Today’s guest article comes from Dan Lachcik, a pinball engineer and AFOL from the Chicagoland area. You can find him online on Instagram. BrickNerd sent him 11374 Arcade Pinball Machine to analyze and write about for reasons you will soon see.
Introduction
Since this is my first time writing for BrickNerd, I will introduce myself and tell you a bit about me!
My name is Dan Lachcik, and I have been an AFOL for over a decade since coming out of my dark ages. I live outside of Chicago, close to where Brickworld Chicago is held every year, and have been attending since 2015. I am married to my wife, Melanie, who also shares my AFOL hobby with me.
dan and melanie at a pinball tradeshow!
In my day job, I work as a mechanical engineer for Jersey Jack Pinball (JJP). I work on a design team (game designer, lead mechanical, and lead software) along with a broader team, to design and bring to production new pinball machines. One of the recent games I worked on is JJP’s Harry Potter, where I was the lead project engineer for all the mechanical aspects of the game, including designing mechanisms, running tests, and supporting production.
Besides it being my day job, pinball is also a second hobby of mine. Before working for JJP, I was buying used pinball machines and fixing them up – both for fun and as a cheaper way for me to own some pinball machines!
Aside from a small pinball MOC I did, my two hobbies of LEGO and pinball rarely mixed, until now…
Dan’s pinball arcade moc from 2023
So now that you know a bit about me and with the rumors of a LEGO pinball set coming out, you can see why I was not that surprised when BrickNerd-in-Chief Dave contacted me, saying he had an opportunity for me to write an article that was at the perfect intersection of my niches. LEGO was releasing 11374 Arcade Pinball Machine!
A rundown on the features for jersey jack pinball’s harry potter
Naturally, I said yes and started to think about what to write. I knew I didn’t want to just do a traditional set review, both because there would be a lot of set reviews out there and because I could bring unique insight from my pinball experience.
So with this article, I am going to be looking at this set to see how it compares with a real pinball machine and show you the differences and aspects LEGO chose to pull from in the pinball world.
I will be using JJP’s Harry Potter pinball machine as the example to compare the LEGO pinball set with.
The History of Non-LEGO Pinball
Before we look at this set, we need to understand the topic. Knowing the topic of a set is important because without the context, the set will just not be of interest to you. If you had no idea what Star Wars was, all the Star Wars sets would likely bore you to tears. It’s the same way with pinball, and I definitely do not want you to think pinball is boring!
As a brief summary, pinball began in the 1930s as a flipperless game (yes, there was a time when pinball had no flippers!) where you plunged the ball and tried to get it in a hole. These games were coin-operated versions of bagatelle, a popular European parlor game. Pinball has made a lot of advances since then, including 1947 with the Humpty Dumpty game being the first with flippers, 1975’s Spirit of ’76 being the first game to use micro processor circuit boards, and 2011 with JJP being the first to use a 27” LCD display and full RGB LEDs.
There is so much more to the history of pinball including the mafia, pinball being illegal, and claims of pinball being gambling until it was proven in court that it was a game of skill. If you would like to learn about the crazy story of pinball being banned and then becoming legal again, I would recommend you watch the movie Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game (2022). It tells the story of Roger Sharp and his efforts to lift the ban – it’s a good movie even if you’re not into pinball!
Comparing The LEGO Set to a Real Pinball Machine
I have had the chance to build 11374 Arcade Pinball Machine and play it a bit. Let’s look at some of the elements of pinball that LEGO chose to include in their set and compare how it differs from the pinball industry.
11374 Arcade Pinball Machine
parts and cost
Jersey Jack’s Harry Potter Collector’s Edition for which Dan was the lead engineer
The Pinball Industry: A real pinball machine will cost you anywhere from $7,000.00 to $15,000 depending on the manufacturer and model. For our purposes we will look at JJP’s Harry Potter Collectors Edition (CE). Harry Potter CE costs $15,000 and has over 4,944 parts in it, making it $3.03 per part for comparison.
LEGO: The LEGO pinball machine set has a part count of 2,274 and will retail for US $229.99, making it roughly 10 cents per piece. Now in the LEGO set, all the parts are relatively small, whereas on a real pinball machine, one part is the whole wood cabinet the machine sits in! And another part is a 27” LCD screen, so it is not quite comparing apples to apples…
Size comparison of 11374 Arcade Pinball Machine against real-life pinball cabinets.
