Time to celebrate the pinball design wizardry of Mark Ritchie (see: Mark Ritchie Back After 25+ Years with Pulp Fiction – List of His 16 Pinball Creations To Date), with a live tribute event at our PGM Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/playgamesmoredotcom live streaming from 6am – 10am PST (GMT-8).
We’re planning to spend the entire live stream today playing pinball based on Ritchie’s designs, learning more about the man and his work created to date. Twin Galaxies acknowledged his work back in 2011 on a trading card (pictured right) featuring Ritchie’s induction into the Pinball Hall of Fame in 2011.
Did you know there were Twin Galaxies “video game & pinball hall of fame trading cards”? It looks like these were distributed at various conventions and on the TG website back around 2010. If you visit the TG site (https://www.twingalaxies.com/forumdisplay.php/446-Vote-On-Performances) now, there seems to be no mention of these cards. TG went through an ownership change when current owner Jace Hall took over, so that might explain why some of the former ownership Walter Day era has been changed, but don’t really know the full history there.
Anyway, Ritchie was honored and inducted at the Pinball Expo Hall of Fame on October 22, 2011. The Pinball Expo Hall of Fame website is located here: https://pinballexpo.com/hall-of-fame/ and it appears there are still yearly Walter Day Card Inductees happening yearly being awarded. We can research this together on today’s live stream as well.
This event’s featured pins based on Mark Ritchie designs for the next two weeks (9/20/2023 – 10/3/2024):
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Firepower 2 (1983)
Sorcerer (1985)
Road Kings (pinball) (1986)
Big Guns (1987)
Taxi (1988)
Police Force (1989)
Diner (1990)
Fish Tales (1992)
Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure (1993)
Pinball Magic (1995)
Airborne (1996)
Breakshot (1996)
Big Bang Bar (1996)
Kingpin (1996)
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Here is the fun part, YOU can play, too. All you need is Virtual Pinball and sometimes Future Pinball software and the table files which are all free to download. There is a spreadsheet where we share where to acquire the necessary pinball table files linked on every page at this blog and also here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iRcwa4znh8FL-0DdME5XNcQCM-CTjeTdPnfNcTrh9-E/edit?usp=sharing. Be sure to use default settings for all tables, unless otherwise noted and make sure you’re playing the version listed in the yellow highlight at the top of our iScored leaderboard page. Then, simmply, play the game and try and beat your personal best. Once you’ve done so, share the score.
You can share on our PGM iScored here: https://www.iscored.info/?mode=public&user=Playgamesmore — this is also listed on every page here at the PGM website. Once we see some scores and activity one of our PGM members will add you to our semi-private Discord where we score chase all kinds of different games: arcade games, modern Steam games, we stream games, play co-op and more. As of this writing we’re also score chasing arcade games and recapping them on Saturday mornings.
NOTE: This Mark Ritchie Tribute event is in place of our normal Humpday Wednesday Pinball stream.
In the meantime, come to the live stream, share your virtual and/or real pinball adventures. Yes, we play real pinball, too. Go out and find real pinball machines to play at surrounding businesses and score chase. We are a friendly group, open to all adult gamers at least 18 years of age. Please stop by the live Twitch stream and say hello to us. Now, let’s flip some pinball!
Wednesday Humpday Pinball tables featured
– all Virtual Pinball unless noted otherwise
- THIS – Wed 9/20 – 10/2/2023 – Virtual Pinball Tribute To Mark Ritchie – playing 14 of 16 tables based on pinball machines created by Mark Ritchie
- #11 (9/13 – 9/19/2023) THIS WEEK – Jaws – Bigger Boat Edition (FP Fizx3) | The Labryinth | Megaman (Original 2023)
- #10 (9/6 – 9/12/2023) Indiana Jones – Fortune and Glory Edition (FP FizX3) | Big Bang Bar (Capcom 1996) | Police Force VP10.8 v1.0
- #9 (8/30 – 9/5/2023) Robocop – Dead or Alive Edition (FizX3.0) | Gorgar VPX v1.1 | Tales of the Arabian Nights 4K VPX v1.5
- #8 (8/23 – 8/29/2023) Blade Runner – Replicant Edition (Future Pinball FizX 3) | Class of 1812 (Gottlieb 1991) | TX-Sector (Gottlieb 1988)
- #7 (8/16 – 8/22/2023) Aliens Legacy (Future Pinball FizX3) | Super Mario Bros (Gottlieb 1992) | Theatre of Magic (Bally 1995)
- #6 (8/9 – 8/15/2023) Austin Powers (Stern 2001) | IT Pinball Madness | Terminator 3 (Stern 2003)
- #5 (8/2 – 8/9/2023): Simpson’s Pinball Party (Stern 2003) | Starship Troopers (Sega 1997) | Back To The Future (Data East 1990)
- #4 (7/26 – 8/01/2023): Aerosmith (Stern Pro Tribute 2017) | Lord of the Rings Valinor Edition | The X-Files
- #3 (7/19 – 7/25/2023): The Walking Dead LE | Batman (Data East 1991) | Leprechaun King
- #2 (7/12 – 7/18/2023) Metallica Premium Monsters VPX v1.1 | Swords of Fury VPX v1.01 | Transformers VPX Marcade MOD Edition 1.2 | – No feature article
- #1 (7/5- 7/11/2023) Baseball (Gottlieb 1970) v2.0.0f | Sands of the Aton VPX v1.0 – No feature article