Man, it's hot out here, and a good time to hang out in an air-conditioned arcade. Who doesn't like playing some old-school pinball?
The only trouble is pinball isn't accessible to everyone. But at The Game Preserve, with locations in Webster near NASA and up in Spring, all of their pinball machines, about 100 in all, are playable either in the standard way or with a handheld adapter called the Adaptive Flipper Control. If you are a wheelchair user, have the use of only one hand, or have trouble standing, you can play pinball right alongside everyone else.
The Adaptive Flipper Control is about the size of a deck of cards and has two buttons. It plugs into the pinball machine and can be held in your hand or placed in your lap. Players can also continue to use the machine's standard flipper buttons.
The irony is that the inventor doesn't even consider himself a pinball player. James Austin is a technician who maintains the machines at The Game Preserve arcades. They say necessity is the mother of invention, and the Adaptive Flipper Control was born out of his necessity.
James Austin: I had a stroke, so I'm hemiplegic. I lost the use of my right side. I'm actually a repair person. I repair pinball and video game machines. I could repair them, but I needed some way to test them. I was sitting around my shop one day thinking, "How could I make it possible to play pinball one-handed?" That's what I came up with. That's the genesis of the device.
If I hadn't had a stroke, I probably never would have thought about it, to tell you the truth. I always say God gave me a stroke for a reason.
Reporter: Well, you're doing something with it.
James Austin: That's what I like to do. I didn't want to make it expensive because I wanted anybody to be able to afford it. I also didn't want it to be complicated to install. A 10-year-old could install it. That's how simple it is.
The Adaptive Flipper Control is also accessible in terms of price. The kit costs about $15 for the adapter and $20 for the controller itself, making it several times less expensive than many accessible gaming controllers on the market.
The best part is that once machines are fitted with adapters, the same $20 controller can be used on all of them. Austin says dozens of machines can be adapted for just a few hundred dollars.
Maybe because of all the adaptations he's made in his own life, Austin prides himself on the flexibility of the design. He's willing to customize it to suit a user's individual needs, whether that's operating it with the mouth or feet, or expanding it into a larger box with oversized buttons that can be pressed with knuckles or fists.
Austin says he can 3D-print customized controllers. One customer in Wisconsin underwent brain surgery that left half his body paralyzed, but with Austin's help he was able to adapt his pinball machines and continue playing.
Austin has even created a version that uses an aircraft-style joystick.
To him, it's all part of the fun.
James Austin: We were at a show in Chicago showing them off when we first built them. Kids would come up, pick up the controller, plug it into the machine, and play with it like a video game controller. They'd use each button with their thumbs.
I had a nine-year-old come up and play Ghostbusters. He picked it up, fired it up, and played it like a video game. He scored a huge number of points with it.
I asked him how he liked it, and he said, "I like this a lot better. It's more like a video game."
Reporter: So it makes pinball kind of a hybrid?
James Austin: Right. It's like a mix of old school and new school.
And for another benefit, if you're a beer drinker, you can actually play pinball and drink your beer at the same time.
People are using them lots of different ways. I primarily made it for one-handed players, but obviously it has a lot of other uses.
We had a guy come in one night who had lost part of his left arm in a lawnmower accident when he was a kid. He came in with his nine-year-old son, and they got to play pinball together.
Austin has been selling units to individuals and businesses in Texas, Illinois, Wisconsin, Florida and other locations across the country. He brought the controller to the national Pinball Expo in Chicago, where it received a positive reception.
James Austin: I'd like to see it become more ubiquitous around the United States and the world.
I spent 12-and-a-half years in the Air Force, and I've been trying to figure out how to get it into VA hospitals. If they had pinball machines in VA hospitals, veterans who have disabilities could play too.
James Austin will also be at the Houston Arcade Expo at The Game Preserve booth, where visitors can see the Adaptive Flipper Control in action and share ideas for future adaptations.
For more information, visit The Game Preserve website gamepreservehouston.com and select Adaptive Game Products.
For KPFT People's News, this is John Mohler reporting.
