The first pinball game I played wasn’t on an actual pinball machine, but on the Commodore 64. David’s Midnight Magic it was. At least I think it was the first. It could be another pinball game on the C64, but I don’t think so. Ultimately it doesn’t matter which game was the first one I played, because it’s David that has left the most lasting impression on me.

And I’m not the only one who liked the game. A review on Lemon 64 says it well:

No idea what sort of magic David was involved in at midnight, but this is the best pinball fun to be had on the C64.

lemon64.com on David’s Midnight Magic

And now I’ve got a physical copy of the game to do my memories of this game justice. It’s the Ariolasoft version and not the slightly better looking Broderbund version, although I like the black background of the former better than the blue one of the latter.

Inside the cover is a description of the controls and the scoring instructions. Both very handy and that are things I definitely would have liked back in the day. Of course, I only had a pirated version without any instructions back then.

The thing that came as a bit of a revelation to me is the picture on the front cover. It shows the game being played with paddles. This is very cool and not something I would have thought about. I will definitely try this out, as I take any chance I get to play a game with paddles. It’s only the buttons that control the flippers of course and not the knobs, but I think it will add a whole new level of experience to the game playing with the paddles instead of the keyboard. I guess we’ll see.