Sources

Contributors to this record: Flipcommons AI Descriptions (GameplayFeature), Flipcommons Catalog.

description: The playfield of a pinball machine is the surface on which the game is played: a sheet of wood under glass, studded with [[gameplay-feature:pins]], [[gameplay-feature:bumpers]], [[gameplay-feature:lanes]] and [[gameplay-feature:targets]] that score. ## Before the flipper The playfield used to be almost the entire game. On a machine with no flippers, influencing the ball was mainly confined to how the player pulled the plunger and nudged the machine as the ball rolled across the playfield, meaning the arrangement of pins and holes decided almost everything.^[1] That is the inheritance from [[game-format:bagatelle]], and it is why the earliest pin games were argued over in court as games of chance. ## Standardization The playfield settled into a standard shape, a little over a metre long and half a metre wide, across most manufacturers since the 1960s^[2]. It settled on an angle too. The surface is inclined upward and away from the player, usually by about six and a half degrees.^[3] The figure is a compromise: shallow enough that a player can send the ball back up and keep it in play, steep enough that it is always falling. Operators move it deliberately, extending the levelers on the rear legs or shortening those at the front to steepen the slope, which makes a machine faster and harder to play.^[4] ## Variations Not every machine is a single sloping sheet. Some games have multiple playfields that the ball travels between,^[5] whether a small raised surface set into the main one ([[gameplay-feature:mini-playfields]]) or a full second level the ball climbs to and returns from ([[gameplay-feature:multi-level-playfield]]). Other machines break the assumption that the surface holds still, letting the game itself tilt and swing it while the ball is on it ([[gameplay-feature:tilting-playfields]]). And a whole family of machines abandons the slope altogether, standing the surface upright so the ball falls down its face rather than rolling down its length ([[gameplay-feature:vertical-playfields]]).

Flipcommons AI Descriptions (GameplayFeature)
name: Playfields
Flipcommons Catalog
status: active
Flipcommons Catalog
slug: playfields
Flipcommons Catalog

Citations

Pacific Pinball Museum — https://www.pacificpinball.org/pinball-gambling
a player's influence over the ball was mostly limited to skillshots via the plunger and nudging the machine as the ball traversed the playfield
Flippers.be — https://www.flippers.be/basics/101_pinball_dimensions.html
The dimensions of playfield glass have remained unchanged since the 1960s and are consistent across most manufacturers.
Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinball
The playfield is a planar surface inclined upward, usually at six and a half degrees
Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinball
Some operators intentionally extend threaded levelers on the rear legs and/or shorten or remove the levelers on the front legs to create additional incline in the playfield, making the ball move faster and harder to play.
Internet Pinball Database (IPDB) — https://www.ipdb.org/glossary.php Archive
Some games may have multiple playfields, with various methods for the ball to travel between them.