Pinball (game)

Pinball is a regular pinball game for the Nintendo Entertainment System that was developed and published by Nintendo. It was first released for the Family Computer in 1984, and the same year, a VS. System version, VS. Pinball, was released worldwide. Pinball was of the 18 launch titles released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America in 1985, and was also a launch title released in Europe and Australia in 1986.

Pinball is the first released video game that Satoru Iwata programmed for Nintendo; his first Family Computer project, a 1983 home conversion of the 1982 arcade game Joust, remained unreleased for over four years until its eventual 1987 production by HAL Laboratory.

While it is not a part of the Mario franchise, Pinball features a bonus stage with Mario, who is also shown on the game's cover. Shortly before the Famicom version was released, Pinball was preceded by a Game & Watch game of the same name, which does not have any Mario-related elements.

Gameplay
Pinball is a game where the player controls the paddles of a virtual pinball machine. The game has three scenes: Scene A, Scene B, and the Bonus Stage. The goal of the game is to achieve a high score.

Gameplay begins when the player launches a ball with the striker from the bottom of Scene A to the top of Scene B. Gameplay switches between Scene A and Scene B depending on where the ball moves. In Scene A and Scene B, the player controls the flippers on either side of the screen to deflect the ball. If the ball falls off the bottom of Scene B, the player loses the ball. If the ball falls through the hole in Scene B, it enters the Bonus Stage.

If the ball falls through the hole to the right at the bottom level, the player will enter a mini-game featuring Mario and Lady.

The player controls the paddles on either screen to deflect the ball to keep it from falling off the bottom of the lower screen.

Bonus Stage
In the Bonus Stage, the player controls Mario carrying a platform. The objective of this mode is to rescue Lady by bouncing the ball off Mario's platform so it passes through bingo lamps. If all of the bingo lamps with a certain number become the same color, the floor above the lady decreases in size. If the gaps in the floor become too wide for the lady to jump over, she falls down. Mario must catch the lady using his platform and carry her to one of the exits on either side of the stage. If the lady reaches an exit, she reappears at the top of the screen. If Mario does not catch the lady or she falls off of Mario's platform, the player loses a ball. If the ball falls off the bottom of the screen, it exits the Bonus Stage and is ejected from the hole kicker in Scene A.

Controls

 * – activate striker; control left flipper
 * – control right flipper; control Mario in the Bonus Stage

Staff

 * Hirokazu Tanaka - Music Programmer
 * Satoru Iwata - Programmer
 * Satoshi Matsuoka - Programmer
 * Yukio Kaneoka - Composer

Legacy
Four versions of Pinball have been released since it was initially launched on the NES. The game was also included in Doubutsu no Mori and its Nintendo GameCube remake, Animal Crossing. In 2002 Nintendo re-released it as one of the several e-Reader games under the name Pinball-e. Pinball was one of the first titles to be ported to the Wii's Virtual Console in 2006 and for the Wii U's Virtual Console in 2013. On May 26, 2022, Pinball was released on the Nintendo Entertainment System - Nintendo Switch Online application for the Nintendo Switch in North America. On May 27, 2022, Pinball was also released for the application in other regions.

In Family BASIC, a piece of software made for the Family Computer in Japan, the penguin that appears in Pinball makes a brief appearance in Game 1 along with the Sidesteppers from Mario Bros. Both the penguin and Lady have very similar sprites as in Pinball.

In WarioWare Twisted! there is a microgame titled Pinball, which is based on the bonus stage from Pinball. The actual surface is circular instead of flat and to control Mario the player must twist the Game Boy Advance or Nintendo DS. There are three stages and each stage lasts only a couple of seconds and becomes progressively harder as the speed increases and the paddle size decreases.

Pinball is one of the 16 games featured in NES Remix and NES Remix Pack. It is also one of the unlockable Nintendo Entertainment System game demos for the Wii U application, Amiibo Tap: Nintendo's Greatest Bits.

Trivia

 * Mario's outfit on the American box art of Pinball would later be used as one of Luigi's alternate costumes in the Super Smash Bros. series, starting with Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
 * This game depicts Lady as a brunette, predating the 1994 Donkey Kong for Game Boy.