At long last, the year 2024 would come to a close. What do you think is the best way to give the year a send-off? My idea was pretty simple: a  few more rounds of pinball. Actually, that with a little classic arcade video gaming thrown in. For me at least, there really is nothing quite like a New Year’s Eve at Cidercade.

On at least a couple of machines, I just wasn’t feeling it. I know these are games that I ordinarily enjoy playing. Part of the problem, or perhaps even the problem, was overly sensitive tilt switches. It’s one thing to discourage abuse, it’s another to have tilt warnings (and actual tilts, for that matter) from normal play. This was maybe a notch or two above “gesund-tilt”; a reasonably soft  slap save was enough to get a warning or two.

The pizza buffet was quite satisfying. Up until now I have never had the pizza at the relatively new kitchen at Cidercade. I do miss the food trucks but one can always walk over about ¼ mile to Big City Wings.

Before midnight (2024-12-31, and yes, a couple of games have more than one score photo):

Of particular note is the 133.8M+ run on Stranger Things, the 291.7M+ on Star Wars, 160k+ on Pepper II, 42.6M+ on Wheel of Fortune, and 3.05M+ on Heavy Metal. Also of note was the 16.7M+ on Elvira’s House of Horrors. The machine never went to a proper attract mode loop. It just stayed put on this screen, possibly due to an oddly timed tilt on the final ball. I don’t try to crash game software on purpose, I swear… it just seems to happen.

That game on Elvira’s House of Horrors would be the last before I got in line for the champagne-style cider and popper. I unfortunately didn’t get any pictures of the area while it was covered in confetti. It’s possible someone out there did. It was quite the festive mess. I think it was at this point I took my first bathroom break of the new year before heading back out for a few more games.

After midnight (2025-01-01):

I don’t know about you, but I would say 306.7M+ on Game of Thrones and 60.8M+ on Black Knight Sword of Rage (Pro) are a great way to start the new year. The rest of the scores are at least respectable. By this point, though, I was starting to feel quite tired. I left a good 10 minutes before the official closing time of 01:00. All in all, I had a great time and I really do feel like I got a happy start to 2025.

And for the next-to-last pinball/arcade outing of the year, I made my way over to Little Dipper after a short Sunday workday. The lineup has changed a bit. Paragon, Jaws, Guns N’ Roses, and Monster Bash are out. Quicksilver (Stern, 1980), Big Game (Stern, 1980), Foo Fighters (Stern, 2023), Batman 66 (Stern, 2019), and James Bond 007 60th Anniversary (Stern, 2022) are in.

I spent most of my time playing Quicksilver and Stars, with a few rounds of Big Game and a quick game on Star Trek in the interim. I eventually managed a relatively good run of 1.05M+ on Quicksilver, and a close-to-the-high-score-but-not-quite 594k+ on Big Game.

There was quite a bit going on for this visit to Cidercade. Though a lot of the scores were pretty ho-hum, I was able to put up a 129.9M+ on John Wick (Pro) good enough for high score #2. Also of note was a 44.9M+ on Wheel of Fortune and last, but certainly not least, 207,700 on Pepper II which is an all-time personal best (3 lives, bonus lives at 70k/140k).

This last one is notable because I don’t really consider myself an expert on this game. This may well be the game I pick for a Twin Galaxies certified record attempt, though I am realistically not expecting a record or even to beat the lowest verified score (5th place of the five scores: 720,200 by Desiree McCrorey, set back in 1983).

As of right now there are still some tickets left for Cidercade’s NYE event in Houston, but that will likely change by end of day on Monday. If you are hoping to attend, the time to buy a ticket is now and the place is this page on Eventbrite.

I dropped in at Poison Girl on the night of Monday, December 23. This visit went by fairly quickly as I mainly came to play Earthshaker which was turned off due to–of all things–a missing right flipper button.

I did, however, get in at least one quality run on Six Million Dollar Man, a decent score on Pulp Fiction, and then an 813k+ on the re-themed Mata Hari. That last score was good for high game to date and is a recent personal best.

Upon hearing the news that Earthshaker was fixed, I headed back to try it out. There were a couple of issues which have also since been fixed (the worst of them being a broken fault diverter, meaning the first lock can only be made by shooting the shelter directly and not the ramp), but overall the game played very well. I played a few other games in the collection while I was there, with the most notable score perhaps being a 286 .5M+ on James Bond.

After another event earlier in the day, I dropped in to Star Pizza for a good meal and, of course, some pinball.  Since my last visit, Guns ‘N Roses had been swapped out for Monster Bash. I did play a couple games of Monster Bash in addition to the obligatory games on Dolly Parton. My best run on the former game was 83.2M+, good enough for a replay with a knocker loud enough to make someone choke on their pizza. On the latter, I put up a recent personal best of 380k+. All in all, a satisfying trip from both a dietary and pinball standpoint.