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Trigger Happy
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randomness with a continuous control over one
important variable of the system. So do videogames.
That one variable is the behavior of the player’s own
character (animal, humanoid or mechanical), battling in
an otherwise unpredictable virtual world. As the
Pachinko control is analogue, furthermore, the tiniest
variation in its position can produce large effects in the
chaotic system. And this is comparable to the “deep
controls” that Richard Darling enthuses over in games
like Super Mario Bros.
Thirdly, and again as with videogames, Pachinko
assaults the player’s senses with the balls’ clacking,
constant electronic music and a dazing miscellany of
colored, blinking lights and computerized animations.
You play Pachinko for twenty minutes and you come
away empty-handed—yet you know you’ve had some
weird kind of fun. And it was Pachinko machines that
were Taito’s original business before they created
Space Invaders.
Power tools
So far we have seen that videogames have
some things in common with films, with
paintings or with stories, without ever being
quite the same sort of phenomenon. But the
example of Pachinko should remind us that