Making pinball fun to watch (and play!)

Behind the scenes: Project Supernova

From the day our Williams Firepower pinball machine arrived, we’ve been brainstorming ways to make it more more engaging. Pinball is fun to play, but it’s not so fun to watch. Nevertheless, people love to hang around a pinball machine. Seriously, it’s like a chunk of gravity, it pulls people in better than any water cooler. But the spectator experience hasn’t been great and we wanted to change that. We also wanted to make a machine built in the 80s more relevant in an Xbox world.

Read on to learn more about the project. Or check out the final project on vimeo

Interactive graphics triggered by sensors on the machine

The concept

Pinball machines have always been about two things: Engineering and Design. Whichever machine attracts (and retains) the most customers through a combination of game play and intriguing art will stay on the floor at the arcade or in a collector’s basement.

Sticking to those principals, we wanted to physically expand the interaction experience outside of the playfield and onto the nearby walls. We wanted to make it fun for everyone in the room, not just the player.