Hello everyone and welcome to the latest installment of the Weekly Contests!  This week’s game is going to be Black Box Pinball.  Here are the rules:
 
 

• Choose 1 Player Game A
• Play until Game Over
• To get your score, start a new game.  Your score will be in the “Top Score” spot.
• If you loop the score, take a picture right before the loop and right after the loop.  Do this for each loop of the score.
• Highest score wins
• Participation: 50,000
• GENRE: Arcade

 
 
The contest ends Sunday, 9/4/16 at 11 PM NA time.  Your user name MUST be written or typed on a piece of paper and be in the picture for your score to be valid.  The entire TV screen, or computer monitor if you are playing on an emulator, MUST be in the picture for the score to be valid.  No partial screenshots will be considered or accepted.  No screenshots by hitting "print screen" on a computer will be allowed.  You must take a picture of your computer monitor.  There may be instances where this will be acceptable, but it will be at the discretion of myself and the contest organizers.  Also, the use of turbo controllers is forbidden, as well as any cheat codes, Game Genies, slow motion functions, or save states if playing on an emulator.  Also, we will only be using NTSC systems for the contests.  The use of PAL systems will NOT be allowed.  Good luck everyone and have fun  

Awesome! Love this game. I'll have to see if I can get the flippers to disappear and reappear. We didn't really do all that well on the IONGAMING episode for NES Pinball.

OFFICIAL SCOREBOARD
Pinball (Arcade)
Place	Score	Username	Points
1	1,317,440	Red	+11
2	595,310	ookii_risu	+10
3	563,700	Brock Landers	+9
4	405,740	laddersandcakes	+8
5	383,740	JamesRobot	+7
6	333,260	tablew/chairs	+6
7	326,810	mbd39	+5
8	262,580	arnpoly	+4
Participation
9	251,530	TWarwick07	+3
10	248,260	Ferris Bueller	+3
11	235,640	bertsampson	+3
12	178,680	skinnygrinny	+3
13	144,360	NESking80	+3
14	143,980	DefaultGen	+3
15	137,790	zobber	+3
16	136,200	barrelsAndRivets	+3
17	135,560	Commander Santa	+3
18	126,490	Krunch	+3
19	116,810	Seppatoni	+3
20	107,060	dirk12121212	+3
21	106,050	Mega Tank	+3
22	94,870	Jandrem	+3
23	85,520	senorchocotaco	+3
24	79,010	Zaam	+3
25	76,060	SuperJimtendo	+3
26	72,570	smick	+3

235,640

Throwing out a quick score on my brand new TV!  Well, one dollar TV from the local high school tech surplus sale.  Have fun kids!

Nice starting score Bert. I've been practicing this game a bit over the bye week and didn't even come close to that, didn't even make the flippers disappear...and I've competed in this before. Haha I just need that one magic run

Pretty nice score, Bert.  
And I will be taking another week off from the context. I am still working on some Paperboy stuff and breaking down everything on Lunar Poll so I have it completely down to a science.

Yeah, I played 5 or 6 times.  I got a 160k, that 235k, and the rest under 50k.  I hadn't given Pinball much love until this morning.  It's more fun than I had previously thought.
 

Here's my score

326,810


 

405,740

Having fun with this one, so I'll definitely improve at least a little bit this week. Not sure if I'll touch the sky...

It's a refreshing change of pace after how difficult Lunar Pool was. This is just arcade fun with not much thought required.

I like how they worked Mario saving the princess into a pinball game. Getting good at the bonus game is probably the key to a very high score because you can continue rescuing her over and over again.




 

80,590
136,200

So.. is there any way to nudge the table or is this game mostly luck? Or figuring out which returns are safe 100% of the time or something

I've never understood how to be "good" at pinball and this is the result of a lucky run as far as I'm concerned


updated

It is all about knowing how to throw the ball in worthy and safe spots while having good reflexes with the flippers. Best tip I can give is to learn how to 'catch' the ball with your flippers. Instead of always hitting the ball you need to judge if you can gently keep the ball on your flipper when you trigger it. That way you control much more the pace of your game and will learn how to throw the ball back correctly from that neutral and safe position.

Concentration is important too cause a pinball run can be stupidly long.

Idk, I really enjoy actual pinball (foosball sucks! Haahaa!). I have never enjoyed a pinball video game. Maybe this one is better.

When I was a kid, I hated pinball video games, but the last time I played Pinball for the contest, I really enjoyed myself. I'm going to see if I can find some time for this  
 

Finally had a run over 100K, didnt take a picture because I know I'll do better. I'm starting to figure out how to manage the lower board better. And I find if the ball lands a certain way on the right flipper you can get it up to the Mario zone every time.

I suck at pinball both virtually and in real life. I played this game a lot as a kid but when it came pinball games pinbot was the game of choice. Pixel robot boobs!

I dig this game. I'm not a pinball wizard or anything and have hardly ever played on a real one. I used to play the Windows space-themed pinball game a lot as a kid. Nostalgic for that this week.

I'm curious about what the B mode is all about; worth a Google, I guess.

Apparently everybody else knows something that I don't. I played for hours and this is the best that I can do. Participation for me this week.

You might make top 3 this week, man. Nice score.


 

Ha, hopefully. I never get complacent, in the rare event of my posting a decent score. Too many bonafied NES sorcerors on this forum. But it's all fun. Last night, I just turned the radio on and had a nice time playing and listening to my local alt rock station. 

I want to keep pushing, but in response to your other post, I think a lot of it is definitely randomness. I mean, I've had balls completely escape me a bunch of times. It's disheartening. My latest score was almost entirely achieved on my last ball; it's so tempting to rage quit when I lose a ball with something low like ~3k, but I try to resist. 

It sucks for the flippers to go invisible (that was so disorienting), but they come back at 150k, thankfully. 
 

Check out the scores from the 2012 contest.


PINBALL HIGH SCORES

1st: 1,648,580 – MCMROSE +10 points
2nd: 633,170 – 2Legit28Bit +8 points
3rd: 600,140 – guillavoie +6 points
4th: 544,370 – Lincoln +4 points
5th: 370,470 – lospunchados +2 points

PARTICIPATION

364,480 – Krunch +1 point
297,350 – aleckermit +1 point
262,610 – CLAYB1RD +1 point
257,910 – Dr.Pepper +1 point
247,270 – bimmy_lee +1 point
203,690 – rokubungi +1 point
181,610 – bearcat-doug +1 point
158,060 – Jono1874 +1 point
135,600 – eric430 +1 point
128,650 – Rengozu +1 point
125,500 – laserman81 +1 point
125,430 – otterpop +1 point
102,990 – duncan +1 point
37,650 – Luigi_Master +1 point
 

See, that's what I'm talking about. Sorcerors. Rad. What I read elsewhere must've been wrong; I looked at the strategy wiki for kicks, and it says: "The game comes to an end by freezing in its spot once you reach 1,334,900 points." Glad to hear it can go farther, even if I seriously doubt I'll get anywhere close to that.