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Episode 108 - Center Ramps

Wedgehead Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·51m 10s·analyzed·Dec 29, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Center ramps debate: safety shots for casuals, bailout boredom for experts.

Summary

Wedgehead Pinball Podcast hosts Alex and Alan debate the merits and failures of center ramp shots in pinball machine design. They examine why prominent designers like Keith Elwin, John Borg, and Barry Osler continue using center ramps despite their unpopularity in competitive/enthusiast circles, concluding these shots serve novice players rather than experienced ones and are strategically placed in the 'bozo zone' for accessibility.

Key Claims

  • Center ramp games (Comet, Avengers Infinity Quest, King Kong, Star Wars Fall of the Empire) rank lower on Pinside Top 100 than other games by the same designers

    medium confidence · Alan notes that Elwin's top-tier games (Godzilla, Jaws, Iron Maiden) stay top-10 while Avengers and Kong 'have kind of floundered' lower on rankings despite being 'still well-loved'

  • Keith Elwin's Avengers Infinity Quest and King Kong both feature center ramps as their primary shot design

    high confidence · Alan: 'Keith, the widely beloved modern designer...loves taking inspiration from classic titles...But he does also pride himself...really trying to not recycle any shots across his titles...It's also interesting that two of his games have essentially the same center ramp'

  • Center ramps were placed deliberately in the 'bozo zone' (middle third of playfield) to make them easy to hit for new players

    high confidence · Alex references George Gomez calling the middle third the 'bozo zone' and explains: 'You can smack a ball wildly...It's going to go up the middle because it's not too late on the flipper'

  • Star Wars Fall of the Empire uses a jump ramp instead of traditional center ramp to avoid reject feeding straight down middle

    high confidence · Alan: 'Fall of the Empire...they just made it a jump. So when you don't have a clean shot, it just kind of rattles into the back and then safely feeds out the right orbit'

  • Designer placement of center ramps is a conscious choice to serve casual/novice audiences, not experienced players

    high confidence · Alex: 'These games with center ramps aren't meant for us...These aren't shitty designers...The purpose may not align with my personal taste, but there's a purpose'

Notable Quotes

  • “Capital C trademark center, dude. I'm talking about the ones that are just fucking dead center.”

    Alex (Waterboy) @ ~7:30 — Establishes strict definitional boundary for the episode's central debate; shows awareness of broader vs. narrow interpretations

  • “Pinball's supposed to be a fight, and safety does not make a game more fun.”

    Alex @ ~24:00 — Core philosophical argument against center ramps; frames them as antithetical to pinball's design ethos

  • “You put a ramp in the bozo zone because you don't want people buying their first pinball machine to hate it.”

    Alex @ ~35:00 — Explains designer motivation: accessibility over depth, targeting home collectors and casual location players

  • “They're not good because of those. Definitely not. Despite those, which is a testimony to the skill. Yeah, the designers.”

    Alan @ ~40:30 — Acknowledges that some center ramp games succeed despite their center ramps, not because of them

  • “Not every game is meant for you, no matter who you are, whoever's listening to this.”

    Alex @ ~31:00 — Summarizes the episode's central tension: design choices serve different player demographics

  • “A lot of these center ramp games got center posts because a reject will go around the middle, which counters the entire point of giving a noob a noob game when it feeds down the middle. So then they had center posts and center post is like an appeasement for sure. That's that's an admission of guilt.”

    Alex @ ~43:00 — Reveals design afterthought pattern: center posts added post-release suggest center ramps create unintended problems

Entities

Keith ElwinpersonJohn BorgpersonBarry OslerpersonGeorge GomezpersonWedgeheadorganizationAvengers Infinity QuestgameKing Kong

Signals

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Center ramp criticism gained backlash when initially stated casually; community recognition of Wedgehead's opinion became significant enough to warrant full episode defense with detailed analysis

    medium · Alex: 'I just made a loud declarative...you were like, no, you've got a point here...every time I fucking open my mouth...when I say center ramps suck, that's a fact...people argue our facts, and this was one of those ones that got immediate backlash'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Keith Elwin's center ramp games (Avengers, Kong) rank lower on Pinside Top 100 than his other titles (Godzilla, Jaws, Iron Maiden in top 10), suggesting community preference divergence despite both being regarded as quality games

    high · Alan: 'The center ramp games, Avengers and King Kong, have kind of floundered. They're lower on the list...not as loved by the online community as his non-center ramp games'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Definitional debate about what constitutes 'center ramp': strict (dead center, repeatable from both flippers, returns to in-lane) vs. broader (any central shot); affects validity of examples like Mandalorian Razor Crest, Iron Maiden jump

    medium · Alan: 'I have a broader interpretation of a center ramp...you can think of center ramp games that don't suck, and I can't, because all of the ones I think of are like really center'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Center ramps eliminate strategic on-the-fly decision-making and reduce game depth for experienced players; they function as bailout shots that make pinball 'boring' rather than a 'fight'

    high · Alex: 'Center ramp just becomes a safety. It's a bailout shot...When you've been playing pinball for a while, when you're an experienced player, it eliminates the need for on-the-fly decision-making'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.153