Pinballs
The Pinball Industry: Industry standard pinballs are a 1 & 1/16” polished carbon steel ball, weighing 80 grams. Why 1 & 1/16” and not just 1” you say? Well, 1 & 1/16” was a common “off-the-shelf” industrial bearing size at the time when companies like Bally and Williams were bringing pinball into the modern age. It was cheaper to use something already being made rather than a custom size!
PINBALL SIze Comparisons. From left to right: 1 & 1/16” standard steel pinball, 3/4” steel pinball, and 3/4” lego pinball
LEGO: LEGO has used a 3/4” white plastic ball to represent the pinball in this set. I personally think if the ball was one of the silver colors or even light blueish gray, it would better represent a real pinball but maybe there was a reason they had to use white.
Since there is a big size difference between a real pinball and the LEGO one, it is a bit hard to compare them side by side. LEGO would have had a hard time using a 1 & 1/16” size ball, as it would make the set far too large. Luckily for us, the pinball industry sometimes uses other-sized balls. JJP’s Avatar uses smaller balls for the lower playfield and JJP’s Harry Potter uses the same ball on the upper Quidditch playfield as the Bludger balls and—get this—it’s a 3/4” steel pinball!
So looking at them side by side, we can see that they are both the same size, both are smooth, they are different colors, but the important thing is the weight. The 3/4” pinball weighs 28 grams and the LEGO pinball is 5 grams, more on why this is important later.
FLIPPERS
Flippers are the part of the machine that you control the ball with. The top side that you see hitting the ball is called the flipper bat. And underneath the playfield is the flipper mech that moves the bat.
The Pinball Industry: The flippers on pinball machines might be a bit different from company to company, but they all work the same way and produce the same result. All flipper mechs use an electro-magnetic coil to pull an offset plunger in and create a rotational force at the pivot point. This rotational force moves the flipper bat forward and fires the ball up the playfield.
Pinball industry flipper mechanism in action
LEGO’s FLIPPER MECHANISM
LEGO: LEGO uses a mechanical rack and pinion design for the flipper mechs. When you push the button it moves the rack in and rotates a gear connected to the flipper bat shaft, there is then a spring that pushes the button back out. Unlike a real pinball machine, there is no electric switch to send the same amount of power to the flipper every time, and instead, the harder you hit the button the more power you will get.
STAND UP TARGET
One of the main objects to interact with on the LEGO pinball machine is an asteroid in the middle of the playfield. In modern pinball this would closely represent either a stand up target or a bash toy. Most of the time a bash toy is just a molded sculpt that when you hit it, it triggers a switch just like a stand up target. So we will just do a quick comparison with a standard stand up target.
The Pinball Industry: A stand up target is a plastic target of varying shapes that is mounted to a leaf switch installed through the playfield from the bottom. When you hit the target, it makes the leaf switch close the circuit and awards you with whatever the game has determined that target is for.
LEGO: LEGO uses another clever mechanical design to deliver the same effect. When you hit the asteroid, it moves a technic lift arm forward and rotates a one way gear, advancing the spaceman to the end goal (more on that later). The cool part is that since the gear only rotates part way, it will take several shots to get to the end goal. Something that would be done with software in a modern pinball machine, for example, hitting the Hermione targets four times to get the reward of locking a ball for multi-ball mode.
RAMP
The Pinball Industry: In pinball, ramps are used to get the ball to places it normally can’t go, like an upper playfield or up into the staircase mech on Harry Potter. Ramps are usually made from plastic or stainless steel and offer a smooth transition for the ball to go up. Most of the time, a ramp flap is used, which is a thin piece of metal that flexes and bridges the gap from the playfield to the ramp.
LEGO: The LEGO pinball machine has one ramp on the right side. This ramp is also made of plastic, only in a different form. LEGO did a good job of creating a smooth transition to the ramp without using a ramp flap.
SPINNERS
The Pinball Industry: Spinners are a very popular item on pinball machines. Most of the time they are vertical spinners, but sometimes you will see horizontal spinners in games. Vertical spinners tend to work better as they are weighted on the bottom to always make the spinner come to rest in the same spot—ready for another hit. Horizontal spinners are a bit harder to control in their resting state, but it can be done.
LEGO: LEGO has included two horizontal spinners on the left side of the playfield. These don’t score points or trigger anything like they would in real pinball, so having them spin freely and rest in any spot works and offers a bit of randomness to the game play.
