and open-source application that has been continuously updated. It's essentially a pinball table construction kit. If you want to play a recreation of a real table, you'll need a second piece of software, called PinMAME, which serves as the "script" for how the table should work.

I started playing Visual Pinball over a decade ago. The most notable change I've noticed is that, in the past, ROMs were kept secret, existing in a sort of legal gray area. The tables are recreations, but the ROMs themselves—plus the background art and voices—seem to be circulating much more openly, perhaps just to keep the genre alive and well. Again, there's nothing like playing a table. real, and modern tables like Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant's Eye are much more than just hitting a few silver balls around.

But Visual Pinball is also a club of sorts, one that can be somewhat frustrating to navigate until you're in. While you can try to find Visual Pinball and tables on your own, the easiest route is to sign up at one of the three main sites: VPforums.org, VPUniverse.com, or VPinHub.com. You'll have to sign up to download anything, with (not particularly stringent) limits on how much you can download at once. I started at VPForums, but the other two each have their own appeal. You can also find different tables on different sites, depending on the author.

The other thing you should know is that Visual Pinball isn't just an app; Visual Pinball was born with VP8, but a sort of schism occurred with Visual Pinball 10: Visual Pinball 10 is now called Visual Pinball X (VPX), and the tables and software are incompatible with VP8. Most people play VPX tables, although there are other emulators, such as Future Pinball. 🔧

Visual Pinball has even added an OpenGL fork with Steam VR support, so you can play pinball through the Vive or other headsets. You can also build your own pinball cabinets, though that requires a considerable investment of time and money. 💰

I haven't been able to find any hardware requirements for Visual Pinball, but reviews from a decade ago claimed that a 4th-generation Intel Core i3 could run all tables without issue. I used a laptop with an AMD Ryzen AI 300 CPU and integrated graphics, and that's about it.

Tips: How to Use Visual Pinball

It can all be a bit overwhelming, and I confess I struggled with setting up Visual Pinball for an afternoon or two before I finally got the hang of it. A single installer, linked below, simplifies this enormously. Half of the tutorials look like they were written decades ago, and they probably were.

It is important to realize that many tables have both a table file as a ROM file, and you'll need to download both. Realizing this will help immensely. 🚀

If you're having trouble, try these tips:

Download the installer application VPX from Github(Windows won't recognize it, so you'll have to approve it manually.) That will download and configure most of the files in their own directory. It also downloads the scripts, samples, and fonts. I tried doing it myself without them, and it didn't work.

After installing VPX, you'll want to download a table. Look closely at the table entry to see if there's an associated ROM file. If there is, download the zipped file, then place the unzipped folder in your ROMs folder. Place the unzipped table in Visual Pinball's "Tables" directory. Some tables don't have associated ROM files. If they don't, simply use the table file.

While you can start a table by clicking on a table in your tables folder, starting the game using either the VisualPinballX executable or one of the OpenGL derivatives will open Visual Pinball. Navigate through the menus at the top and change (or learn) the key commands for “insert coins” (5) and “start the game” (1) as well as the flippers (SHIFT) and the plunger (ENTER). Visual Pinball also supports “special” keys that reproduce functions in the game, such as the “smart bomb” on the pinball table. Jurassic Park or the trigger of the gun on the tables of Terminator. Learn those too. 🔑

Playing Visual Pinball is magical

But man, once you get the hang of it, even virtual pinball can be transcendental. It's easy to get lost in the flow, shutting your brain off as you fling balls toward targets. Maybe there's a reason one of the other paid pinball apps is called Zen Pinball, right? ✨

Some of the oldest tables —Tales of the Arabian Nights, Theatre of Magic—were the ones I discovered when I started playing more physical pinball, but the look and feel have been carefully emulated. I don't know how you replicate an animatronic dinosaur gobbling pinballs, but I'm sure glad they found a way. Visual Pinball is also a gateway—what is that? And that thatIt's not difficult to download three or four tables at once, just to see how they play.

When you consider that these tables essentially have to be located and written, especially if they're recreations or new works, it's incredibly impressive. Each table is a maximum of around 150 megabytes in size, which isn't much for a modern PC. I also doubt you'll have to do much tweaking, visually. Most of these tables were coded and uploaded over a decade ago, when PCs were weaker than they are today. Still, all this means you can stash a bunch of awesome tables in a corner of your hard drive, without worrying too much about how much space they'll take up or how much stress they'll put on your PC. 💾

In shortVisual Pinball is not just a platform for playing virtual pinball 🎮, but a vibrant tribute to a timeless classic that continues to captivate players of all ages 👾. With over 25 years of history, this open and passionate community keeps the magic of pinball alive 🕹️, combining nostalgia, creativity, and modern technology to deliver a unique and accessible experience 🌟.

Whether you're a seasoned fan or just looking for simple, addictive entertainment, Visual Pinball invites everyone to immerse themselves in a world of skill, reflexes, and endless fun 🎉. So don't hesitate: dust off that virtual ball, adjust your flippers, and get ready for the ultimate pinball experience. Pinball is alive and well! 🎱✨