0:00
Well, I don't know why I came here tonight I got the feeling there's something right I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right Here I am, stuck in the middle with you Yes, I'm stuck in the middle with you And I wonder what it is I should do It's so hard to keep this smile from my face Losing control, yeah, I'm all over the place Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right Here I am, stuck in the middle with you Welcome back to another episode of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast, the only pinball podcast that has you going. Now, that's a podcast from Wedgehead about pinball. My name is Alex the Waterboy. I'm joined today by Alan, my faithful co-host and owner of Wedgehead, a pinball bar here in Portland, Oregon. Alan, how are you doing? I am doing fantastic, Waterboy, and I'm doing extra fantastic today because it's my turn to plug our coffee fundraiser. Normally, you get to do it. Normally. Hogging all the fun, but this time you wrote a banger of an episode. We'll see. I just get to tell people, if you appreciate the show and all the hard work we put into crafting you the best pinball podcast from Wedgehead about pinball. Yeah, right. You can show your appreciation by going to ko-fi.com slash Wedgehead podcast. Throw us a couple bucks. Helps keep us making shows, going and playing pinball on location. Buying new microphones and such. All that kind of stuff. And it'll also give you not just the warm, fuzzy feeling in your stomach of doing a good deed. you also get a link to our private discord where all the after hours stuff and all the extra content happens on there yeah you can chop it up with us and the other listeners it's it's exhausting at times chopping it up to the level that we do but we're in there i i promise people do every week i'm here well i guess every two weeks now promising that we're chopping it up and i think i deliver on that we chop it up no one can say we don't no and that's all we can do We deliver what we say we're going to. It's like the fucking lumberjack games in there, dude. We're chopping it up. It is. OK, so as you will get into this week's episode, though, what the people are here for. Alan, as you might be aware, America is more divided than ever lately. A lot of people like it this way. Sometimes it feels like they're purposely driving a wedge between the left and right for their own political or monetary purposes. But here on the Wedgehead podcast, we're not about wedges, and we're going to talk about something we can all agree on. Something located dead center between the left and right. Center ramps and pinball machines. And how they're pieces of shit, right?
game
Star Wars Fall of the Empiregame
Cometgame
Kissgame
Aerosmithgame
Jurassic Park The Lost Worldgame
Pinside Top 100organization
Fast Breakgame
Big Hurtgame
Iron Maidengame
Cactus Canyongame
Harry Pottergame
Beetlejuicegame
?

design_philosophy: Center ramps explicitly designed to serve novice/casual players in 'bozo zone' rather than experienced competitors; acknowledged as conscious strategic choice by competent designers targeting home collectors and location arcade first-timers

high · Alex explains Barry Osler games served operators, Cartoon Avengers serves 'dad' and 'little Johnny,' Fall of the Empire will be first/only machine for many home theater owners. 'You put a ramp in the bozo zone because you don't want people buying their first pinball machine to hate it.'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: John Borg used center ramp design strategy consistently across his career from 1992 (Data East Star Wars) through 2025 (Star Wars Fall of the Empire), indicating design preference or thematic requirement for Star Wars IP

    high · Alex: 'His first design credit was on Data East Star Wars in 1992, which features a prominent center ramp shot. At the time of this recording, his most recent design credit is 2025's Star Wars: Fall of the Empire, which features a prominent center ramp'

  • ?

    product_concern: Center ramp design flaw pattern: rejected balls feed straight down middle, requiring aftermarket 'center post' addition as damage control; Fall of the Empire redesigned as jump shot instead to solve this

    high · Alex: 'A reject will go around the middle, which counters the entire point...they had center posts and center post is like an appeasement for sure. That's an admission of guilt...Fall of the Empire...they just made it a jump'

