David's Midnight Magic

The Good
When people think of pinball games on a home computer, they usually think of the ones released by 21st Century Entertainment in the Nineties. They were a great way not to go down to the arcade and insert quarters into one of the pinball machines available at the time. The home computer pinball game actually dates back to the Eighties, when Bill Budge created Raster Blaster, which paved the way for more accurate pinball sims to follow. It was only released for the Apple II, so anybody who didn't own an Apple couldn't experience what pinball on a computer was like. That all changed when Brøderbund released David's Midnight Magic for various other platforms.

The game share the same mechanics as the many other pinball games you find in the arcades at the time, including multiball and score multipliers. The advantage over these pinball games is that you only have to press one key to start the game. You also get five balls instead of three, the game supports up to four players, and there are a few other surprises.

The table itself is colorful and laid out nicely, and the animations are also neat. I like the bumper with the red apple on it, which is a homage to the original version of the game. The game displays some graphical trickery alerting the player that a certain feature has been activated. The flashing of the title above the scoreboard indicates that the player has launched multiball. Likewise, if the player tilts the table one too many times, the table will be locked and the word TILT in big, red letters.

The sound effects are basic and there is no background music distracting you from the action. There is a high score table, listing the top ten, and this high score table can be used to “score-attack”. I like how the keys are laid out nicely. The [Shift] key is used to move the right flipper, and the [Commodore] key is used to move the right.

The Bad
Nothing. It's just a basic pinball game.

The Bottom Line
In closing, David's Midnight Magic is a pinball game featuring mechanics that mimics those found in the arcades at the time. The only difference is that there is no quarters involved. The table itself is quite colorful and laid out nicely. It is easy to get used to the game's controls since they are spread across the keyboard. If you want a break from arcade games or shoot-em-ups, you can load up DMM and have a few goes.