Goal of the game
The Pinball Industry: The goal of any pinball machine is the most important part. Without a goal, how do you know what to aim for and rack up big points!? The goal of pinball machines has become more and more complex over the years as technology advances and increases the capacity for the games to do more. From the early days of launching a ball and getting it to land in a hole, to Harry Potter with 95 modes to work through all eight movies, along with end game modes, multi ball modes, and side modes! Pinball has come a long way.
JJP’s COMPLEX RULES FLOWCHART TO UNDERSTAND THE PLAYFIELD and goal
LEGO: LEGO pinball has one mode, and it’s a good one—get to the baby spaceman and bring him home safely! I was impressed to see a mode that progresses as you play the game and reaches the end without the use of any electronics—all mechanical. So even with only one mode, it is still a win.
LEGO’s game goal is a bit more simple: save the baby!
The Pros and Cons: Side-by-Side Comparison
After building this set and going over the details, I have collected some pros and cons for this set. Presented in alternating format for maximum tension!
PRO: The game has a progressive goal. This is something I did not expect when I first heard the rumors of a LEGO pinball set.
CON: The asteroid gets a bit stuck at times. Since the asteroid is relying on gravity to reset itself, it can sometimes get a bit stuck and will not move the spaceman, but usually on your next hit, it will free up. I feel like this can be an easy fix with the addition of a light spring (and that is something I will be looking into adding to see how it works).
PRO: Smooth ramp transition without a flap. Having the ramp embedded into the playfield works well, and I can get a back hand right flipper shot on it most of the time.
CON: The ramp to nowhere. Although the ramp is fun to hit, the fact that it just dumps the ball back on the playfield is a bit disappointing. Again, I have ideas for fixing this and will be exploring that some more.
PRO: Brick-built playfield art. The brick-built art on the playfield is cool with the arrows pointing where to shoot and the spaceship flying towards the asteroid.
CON: No lights. I know LEGO does not do many lights, but they do have the push light-up brick. I feel like the light brick could have been added to flash every time you hit the asteroid. Maybe there was a reason they could not do this, but I am going to look into it and see if it can be done.
PRO: The flippers feel good when you are playing with the spring back action, and I was able to have good control of the ball and aim my shots.
CON: Like I mentioned before, this ball is very light and you can feel it. I am still able to make the shots and plunge the ball, but there is a bit of random energy from the ball being so light. I did put a real 3/4” steel ball in the game, and I had better ball control and it felt more like real pinball with it. But the problem with the extra weight is that the plunger can not get the ball all the way up the playfield and the flippers are not strong enough to make the ramp shot. Not to mention the wear and tear a steel ball will put on the plastic parts, there is no way LEGO could ship this with a steel ball without being flooded with complaints about broken parts.
Something else I am going to look into, maybe finding a ball with the weight in between these two, or a stronger plunger and flippers.
they included a serial number sticker under the lockdown bar (which is the piece at the front of the game where you rest your hands).
PRO: LEGO included several cool nods to the pinball industry. First, they included a serial number sticker under the lockdown bar (which is the piece at the front of the game where you rest your hands). The second is a hidden easter egg in the artwork under the playfield. These hidden pieces of art are commonly used in the pinball industry. You can tell that LEGO did their research when designing the set.
The second Easter Egg is a hidden easter egg in the artwork under the playfield.
PRO (again): Both my hobbies have come together. Having pinball represented in a LEGO set is awesome—now the next thing is to get a LEGO-themed pinball machine!
Conclusion
Hopefully through this article you have learned a bit about pinball and how it influenced the creation of this LEGO set. There is so much more that I could say or talk about with both my hobbies, but that would be a long article. So for now, I will leave this as the basics of pinball and the influence it had on this set.
I feel like this set is a perfect starting place to learn the basics and then mod this set or make your own LEGO pinball machines. If you find me at either a LEGO or pinball convention, feel free to talk to me about either of my hobbies! Thank you for reading!
LEGO Icons 11374 Arcade Pinball Machine is now available for around US $230 | EU €120 | CA $150 | UK £105 | AU $200.
DISCLAIMER: This set was provided to BrickNerd by LEGO. Any opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.
What elements of real pinball would you like to see in a LEGO pinball MOC? Or what themes do you think would be cool next? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
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