    • 2:57
    No, no, there's some good ones. There's a little more nuance than we might have originally expected. Maybe, maybe a little bit more nuance. But we'll get into it. So why are we talking about this? a long time back on the show i can't do you remember how it came up originally you just made a loud declarative off-the-cuff statement that you said center ramps are always bad and always a mistake or something like one of those ones that you immediately were like you're right like i feel like i said it like offhand casually and you were like no you've got a point here and so because of that it kind of like it became a thing uh like every time i fucking opened my mouth and state an opinion on this show anytime we deliver anything besides just like fact which i think we deliver fact pretty much always but other people say like when i say center ramp suck that's a fact so it's it's interesting but when sometimes people argue our facts and this was one of those ones that got immediate backlash and uh i figured it'd be fun to dive into straight ramps or shoot up the middle, as you could say, and talk about why I dislike them, why designers very rudely ignore my feelings and utilize them anyway, and then the worst offenders and best exceptions to the rule. Okay, so what do you mean when you say center ramp? So I didn't realize that this was open for interpretation, but apparently there's some debate over what constitutes a center ramp. Literal center ramp is what I mean. When I say center ramp, I mean a center ramp that's so fucking central that no one is going to argue. And by no one, I mean me, because I am apparently the most impassioned center ramp hater of anybody. So really, I mean one that there's not an argument to be made about it. A literal center ramp game is a game with a ramp that has an entrance located dead center between the two flippers. a lot of games have ramps that are in the center of the game kind of or they have three ramps there's a left ramp and a right ramp so one of them is referred to as the center ramp or whatever and there's a lot of games that have two ramps that are symmetrical and located in the center of the game kinda but if you have to say kinda you're not talking about what i say when i say center ramp this is like i do need to specify this got into a big fucking thing in the discord But I do need to say, I understand when someone says, this is the center ramp on this game. And it doesn't have to be dead center. I'm not going to be like, actually, that's not the center ramp. But when I'm talking in this episode about center ramps, I'm- Capital C center, I think you said. Capital C trademark center, dude. I'm talking about the ones that are just fucking dead center. So if you're confused, we can run through some examples. You want to tell us the first one here? Okay. I see you put Comet by Barry Ousler, 1985. Yeah. Listeners might remember us talking about this game a lot in our 1985 Retrospective Awards episode. You really like it, right? You gave it Game of the Year, I think? No. This is the one that cracks me up. This is like the most fucking Mandela effect we've experienced on the show. Everyone thinks we gave the 1985 Game of the Year award to Comet, excluding myself. I got confused. I was like, wait, did we? Because everyone's like told me so many times, like asked, why did you, I thought you liked that game. And I'm like, no. media literacy is at an all-time low we are cooked as a society i'm telling everybody yeah we did not give a game of the year right we gave sorcerer game of the year what we give game of the year yeah yeah we gave sorcerer game of the year and it won designer of the year yeah but this was a very successful game yeah and that's why we talk about it so much in that episode it was from spawned a trilogy barry elsler designed pair or python angelo on art and it features a very prominent and very center ramp shot uh despite its sales success it is not widely loved today that's not like a wedgehead hot take like oh the wedgehead guys are just hipster haters whatever no it's just you can you can defend it or whatever if you want to go fight me in the discord you can and i know there's tweaks that you can do the game make it more fun but this isn't like a widely beloved title next example of a good center ramp game this is this one you like right oh this is brutal road kings mark ritchie 1986 yeah this is the first game i believe that has a ramp that feeds a ball back to the actual in lane yep which is kind of kind of neat that we can see the ritchie brothers inventing everything wrong with pinball the fucked up part is that i know we're both big fans of the ritchie brothers and they're Absolutely. Like, two of my absolute, like, top three designers. It's kind of funny. And you're like, God. But then you see shit like this, and you're like, no, no. And I do think feeds to in lanes have been good for pinball as a whole. Yeah. But it's also, if I could go back and just, like, be like, no. I'd just love to see where modern pinball would be at if we never fed the flipper or the ball back to the in lane. It would be a little more interesting, I think. So, yeah. It's the first game with a ramp return that safely feeds to a flipper. in that ramp for that return is smack dab in the center of the game uh interestingly the ramp has a drop target in front of it which can block it the idea this could prevent center ramp burnout this is something we're going to see a lot of moving forward designers putting in mechs to prevent players from shooting up the center too much like mousing around yeah kind of makes you think when you see this that they know this sucks yeah they're like actually we need to add something so they can't do this they can't just shoot this over and over and you're like oh that's kind of a red flag to me frankly if you if you have to put someone on a ramp you're like no man like you should incentivize them like points elsewhere or whatever but like it's like putting a ball save on a scoop it's kind of like the scoop is the fucking problem yeah exactly you shouldn't have done the scoop exactly so despite the drop target though you still can hit that center ramp a lot on this thing and the game can be a snooze thanks to that incredibly easy safe shot available from both flippers alan this is famously one of your most hated classic games of all time do you have anything to say do you do you think the center ramp is a big part of why you hate this game yeah definitely doesn't help i mean i think that game just sucks overall obviously i've talked about it forever but it's like that dead center ramp the little diverter that goes one way or the other it just it doesn't feel kinetically satisfying in any way uh the lift ramp on the right side like the game just sucks like i guess this is this is a u-turn ramp right like yeah i'm just thinking of sorry and i guess i should specify that it's a u-turn ramp which is interesting we do see a handful of these moving forward it's just one of those things where it's like i always describe this game as like this game infuriates me because of how bland it is. Like, it's not, like, the probably dumbest design I've ever seen. It's just so incredibly, almost infuriatingly boring and bland that I hate it. Like, it stands out in that way to me. It bugs me. I don't hate it as much as you. It does bug me a lot because of the amount of wasted potential here. There's an incredible amount of great talent behind this game. It's kind of like a cool theme and yet i don't like the art package i don't like how it shoots i don't like really much about it i don't think it's like the worst game of all time but also something has to be the worst game that's one thing that we don't talk about enough i'm like something like with the dice i'm talking about all the time something well yeah i'm on the record you know what the i put the record out there halloween's the worst game of all time road kings is the second worst game of all time you want to hear more come into the discord yeah you need to get number three yeah okay okay so moving on from uh road kings 1986 we get fire from barry ausler in 1987 and also i need to specify this isn't like a comprehensive list of center ramp games i'm just kind of throwing some out there some like undeniable ones yes that no again i'm trying to give you like no one can argue that fire doesn't have a ramp in the middle so barry goes back to the center ramp