The prehistory

This is supposed to be the history of Pinballs on Macintosh. But before the Mac, Apple turned out some sleek machines and, at least on Apple II, a host of games was available. Sam (make sure you know who Sam is: Sam Gabrielsson is the chief honcho of this Best Pinball-Web-site) is giving a brief presentation of the (apparently) only pinball game on the Apple II: Raster Blaster.

I have tried to find some indication on the Web for games developed for the Apple III and Lisa but to no avail. We can safely surmise that no pinball did exist on these machines. So we can move to our main topic:


Mac Pinballs

When the Mac first appeared it was a supersleek machine but the only available games were of a quality well below that of Apple II games. The lack of colour was a serious limitation for players and developers and it plagued the Mac till the appearance of Mac II. I do not believe that Raster Blaster was ever available for the Mac, so, the first Mac Pinball was the Pinball Construction Set (1985). I have never seen this game in action. The only time somebody tried to show it to me, the game bombed immediately and we had to abort the test. From what people say the physics was, well, totally irrealistic but the fact that you could build your own pinball table might have been interesting. There were probably shareware tables for Pinball Construction Set but I do not think you can find them any more. Moreover Pinball Construction Set plays only on old Macs. However if you have not one of these old jewels there is still some hope using the Mac Plus emulator (read more below).

The first pinball, LittleWing and Amtex

The first Mac Pinball worth the pinball name was Tristan (1991) by Littlewing. This game was the first in a long series by Fujita-san (with graphics by Reiko-san). Although the table was a little simplistic the physics were marvelous with that special Littlewing touch (realism but also some cheating with the gravity laws whenever it's needed in order to make the game interesting). The game was produced by Amtex and had a crazy protection (look-up table, but at least you could photocopy it). Pretty soon a broken (i.e. protection removed) version of the game appeared and I have always played it since. (My rationale is that since I have payed for the game I can spare myself the trouble of looking up the codes). Soon after Tristan, Amtex produced 8 Ball Deluxe (1992) a simulator of the pinball with the same name by Bally. The code was written by Littlewing again and it represented a substantial improvement over Tristan. Amtex announced also Royal Flush and Funhouse for both Mac and PC's but only the PC version of the first appeared. I had preordered the Mac Royal Flush and since nothing was coming I enquired directly at Amtex whereupon I learned that the Funhouse project was cancelled and that Royal Flush was under development. Well, we know now that Amtex was moribund at the time: no more pinball will be coming from this direction. (My regret is that we shall never get to play Funhouse on the Mac and put the android to sleep).

Littlewing moved to StarPlay and produced two more great pinballs. Both were 2D but they had a better 3D look-and-feel with ramps and tunnels. The physics were top quality as always. The first Crystal Caliburn (1993) is by far the most challenging and indeed the most interesting although quite frustrating at times. Loony Labyrinth (1994) came soon after and was clearly a much easier game. The only point is that once you learned how to play every game took so long that it became boring. This was taken care of with a patch that limited the number of extra balls. The protection on these pinballs was perfectly acceptable. You had to install from the master disks, giving a serial number, every time a system change was detected. However this was a feature that worked only with the older systems: clearly system 8 is beyond the recognition capabilities of these old pinballs.

Sierra and Maxis

At this point Starplay went on to publish other, non-pinball games, Littlewing disappeared and the Mac-pinball fans started becoming frustrated. Still two new actors entered the scene: Sierra and Maxis. The first published 3D Ultra Pinball (1995) a three-table game with a 3D look and really lousy physics. At the beginning of computer pinballs I was thinking that it would be interesting to include effects impossible in a real pinball. (Already Crystal Caliburn contained some such element with more than one balls locked in the dragon's cave but this is a minor effect). The first Sierra pinball contained several such effects and this cured me permanently: effects just spoil the simulation. The first Maxis pinball, Full Tilt 1 (1996), a three-table game, was slightly better than 3D Ultra Pinball, as far as physics is concerned, but its interest was limited. Moreover the code was so processor-intensive that it could not play on my 180C, 68030 equiped, powerbook. This was due probably to the fact that the first table (Space Cadet) was specially developed for Windows 95 and had somehow to respect the Microsoft tradition that you must constantly upgrade in order to keep up.

pro pinball...

While playing the old Littlewing pinballs out of frustration I came across an announcement in a french Mac magazine of a new pinball. It was produced by an english company, Empire. I called them, ordered the pinball and a miracle happened. Pro Pinball, The Web (1996) arrived and metamorphosed the computer-pinball world. The simulation was smooth, the game interesting; everything was done cleverly and with exquisitely good taste. Moreover the code was so nice that it played perfectly on the very same 180C that chocked up on the Maxis pinball. The protection by that time had become standard: CD in the drive. This was the source of a further problem for me and another occasion to appreciate the Empire people. When I upgraded my powerbook to a 3400 with a CD drive (even Mac people must upgrade from time to time) the program could not recognize the drive and refused to play, requesting the presence of the CD in the drive. I called the support at Empire and (after some time, admittedly) I obtained a patch that allows everything to run smoothly.

