iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

and there's my answer! Human Amusement *ahem* were up to some weird stuff indeed

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

oh cool, english coverage of BUMPING PUCKS from the 03 issue

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

what on earth was Human Entertainment up to with this contraption

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

been a busy couple o'weeks

a pair of 3d-printed small-scale replicas of a pinball machine's backbox, lit from within. each one serves as a trophy for a different pinball event: the left one is for 4th place in a "classics/midatchplay" tournament, the right one was for 2nd place in the finals of a bi-weekly league series.

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

the jetpack in #slimerancher2 is an optional upgrade

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

soooooo close, Stern, yer SO close

A cropped photo of a "rules card" on a pinball machine (Stern Pinball's "Star Wars: Fall of the Empire"). The bottom-right corner features a QR code with a call to "Scan for detailed rules." However, the QR code is unusable because it is slightly cropped off at the corner - the same corner where the card is designed to slot into the card holder on the pinball machine.

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

arcade staff was fixing up Guitar Hero Arcade, and in the switch test, there's an odd sight: a phone keypad, something that this game never uses. which got me wondering - did Raw Thrills plan to include a PIN system for players to save high scores, as they had with some of their other arcade games?

the "switch test" menu for Guitar Hero Arcade. there are indicators for each guitar's frets and strum bars, as well as for the buttons on the cabinet and the coin receptors. curiously, a numeric keypad is also represented on this screen, despite Guitar Hero Arcade not using one for input in any capacity.

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

fun bit in the Sammy flyer's page for Extreme Down Hill

(japanese text from a flyer for new video games, detailing two modes of play for a skiing game.
an english translation was originally included in the flyer, with a peculiar comment:
"This game has 2 modes of play: Story Mode and Time Mode."
"Story Mode: Ski world courses starting from the first stage and create a dramatic story. (I am not sure what story you are creating - I couldn't get past the first course)."
"Time Mode: Choose one out of eight stages and go for the course record!"

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

the little pictograms in the copy for Sportsman Roll are amazing (it's certainly selling me on that gator trapdoor feature)

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

#pinball improving my score game-to-game on King Kong has resulted in me seeing this animation a lot over the last couple of weeks. quite the reward (pretty sure that voice is one of the human characters')

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 21/06/2025

KING KONG: MYTH OF TERROR ISLAND (Stern Pinball, 2025) - fantastic four-flipper game! love the U-turn & ramp that allows for volleying balls between both upper flippers. the "Deadeye" mode was a ton of fun: get plunger auto-fire 30 seconds, but flippers are turned off - go for plunger skill shots!

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

Paul Faris drew a short comic as part of the promotional material for the pinball table! An alien ruler directs her soldiers to invade Earth, and a boy watches inside an empty arcade as aliens escape a Space Invaders video game, transforming into the pinball table www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?i...

"Before his eyes, in the darkness, the assembled creatures began to change form."
"THUMP... THUMP... THUMP.. THUMP.." (bgm)
"...Rising slowly from the floor."
"The final stage: 'Space Invaders' The Pinball!"
(A few panels of a comic from 1980 about the Space Invaders pinball machine, painted by Paul Faris, who also created the artwork for the pinball machine itself. the comic shows aliens from the Space Invaders video game escaping into reality, then assuming formation and transforming into a sort of xenomorph-pinball hybrid.)
(cropped from https://www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=2252&picno=43949&zoom=1)

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 01/06/2025

accessorized a lil at pride market

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

#pinball #typography seems like they're tryin reeeeeeally hard to make this font work across a variety of possible backdrops

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

#pinball showcase: 007 60th ANNIVERSARY EDITION (Stern, 2023) - a limited-edition game designed by a top pinball player, featuring no less than five spinning targets. getting all of the spinners to turn in one combo is incredibly satisfying (and gives extra points each time!)

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

and of course, i HAVE to include this very important decision made at the start of every game

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

#pinball showcase: LETHAL WEAPON 3 (Data East, 1992) - a significant amount of this playfield (and ruleset!) focuses on the fact that this is, in fact, the -*third* in a series of buddy-cop movies. get the Super Joe Pesci Mystery (not really called that) for Super Duper Pops (actually called that)

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

this particular "snubber" on my local EJ (the JJP manual calls 'em that) takes the brunt of a lot of full-power shots, and it's showing. even broke a bit of the plastic above it

a close-up of a "snubber", a small blue rubber block wedged between steel plates, serving as an obstacle on the "Elton John" pinball machine by Jersey Jack Pinball. there is a peculiar crescent-shaped dent in the steel plates, suggesting that many pinballs have impacted this block at high speed.

opposite-angle view of the "snubber" block, with a similar crescent-shaped dent in the plates. looking at the hex-post past the snubber, there is evidence that a large plastic light shield has had a piece snapped off near the snubber.

