The Best Pinball Player

 

Victory Journal – "Wizard Mode"

"Pinball as we know it is the result of two eras of major innovation. The 1970s, the “golden age,” ushered in microprocessors for the first digitized games. These new, solid-state machines were controlled via microchips instead of relays and allowed for deeper storylines and more complex rules. The ’90s, “the renaissance” era, introduced dot-matrix displays like those on the machines at Delirium.

“Lab research is slower paced than pinball,” says Louise. “But the approaches are somewhat analogous.” There are thousands of machines, she explains, each with their own storyline and rule sets. In competition, great players adapt their game depending on machine behavior and opponent dynamics, while in the lab, scientists use logic to determine how different elements interact in complex systems, then conduct processes of testing and refinement."