The Northwest Pinball and Gameroom show brought quite a crowd and at times most of the games were filled with happy gamers, trying everything from a rare Phantom Haus arcade game to a good old game of Donkey Kong. The 3 day show kicked off June 6 and brought together gamers from all over Seattle who spent hours and hours trying the many different types of games at the show. With a wide variety of games and seminars being held, the show had a lot to offer and the Elders even tried their chances biding on some of the games that were for sale. The atmosphere was something to see and especially something to hear as all of the machines ran at once, filling the air with the strangely calming sound of a busy arcade. Hit the play button to see a quick look at some of the games:

The show had some great seminars lined up from legendary pinball designer Steve Ritchie who just recently completed a new Spiderman pinball machine last year. Also speaking was Stern sound designer David Thiel, who worked with Ritchie on Spiderman, and joked about how licensing issues can affect a games sound. In contrast to some of Thiel’s other projects, Spiderman’s sound was satisfying in that his source material was master tracks of the 7.1 channels used from the last movie, giving him a lot to work with. Other guest speakers included Greg Dunlap, WMS/Bally/Stern Pinball software designer and Tim Meighan on electromechanical pinball restoration, and of course, Steve Wiebe from the King of Kong.

Steve Wiebe started his speech by explaining his thought process in deciding what topics to talk about. He stated that he could get philosophical or he could treat the event as a Donkey Kong 101 college lecture, but finally settled on explaining his beginnings with video games. As a teenager in the 1980’s, he recalled the era of arcades and talked about the first games he played; Asteroids, Space Invaders, Pacman, Ms. Pacman, Defender and finally Donkey Kong. Wiebe explained that Donkey Kong was state of the art, Mario’s movements looked amazing, the game had a story, and the variety of levels and the simple control screen had him hooked. Wiebe then went on to explain his experience with the movie, how it got started and then took questions from the audience. After answering a lot of questions, Wiebe sat down at showed off his skills as he easily cleared screen after screen, while racking up a decent score, making it look easy.

Banzai Run combines a flat and vertical playing field to give this game a new twist!

This Phantom Haus is an Amusement with Prizes game and is 1 of only 5 know to be in the US!

Rows and rows of pinball machines fill the whole room.

Rapid Fire is one of the first light gun games and is a blast to play.

Some of the 60's era electromechanical games like Big Hit were a lot of fun to play.

Looking inside one of the 60's era pinball machines.

Overall, the show had a lot of great games to play and a good line up of guest speakers that had a lot of interesting stories to share. The variety of games available was immense and even after spending more than a couple hours; a few games still remained to be played by the Elders and there was just not enough time. Don't forget to check out more pictures from the show from the collective pool on Flickr! Stay tuned to the PG Blog for more on Steve Wiebe’s appearance at the Northwest Pinball and Gameroom Show!