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

speaking of which! auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/c...

the front of a promotional flyer for "BUMPING PUCKS", a 1998 medal game by Konami. the large, circular arcade cabinet has six terminals surrounding a domed air hockey arena, with a spinning bumper at its center (which would presumably flick pucks around the arena.) between the terminals, metal tubing supports a large centerpiece that hangs over the dome. the flyer depicts six cartoon animal characters and touts some of the game's features in japanese text.

the back of the flyer for "BUMPING PUCKS". mostly japanese text, detailing features of the game and its physical specifications. two game features have an english title: "Power Slot" and "Panic Race".
photos orginally downloaded 03-31 from https://auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/c1171924260

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

neat to see that "Professional" replacement back-glass on display! www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?...

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

from the 01/98 issue: - print clubs are everywhere; make your location stand out with a steel desk for people to cut out their stickers - cabs for digital pachinko games which let players try the slots directly - SNK's phone booth that dispenses keychains which replay custom voice-recordings - ???

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

#pinball wild cameo in the new dungeons & dragons table #spiralknights

a promotional image of Stern Pinball's latest table, "Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant's Eye", featuring a sculpture of a blue Gelatinous Cube. Foreign objects, such as the weapons and bones of its victims, can be seen sticking out of the edges of the cube. The cube has a tunnel running through its base for a ball to pass through; the game is also able to use an electromagnet to trap the ball inside the cube, leading to multiball play. (source URL: https://sternpinball.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Dungeon73-adfkjehfa3.jpg)

A screenshot of the PC game, "Spiral Knights", featuring a blue gelatinous cube. Three knights in various armors are standing near a console, while the cube rests a few paces away. One of the knights, evidently an NPC, has a speech bubble reading: "Don't mind Hubert, he's been de-spiked." ("Jelly Cubes" in Spiral Knights grow spikes and fangs along their edges as the game progresses in difficulty.)

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

big upscore on John Wick today, from 220M to 374M! made tons of ramp shots during a Gather Intel round for ~70M, played some good Excommunicado & Deconsecrated multiballs for ~50M each, and finished the Kirill fight for ~55M also, getting better at rescuing the ball from doom beneath the crate

Grand Champion score on a John Wick pinball machine: 374,137,800 by IWG

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

@kineticist.com huge crossover just dropped youtu.be/GcVUUQexQvc?...

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

got the B besides shooting a few dozen Victory Laps, this game had a big Champ Multiball session (~250M) and a halfway-complete 4-Milestone Final Tour (~75M)

Elton John Pinball Grand Champion (high score) : 1,013,983,630 points

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 09/11/2024

this game also had a unique "Skill Level" system: players can pick from 3 levels before launching the first ball. higher levels multiply all scoring, while also making it harder to score higher-value targets or activate the ball-saver gates in the outlanes. are the extra Millions worth the risk?

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 08/11/2024

#pinball review: FRONTIER (Bally, 1980) - a competitive darling, thanks to a pretty well-balanced set of rules. go thru the top lanes and hit the red targets to fill out their respective column in the "Den of Predators," or take risky shots at the Grizzly drop targets to unlock Frontier Falls up top

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 08/11/2024

#pinball review: VIKING (Bally, 1980) - a pretty neat early-era solid-state pinball game, with... ...hang on a second

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 22/10/2024

more Bird pictures! some small doodle commissions from @sacrednanners.bsky.social over the last few years. slushie pic is a common mood for me.

coten looking bored, reclining, sucking on a slushie. living within walking distance of <convenience store> encourages certain habits. grape slushie is an excellent choice of drink for harsh winter weather.

holding a pile of six "bun-chan" plush birds. based on a trick I discovered in Yakuza: Like A Dragon where exploiting / restocking a certain claw machine at the very start of the game lets players earn tons of cash from the pawn shop before enemies even start appearing on the map.

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 20/10/2024

the piano ramp shot keeps "rattling out" on what looks like a well-aimed shot... i wonder if ball-spin has anything to do with it, or maybe something on the ramp can be physically adjusted (also: this is absolutely deadly whenever it happens, look where the ball is heading at the end)

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 20/10/2024

i've swarmed nearly the entire leaderboard of my local Elton John pinball table lol excellent game with some unclear rules, a UI with tons of fine print that must be read from 3-4 feet away, and (from hearsay) some bad construction decisions from JJP that lead to frequent errors flashing on screen

A picture of an Elton John pinball machine, showing its Grand Champion (record high) score: 788,196,030 by IWG.

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coten @ndcoten.bsky.social · 18/10/2024

there's a few deer hanging out around the neighbourhood

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