Well if I  can come up with $9,995 — I won’t have to find the time.

Ben Heckendorn, along with famed pinball designer John Papaduik have released some more details about their upcoming “Ben Heck’s Zombie Adventureland.”

Here are some details that have been released:

1. The game will have an LCD monitor for a backglass
2. There will be 3D parts “that you design”
3. Only 99 will be made and you can place your order now
4. The game will feature magnets
5. Artwork is “hand drawn” (a dig at Stern’s Photoshop heavy art)
6. The game will feature “zombie bowling” and UFOs
7. The will feature WHITE RUBBER
8. Dual ball plungers
9. A five speaker sound system

Wow this sounds very cool. I only seem to be about $9,000 short. Please send your donations via PayPal immediately!

You can view a preview video at: http://www.pinballinventor.org/games/benheck/media/BHZA_Promo1_v02_HD.mp4.

For more information visit http://www.pinballinventor.org/games/benheck/.

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Slot machines, like pinball machines…are simply works of art and really can “make the room.” Plus they can fit into small corners of the game room where you cannot fit a pinball machine or arcade game.

So here are my top ten slot machine picks for your game room.

Addams Family — Being that the most popular pinball machine of all time is also based on the Addams Family — this is a natural choice for many people.

Creature from the Black Lagoon — This features some really sexy artwork that is very close that used on the pinball machine of the same name.

Star Wars — Stars Wars is a pretty popular gameroom theme. This skill stop pachislo machine also looks totally amazing.

Spiderman-2 — I personally own this model and for any Marvel fan — it is probably the best slot out there right now.

Lord of the Rings — Have a fantasy themed game room? Here is your ticket. Also certain to look great next your Stern LOTR pinball machine.

Austin Powers — This one had me at hearing that it played the Austin Powers theme music. Oh behave!

Indiana Jones — There have been not one, but two Indiana Jones pinball machines produced. So this IJ slot would be a good fit for many of you.

Revenge from Mars — A great choice for your game room, as this is a slot machine sequel to the pinball classics Attack from Mars and Revenge from Mars.

Rock You Queen — If you are trying to make your game room a bit like the Hard Rock Cafe — this may be the pachislo slot machine for you.

Sonic Live — This is obviously for you Sega fans out there.

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by Aaron Klygo

I’ve been a member of other pinball clubs in several other states over the years. When I moved to Iowa and realized that there wasn’t one, I decided to put my Internet skills to work. It was a “build it and they will come” attitude. Learning from previous experiences, I wanted to add some features (not all of them are implemented yet) and benefits to the club and its website.

1. Offering IFPA (International Flipper Pinball Association) affiliated tournaments to increase our competitive members’ WPPR rankings.

2. Offering free leads for pinball machines and arcade games for sale in and around the Iowa area. To do this, I created a simple online form for local game owners to solicit club members. After all, our club members are their target market. This often results in the best price for the games’ owner. Additionally, the fact that we pay cash and pick up your machine only helps!

3. Hosting or going to a home game room party can be a flippin’ good time! Being around like-minded home arcade fanatics who can, and often do, beat your high score gives you a new goal to shoot for. It’s beyond exciting!

The main reason to start a local pinball club is friendship and community. Online resources like Pinside.com are useful. However, a buddy who can come over and help you diagnose a problem is priceless! Besides, afterwards you’ve got to “stress test” the game by playing it!

Since it’s inception, the club has been steadily gaining members. We are currently up to 15 members, which is pretty good considering that the website isn’t that old, and exposure has been somewhat limited until now. The good news is the site has already received several pinball machines and video arcade games for sale in Iowa. There have even been some games from other states that have been posted on our website.

The Iowa Pinball Clubis located online at www.IowaPinballClub.com. We host get togethers at members’ home game rooms, local bars, and arcades with playable pinball machines.