with fire after the massive success of comet but he's picked up the trick from Mark of not making the shot available all the time. The center ramp now raises after completing gameplay objectives. This game's also pretty successful, I'd say especially successful considering the bizarre theme. Yeah, so 7,700 units. Barry keeps running the center back, so we're not going to keep going through every title, but Barry keeps running the center ramp back, and he does Jokers, which in 1988, next year, it's a bad game. Sometimes the ramp is sometimes blocked uh police force in 1989 dead center ramp cool artwork always open pretty fun game despite a center ramp i would say that's one of like the better of um i'm just putting that out there hurricane in 1991 terrible game always open available center ramp probably the worst bally williams dmd outside of popeye like by universal not just my opinion hated yeah um and whodunit in 1995 which has a big center ramp that feeds like three different feeds but it is blocked by like an attack from mars style three bank that pops up a lot um there's other very games you could argue have a center ramp but those ones are like textbook examples yeah i mean bad cats is bad bad that's one of the nuanced ones bad cats is a little off center yeah and i'm we'll get to this, but it's a, it's a little functionally, it's a center ramp in how it plays, but it does tweak it. And that's, that's when we'll get into the nuance in a little bit. But what do you think of those five games So talking about fire police force jokers hurricane who done it What do you think of those games You like those games man I think you really trying to make a case You always joke with me that I a Barry Osler hater It sounds like you just put him on blast on this episode Yeah, man, those games all kind of suck. Again, I'm really trying to stay objective in this episode. I'm not just like, oh, dude, I hate these games. Those games are all considered some of his weakest titles in their values. That's reflected. The popularity of games is reflected in prices unless it's rare enough to become like a commodity. Harry also made a lot of great games. Yeah. As well. That's why it's easy to compare. Yeah. You can see the value of his great games versus these games. And all of those that I talked about are lower than their contemporaries by like a good amount. Like you're not going to find like a cheaper, you know, those are all unpopular games. This feels like kind of like center ramps were like inline skating, like rollerblading. Like they were hot for like a section of time and then nobody does it anymore. Well, there are a couple designers that are still cranking them out. And this is where, you know, it kind of comes into the modern day and a couple designers that are still working. So one of these started back. We're going to start with John Borg. His first design credit was on Data East Star Wars in 1992, which features a prominent center ramp shot. At the time of this recording, his most recent design credit is 2025's Star Wars Fall of the Empire, which features a prominent center ramp. More Star Wars? Yeah, they let him do it twice. They both got a center ramp. He avoided letting the center ramp become his hallmark. You really don't see that because Borg's cranked out so many games. And not that many of them have center ramp shots. But a couple notable ones, I would say, are Jurassic Park, The Lost World in 97 has just straight up center ramp. and then uh kiss and aerosmith in 15 and 2015 2017 both dead center ramps those ones are placed further back on the play field which reflection of stronger flippers modern stuff does tweak the game substantially and also i would argue that rush yeah yeah that's an arguable one i just haven't played that game enough to really like have too good of an opinion on it i mean it's basically like the lord of the rings shot like where it's like the it's like a center jump it It doesn't have a jump, but it has the ring and it holds the ball, you know, with the magnet. But it's it is a center. It is a center ramp. OK. And then another another designer still working today that likes center ramps is goes, you know, by the name of Mr. Keith Elwin. Oh, pinball Jesus. Pinball Jesus. He's put the most central ramps imaginable into two of his six cornerstone games, Avengers Infinity Quest and King Kong. So Keith, the widely beloved modern designer, that's not, again, this is just objectively true. Keith is considered probably the most popular modern designer by far. I hardly ever hear people calling him Keith Elwin. I heard people just call him Pinball Jesus most of the time.
    15:48
    Yeah. Like he's just. Yeah, he saved the hobby. Yeah. So Keith, the widely beloved modern designer, loves taking inspiration from classic titles for his games, like the hoops left shot he used for Jaws, right? That feed to the left-hand lane, or like the Kongo plunge in King Kong. He likes doing callbacks and stuff. But he does also pride himself, and I've seen him in interviews say that he's really trying to not recycle any shots across his titles because he wants them to all feel unique. He doesn't want to be pigeonholed as like, oh, he does this, he does that. This is his thing because people online. The funny thing about Keith is he was born from the online, terminally online pinball community. Yeah, he was one of them. He was one of them. He was on the forums for years before he became a designer. So he knows what they go for, and he knows what the critiques are. And the biggest critique across a lot of designers is if you see a game that looks like another game, you're like, oh, they just dusted off – like Kiss and Aerosmith. They'd be like, oh, they just dusted off Kiss to make Aerosmith or whatever. same shit john borge is building up the same game and keith really wants to avoid that so he avoids really recycling any of his specific shots i totally i disagree i think he does have like hallmarks so we talked about the u-turn ramps and shit oh yeah i mean we should do a whole episode on it but it's like i feel like there are definitely clear hallmarks of his games but i do think that yeah he does a very good job of mixing it up giving you different looks that's why it's interesting that two of his games have essentially the same center ramp. It's also interesting that amongst pinball nerds on forums and elsewhere online, these two center ramp titles aren't particularly highly regarded compared to the rest of his catalog. I don't want to put words in people's mouths, but four of his titles immediately shot into the pin side top 10 when they released and have stayed there for years since the release. While the center ramp games, Avengers and King Kong have kind of floundered. They're lower on the list. Yeah. They're still, this is well loved, still widely regarded, highly regarded, but they're not as loved by the online community as his non-center ramp games. Not as Godzilla or Jaws or. Right. My Maiden, Jurassic Park. Those are all in the top 10 and they have been since they came out and I don't think they're going nowhere. Yeah. That's the thing. So. What about Beetlejuice? Fuck, dude. Number one, baby. Straight to the moon. Harry Potter just debuted at number one, I think. And you're just like, jeez. Which, Center Ramp, fuck. I didn't even think about that. Oh, no. Okay. But all this, ignore that little quip about Harry Potter and it's Center Ramp being number one game right now. All of this is to say, or was to say, my take that Center Ramp games suck isn't, like, a hot statement. It got backlash. But when I look at what are textbook examples of Center Ramp games, they're not widely beloved. Why do they suck, though? That's like a little more subjective. This is where we leave the realm of fact. Do you have anything before we kind of like get into my thoughts on this? Why do you think center ramp suck? I think usually they're repeatable, and they're repeatable from either flipper, from either play state. So either on the fly, or from a trap, which just means, especially when you make something valuable, which they oftentimes do, like, if it's a lock shot, or like Kong, it's like a lock shot, like that sucks. Or if it's something that's commonly, if it's a common jackpot shot. 80 the the 80s games are just so egregious because they used to do the rule set where it's like it's worth 100 and then it's worth 200k then 300 400 up to a million and then you could just loop millions over and over and that's like literally the whole game then and you're like oh well now this game sucks like yeah yeah it's just because they're inherently friendly shot that you you never are in a position on the game where you can't shoot for it right yeah i would say that they're boring for experienced pinball players that's the shit part about it's just a boring shot when you've been playing pinball for a while center ramp just becomes a safety it's a bailout shot a lot of the time even if it's not incentivized with points it's a safe return to a feed on a modern game that's also why like i don't consider the ramp i know the the ramp their middle shot of mando the razor crest shot feeds into a ramp and it's referred to as the center ramp and i understand that it's a center it's a dead center shot that feeds to a ramp but it doesn't return to uh in lane it doesn't have like a ball return it feeds to that left orbit so i don't consider that one like a center ramp in like the true sense of this because i don't really consider that a ramp shot compared to like a modern one there's not a better word for it so it is a ramp shot but that's that's kind of like that's where i get into like the nuances stuff so it has to be available from both flippers to me it has to it has to return to an in lane and that makes it a bailout shot Pinball's supposed to be a fight, something that we talked about, depending on the release order. Maybe you've heard us talk about this in depth in the ball save episode. Or maybe you will in a couple weeks.
    20:49
    But pinball's supposed to be a fight, and safety does not make a game more fun. You can smack a ball wildly bouncing and find a center ramp shot. That's the thing, because it's a big range on the flipper. It's the bozo zone, as declared by George Gomez. Fucking Gomez himself. was calling the middle third of the game the bozo zone because that's when you're just new to the game you're scared you just kind of smack at the ball it's going to go up the middle because it's not too late on the flipper and so that's where they're placing a shot in the dead center so you can smack at it from both of them and you have an equal chance of hitting that thing you they don't they don't ever feel fresh another like so they're boring in execution to play but also visually they don't ever feel fresh because we've seen any way you can take a center shot yeah it's never gonna look like no one's gonna put one in there like this one's really center this time and you're gonna be like hot damn well the problem is especially with your really strict definition of a center ramp yeah anytime you make it interesting you come out and say well that's not a center ramp that's which i'm sure we'll cover in this episode yeah that's the thing you and i have little differences on opinions here i'm more of a uh i have a broader interpretation of a center ramp that's why you can think of center ramp games that don't suck and I can't because all of the ones I think of are like really center in the, when they're really center, there's, there's not much you can do to save it. I think a completely symmetrical dead center ramp that's repeatable is the worst thing in the world. Yeah. It's interesting. Cause I do think there's games I enjoy playing that have them, but they would be infinitely better if that ramp was tweaked. Like I do enjoy Aerosmith and Kiss, but with that, that ramp which changes the back, those ones are also so far back that it changes things a little bit a little bit but my last my last point about center ramps and i think this is maybe the biggest thing for me and why i'm so strict with my definition of what it makes a center ramp and why i think these are bad when you've been playing pinball for a while when you're an experienced player is it eliminates the need for on-the-fly decision making at like a subconscious level the physical issues of a center ramp that is like how easy they can be to shoot they're present on a game with two central ramps like like twilight zone or fishtails right like twilight zone or fishtails you can shoot both those ramps from either flipper right so those so we can call these central ramps those are central ramps games with an s and every every other kind of asterisk i can put on there before the discord jumps on me but like those games those games i don't think have the same problem that a real center ramp game does because you still have to make a conscious decision of what you're shooting there and that decision making is part of pinball to me that's like something that kind of gets overlooked if you're just mindlessly flapping around a game you're not really playing pinball that is why sometimes you do better when you do that when you don't know how to play a game and you're just mindlessly flapping around you can sometimes do better because you're not adding that stress and decision making but that's what makes pinball interesting if you're shooting a whitewood they get boring pretty fast certainly once you get further into pinball what keeps you coming back is learning you're scratching away more and more layers of the rule set and learning what you're supposed to do progressing further in the game finding a strategy planning it executing it cashing in i think providing uh just a literal bailout shot in the middle of the play field just shining like a diamond at all times that you're like hey you don't know what to do just shoot this ramp it is a safety net in the most obvious underwhelming way i don't know if this is further on in your uh notes here but would you consider iron maiden a center ramp i don't although it functions it does have that same weight iron maiden being like the jump ramp i don't see i wouldn't for a couple because it doesn't feed back to a flipper and stuff but it does it does bleed into a flipper the little upper a little flipper yeah it doesn't feed into an in lane i should have said but yeah functionally it It does kind of, and it is like a bailout shot, and it's fat enough, because that's the thing. I was thinking about this more, and I was like, my big gripe is that... It's not dead center. It's not dead center, and neither is the center ramp on Ultraman, but it's so fucking wide that it functions the same way, too, where you can hit it on the fly from either flipper. It's a bailout shot. It slows the whole game down. It's one of the worst things about the design of that play field. Oh, and then right next to that is another super fat ramp. God, that's, wow. Yeah, man. But it not dead center so I didn want to use it as the example They function the same way though Cactus Canyon center ramp Classic center ramp That classic center ramp although I do think it easier from the right flipper because of the curve of the entrance angle which is something we'll get into a little bit. Before we get to that, though, I just want to say, all the games listed are basically some of the lowest regarded of their contemporaries, including the Keith and Borg games and all the Barry games. Why are they making more of this? Why are we seeing a big, hyped release like Kong get a center ramp in 2025? There's a lot of designers that have used center ramps prominently on their games, but I wanted to bring up Barry and Keith and Borg specifically because they all have one thing in common. These guys fucking move units.
    26:11
