Pinball Dreams is an Amiga game from 1992 developed by Digital Illusions CE. It spawned several sequels, Pinball Fantasies, Pinball Dreams 2, Pinball Illusions, Pinball Mania, and Pinball World. Pinball Dreams, Pinball Fantasies and Pinball Illusions are the best known, each having come from the same developer, Digital Illusions CE. Slam Tilt was the last Amiga video game from that developer.
The ball moved according to reasonably realistic physics, and the game was restricted to using table elements which would also be possible to build in reality.
Tables
Its four tables each had a theme, as do most real life pinball machines. The version of Pinball Dreams bundled with the Amiga 1200 had a bug which rendered most of Beat-Box's advanced features non-functional.
- Ignition, themed around a rocket launch, planets, and space exploration.
- Similar to the Williams Entertainment-designed "Firepower" pinball machine.[1]
- The Expert Software Pinball 2000 port of the game renamed this table Rocket.
- Steel Wheel, themed around steam trains and the Old West.
- Similar to the Williams Entertainment-designed "Bad Cats" pinball machine.[2]
- Beat-Box, themed around the music industry, featuring charts, bands and tours.
- Nightmare, themed around a graveyard, ghosts, demons, nightmares and generally evil things. It is similar to the Williams Entertainment-designed "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" pinball machine.[3] Unlike the other tables in the game, the name of the table in the menu did not reflect the name displayed on the table itself - Graveyard. Some ports of the game (notably the GameTek port to the Game Boy) name this table "Graveyard" in the menu as well.
Ports & Conversions
21st Century Entertainment published the original Amiga and Atari Falcon versions, while GameTek published the ports for the Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Game Gear and SNES. Rebellion Developments published the original MS-DOS versions on GOG.com for Microsoft Windows, macOS and GNU/Linux.
- Amiga: Original release.
- Atari Falcon: Original release.
- MS-DOS: Released in 1993. Compatible with the Intel 80286, Intel 80386 and Intel 80486, for MS-DOS 3.3 and higher.
- Game Boy: Released in 1995; only included the Ignition, Steel Wheel and Graveyard tables.
- Game Gear: Released in 1995; only included the Ignition, Steel Wheel and Graveyard tables.
- SNES: Released in 1995. A mostly-accurate conversion, including all four tables and near-perfect sound. However, the red "blood" under the top bumper in the Nightmare table has been changed to blue; the crosses have also been removed.
- Game Boy Advance: Under the title Pinball Challenge Deluxe, with additional tables added from Pinball Fantasies
- GP32: Released in October 2002.
- Commodore 64: A limited preview of a build of Pinball Dreams was released at the Breakpoint demo party in April 2006. As of 2020, the original project to convert the title to the Commodore 64 looks to have been abandoned, with work supposedly being passed to another development team.
- iOS for iPhone/iPod Touch: Released in January 2009 by Cowboy Rodeo as Pinball Dreaming: Pinball Dreams.
- PlayStation Network for PlayStation 3/PlayStation Portable/PlayStation Vita: Released in November 2009 by Cowboy Rodeo.
- iOS for iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad: Released in July 2011 by Cowboy Rodeo as Pinball Dreams HD.
- macOS: Also released via GOG.com on April 23, 2013, now part of the Pinball Gold Pack. However, only a 32-bit binary is available, and will not run on macOS 10.15 or higher.
- Microsoft Windows: Released via GOG.com on February 11, 2011, now part of the Pinball Gold Pack. Listed as being compatible with Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10.
- GNU/Linux: Released via GOG.com on August 19, 2014, now part of the Pinball Gold Pack. Listed as being compatible with Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04, and Ubuntu 18.04.
- Amiga CD32: Unofficial re-release of Pinball Dreams and four other video games as Digital Illusions - Complete Amiga Works in 2017.
- Amstrad CPC: Unofficial port, released in October 2019 by BG GAMES.
Sequel
A PC-only sequel, Pinball Dreams 2, was released in 1995. It was released by 21st Century Entertainment (like Pinball Dreams) but was developed by Spidersoft.
It included four tables, including
- Neptune, themed to underwater exploration
- Safari, themed to an African safari
- Revenge of the Robot Warriors, themed to a battle against robots
- Stall turn, themed to aerobatics
Minimum Specifications
 MS-DOS Minimum/Recommended Specifications
| |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum Specifications | Recommended Specifications | ||
| CPU |  80286AT @ 20 MHz
|
CPU | 80386SX / 80486
|
| RAM | 530 KB | ||
| Display | VGA @ 800 × 600 resolution | ||
| Storage | 2.5 MB, 3.5" Hard disk | ||
| Sound | Adlib, Soundblaster, Soundblaster2 and Roland sound cards supported | ||
External Links
- Pinball Dreams Preview c64 at Pouet.net.
- Pinball Dreams at MobyGames
- Pinball Dreams II at MobyGames