''Epic Pinball'' is a 1993

pinball Pinball games are a family of games in which a ball is propelled into a specially designed table where it bounces off various obstacles, scoring points either en route or when it comes to rest. Historically the board was studded with nails call ...

video game developed by

James Schmalz Digital Extremes is a Canadian video game developer founded in 1993 by James Schmalz. They are best known for creating ''Warframe'', a free-to-play cooperative online action game, and co-creating Epic Games' Unreal (video game series), ''Unreal' ...

and published by

Epic MegaGames Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game and software developer and publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, Ma ...

. The initial release pre-dated Schmalz'

Digital Extremes Digital Extremes is a Canadian video game developer founded in 1993 by James Schmalz. They are best known for creating ''Warframe'', a free-to-play cooperative online action game, and co-creating Epic Games' ''Unreal'' series of games. Digita ...

name. The game is played seen from a 2D top-down view within a scrollable window with plain raster graphics in 640x480. It was noted for being programmed entirely in

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was introd ...

assembly language In computer programming, assembly language (or assembler language, or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as Assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence be ...

for

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

systems. On November 30, 2017 the game was re-released on GOG.com, with support for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

, and

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

pre-packed with

DOSBox DOSBox is a free and open-source emulator which runs software for MS-DOS compatible disk operating systems—primarily video games. It was first released in 2002, when DOS technology was becoming obsolete. Its adoption for running DOS games i ...

Tables

The game was originally distributed on floppy disks in 3 separate packs of 4 tables each. The original

shareware Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer ...

version (and an early retail version) included only the original "Android" table. Later shareware versions and retail versions contained an updated version called "Super Android" (although it's still referred to as "Android" in the game, the table was changed to say "Super Android") Another table, "African Safari", was included in the "Full Edition" (the CD-ROM version), in addition to the tables from the three packs above.

Development

Tim Sweeney saw some impressive 3D demos done by a group of Finnish developers that were members of the PC demogroup

Future Crew Future Crew was a Finnish demogroup that created PC demos and software, active mostly between 1987 and 1994. History The group was founded in 1986 by PSI (Sami Tammilehto) and JPM (Jussi Markula) as a Commodore 64 group, before moving to the PC ...

and sent Mark Rein to Finland to recruit them. They declined except for

Misko Iho Misko Iho (born Mikko Iho; May 9, 1975, in Helsinki) is a Finnish film director. In the mid 1990s, he was part of the computer demo group, Future Crew, and later worked designing computer game graphics in the United States. He also worked in or ...

who travelled to the US with Mark, bringing back an unfinished version of a pinball game. Unable to convince them to allow

to finish the game, Tim showed the unfinished game to

in Canada. James developed Epic Pinball (with six pinball tables) from scratch in nine months while he was in college. Tim and Mark kept in touch with James to ensure he was on the right track. The graphics were created using Deluxe Paint II and the music was composed using

Scream Tracker ''Scream Tracker'' is a tracker (an integrated multi-track step sequencer and sampler as a software application). It was created by Psi (Sami Tammilehto), one of the founders of the Finnish demogroup Future Crew. It was written in C and assembly ...

Releases

In 1993, the first registered game included only the first two pinball packs. The following year, xLand Games distributed that very version under the title "Fliper". In 1994, the "Crash & Burn", "Jungle Pinball", "Enigma", "Cyborgirl" and "Deep Sea" tables were released as individual games by

B&N Software Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller. It is a Fortune 1000 company and the bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. As of July 7, 2020, the company operates 614 retail stores across all 50 U. ...

and its child company Strange Ranger. In 1995, all three packs plus the exclusive "African Safari" were released on CD. In the mid to late 1990s, individual tables were given away as free floppy diskettes to customers of

Blockbuster Video Blockbuster or Block Buster may refer to: * Blockbuster (entertainment) a term coined for an extremely successful movie, from which most other uses are derived. Corporations * Blockbuster (retailer), a defunct video and game rental chain ** Blo ...

upon renting 2 or more items. The promotion lasted only for a few months. In 2011, the game was partially re-made by Fuse Powered Inc. for Apple's iPhone,

iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a music pl ...

and

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating s ...

platforms. The game, re-titled as "Retro Pinball", features updated versions of three tables from the original game.

Reception

''Epic Pinball'' was a major commercial success for its creators, whose internal figures placed it as the third-best-selling shareware product of all time. Designer James Schmalz said in 1999, "''Epic Pinball'' was way more successful than anyone imagined it could be. I went from earning $1200 a month to earning at times almost a hundred times that." According to Epic's Tim Sweeney, it was the publisher's top-selling shareware game ever, and Schmalz earned "more than a million dollars from the shareware royalties" in its first year. Ultimately the game sold more than 200,000 copies. ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...

'' in 1994 stated that ''Epic Pinball'' was superior to the development team's commercial ''

Silverball ''Silverball'' is a 1993 pinball video game developed by Digital Extremes and Epic MegaGames and published by MicroLeague. It is basically a set of ''Epic Pinball'' tables distributed through retail. Silverball was the first set of pinball games ...

'' and "overall quality is very high". The magazine concluded that the $45 registration fee was a good value for eight boards, as "Very few commercial alternatives offer as much without causing your wallet to Tilt!"

References

External links