Retro Pinball King of Diamonds on location in NH for a limited time

[dmarston]

I stopped in at Funspot in Weirs Beach, NH to see what was happening in
their annual tournament. They have been having one-day-only pinball
contests on a single game. Yesterday (Thursday) was Joker Poker, today
was Al's Garage
Band Goes on a World Tour, Saturday and Sunday will each be different.
http://www.funspotnh.com
http://www.aurcade.com is handling scorekeeping

In the front room on the second level (where they have about 6 early
90s
pinballs), they had the King of Diamonds remake. I could tell it was not
the
prototype because it had a shiny coin door. Play pricing is one 5-ball
game per
token. The playfield and backglass have Gottlieb Development LLC
copyright notices. The supplementary display panel under the glass has
two sets of 1-4
lights (one for how many playing, one for which player is up),
ball-in-play, and
the Shoot Again and Game Over lights. Yes, in addition to being a
4-player
game, it also supports extra balls.

And it also has an end-of-ball bonus based on how many cards you've
made,
which I don't recall from the prototype. It seems to remember how many
"complete racks" you've made and award them in the bonus, too. Reiny:
if
you're reading this, can you elaborate on how high the bonus can go? Did
I
see a couple of the lanterns in the backglass being used to indicate
complete
racks? (Resembling the bonus system on Eight Ball DeLuxe.)

Rubber rings for the short flippers are Gottlieb A-13149 style ("beaded
flat
rings"), which I think is a nice touch.

The game is there as a form of test marketing and will only be there for
an
undetermined limited time.
................David Marston


--
dmarston
This USENET post sent from http://rgparchive.com

[Frank Furhter]

Quality on this game's PF is a huge fail.

[G]

David:

thanks for posting. Are there any pictures available to view what this
machine looks like? I just saw a mention on the NH ABC tv affiliate
WGIR that the international video tournament is taking place there
today and tomorrow. Thanks again for the heads up.

[pins4fun]

Comprehensive coverage and photos via Pinball News:

http://www.pinballnews.com/games/kingofdiamonds/index2.html

To purchase:

http://retropinball.net/index.html

[Frank Furhter]

Just so folks know, the PF is not artwork on wood, it is a sticker on
wood. Huge fail.

[G]

Thanks for the info.

[pins4fun]

The mylar playfield actually looks nice and it can be easily replaced
if need be. I'd recommend buying an extra mylar playfield along with
the pin, just in case. That said, I played this game with the
intention of buying it but decided against it due to personal
priorities. The pinballnews.com article is very informative and
balanced, but for the puritan pinballer in me, it somehow failed to
make the full grade. It's still a good pinball value for the avid
collector, IMHO

[Frank Furhter]

Even a bigger fail is that the sticker doesn't seem to want to stay
stuck on the PF, particularly around the inserts. Yep, it doesn't even
come close to being acceptable, and 3-4K is a gigantic fail in pricing
too for a simple single EM when the same amount can get you 20 project
games at least, 30 on a good month.