1996 and on...

Sierra continued to produce pinballs for the Mac and the second in the series of 3D Ultra Pinballs, Creep Night (1996), was a substantial improvement over the first. The physics was better, the 3D effects more realistic and a touch of humour made the game more playable. Still this was clearly not a simulation and after having tasted ProPinball everything else was bound to look bland. Maxis came back again with the second installement of its series, Full Tilt 2 (1997). Contrary to Sierra there was no improvement in this second pinball. There were more special effects, the graphics more 3D looking but the game was even less interesting and the short tables quite unrealistic. Sierra continued with the third pinball of the series, The Lost Continent (1997), in fact a mixture of pinball and arcade game where the pinball part does not play the principal role. Given the delay between the publication of a PC game and its Mac counterpart at that time we already knew that Empire was preparing the second ProPinball: Timeshocks for the Mac. It came out in the early 1998 and it was a small marvel. The simulation was even better than before, the table even more interesting, the graphics gorgeous. What is really amazing is that a 10-ball multiball plays as smoothly as a single-ball game. As of the time of this writing (June 98) I feel that I have not even scratched the surface of the possibilities of Timeshocks: numerous hours of intensive play are needed for this and this has to wait for the summer vacations.

Is that all?

Is that all? Well, not quite. First a resurrection occured. Royal Flush (remember the Amtex project) resurfaced (1998) as a freeware pinball. Its author, Gerard Putter, had been hired by Amtex to port the game to Mac. Since they disappeared without paying him a dime he considered that he could do as he wished with this pinball and thus he offered it to the Mac pinball fans at large. The port is great: the game plays even more smoothly than the PC original. As I keep playing it I cannot help thinking that the simulation part of the code must have been written by Littlewing. Probably Amtex got the code from them (they were collaborating at the time, remember) and would use it to build the simulations of classical pinballs. I guess that we have to ask Fujita-san if we wish to learn the truth. And this brings us to the second miracle of 98: the rediscovery of Littlewing. They have not disappeared and somehow Sam (remember? our Webmaster) managed to locate them. They are always active and have produced another Mac Pinball: Angel Egg (1996-98). They have a Web site (unfortunately in japanese) but when I wrote them, they responded that they are preparing the english version of their site and also of Angle Egg but these projects do not get top priority because they are actively preparing another Mac pinball: Golden Logres. Somehow I feel that 98 is shaping up to be the best year as far as Mac pinballs are concerned.

I do not pretend the list of pinballs above to be exhaustive. First there are some pinball looking games which, well, kick at a ball with flippers. Do they qualify as piinballs? I guess not but we may as well mention them. One is the Timon and Pumba jungle pinball on the Disney Lion King CD. The other is the pinball on Monty Python's Total Loss of Time CD. Moreover I remember reading that somebody had produced (bad quality) pinball games for the PC using the Click & Play application. Although Click & Play was no big success on the Mac there may exist some Mac pinball table out there written with this application.

the difference, mac - pc

Finally before moving to other subjects one small word on what is the difference between a PC pinball and a Mac one. Usually on a Mac you install a game by clicking on an installer application and, sometimes, answering one or two questions concerning your choice. You do not have to worry about sound or graphic cards and above all you do not have to put up with this monstrosity of an operating system that is Windows in its various disguises. Apart from that the games ususally play the same. Still the problem is that you get so many more pinballs for the PC as compared to the Mac. So, let's move on to the next section.


Non-Mac pinballs

how to play them

When you are a pinball fan and read about all these PC pinballs which will never be ported on the Mac you may feel jealous (until you read the analysis of each and realise that the best pinballs are ported to the Mac). Still, if you are a pinball boulimic you may wish to play these pinballs too. I can see three ways to do this. First is to buy a PC. This is a no-no for a Mac fan (unless one day the Microsoft monster disappears in which case the PC world would recover its sanity). Second, find a pinball-friend who owns a PC and play the games on his/her machine. Third, use an emulator.

emulating a pc

From the beginning of the Mac there have been attempts to emulate the functioning of a PC with software. Soft PC, by Insignia, was the first commercial succesful product which graduated to Soft Windows after a while. I have used Soft PC (not Soft Windows) but not for anything even remotely close to pinball playing and I can say one thing: it worked. It was excruciatingly slow but it worked. With the appearance of fast PowerPC processors on the Mac emulation became a realistic goal. The real revolution came with Virtual PC, by Connectix, which introduced the concept of emulation of the processor i.e. the software was emulating the hardware of a full fledged PC. Insignia followed soon afterwards with Real PC, based on the same concept but without Windows installation. (The Real PC engine is now incorporated in the Soft Windows emulator.) There is also talk of a third emulator, Blue Label, but it is under preparation for so long that I wonder whether it is becoming vapourware.

Other emulators: