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The Classic Pinball Podcast
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Episode 2: The Classic Pinball Podcast- Pintastic Best in Play

PodcastAnalysis updated 2d ago51 min listenBy George
From the creator

In this episode the guys interview the winners of The Best in Play competition to see who has the best looking and playing game in multiple categories. (We continue to name drop)

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Highlights

  • Ryan McQuaid won three Best in Play titles at Pintastic with Bally Playboy, Black Knight 2000, and Roller Coaster Tycoon
  • Black Knight 2000 playfield restoration took approximately two months of manual labor instead of purchasing a $1,000 replacement playfield
  • Mark Seiden built a custom Metroid pinball game using a half-populated Jurassic Park playfield and a FAST Pinball board, taking approximately three years from concept to completion
  • Steve Ritchie played Mark Seiden's Metroid custom game and said 'he did not hate it' but noted the game was too dark
  • Benjamin Miner works for Mark Hankowski at Mystic Pinball in Turner's Falls, Massachusetts and has restored multiple games including Black Knight (1980) and X-Files
  • Vid1900 is credited as a Pinside expert who publishes restoration guides and responds to personal messages same-day
  • Classic Arcades playfield overlays use vectorization which loses detail compared to original artwork
  • Mark Seiden is a programmer by trade, which enabled him to program custom code for his Metroid game
  • Dave Matrando typically wins Best in Play awards at Pintastic but his winning streak was broken at this event
  • Tradewinds (1962 Williams) was restored with proper flipper rebuild and maintenance rather than using high-tap modifications

Notable quotes

“I'm entirely self-taught. I learned almost everything I know from YouTube videos, vids guides on Pinside, shout-outs to him and all of his amazing knowledge, and personal help.”
Ryan McQuaid
“Instead of spending $1,000, I spent roughly two months on scraping off all of the existing decal art, scrubbing the play field down until it was absolutely beautiful, clear coating, doing water slide decals for the inserts, airbrushing touch-ups”
Ryan McQuaid
“Metroid is a game that lends itself to pinball because one of the very first, literal first power-up you get is the ability to turn into a ball.”
Mark Seiden
“Steve Ritchie played the game. He said that he did not hate it. That's good. That's positive. Yeah. Also, he said it was too dark.”
Mark Seiden
“The key to good EM play is good restoration not high tapping or red dot flippers or whatever.”
Dave Matrando
“Vid1900 is the mystery master lord. He's the guy who has published these wonderful guides on every subject from rebuilding your flippers to restoring your play field.”
Benjamin Miner
“I got a lot of free time. Yeah. And I decided, well, I'll just treat this as my job until I find a job, a real job, a paying job.”
Mark Seiden
“When I, with a kind of repaint, I'll like run my hand along the side of the paint on the side of the cabinet, and typically I'll feel an edge. But on Dave's, I don't.”
Benjamin Miner
“Most of them I make my own stencils, and we weigh them down. And if you leave a little bit of space between where you weigh them down and where the paint's actually going to hit, it lives enough for that little bit of kind of fuzziness, the over-spray.”
Dave Matrando
“They were throwing them out the door as fast as they could. And it was lead paint, so it had more pigment in it.”
Dave Matrando

Entities

  • FAST Pinball· company
  • Mystic Pinball· company
  • Pintastic· event
  • Bally Playboy· game
  • Black Knight 2000· game
  • Metroid· game
  • Roller Coaster Tycoon· game
  • Tradewinds· game
  • X-Files· game
  • Benjamin Miner· person
  • Chuck Webster· person
  • Clay Harrell· person
  • Dave· person
  • Dave Matrando· person
  • George· person
  • Hugh Sparr· person
  • Mark Hankowski· person
  • Mark Seiden· person
  • Perry· person
  • Ryan McQuaid· person
  • Steve Ritchie· person
  • Steve Young· person
  • Vid1900· person
  • Whitney McQuaid· person

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