Pinball Nostalgia

                The other day, I saw some kids playing pinball- yes, the pinball cadet game that used to come with windows, and it really took me back to the days I spent playing it. So I decided to relive my nostalgia, but there was one problem: pinball isn’t included with windows 7. So I clicked around on the web, and found this site, which allowed me to get pinball up and running.

                Though I’m not still any good at it now, I remember having almost literally no clue how to play as a child. I knew how to control the flippers and that was it. Tilting when the ball is headed straight down the middle? All I knew was that, during exciting and vital parts of a game, I would loose control and the message “tilt” would appear. Why this happened, I had no clue, but I hated that tilt. It turns out that the keys for tilting are right next to the keys that control the flippers, so I would sometimes press them accidentally, causing the tilt. This was very frustrating.

                Similarly, I didn’t know anything about upgrades. All I knew was that sometimes, if I was lucky, the targets would change color, and that was good. Of course, since I didn’t know how to get upgrades that meant I got them only very occasionally by pure chance. It was the same situation with the missions- I was ignorant of the greatest point earner in the game, but sometimes I got lucky.

                Its interesting that I found this game so engaging, despite not having a clue what I was doing. In some ways it made the game more fun. Sometimes I think that being really serious about a game and trying to maximize how well you do takes some of the fun out of it, and adds stress to something that is supposed to relieve stress. Sometimes, I’ll be playing a game and enjoying it, and when I go online to read about it I find out that I had picked some less optimal choices, or was missing opportunities to maximize experience, or whatever you’re trying to get. Then I feel like I have to do these things in the future to play the game properly. I think that a lot of enjoyment you get from a game comes from bumbling through parts of it and figuring out the best ways to do things on your own. Share your own thoughts on this, pinball, or whatever you want in the comments below.