    Barry cranked games out and was an absolute sales monster for most of his career. He was like the linebacker of fucking Bally Williams. Every Barry game sold pretty well, including the center ramp ones. Borg's the reason that Stern's still in business. Yeah, they survived. because of john borg and in yeah and keith has recalibrated what success means for a designer in the modern defines the modern age that's what i would say all of these guys are not fucking around in every sense of the word in their making center ramp games and that's something to remember every time a game comes out and i need to remind myself of this too sometimes not every game is meant for you no matter who you are whoever's listening to this not every game that comes out is meant for you comet earned buckets for operators in the 80s the game kind of sucks by 2025 standards factory form anyway but ramps were novel back then and people just wanted to crank that shit over and over and that's what barry delivered he gave them what they wanted cartoon avengers is a game with rules depth for dad maybe a centered ramp for little johnny who's just excited to shoot the center ramp on a game that looks like his bed sheets fall of the empire will probably be the only pinball machine that a lot of people ever buy. Sitting in their home theater room next to a life-size Jar Jar Bust or whatever Star Wars guys are into. That's the thing. Like, looking at the Borgs list specifically. First Star Wars, mass market theme. Lost World, the Jurassic Park game, same thing. Mass market theme, trying to get kitty quarters. Kiss and Aerosmith was the beginning of Stern trying to crack into the home collector market. That's right when like J.J.P., the boutique stuff started happening, where they all realized, shit, we can sell games to home collectors. They put two themes aimed at passionate fan bases full of old guys who probably hadn't played pin in 40 years. Yeah. So they give them just something to shoot for up the middle. You put a ramp in the bozo zone because you don't want people buying their first pinball machine to hate it. All of these games I'm talking about, like these are going to be people's first games. They're either going to be their first time shooting a ramp on location in Barry's case, or it's going to be their like first time having a game at home and they don't play pinball anywhere else that's kind of like who's with why they're delivering these games so the purpose the center ramp is a choice made consciously to serve a purpose by competent designers these aren't shitty designers even though i'm saying i don't like these games the purpose may not align with my personal taste but there's a purpose there's a reason they keep doing this yeah i mean yeah People think that ramps are typically the most fun thing in a pinball machine to hit. Yep. So you're making them easier to hit more often. They're wrong on that. It's inline drops.
    28:57
    I'd say orbit spinners are pretty good, you know? Like, yeah. I mean. I like a good captive ball. No, jumps are what people, especially new people to pinball, that's what they want to shoot. You show someone that's playing pinball for the first time in their life a pinball machine, They don't know anything going on. They don't even view a lot of these things as shots the way that we do. Yeah, totally. They see drop targets. They don't know what that is. They don't know that they're conned. The only thing that new, new pinball players shoot for is ramps. Yeah. And so they give them an easy one, and that's what they're doing. These games are meant for that. If they can be fun for actual pinball players too, that's a bonus, but that's not the emphasis. That's my honest belief here is that these games with center ramps aren't meant for us, and I just have to come to terms with that. Yeah. That being said, some of them are still fun. So what about... Yeah, I mean, I like Aerosmith and KISS. I do like Aerosmith and KISS. I think they're pretty fun. They're both pretty fun. I like Kong too. I do think all of those games would be better with that ramp tweaked though. Yeah, for sure. I don't think that those... They're not good because of those. Definitely not. Despite those, which is a testimony to the... Skill. Yeah, the designers. So are there any good center ramp games besides those ones that we've already talked about?
    30:11
    Yeah, that's kind of my reaction, too. Well, I have a broader definition of center ramp, so we're going to get to this. Yeah, well, let me go first, and then you would go, and then that'll segue. The ones I can think of as being good are basically sports titles, where a shot right up the middle makes thematic sense. Fast break counters the ease of a center ramp by making it tough to shoot on the fly. Fast break the— Too damn dangerous. Right? It's tough to shoot on the fly. And Steve, enough, a sloppy shot is punished with a mean eject. The center ramp on Big Hurt, which is a game that not a lot of people have probably played, but was at Wedgehead for a long time, so I know well. It seems similarly purposeful, and it's an interesting toy. It can be blocked by the mitt and stuff. The mitt stuffs you. That's my favorite part of the game. It's awesome. The interesting part is, thinking about these games, or when I was putting these together, was something I was like, wait, neither of those are ramps. They're jumps. in Star Wars, the new Star Wars, as a jump. And like Lord of the Rings is a center ramp, but it's a jump. When you used to go growing up in Bellingham, is that where you're from? Yeah. Growing up in Bellingham, and you ride bikes. Mm-hmm. When you used to go out and pound a little mound of dirt and then ride your bike over it, what did you call those? I didn't call it a ramp. I called it jumps. You called them jumps? Yeah. No. Yeah, but I grew up mountain biking, I guess. So it's like those are ramps in most places. I mean, functionally in pinball, it is like an interesting distinction because sometimes a ramp really feels like a jump really feels like a jump. And sometimes like on the new Star Wars, it's the the new Star Wars jump is a ramp with a safe like with a safe feed if you fuck it up. yeah it's like the complete opposite of danger it's like they added that there so hey if your shot wasn't clean instead of rejecting down the middle and adding a center post like we had to do on kong right because that's something you don't want to talk about a lot of these center ramp games got center posts because a reject will go around the middle which counters the entire point of giving a noob a noob game when it feeds down the middle so then they had center posts and center post is like a is a placation for sure that's that's an admission of guilt the one that said back in the day a center post basically meant you fucked up no game was supposed to have a center post yeah they just add it when a game was too mean oops we forgot something some of the feet straight down the middle a lot that's a problem people don't like that so we had a center post so at least they have the illusion of safety most of the time people in that position don't do well with a center post anyway so it's kind of funny but that's the interesting part of fall of the empire is instead of doing a center post they just made it a jump so when you don't have a clean shot it just kind of rattles into the back and then safely feeds out the right orbit i will say um probably the best shot on that game the center ramp it's the only one i can fucking hit i i kind of think follow the empire is an interesting game that might be a good are we saying that's indistinguishable that's a certified center ramp that's a certified center ramp okay well that's a good one it's a good one you like looping it that's like to me like i enjoy it i've been enjoying playing that game it hasn't been out that long in the time of this recording i've been enjoying the game i don't think it's necessarily great yeah it's like it's fun despite the center ramp but like that game is kind of a weird one i have a lot i've just mixed feelings on it it's a little damn those shots are some of those shots are tight if we're talking about my personal preference i really like a good fan layout but i like a good fan layout because it's flowy i feel like that game stops the ball too much it does um and it kind of kills the flow and i don't and i'm sort of like yeah i'm gonna get a fan layout i want it to be flowy yeah i don't want to i don't want to like point and click on a fucking fan so it's interesting i think it's just interesting though that a lot of the center ramp games i'm thinking of were jump ramps and i was like huh jump ramps are cool jump ramps are cool and they're they're an interesting tweak on the center ramp are there any good ones you can think of what like so try to think of first of I'll try to think of a good one that's like dead center. What's the – because that's where we're going to go with this. Can you think of any – like Fast Break? Fast Break is probably what I would say is objectively the best straight-up center ramp. You hate that game. I don't even like it. But I think it's the best they got, dude. That's the best argument for them.
    34:40
