Recently, Katie traveled to Asbury Park, New Jersey and found herself at the Silver Ball Retro Arcade & Museum, right on the boardwalk. I’ve been to Silver Ball too, and I can tell you – the place is an amazing bit of fun, especially for all of us who remember actual arcades in the 80s and enjoy old school nachos.
From Silver Ball Museum, photography by Joseph Murphy
In between rolling skee-balls and attempting Donkey Kong, Katie spotted a Hobbit pinball machine. Later, that got us wondering. Exactly how many pinball machines HAVE derived from literature? As it turns out, quite a few!
From Elite Home Gamerooms
If there’s a Hobbit pinball game, there has to be a Lord of the Rings game as well. In fact, there are many book-to-screen pinball machines. Harry Potter, Dracula, Jurassic Park, Frankenstein, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Jaws, Starship Troopers, Game of Thrones, an abundance of 007, and even graphic novel The Walking Dead. The Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory pinball game features graphics from the 1971 film (you were the greatest Gene Wilder), an Oompa-Loompa figurine, and an interactive Wonkavator!
From Lermods
Digging a little deeper, Katie and I turned up some more unexpected literary-themed machines. Like The Three Musketeers from 1949…
From Pinrepair
And this super saucy Peter Pan from 1955…
From Finside
Though technically not a book, this 1987 Dungeons & Dragons pinball game included graphics gleaned directly from the cover of the 1983 Player’s Manual. Which is awesome.
From Reddit
The Close Encounters of the Third Kind pinball game was based on the 1977 film. But there was a Close Encounters book! It was a novelization of the film published in tandem with the theatrical release. We believe this makes it eligible for the pinball literacy list. Plus, spaceships are cool.
While this next machine might not represent a specific book or literary character, it gets 100+ bonus points for being an amalgamation of several novels. May we present Verne’s World pinball from 1996 (with a depiction of the author, quill in hand!):
We found only one picture book turned pinball (unless you count this or this):
From Joystix Games
But the grand finale, voted hands-down winner of “Least Expected Literary Pinball” is this 2023 Godfather 50-year anniversary collectors edition, complete with a sculpted bust of Don Vito Corleone in his signature tux:
From Reddit
Which pinball game would YOU like to play?
Starting the post off with the master of suspense himself, Mr. Edgar Allan Poe. This was a simple 
2023 summer intern Daniel Dias not only got to test a 
On the topic of being cajoled into costumes, we present Ian Dooley, Cotsen’s former Curatorial Assistant, who climbed into a robot costume to make a 
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Switching over to the forces of good, we have Princeton University student Sylvia Jacobson, who gamely stepped up to be a Literal Fairy Godmother for our children’s literary society. Here we see her sporting an old wedding dress I spruced up with some rainbow fabric. Sylvia the Sparkly granted wishes very specifically. Definitely 
One of my favorite programs was a historic Victorian tea, complete with costumes, games, and a glorious tea time (blog readers might recognize our beloved 
Here we have three Victorian spelunkers at a massive Journey to the Centre of the Earth event we hosted in 2013. On the right is Princeton University student Kim Freid. As you can see, we were ready to tackle anything the day threw at us, thanks to all the ancient camping equipment I scored on ebay!
We started this post with Poe, and we’ll finish with the equally gothic 
We are delighted to present our newest Katie-designed escape room! While on vacation with your family, you take a tour of the SS-010 Goby, a decommissioned military submarine. But what unfolds is an unexpected adventure! Solve the puzzles to navigate the sub and make your escape…