Most of the machines are also for sale, but by no means is this just a glorified game store. The games are on a constant rotation, with over 60 in the collection and space on the floor for about 40. A ball ricocheting through history, from Prohibition-era gambling parlors, through the rock 'n' roll of the '60s and '70s, the glitz and extravagance of the '80s, all captured in the artwork and design of these metal machines. Generations of societal evolution in one game, all right there in blinking lights and ringing bells, the sporadic tick of the score on the board. It's rare to have as concentrated of a cultural experience as one does at the Asheville Pinball Museum. Machines like this are rare, as they were mostly destroyed by law enforcement on the hunt for illegal gambling in the '30s and '40s, but they help form a clearer picture of how the game itself evolved. Without paddles, Arlington is purely a game of chance knock the ball in the right hole and you win some money, paid out through a small drawer in the front panel. There are even machines dating back to the dawn of the game, like Arlington, a vintage gambling machine from 1937, sadly unavailable for play for obvious legal reasons. There are games designed to rob you of the ball, and games that are there just to keep you playing them all day. There are great games, and there are not so great games at the museum. "This was Atari's last gasp at designing pinball," he said.
The game is slow, the ball moves at a snail's pace, and the paddles can barely keep up. With as few as 280 Hercules machines ever built, DiBella is confident that this is the only one available for public play in the country. "It uses a commercial eight ball or a cue ball instead of a pinball," he explained. "It's not a great game, but that does not matter with this one." DiBella could barely muster the wingspan to reach the triggers on either side of the game. "You've got to talk about Hercules," he said, leading me to a mammoth machine. "It's crazy," DiBella marveled, with starry eyes reflecting the blue lights of the machine. Hit the right ramp, and your ball drops into the second field of play, only the controls are backwards, with the flippers facing the player. The true madness in Black Hole is that it has a lower playing field, a game beneath the game, only visible through a glass panel on the main level. More inconspicuous than some of the machines that surround it, the machine is still decidedly darker and somewhat ominous with its strange hums, space-age buzzers and alarms. The table responded by lighting up in a warm glow of silver and blue. "It's like the pretty girl who's also really smart," he joked, flipping on the display. Black Hole, released in 1981, was one of the three machines in DiBella's home collection that inspired this whole endeavor. He pointed out a small, highly angled table in the corner. and it feels like you can make that machine do something it's never done." Classic arcade reboots are nothing new, so what is it about pinball that's creating such a draw?Ĭlassic games can get repetitive, but every pinball experience is different, DiBella said.
DiBella also added a vintage arcade room with classic game cabinets like Space Invaders. Now with 30 games on the floor, a $12 all-you-can-play price tag and local beer, the museum continues to grow. When a nearby restaurant, Havana, closed, he formed a plan to take over the space, reopening with a larger floor plan in April. "At one point, I had 15 pinball machines before we even found a place."Īfter it opened in August 2013, the Asheville Pinball Museum quickly grew in popularity to the point where long waiting lists to get in convinced DiBella, a former middle school teacher, to look into expanding. "So I talked it out with my wife and, once she gave it the green light, we just started maxing out credit cards," said DiBella. DiBella heard about Seattle's Pinball Museum, a concept he thought would work perfectly in Asheville. Soon, one machine turned into three, and that's when T.C. It all started with one machine, a vintage Buccaneer, a birthday gift from his wife.
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