Why refresh?

Pinball machines contain magic under their glass. The ball races around, sometimes disappearing only to reappear unexpectedly. You grow accustomed to the physics of the travel, and you grow accustomed to seeing the ball move in a way that you could have never predicted. You have goals, strategies, and desires, but so few methods to achieve those outcomes. But after a while, that magic can fade. You learn that it’s possible to earn a really good score just by repeating the same spinner over and over. Parts of the playfield go unused for days and weeks because there’s no reward for that risk. Sometimes a software shortcoming or a poorly tuned mechanism turns a fun machine into a grind.

That’s the point of PinballRefresh.com — to restore the magic.

A good light show and some well-placed sound effects, all balanced on top of some thumping soundtrack, can completely change the feel of a machine. We can offer a reward for hitting a deadly target that makes it worth the risk. We can tune the goals so that they’re just out of reach unless you’re having a one-in-a-hundred game.

And, selfishly, looking at all the corners of the playfield with a fresh eye is a really fun exercise. It’s a blast to come up with a new story for an old machine—one that still fits with the artwork and the game flow, but gives the player a completely different experience. Personally, I’m a big fan of being able to “dual boot” a machine into either original code or new. Play the original as it was shipped in 1979, or try to conquer the reimagined rules. For many of these machines, we have an advantage that the original designers didn’t have. We have decades of play time under our belts. We know all the features and bugs from their release, and we can find ways to correct mistakes that they made.

Along with reprogramming, we also enjoy tuning, detailing, and sometimes even completely restoring a machine. The goal is to refresh and enhance. The articles posted, videos shared, and products endorsed are all here to help you enjoy your investment even more. Thanks for reading!