nudging transforms pinball from a game of mechanical chance to a game of pure skill. It's essential that pinball players learn how to nudge if they want to improve their pinball skills. Nudging is the only way the player can control the ball when it's not near the flippers. Every bounce of the ball can be affected by the player when they know the right moves to make. But there's really nothing intuitive about smacking, shaking, and sliding a 300-pound pinball machine.
Not only is it physically difficult to move a heavy machine, but it also feels incredibly obnoxious and impolite to start banging and sliding around a piece of heavy machinery. But this is an essential part of the game of pinball, and I'm here to show you exactly how you can do it.
Now I'm a pretty big guy compared to most children and small animals, but I'm quite small compared to a pinball machine. I stand at 5'6" tall and weigh about 155 pounds. A pinball machine is 7 feet tall, 5 feet long, and weighs anywhere from 250 to 300 pounds. On paper, this isn't a very fair fight, but I have a trick up my sleeve: leverage.
Let's say I want to move a pinball machine to the right. I could stand here and pull on the side of the game with just my hand and wrist, or I can shoot my hips over to the right and dip my weight down into the floor while using my left hand to hold me up. By doing this, I'm exerting a force that's really far away from the game's center of mass and using my body and the length of the game to create a lever that makes moving the game around much easier.
To get the leverage we need to move a game, let's start by looking at our stance. When standing normally next to a pinball machine, our bodies will be straight and upright and our feet will be pretty close together. If we just place our hands on the machine from here, it may seem like an easy transition, but we will not have any significant range of motion. With my elbows at my side, I'm completely locked in place and I cannot easily move left or right without letting go of the pinball machine.
So what we need to do is get our weight back and away from the pinball machine by shooting our buttocks, hips, legs, and torso back away from the game. I do this by moving my left foot out a few feet behind my right, keeping a slight bend in both knees as if I'm starting to transition into a lunge. As I move back, you'll also notice my shoulders and back round out and my arms straighten, though not completely. I still have a bend in my elbow. This is a much more athletic pose. I'm no longer restricted in my side-to-side movement because my arms are out in front of me and I can push off my back foot if I need extra power to push the game forward.
While most players put one foot behind the other, there are some players who stand with both feet the same distance from the pinball machine. What's important, regardless of your initial stance, is to make sure you're not leaning on the pinball machine with any of your weight. You'll be removing your hands from the pinball machine often to make moves, and having to push your weight back onto your feet will slow you down.
Starting from our more active stance, we want to make sure we are moving around quite a bit when we play pinball. Whether we're tracking the ball, anticipating a kickout, checking the shooter lane, or making a save, we're going to be physically moving our head and body all over the place while we play. In my stance, movement starts with my feet. If I need to move to the left, I'll move my pivot foot out to the left and shift my hips over. To move to the right, I'll cross my pivot foot behind my plant foot and move my hips to the right side. To move forward, I can straighten my legs to push myself up and over the game.
Don't worry about looking like you're doing a dance or anything weird with your legs, because this is natural movement that happens during active play. At tournaments, people will be moving around a ton while smacking and shaking the pinball machines.
Before we get into our moves, let's look at how the pinball machine works. The pinball machine is a large cabinet that contains a playfield and a hidden tilt mechanism. This mechanism enforces the limit on how much we can move the game, and exceeding the limit could give us a warning or a tilt. A tilt will immediately end the player's ball and prevent the player from collecting their end-of-ball bonus.
It might not seem like a good idea to tilt, given the considerable penalty, but since any successful save leads to indefinite future scoring opportunities, the upside of risking a tilt will result in much higher scores. This tilt bob will issue a tilt warning when it makes contact with the surrounding metal ring. The cone shape of the tilt bob allows for the operator to adjust the sensitivity of the tilt bob, with a raised bob creating a tight tilt and a lowered bob creating a loose tilt.
It should be noted that while the tilt bob is attached to the side of the cabinet, the playfield fits into the cabinet's front molding. Our most effective nudges are the ones that maximize the playfield movement while minimizing the tilt bob movement. Nudges to the game's lockdown bar are the most effective at moving the playfield more than the tilt bob.
Slides are the most extreme nudges. This technique is pretty much only possible on lower friction surfaces like carpet, hardwood, and concrete. High friction rubber feet will make this pretty much impossible. Slides are most useful when the ball is heading straight down the middle, and they guarantee a tilt on all games that do not issue tilt warnings. They are a desperation measure that players should eventually move away from as they develop better reads and nudging techniques.
Pushes are nudges where the player's hand does not leave the cabinet for any part of the nudge. Successful push nudges move the game for a short period of time and for a very small distance. Push nudges are quite useful when combined with moves that require the flipper to be raised. These include raise flipper bounce passes, ski passes, and multiball cradle separations. On their own, ski passes could be incredibly dangerous as they send the ball to a low part of the flipper, but with a well-timed push exactly when the ball meets the flipper, the player can get a trap on the opposite flipper.
Wiggles or shakes are nudges that are used to get balls out of the outlanes by bouncing the ball back and forth between the post and rubber fast. Wiggles are a seriously impressive move when they're pulled off, rescuing balls from certain death in the outlanes. Executing a wiggle save requires the player to make a series of pushes that line up with the natural oscillation of a pinball machine on its legs. You can practice this by standing over a pinball machine and starting to shake it. If you push too slowly, the machine will require the same amount of effort each time you push it. If you go too fast, the machine won't really move, but once we get the game to start wiggling, it's easy to keep it going.
Our main category of nudges are impact nudges. In all impact nudges, the player's hands come off the pinball machine for a windup. Energy is transferred back into the cabinet for a very short period of time. The timing on these nudges is very precise, and they can also be done in conjunction with well-timed flips. Impact nudges should always be made on the game's lockdown bar or armor, and the player should always strike the game with the palms of their hand. Impact nudges can be made anytime a ball hits any post or rubber in a pinball machine.
Practicing and improving nudges is a lifelong pursuit. Pinball is a game of millimeters, and any tiny change in geometry can be the difference between a jackpot and game over. Nudging takes a lot of practice. Remember to keep trying, keep tilting, and find out exactly what you can get away with. This has been another episode of pinball tips. Be sure to subscribe if you'd like to see more.