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US 7,070,506 B1Granted
System and method for providing pinball machine tournament play
AssigneeStern Pinball, Inc.
InventorsLonnie Ropp, Joe Blackwell, Dwight Sullivan
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A pinball machine having an inclined playfield supporting a plurality of game features and a rolling game ball. A processor is used to control the function of the pinball machine including permitting game play in a tournament mode wherein game play allows a player to earn a score that is evaluated to determine if a prize is to be awarded. The processor may also allow for game play in a normal mode wherein game play does not provide for a prize to be awarded. When both game play modes are available, a player operated switch may be provided for permitting player selection of the mode of play at the beginning of each game.
Claims48
A pinball machine, comprising:
- a downwardly sloping playfield;
- a mechanism for launching a ball from a lower portion of the playfield to an upper portion of the playfield along a side of the playfield;
- flipper mechanisms located at a lower end of the playfield for diverting the travel of the ball to prevent a ball from exiting the lower end of the playfield under the force of gravity where it is returned to the mechanism for launching a ball;
- a plurality of features on the playfield which, when interacted with by the ball, influence scoring during game play;
- a system for monitoring interaction between the ball and the plurality of features comprising a plurality of programming embodied on a computer readable medium having a first programming for determining game play scoring based upon the monitoring, a second programming to determine if one or more players are to be awarded a prize as a function of game play scoring, and a third programming for sensing a prize information display wherein the first programming remains operative while use of the second programming is inhibited if the third programming fails to sense the prize information display.
2 more elements
A pinball machine, comprising
- a downwardly sloping playfield;
- a mechanism for launching a ball onto the playfield;
- flipper mechanisms located at a lower end of the playfield for diverting the travel of the ball to prevent a ball from exiting the lower end of playfield under the force of gravity whereby it is returned to the mechanism for launching a ball;
- a plurality of features on the playfield which, when interacted with by the ball, influence scoring during game play;
- a processor for controlling the function of the pinball machine including permitting game play in one of two player selectable modes:
- (i) tournament mode wherein game play allows a player to earn a score that is evaluated against other game play scores to determine if a prize is to be awarded;
- and
- (ii) normal mode wherein game play does not provide for a prize to be awarded;
- and
- a player operated switch for permitting player selection of the mode of play at the beginning of each play of a game;
- wherein the processor further inhibits game play in tournament mode when the processor fails to sense a display used to display information relevant to tournament mode.
8 more elements
A pinball machine, comprising
- a downwardly sloping playfield;
- a mechanism for launching a ball onto the playfield;
- flipper mechanisms located at a lower end of the playfield for diverting the travel of the ball to prevent a ball from exiting the lower end of playfield under the force of gravity whereby it is returned to the mechanism for launching a ball;
- a plurality of features on the playfield which, when interacted with by the ball, influence scoring during game play;
- a processor for controlling the function of the pinball machine including permitting game play in one of two player selectable modes:
- (i) tournament mode wherein game play allows a player to earn a score that is evaluated against other game play scores to determine if a prize is to be awarded;
- and
- (ii) normal mode wherein game play does not provide for a prize to be awarded;
- and
- a player operated switch for permitting player selection of the mode of play at the beginning of each play of a game;
- wherein the processor further inhibits game play in tournament mode when the processor fails to sense a display used to display information relevant to tournament mode;
- wherein normal mode allows a player to earn an increase in a number of times a rolling ball is supportable on the playfield and tournament mode provides a fixed number of times a rolling ball is supportable on the playfield.
9 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.