Tilted Orbit Arcade

05/31/2026

Looking forward to the Clash!! 👀

Join us for all the fun June 25-28 at The Clash of the Titans 2026! Three days of side events to play in between entering cards for the main tournament.

05/29/2026

📣 A Dungeons & Dragons High Score Tournament has landed at Rustic Brewing Company, effective today through June 14th! 🛸

🐄 How does it work?

It's simple! Dungeons & Dragons now has a Tournament button on the front. Putting in $2 will allow the button to be pushed and start a Tournament score attempt. The game then automatically picks the Paladin and gives you 3 balls to get a Tournament high score. After your run you will be asked by the game to enter your initials, and create a PIN for prize verification. The top 3 Tournament high scores get entered in to the attract mode score screen so you can review what you're up against.

💸 And the money?

Each Tournament score attempt increases the prize pool which has a base of $10 to start. You can check the current prize total and top Tournament scores before play by using the flippers to move through the attract mode screens. Payout is a 60%/30%/10% split for the top 3 scores. Prize collection will then be coordinated privately with Tilted Orbit in a way that's convenient for you.

👽 Anything else?

Just have fun! We're excited to see how people feel about passively competing on their own time for prizes and are very open to feedback on the format. Dungeons & Dragons offers several paths to achieving high scores and we feel it's perfect to kick off our first passive Tournament and give people a chance to find ways to express their own scoring methods.

05/26/2026

🚀 Our Stern Army Rustic Sunday Strikes / Pinball is for Everyone tournament was a huge success! Big thanks to everyone who came out and made it such a fun event! We had:

- 21 players 🤩
- 2 brand new competitors 🎆
- 3 more new people stopped by and said they’ll be back 🥳
- a ton of strong local players who came out to support 🙌

🏆 Winners and Prizes:

🥇 Luke Norman took 1st ($95)
🥈 Dan Wilga took 2nd ($66)
🥉 Ryan Floyd-Rancier took third ($28)

That said, as the tournament director, I made an error in planning the tournament that I want to share to let others maybe learn from my mistake. For this event, I changed 3-player groups to only give 1 strike instead of 2, thinking it would be friendlier for newer players.

What I didn’t fully think through was how that would interact with:

- a large field
- a high number of 3-player groups
- very strong players surviving longer
- a couple of long-playing games

The result was a marathon 15 round tournament that went very late. So going forward:

- 3-player groups go back to 2 strikes
- tournament start moves to 2 PM, with new player intro prior
- a few long-playing games are getting adjusted…yer warned! 👽
- As TD, will take a minute to reflect on the field of players and tournament setup, and make changes to streamline the tournament before it starts, if necessary

This experience was a good reminder that tournament directing is as much about reading the room as knowing the rules.

🛸 Curious to hear from other TDs: What tournament formats have you found work best for keeping events moving while still staying beginner-friendly?

05/20/2026

👽🚀BRING A NEW PLAYER, GET A SHIRT!🚀

For this month’s Rustic Sunday Strikes / Pinball is for Everyone event at Rustic Brewing Company, anyone who brings a NEW player to pinball or tournament play will get one of our brand new Tilted Orbit Arcade T-shirts!👕 Keep it for yourself… or maybe pass it along to your new player friend as their official introduction to pinball life.😎

🛸 Beginner / New Player Session — 3 PM
🏆 Tournament Starts — 4 PM

This event is all about making pinball welcoming, fun, and easy to try for the first time. Bring a friend, bring your kids, bring your coworker who says “I’m terrible at pinball.”👽

Seasoned players are encouraged to come help show new folks the ropes too — one quick tip or game explanation is all it takes to hook someone on the hobby.🚀🐄

Let’s grow the pinball community together!

05/17/2026

Rustic Sunday Strikes Knockout Tournament

05/11/2026

Seeing Tilted Orbit Arcade featured in BusinessWest today was one of those “wow, this is actually happening” moments. 🚀✨

What started as a love of pinball, community, and creating spaces where people can genuinely connect is becoming something real in the Mill District.

I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who has supported this project so far — friends, family, the local pinball community, and the Mill District team. Thank you for believing in this dream. ❤️

The article captures exactly what I hope Tilted Orbit becomes: a welcoming place for families, friends, competitors, and anyone looking to have a little more fun together.

And yes… The Addams Family pinball game that derailed my thesis progress years ago will absolutely be there. 😂

Huge thanks to Cinda Jones and BusinessWest for the feature!

Creating Community Amy McDonough was working in the renewable energy business when, in her words, she “picked up pinball again” after putting it down following graduate school at the University […]

05/09/2026

Tilted Orbit is at the Vicennial Brewing Company Barn Sessions Spring Revival! Come join us for great music, food, and PINBALL!!!

05/07/2026

Tilted Orbit will be at the Vicennial Barn Sessions this Saturday! Come play Iron Maiden, Aerosmith, and Deadpool in the barn while the bands jam! 

VBC Barn Sessions Spring Revival – Johnson Brook Farm, 292 College Highway, Sat May 9, 2026 - Join us on May 9th, 2 PM - 10 PM at Robert E. Arnold Farms, 292 College Hwy, Southwick, MA, for our latest Craft Beer and Music Festival hosted by Vicennial Brewing Company, featuring special guests Rus...

05/01/2026

Fresh month, fresh leaderboard at Rustic Brewing Company!

May’s Stern Insider board is empty and ready for its first legend 👑
Will it be you?

Rack up a 🏆 high score and enjoy the glory all month long.

We’re also rotating in iScored, so Hot Wheels and Total Nuclear Annihilation have persistent high scores - meaning your bragging rights last...until someone beats you.

12/18/2025

I promised updates on the Tilted Orbit Arcade progress, and here they are in this interview with Matt and Don from BASH Pinball! I really appreciate their interest in what we’re doing and appreciate them
Taking the time to talk to me about TOA!

Podcast Episode · BASH Pinball Podcast · 12/18/2025 · 1h 5m