My goal as the founding member is to motivate members to host pinball parties and IFPA affiliated tournaments on a regular basis. If you get 8 members to host 2 parties a year you’ll be flip’n busy playing pinball!

Guide to starting your own pinball or arcade game related club:

Today, you don’t need to be a “tech savvy” nerd to create a useful website, though it sure helps! There are lots of free tools out there. Do a quick search for Content Management Systems like WordPress, Drupal,or Joomla! They are quite easy after the initial setup. I chose html5 for Iowa Pinball Club’s website and hope to add a wiki page soon. Websites are evolutionary, so take your time! Start small and it will grow and so will the amount of members.

Everyone collects for their own reasons.

I always find it interesting to hear what possessed a person to start collecting pinball machines! So I asked a fellow Iowa Pinball Club member by the name of Nick Manwarren, who just so happened to have designed the club’s logo, to share his story. I have included it here to close out the club’s article.

The Beginning of an Addiction

“Whacca whacca whacca”, is all you heard coming out of my living room. The year was 1987, and I was at the pinnacle of my Pac-Man career. The Pac-Man cartridge had been in the Atari 2600 for a least 5 hrs, and I was still going strong. Not bad for being 7 at the time. “Time to Eat!” yelled my mom from the kitchen. It had been time to eat for the last half hour, but I didn’t care, I was eating. For dinner I was having small yellow pellets like it was going out of style. I was truly in the zone. Then out of nowhere everything went dark, and I was left looking at my reflection on the black television tube. My father had pulled the plug, and I was devastated.

Flash forward to 22 years later, now being 2009. Here I was staring at the blank, non-working glass on a 1978 Gottlieb Charlie’s Angles pinball machine. It was a gift for my wife’s 30th birthday. I had no idea of the world I was about to uncover.

I have always been interested in the lights and sounds of the arcade. My family had a membership to a resort, in Northwest Iowa called Cutty’s. It had tons of things to do for kids who were growing up. It was a place for firsts too; first time I kissed a girl, first time I smoked a cigarette, and the first time I ever played pinball. The game was Williams’ 1986 classic, High Speed. I was probably around 10 when I played for the first time. I was instinctively drawn to the lights and sounds of High Speed, it was exciting. But my love affair would be short lived, as there was more of an influx of arcade games coming in and moving the pinball machines out. Some of my favorite arcade games remember playing were: Toobin‘, Out Run, Cowboys of Moo Mesa (I know this one is weird!) Street Fighter 2 and TMNT. The pinball machines took a back seat for many years, until my wife turned 30. I couldn’t think of a thing to get her for her birthday. I was stumped!

It was a sleepless night when I shot out of bed and remembered that she was promised a pinball machine for her 10th birthday, and she never got it. It was kind of a running joke around the house, but I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to surprise her with one 20 years after she was let down.

I went to my computer and looked on eBay, and to my surprise there was one in my town for $150. Wow, I can swing that, I thought. So the next day, I called and arranged a time to meet up with the seller. I took a little road trip about 10 minutes away, and there she was.. in a Morton building not used for 10 years. a 1978 Gottlieb Charlie’s Angles. The playfield was in great condition. The backglass on the other hand, was a different story. About less then half of the paint was gone. I talked him down to $100 and my first purchase was complete.

I was so green that day. I had no idea what I was doing, I look back and cringe at all the classic rookie mistakes that I made. For starters, I had nobody there to help me load it. When I finally got it in my truck, I still had the legs on it, so it was sitting upright. The head of the machine was also still attached…and oh yeah, I didn’t have any tie downs. Seriously, I am not making this up. By the grace of the pinball gods, I finally made it home without spilling that thing on the highway.

