Like nine cans of shaving powder, that's funky

[austin_dern]

The thing I dreaded in that RLM tournament. I was drawn up, first, against MSS, perennial plausible candidate for champion of the open state tournament. And if that weren't bad enough, we were to play Paragon.

Paragon is an early-solid-state game from about 1979. It's got a lot going for it. Great theme, playfield art of guys with dragon wings slaying beasts, neat gimmicks like an outlane hole guarded by a pop bumper so maybe your doomed ball and be bounced right back in, this neat ``waterfall'' channel the ball can wiggle through, and apparently if you put enough shots together it plays the interlude of The Ohio Players's song ``Funky Worm''. Unfortunately, the game is a drain monster. Every shot on it sends the ball down the center, down the right outlane, or down the left outlane right through the pop bumper guarding it. Even the Pinball Arcade simulated version --- and simulated pinball tweaks physics so that every game plays easier than any real one will --- drains everything fast. I've seen tutorial videos where the expert pinball player can't keep it the ball in play long enough to finish a sentence.

I was looking at a defeat, and not even on a fun table, or one that I might possibly have a chance on. And then RLM threw everything for a loop. He noted that MSS, alone of all the players, hadn't had a loss yet ... so declared a bounty. If anyone beat him this round, that person would get a free pop. MSS immediately congratulated me because, apparently, every time RLM declares a bounty the targeted person loses. Maybe, but that would only happen if MSS won a race-to-the-bottom game.

The bizarre thing is that I did win. And not by losing the race to the bottom. MSS had a lousy game, yes, not quite the three houseballs Paragon loves to deliver but near enough. Meanwhile I had ... just ... like, a really good game. The ball came out of the waterfall curly loop just where if I held the right flipper up the ball landed safely on the left flipper. It never got near the pop bumper guarding the outlane except to be bounced over to the right flipper again. I kept hitting the bonus multiplier targets. I got the bonus up to the levels where it holds your progress for the next ball. I finished, after two balls, at something like 250,000 points which might be the highest score I ever put up on a real physical Paragon and isn't far off the highest I've ever done in simulation (386,540).

RLM's bounty program worked again!

With the curious confidence of having not just played well, but played well on a very hard table, I waited for the last of my fourteen matches. I went on to play SM, a woman who only plays at these Grand Rapids tournaments, on Avengers Infinity Quest, and faceplanted hard against her perfectly decent game.

Well, I made it, although into a ten-way tie for the last eight positions for finals. The ten of us in the tie had to play a set of games on my nemesis of Nitro Ground Shaker, the bottom two getting dropped and the rest moving on to playoffs. I put up a merely mediocre game, getting third in my group, but as some other people somewhere did worse I was through in not too much difficulty and could look forward to playing at least one more round of pinball.

Could the night be going any better? I leave you with that cliffhanger.

(Don't pity MSS. He went on to win the rest of his games, and finished qualifying in undisputed possession of first place. He would go on to take a mere third place after finals were done, but he's not hurting for rank or esteem.)

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And now? No cliffhanging in my Dollywood pictures, but we are getting into some serious roller-coaster-riding as it turned out that Sunday evening in June was a great time to be at a major amusement park. Consider:

Some of the queue to Thunderhead, with the misting spray going. This is all switchback space and note that we could just walk up that wooden stair to the launch platform and ride.

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In the shadow of Thunderhead is this little knee-banger of a coaster, the Whistle Punk Chaser.

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And there's the Whistle! The name apparently derives from logging terminology about what trains should be doing, with the whistle punk chaser keeping track of log traffic and warning people when to get out of the way or stop sending things into the way.

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This is a small coaster really targeted at kids, which is why it's not very high, and it bashes your knees relentlessly, and they send you around it ... I think they might have done three times.

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They do explain the whistle punk thing in signs here that, turns out, I didn't get in clear focus. Sorry.

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And here's a nice conveniently nearby drop tower. I did not drop on it.

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Trivia: After the surrender of Robert E Lee and the capture of Jefferson Davis, the state of Florida cancelled the elections it had on the schedule, instead sending representatives to Washington to learn what the Union intended to do with the former Confederate states. Source: Look Away! A History of the Confederate State of America, William C Davis.

Currently Reading: Michigan History, January/February 2025, Editor-in-Chief Sarah Hamilton.

Comments

Paragon

[moxie_man]

My family actually liked that game when we had it for a few months in the family store. I suppose if you play it enough times you figure out how to minimize house balls. OF course, I doubt I'd remember those moves after 4 decades since then.

[mmcirvin]

My problem with Paragon is a real rookie thing: I keep trying to trap the ball on the right lower flipper.