On Saturday March 25, 2025, the New England Pinball League (NEPL) hosted its Season 33 Finals at the FunSpot Arcade in Laconia, New Hampshire. Earlier in the season, I qualified for the B division, with each division consisting of 32 players ranked by the total points earned during the best six out of eight weeks played during the season.
I hit the road early for the two-hour drive up to FunSpot to be sure I arrived with plenty of time to grab a coffee and donuts at the local Dunkin’, check in, and play several warm-up games prior to the first group of competition, kicking off at 10am.
The format for NEPL finals is the same as weekly league nights throughout the season: groups of four players play four games per round, with 7 points awarded for the top score, 5 for the 2nd best score, 3 for 3rd best, and 1 for 4th. Only the top two players by points in each group advance to the next round. I didn’t really dominate in any group that I played, but I managed to secure second place in each of my first three rounds, just enough to advance and ultimately reach the final group of four!
The final round featured a challenging group of games: The Addams Family, Big Guns, Swing Time, and Godzilla. I started out poorly on The Addams Family, aiming for the scoop to start mansion modes, but missed twice and paid the price with quick drains. I played better on Big Guns, starting several multiballs to reach 1.8 million points, but this being the final round, the other competitors in my group also put up good scores. Swing Time is a 1963 Williams EM machine, so you know that high scores are more about lucky bounces than modes and multiballs. So after three games, I was out of contention for first place, but with a top score on Godzilla, I had a chance to vault into second place. It took me until ball three to lock three balls and begin Godzilla Multiball with an active Gigan battle, and I had an incredible multiball round and was closing in on the score to beat of around 350 million points. With a large audience of onlookers, I unfortunately ended up tilting ball three when trying to save a ball from an outlane drain and finished with about 290 million, drawing audible “uhhhhhhsss” from the crowd.
So with the 2nd best score on Godzilla, my 5 points added up to 14 for the total round, which tied another player. The top two players were also tied at 18. Both pairs went to a tiebreaker, with our group drawing The Incredible Hulk for the battle for 3rd and 4th place finishes.
The Incredible Hulk is a solid state machine released in 1979 by Gottlieb, and typical of solid state machines, the end of ball bonus can make or break a score. On each ball plunge, one of the top lanes is lit for a 2x, 3x, 4x, or 5x bonus multiplier, which is a huge advantage if you can make the skill shot. I successfully plunged into the lit 3x lane on ball two, kept the ball in play to build up a good bonus, and saw my bonus triple to nearly 150,000 points at the end of ball two. With a final score of nearly 250,000, I won the tiebreaker and finished in 3rd place for the B division!
NEPL continues to host well-organized eight-week seasons finished with a large finals event of over 120 players (FunSpot has enough space and machines, it hosted nearly 160 players!). If you’re interested in joining NEPL and playing in the weekly league events, sign up on their webiste at NEPL.org