Custom pinball theme

[channelmaniac]

Hey everyone,

 

I'm looking for ideas on some cool box art that isn't too busy, but yet represents some of the best games on the 2600 for a custom pinball theme I want to do.

 

The pinball is a Magic City and the layout can be seen here

 

The words Magic City would be replaced with ATARI 2600 and the star with an Atari logo and 60s/70s styled artwork of game elements used around the board. Text would be done in the appropriate fonts. All the game logic (electromechanical) is being ripped out and replaced with Arduinos and the NeoPixel RGB LEDs replacing all the old incandescent bulbs for greater ability to customize game play rules.

 

There are 7 plastics around the playfield and I'm looking at Asteroids, Missile Command, Super Breakout, Video Pinball, Warlords, Yars Revenge, and Space Invaders for these and looking to see what favorites you might think would be better than those. I left Combat off since I felt the 4 section art would be too busy for small plastics and thought that Warlords catalog shot could be flipped left to right and used on both sides of the ball drain plastics at the bottom of the playfield.

 

Thanks!

 

Raymond

[channelmaniac]

Got the high-res scans needed thanks to a game collector in Oklahoma.

[edladdin]

Hey everyone,

 

I'm looking for ideas on some cool box art that isn't too busy, but yet represents some of the best games on the 2600 for a custom pinball theme I want to do.

 

The pinball is a Magic City and the layout can be seen here

 

The words Magic City would be replaced with ATARI 2600 and the star with an Atari logo and 60s/70s styled artwork of game elements used around the board. Text would be done in the appropriate fonts. All the game logic (electromechanical) is being ripped out and replaced with Arduinos and the NeoPixel RGB LEDs replacing all the old incandescent bulbs for greater ability to customize game play rules.

 

There are 7 plastics around the playfield and I'm looking at Asteroids, Missile Command, Super Breakout, Video Pinball, Warlords, Yars Revenge, and Space Invaders for these and looking to see what favorites you might think would be better than those. I left Combat off since I felt the 4 section art would be too busy for small plastics and thought that Warlords catalog shot could be flipped left to right and used on both sides of the ball drain plastics at the bottom of the playfield.

 

Thanks!

 

Raymond

 

That's a cool idea! I'd love to see snapshots of the table when its complete. :-)

Ed

[channelmaniac]

 

That's a cool idea! I'd love to see snapshots of the table when its complete. :-)

Ed

 

Thanks Ed!

 

I'm planning on posting lots of pics of the build as I go along with it.

 

I've decided that the words Atari 2600 will replace the Magic City and the extra row of lights above it will have color stripes around them on the playfield representing the colored stripes in Breakout. As you hit the targets or roll over the lanes that spell out Atari 2600 that light row just above the letters will light up for each character. The 2nd row will start out white. The center target just below the 3 pop bumpers will have the Atari symbol painted on the playfield and when you hit that the 2nd row of lights will turn blue. Each time you hit a target the corresponding 2nd row light will change colors for the different colored rows in Breakout: Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Orange-Red, and Red then off (black)

 

Score values will go up each time: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 100, then zero once the target light is off.

 

It's ambitious and I have a lot of learning to do on using variables in Arduino code, but I know a few folks that I can ask about this if I get stuck. Dallas Makerspace rocks!

 

Different playfield plastics will represent different games and the 4 upper ones have switches to count hits. I'm thinking of setting up skill shots so if you hit the Yar then hit the Atari symbol it's 200 points, same for hitting Missile Command then the Atari symbol, etc. I don't want too many points since the game only has a 4 position EM score reel.

 

I have the art thanks to an Oklahoma member who scanned it at 600 DPI into a set of TIFF files. Now I just have to figure out how to actually get the files sized right and in the shape of the existing plastics. I'll have to lean on a local arcade friend whose father owns a printing business for how to do that. I'm paying him for the artwork.

 

Raymond

[+wongojack]

What a cool idea. How did this turn out?