    Yeah. It's because it's steep and it's hard. So it rejects it as mean. Yeah, it is – yeah. I think that's the way to do it if you're going to do one. But, I mean, if you're going to do one for me, that's the caveat that I need to keep thinking about. I'm like, is it a noob like that? I don't know. I think they'd get annoyed. Can we talk about the next section of this? Because I'm sure listeners are like, what about such and such game? There's a game you guys talk about all the time loving that I would say has a center ramp, but Alex isn't letting me say this. It's a great center ramp game. Can we talk about it? That's where we're going now. So what are your favorite center ramp games? List like three. John Wick. Okay. And what's another one? I don't know if it's my favorite, but I think – What's a good example of one? A good example, Addams Family. Yep. So those are the two that we keep talking about. And I feel like those aren't real center ramp games because they're technically – you are literally measuring half of a pinball width here. But they're technically off center. And the little tweaks I do think start mattering. They just don't feel like the center ramp on Kong feels so different than the center ramp on Wick. You like Lord of the Rings. I do like Lord of the Rings as a jump.
    35:57
    I like the wiggling out of this is my favorite part about this whole episode. And what happened in our discord is like, I do like I do like Lord of the Rings. I also Lord of the Rings is so many. It's dead center. Right. I think. But so many asterisks to me because it has the Balrog blocking it a lot of the time. so you're not just like looping it all the time. It's got a spinner on it, which is unusual. And then a jump into a magnet. And then I like how the magnet turns off. So there's like an optional difficulty for the shot. So when the magnet turns off, it's like notably harder to get it to stick. And I like, so it's like, I like how dynamic it is. It does kind of like, it's used for good effect. That's the thing about like the state changing ones is it's like, well, if you're really not using it that much, it's cool. But like also it'd be better if you didn't have to like hide a feature of the game because, you know, it's bad. You know, that's kind of argument. OK, so I will say I don't know if you you include this or not. I've been on the record on the show before. It's like I like mousing around and mousing around, mousing around, has a center ramp. It also has a three bank that that rises up to block it. Yeah. Like Attack from Mars. Yeah. And it's really close in its center. It's loopable, I think. But I like that. I think the best thing you can do to a mouse in a round is take off those caps on the end of the ball return. So the ball comes flying into the in lane. I agree. Delivering. And it makes that a lot harder to loop. I agree. It's like a lot more thrilling when you can loop it then. Yeah. And that is definitely like it's like what you're doing is like trying to eliminate that like repeatability. We got to talk about John Wick because I think most like I'm on the record as like I think this is. I think John Wick's like one of it's it's top two top two of my favorite spike twos. Yeah. And I think it's sort of rage. Yeah. And same with me. Tim Sexton was involved with both. He's got a weird Instagram presence. Fuck. He knows what he's doing with games. I love both of those games. Those are my top two as well. I would say, you know, sort of rage is a little bit older, but definitely of the last five years, like John Wick's my favorite Stern game been not even really close. Yeah. even with the nerfed rules i still really like it it's fun as hell dude they made that game for anyone unaware john wick used to rule it still rules but a little less hard because they made all the multi balls just easier to all saves and they had ball saves that carry over fucking ball lock just all the little again training wheels they just made the game less of what it what was the appeal it like they missed what they i know the game wasn't popular wasn't doing particularly well and so they're that's what made us like it but it sucks because it's like that's what made it good i miss i miss the enemies blocking your shots too like them being shot multipliers is kind of like i don't like that I don't like it either. Whatever. I mean, it's still a rag game. It's still my... The layout itself, though. Dude, the best. That's what's actually in debate. You're up for debate here. The layout's awesome, and it does have a pretty fucking center ramp. You can hit it from either flipper, on the fly, or from a trap. That's true. And I would rather hit them both on the fly. I disagree. I think left on the fly, it's a little off-center, and maybe it's just in my head, because it is a little off-center. Someone measured it today in the Discord, right? And I can't remember how many millimeters. It's like we're talking like just such like it's just a little off center, though. And the entrance is angled a little bit favoring the right flipper and the ball path is curved accordingly. I'll make some I'll make some mock ups that we can put in our discord when this episode airs. But the main difference is Alex and some of our other guests in the discord like to measure with a very thin line from the center drain straight up. And then it's like it's funny if you add a stroke that's just one point larger. All of a sudden, this would be a center ramp. It's still a center ramp with the thinnest line possible. But you're like, well, the the insurance overlaps with center, but it's not dead center. And that's the thing. The little tweaks make it feel it just doesn't feel. And I also think I will say it doesn't. So if you get a reject from that, it doesn't drain down the middle. Right. Because they kinked it because kinked. And that's the things matter. Because when it's like a straight center ramp, like a reject on Kong would fuck you if there wasn't a center. A reject can still fuck you on John Wick. That's a lot of why people hate it. Well, those people, they're just fucking SWAT. They don't know what they're doing.
    40:27
    Reject on John Wick I think is pretty safe, generally speaking. I don't fucking get any ramp rejects. People hate the feed out of the nightclub. The feed out of the nightclub does fuck me. On your copy, it depends how it's sitting. But for a long time, I was like, oh, I knew to nudge it every time it was rolling out of there, which is funny. And people hate the rejects on that middle one. Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. It is pretty center. So I could see him going down the middle. Doesn't happen to me. But I do think like the little tweaks start like mattering. It's just a little it's not like a perfectly symmetrical one in the little tweaks start mattering. Another example of like the the entrance angle or ball path angle mattering a lot would be on X-Men, which does have a dead center ramp straight up. It's it looks wonky visually. It's odd because that whole game is shifted so far right. Right. Because there's the danger room. But straight up from the center post is the left side of the raising of the Sentinel head. And it's a ramp entrance. And it definitely in my head. And again, this could just be like a like it could just be in my head. Like the John Wick one could just be in my head. But because of the curve of that, it might just be because it feels better coming from the right flipper. It wraps right around there. It feels like you get a better feed off of the right flipper than left, despite the entrance being dead center. And that's like an example of the ball's momentum is wrapping in the right way, whereas it rattles. Otherwise, and you'll get a reject. That's why the little tweaks to me that that's I mean, X-Men's the kind of game that's like, does anything mean anything in that game? Like, what's a ramp? like what like what like it's an entrance what's an entrance like yeah it's really the question in that game it's a bizarre game that breaks a lot of rules so so the center ramp not feeling like a center ramp kind of break if it's yeah because it is the easiest shot on that game shot from both flippers so yeah i mean i get that very doable from both flippers i'd say on the fly i mean on the fly is a relative term on x-men right because you can't even like really feed into the left it's it is whatever the left flipper doesn't really get a nice feed ever yeah but it's just as easy i would say from left or right flipper i don't think but that's the thing i don't think it's just as easy but maybe it is i don't know i think part of this is mental for sure i think a lot of it's mental and i mean just like we were talking about with adam's