The next two years were spent learning and soaking up as much information as I could. I listened to every podcast I could find, read every book I could grab. I didn’t even know there were different companies, different games designers, and illustrators. I took Charlie to see a doctor, and he got her operational. She had the normal older machines problems, battery corrosion on the MPU board, new power supply, but $200 in parts later she is a tank. It wouldn’t be long until I felt the itch for another pin. I bought a 1979 Williams TriZone. It needed a little love, but not much. There is something very special about the late 70s and early 80s artwork. I love it. I have also added a Neo-Geo 160 in 1 Cart Arcade machine to the collection.

From here the obsession grows, bigger and probably more annoying then ever according to my wife, but I always tell here that it’s her fault. I am now in the process of getting my third pin. I hope to add a High Speed to the arsenal to make everything come full circle.

The people I have meet so far in my pinball travels have been amazing, very patient and willing to teach and share their knowledge. I think without the power of the internet, the pinball hobby would be in a sad state. People willing to share their knowledge are the key, that is why I have joined groups like the Iowa Pinball Club and various forums. It takes networking to keep this hobby alive.

~Nick Manwarren

Speaking of Monopoly, a wonderful documentary film about Monopoly was released today both on DVD and iTunes.

It is called Under the Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story.

Check out the trailer below:

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Well that can be easier said than done.

Real pinball machines out on location are getting harder and harder to find. And even if you are lucky enough to find a pinball machine in public to play — it likely is not working properly. Most location pinballs are extremely dirty, have lights that are out, or volume too low to hear. Not exactly the best way to get a true feel for how good a game is.

There are re-creations of real pinball machines you can play on Visual Pinball, but the physics and graphics could be much better. Additionally Visual Pinball only runs on PCs (Mac users like myself are left out of the party).

Future Pinball features even better physics and graphics. It can achieve truly realistic pinball simulations. There are many classics recreated for Future Pinball as well. Again though, Future Pinball is PC only. It also requires a fairly new machine with a very beefy graphics card. It won’t even run on my old PC laptop.

There have been games out for the Playstation 3, XBox 360 and Wii that are great. There are games featuring collections of old Williams games and Gottlieb games. But still something is missing and just does not feel right in the act of sitting down and looking up at a TV screen.

Not to mention the family TV is always in competition for use between various family members.

Well finally there is a better way. The Pinball Arcade has just been released for the Apple iPad and Apple iPhone. It is also out for Android.

It is the first iPad pinball game to feature real machines, running their original rules, sounds and the entire package.

Pinball Arcade is currently priced at 99 cents and comes with one pinball machine — Tales from the Arabian Nights. If you want to play added games — you need to buy them separately for $3.99 or buy the entire package for $8.99.

The extra games are Theatre of Magic, Black Hole, and Ripley’s Believe it Or Not. Speaking of Ripley’s…this is the first time a Stern game has been featured in any pinball video game.

The physics and graphics of Pinball Arcade are all top notch. The performance is even superb on an original iPad — which I was a bit concerned about.

If you have played any of the console versions mentioned above, the iPad version is very much the same. You have the ability to tweak some of the game settings, have multiple choices of views, get badges for certain in-game achievements, and can read detailed rules about how to play the game.

Many future added games should be available for download. According to the developer:

“Each month two new pinball tables will be added to the lineup and players will be able to sample free versions of each release (including the launch tables). Paid versions of each table will be available individually or in “themed” packs which will be released over the next several years as downloadable content. “With the licenses we’re acquiring, we’ll be able to re-create nearly all of the highest-ranked tables in pinball history. ”

You can also compete via online leaderboards.

“We are building an online community of virtual pinball players using shared leaderboards, friends leaderboards, and coming later this year, head-to-head online play modes and cross platform tournaments.”

At least until I get around to building a real video pinball simulator, this is going to be my favorite way to test out games from now on.

It also will be my preferred method of getting a pinball fix — when access to a real machine is impossible.

Pinball Arcade is highly recommended for any iPad, iPhone, or Android device owning pinball fans.

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The Florida Arcade and Pinball Expo is just about here.

In fact below are pictures of the setup. Looks like a great list of games coming this year.

