Pinball

How to play

Launch the ball, then keep it in play with the two flippers at the bottom. A ball that gets past them, down the middle or down one of the two outer lanes, is lost. You have three balls; your score is everything you made with them.

• Computer: Shift, ← or → work the flippers. Hold Space to pull the plunger back and let go to launch: the longer you hold, the harder the shot. P pauses.
• Phone and tablet: tap the left half of the table for the left flipper and the right half for the right one. While a ball waits in the shooter lane on the right, hold the right half to pull the plunger and lift your finger to launch.

For the first 8 seconds after each launch a ball save is running: the Shoot again light blinks, and a ball lost in that time comes back once.

The table

Night Drive has two ramps (pink on the left, cyan on the right) that climb, turn and send the ball back down a wire to a flipper. Beside them are two orbits that carry the ball round the top of the table, a spinner in the left orbit, a saucer in the middle that catches and kicks out the ball, three drop targets on the right and three pop bumpers at the top.

Goals

• Skill shot: before the launch one of the three top lanes blinks fast and moves every half second. The moment you let go fixes it. If the ball goes through that lane first, you score 25,000. A full pull reaches the middle lane; a softer one, the left lane.
• Laps: the left ramp, the right ramp, the saucer and either orbit start lit. Make all four for a lap. Each lap is worth 50,000 times its number, and finishing lap 2 lights an extra ball at the saucer.
• Lock and multiball: a ramp shot lights the lock. With the lock lit, the saucer locks a ball. The second lock starts multiball: the table fires two more balls, and every ramp is a jackpot, 25,000 for the first and 10,000 more for each after.
• Combos: two different shots, each within 3 seconds of the last, score 10,000, then 20,000, and so on.
• Top lanes: light all three to raise the bonus multiplier to 2×, 3× and 4×. Each flipper press moves the lit lanes one place.
• Drop targets: knock down all three to light the kickback in the left outer lane. It fires the next ball that rolls into that lane back up the table.

When a ball ends, every ramp, orbit, saucer shot, target and lane on that ball adds up to a bonus, paid times the multiplier.

Strategy

1. Catch before you shoot. Hold a flipper up as the ball comes down and it settles in the corner. From a still ball you can aim; from a moving one you can only react.
2. Learn one ramp from each flipper. From a caught ball, each flipper reaches the ramp on its own side most easily. Ramps are worth the most and they light the lock.
3. Take the drop targets early. The kickback they light is a free save in the left outer lane, and it stays lit until it fires.
4. Use the inlanes. A ball that rolls down an inlane arrives at the flipper moving, and a flip timed as it reaches the tip goes up the opposite orbit.
5. Don’t flip at everything. Flip only the side the ball is on. A flipper raised at the wrong moment sends the ball somewhere you didn’t aim.
6. Go for the lock before the lap. Multiball doubles your chances of making shots, and its jackpots grow each time.

Origins

Pinball grew out of bagatelle, an 18th-century French table game played with balls and pins. In 1870 Montague Redgrave, a British immigrant in America, added a spring-loaded plunger and a bell to it, setting the stage for the coin-operated pinball of the 1930s.

The coin-operated machine took off in the Depression. David Gottlieb’s Baffle Ball of 1931 was the first mass-produced pinball game and sold about 50,000. There were no flippers yet: you launched the ball and watched where it fell. Flippers arrived in 1947 on Gottlieb’s Humpty Dumpty, designed by Harry Mabs, and turned the game into one of skill.

The Night Drive table on this page is our own design, built for Zippi: a neon city at night, a road running up to the saucer and a sun setting behind the bumpers.

History

Why it’s fun

• The ball is never the same twice. Real physics means a shot a few milliseconds early or late goes somewhere new.
• You can get better fast. Catching the ball, then aiming one shot, is learned in a few games, and every ramp you can hit on purpose is worth thousands.
• Plans inside chaos. Lanes, laps and locks give the bouncing a direction: you always know the next thing worth shooting for.
• Multiball. Three balls, jackpots on every ramp and the music turning up is the high point of the game.

What it trains

Pinball is timing and tracking: following a fast ball, judging when it reaches the flipper and pressing at the right moment, while keeping in mind which shots are lit.

FAQ

Is there a leaderboard?

No. Your best score is kept on this device and shown next to your score.

Is my game saved?

Yes, between balls. Close the page during a game and it continues with the next ball, the same score and the same lit shots.

Why did my ball come back?

The ball save was running. For 8 seconds after each launch, and for 12 seconds when multiball starts, a lost ball comes back.

Can I nudge or tilt the table?

No. There is no nudge on this table, so there is no tilt either.

The table doesn’t appear. Why?

The table is drawn in 3D and needs WebGL. Most browsers have it; if yours has it switched off or blocked, the page says so instead of showing the table.

This version

• An original 3D table, Night Drive: two ramps with wire returns, two orbits, a spinner, three drop targets, three pop bumpers and a saucer.
• Real ball physics, 1,000 steps a second, so fast shots never pass through a flipper or a wall.
• Skill shot, laps, combos, ball lock, 3-ball multiball with jackpots, kickback, extra ball and an end-of-ball bonus.
• Keyboard on a computer; on a phone, tap the two halves of the screen. The picture adapts to the speed of the device.
• Sound for every part of the table and a soundtrack that changes in multiball. One switch in the header turns all sound off.
• Your game is kept on this device between balls, so you can close the page and come back.

Updates

1. October 12, 2026First version on Zippi: the Night Drive table in 3D, with ramps, multiball, sound and touch controls.

Page last reviewed October 12, 2026.

Sources

• Pinball in America, The Strong National Museum of Play (Google Arts & Culture)
• Full Tilt! Pinball, Wikipedia