This past weekend I went to the Pinball Asylum's Point Monster Championship. What an event! It was held at the Pinball Asylum, a private nonprofit located in Ft Myers FL. The place is run by pinball aficionados Dan Spolar and David Denholtz, two passionate collectors who (with others) have amassed an impressive selection of games at the location. The tournament was filled with very strong competition from all over FL (the best of the best in the state was there including current state champion Atticus Palmer) and as a result, to get to the finals, one had to really bring their "A" game (btw speaking of Atticus, what an outstanding competitor and great guy, don't miss his story at the link above, it's a good read).
The Asylum draws on a collection of nearly 80 games, with examples from the electromechanical era of the early 70's all the way to present day Sterns. The place also boasts some very rare games, like "Algar", the 1980 spiritual successor to "Gorgar" (with fewer than 350 units produced) and Interflip's "Dragon" a Spanish made pinball machine from the late 70's that I was told, made it to the Pinball Asylum by way of Canada.
Oooh, Algar!
Interflip's Dragon
Interflip's Logo on Dragon (Interflip was the export name for "Recreativos Franco" Do you suppose that's a reference to THE "Generalisimo"? Just curious...)
Of all the games at the Asylum, the one I kept coming back to during the whole weekend when I wasn't competing or chatting, was Congo. Great layout, fun volcano toy, really neat lower playfield gorilla mechanism, interesting rules, it just seemed to have it all.
Don't feed the trophies!
Stay tuned for my next post where we see what the main competitors were up to...