Many thanks to all of the hard-working volunteers who help make this happen. It sure looks like it is going to be the best APE ever!

For more information visit http://www.floridaape.org.

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I have seen all kinds of crazy things used to decorate game rooms — so this certainly fits the bill. Plus you can also get a few meals out of it.

From the General Mills press release:

“Consumers are drawn to nostalgia, and that’s exactly what Big G is bringing to the table this year with graphics from Atari classics like Asteroids, Centipede, and Missile Command featured on the back of each participating cereal. Navigate your way through breakfast with Big G cereals and the Asteroids maze, finding the clone and testing your knowledge with Atari trivia. Once packages hit Target stores, consumers can also check out www.grocerysavvy.com to further test their skills at Centipede and to enter in a sweepstakes for a chance to win Target Gift Cards and Atari merchandise. ”

The cereals that are featuring Atari games are: Cinnamon Toast Crunch® (17 oz.), Lucky Charms® (16 oz.), Honey Nut Cheerios® (17 oz.), Cheerios® (18 oz.) and Cocoa Puffs® (16.5 oz.).

Remember these are only going to be available at Target.

So be on the lookout.

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It is called the Game Room Scoreboard and is made in the USA by Funtronix.

The scoreboard is a great utility for your game room — especially if you have a ping-pong table, foosball or an air hockey table.

This way there should be no more scoring disputes in the game room.

The unit comes with a handy remote control. To keep score you would simply add a point to the home team or the guest team as your game progresses. You can also easily subtract a point in the case of error or penalty.

Game Room Scoreboard Remote

The scoreboard will also do timed games — when the time is up in the period the buzzer goes off. I was hoping it would be a really loud and obnoxious one like you have at basketball games. The buzzer sounds nothing like that, which is probably a good thing for most people.

The scoreboard is not very heavy at all and would easily hang on your wall. It even comes with a few nails to mount it. Additionally the Game Room Scoreboard comes with an AC adapter.

It also will keep and display time and can be used as a timer. So maybe you want to only play pinball for 15 minutes because you have somewhere to be.

Simply set the scoreboard and watch the timer count down and the buzzer will let you know when it is time to go.

All in all I was impressed with this. For game rooms with a sports theme, this thing is almost a must buy. For those that are looking for a handy way to keep track of scoring — and keep the peace in the game room — this might just be your ticket.

Learn more about the Game Room Scoreboard at http://funtronixonline.com/snt-120g-gameroom-scoreboard.html.

My favorite in the series is The Pinball Compendium 1982 to the Present. As the title would indicate, this covers pinball machines from the solid-state era right up to the machines made in the past few years.

This is my favorite era of pinball, but whatever your preferred era, Shalhoub has your covered.

There is a brand new edition of 1982 to the Present book coming soon. You can pre-order it. This will update the book to cover games from 2005 and beyond.

The obvious benefit is newer games such as Iron Man can be included in the mix. But also the original edition was out of print and only available used at much more than it cost new.

The great thing about all of these books is that the author made contact with the designers, technicians, and managers who actually worked on the games. This gives you the inside scoop on how these classics came to be.

You can gain some interesting insights about the games this way and there are some engaging stories here.

The books are also riddled with great photography all around.

These are easily my most treasured pinball books. The Complete Pinball Book is wonderful, but the Compendium books give you more in depth coverage.

Additionally they are special because the books cover nearly every game made — not just the most popular or groundbreaking pinball machines.

For More Information:

• The Pinball Compendium 1982 to the Present
• The Pinball Compendium: 1970-1981
• Pinball Compendium: The Electro-Mechanical Era
• The Pinball Compendium, 1930s-1960s

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First it shows a walkthrough of Crabtowne U.S.A. — a Maryland restaurant with a huge arcade filled with classic vids, as well as a ton of pinball machines.

Speaking of pinball, later in the video is recent footage of the National Pinball Museum in Baltimore, MD.

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