family so adam's family that's the one that kind of like started this whole like fight over what actually is a center ramp i don't think the big staircase to me that doesn't feel like a center ramp if you run a line straight up the middle of the game that line hits the center or it hits a stand up which is right next which is the entrance of the ramp yeah but that so it's like so technically the ramp's a little to the off right functionally though alan can sit there in loop right flipper to right to the center ramp over and over so functionally that is i can hit it from both flippers easily i can hit it from a trap and i can hit it on the fly alex was basically saying i didn't think that was possible you were like no you can only backhand it from a dead trap on the right and i was like i didn't think you'd hit it on the fly from the right at all i've never all the time all the time i mean i think that's why i was like when you and i were talking about it i was like are you for real like i don't even like i don't even know how that people didn't think that that's not i didn't even fathom that the the atoms that i started playing on and which is really the only one that i've played like a lot had such fucking weak flippers that it was genuinely impossible and i don't know if that was a reflection like the left flipper was probably just a little bit stronger than the right flipper but that one it was impossible to hit the ramp from the right so you'd have to trap everyone at league like the whole time if you got on the right flipper you would post pass get on the left and then shoot the ramp because you couldn't backhand it that's where i usually find it where it's like the backhand goes away more than the that's the thing is like the forehand to me when you were like oh no i think that's a backhand i was like on the fly i was surprised that's why today i was got adam's family and i one-handed with my phone filming trying to make sure it's in frame and then still just just nailed three right in a row no problem and i was like it's easy like and in the manual it's referred to as the center ramp it's called center ramp in the manual it says center staircase yeah but they're also calling shit jets what the fuck is going on these manuals jets on the back of an airplane that's a pop bumper so i wouldn't put too much faith in what that's what harry williams wanted to call it when he pat lawler just calling anything whatever i think it's i think it's a classic center ramp i think that's why people dog on that game's rule set sometimes looking back with modern lens of oh it's just ramp chair ramp chair ramp chair and i think a lot of that's because it's in my opinion a center ramp game like so it's like you can hit it from either flipper and then just hit the scoop. That's probably why it sold so fucking well. Yeah. Because it was like, hey, everyone can hit it. And they didn't have a ball save, and yet people still loved it. Yeah, center. You can have one or the other. You can't have both. Can you think of any other not-quite-centers, anything you know I'm going to annoy you about? I mean... Like one I thought of was the Stern Trek, which now thinking about it, now Next Gen also has a center ramp. The center ramp on Next Gen might be straight-up center. It's just so far back there. Oh, really? is it it's just been a while since i've seen that game stern trek is one that it's just a little off center stern trek i would say is as center as adam's family so it's a little to the left if you run a line straight up the flipper it hits the stand up really yeah center is the vengeance that's a little to the right the center is the stand up between those two like you guys are trying to draw really thin lines on an overhead view and i look at it like if you can hit it from either flipper on the in both states on the fly and from a trap. I feel like that's a fair and it's in the center. It would be in the center. Twenty percent. That was my original definition. And that's and then I started realizing, but I'm like, John Wick's good and it meets that criteria. So I need new criteria. I know this is a great example of confirmation bias because all we ever did in that discord was the people that associate central center ramp with meaning bad as a pejorative term. we all and and then me being like no i think adam's family is like we're gonna go try to find evidence to confirm our bias but on what is the center ramp when you dig that's what i'm saying the further you dig the more you realize like it eat all of the good ones no one can name a single good one that's true center i i feel like my true center i mean like the entrance to the ramp is sent bouncing around between mousing around is the strongest argument because that is a fun game I love that game. Mouse and Round is probably the best. That's probably it. Anything other than that, I think, can be argued. And that's where it ends. I think the easiest way to tell if a game is true center or not quite center is to ask yourself, is the game fun? The answer almost always agrees with the measurements. It's remarkable because it's like we were doing this and we're like, what about this game? That one's pretty fun. And you pull out the fucking line and you're like, well, yeah, because it's not centered. They're always a little off. No one has – Mousing Around is the strongest argument I've heard, but I haven't pulled up the play field and measured. Because when we do, hold it up. I'm not going to do it right now. I'm pretty sure that one's dead center. That one is honestly the best. So other than that, if you can think of one, please let us know. I always think of this as this is an Occam's razor, and it came up in the Discord. And it'll come up in the Discord again when this episode drops after you're listening to this. You donate money to our Ko-fi account, and you get your own little link. you could join us in there and argue with us about it but i think about it like this and it comes up and people are asking their teenage son is the you know is the staircase in adams the center ramp and he's like fuck no and he's like well what is it and he's like i don't know but it's not a center ramp and you're like i always think about it like this nobody's ever called that the right ramp so what the fuck is it call it the right nobody wants to call it the right ramp i call it the right ramp no it feels right to me nobody i always look at it like if you have to explain it like the occam's razor is just what is the easiest explanation that the most people would understand if you're having to tell them what to shoot for if you said right ramp is that more it's like when you go through a roundabout in a traffic circle and siri tells you it's the third exit is that better than just saying go take a left or go straight yeah it's a dumb way of saying that it is i i agree but i do think it's just interesting how the more center the ramp is the worse it gets i agree with that the more symmetrical it is the worse it gets the more symmetrical yeah we're yeah because that yeah exactly because sometimes there are there's a lot of little nuanced ones because there's a lot of ones where it's like well it is dead center but it's much harder from one slipper than the other because something's blocking the shot from one of them yeah or the curve of the The ramp makes it more likely to reject. Exactly. Shit like that. So that's when it starts getting interesting. But the more symmetrical and the more centered it is, the worse it is. But we still see examples of that because they seem to serve a purpose. They're friendly. Yeah. So anyway, that's the that's the center ramp episode, what they are, why I don't like them, but why they're not going anywhere anytime soon. If you're listening to this, go out, find a game with a center ramp and go play it until you're sick of that ramp. It probably won't take that long. If you find one you actually think is fun, hop in the Discord and let me know. I'll probably tell you that the ramp's not actually a center ramp. I'm getting very good at arguing the point. I feel like I'm really getting this honed down.
    50:10
    But otherwise, thanks again for listening. And until next time, good luck. Don't suck. I can say please, please Try to make some sense of it all But I can see it makes no sense at all Is it cool to go to sleep on the floor? I can take anymore.
    51:01
    Jokers to the right. Here I am stuck in the middle with you.