Niche digital-games!

There are so many cool games that were made around the world!  Even if you attend pinball and coin-op shows, chances are you haven't played most of them.

Thankfully a few devoted fans have made digital versions of some of these machines so you can at least get a general idea of what they are about.  Like digital pinball, digital OTHERGAMES are never a substitution for the real thing, but are an amazing learning opportunity.

If I am missing anything relevant please leave it for me in the links and I'll update this page.

Pinball:

So you may know that digital pinball is pretty much everywhere and on every platform, but you might not know that there is Zaccaria Pinball on Steam where you can play 27 original Zaccaria pinball tables.  Worth the money.  Chances are you'll never be able to play most of these anywhere in your lifetime.

Bingo:

Joop's Bingo Gameroom is a downloadable bingo simulator with great sounds, graphics, and physics.  You can try the trial version, and the lifetime subscription is something like $80.

Smart Ball:

The original server is down but you can play this cute little Smart Ball emulator on my website and get the source code on Github.

Pajatso:

The next handful of entries are all from the same great site.  Emulation really doesn't capture the aesthetic essence of most of these, and least of all would be the pajatso one, but how often are you ever going to get to try a full-sized Nordic Pajatso machine in real life?  Yeah, I thought so.  (answer: maybe at Fun Spot, and/or some cool spots in Europe)

But you can at least see what the mechanics are all about.  Play pajatso online (Flash required)

Big Strike Bowling:

You might recognize the layout from Chicago Coin's 1972 Mini-Baseball, and you'd be correct!  They stole the design directly from a series of popular German wall machines in the 60s.  Play some of the bowling classic here.

Tooty Fruity:

A novel 1970s drop-case machine from Crompton's, I love the aesthetics of this one.  Drop coins in to play, make 3 or 4 in a row to get paid out.  Very satisfying, play it here.  You're probably not going to ever encounter one outside of the UK.

Bajazzo:

The classic clown-catcher!  One of the oldest coin-op games out there.  Rotate the clown to the right to release a ball.  Catch the ball in your basket and return it to the left to win a coin!

These fetch $1k-$2k USD at auctions so don't expect to play one casually any time soon.   Play bajazzo now!