Well I suppose this is a really hard challenge 'cause designing a table is usually a really weary process (I assume, I have no practice in this field) requireing not just the usual artistic skills needed for usual challenges.

Though the main reason I post this is that the example piece is not really the most felicitous (<- this word is translated by a dictionary, I'm not enough sober to find an expression myself). Most of the bg seems like a colorreduction, what is not is really jagged (compare the hand and the face). The bg also clashes with the extremely simple shading and style of the foreground. I'm quite suspicious there were dirty tools used making this piece.

From playing the old classic pinball simulators, like Pinball Dreams(Amiga), Pinball Fantasies(Amiga) and Pinball Illusions(DOS) for hours and hours, I gathered that a Pinball table needs a lot of thought put into the design.

It usually has a general topic (wild west, theme park, ghost mansion, etc...), a name of the table that is related to that topic ('Steel Wheel', 'Party Land', 'Stones n Bones' to quote from PD and PF) and a lot of elements on the table that have something to do with it.

A game is played like this: The ball, gets shot into the play area usually from the right hand side of the table through a long tunnel and then starts to roll downwards. The playing area usually has two or more so called flippers, which allow pushing the ball back upwards when it is near them.

Then there's a whole lot of other stuff on the playing area, like bumpers, buttons, lights, switches, holes, magnets, more lights. In a game, it is often the goal to hit these things in a certain sequence to get higher bonuses, to unlock table modes (which could be viewed as subgames, as each mode requires the player to hit different things or to shoot through certain railways, etc.), to increase score multipliers, to advance some global table state, to beat the highscore.

All of the aforementioned elements are usually designed in a way that they are related to the general topic of the  table, often accompanied by funny remarks or cool pixel art animations shown in the display area of the table, which is also where the current score is being displayed.

But seriously, my mumblings could go on for pages, you need to play a few tables to get the general idea.

I think the challenge lies in designing the table here, the playing area elements, the modes, the layout and it all has to match the topic of the table (in this case the sport you picked)...

I am tempted to try this but there is only two days left and I already have plans for the weekend, so I don't have time.

It's a pain to make pixel art of something you basically know nothing about and for me this challenge holds two that fulfill the criteria. Olympics/Sports and pinball. I have an idea of what I'd do but I doubt I have the time or interest to work it at weekend.

I wonder who will be the people who save this challenge last minute?

Also, I don't plan on entering, but this challenge got me back into Epic Pinball :D

Pinball is just boring.

I'd said, this challenge is too challenging (unusual, though). At least it forced me to play some pinball simulators.

...just like the last Sports challenge...what have we learnt - people at PJ don't like sport??

(I won't either)

There is not a single wip-image in the challenge thread yet, is anybody even working on an entry? (I'm not and I won't.)

I love the idea, but I'm not as big on the themes =( Archery or Kayaking is what I'd Probably go with if I got around to making one for this.

tomic : water isn't enough?

If i find time i want to do a swimming piece featuring Liz Beisel....she may not be a star this year but she's my best-friend's best-friend so that's a good motivator...now i just need a few hours...

Oh boy, this is a very original compo! I am going to do this.

Great challenge idea! I'll try to enter this.

Does pinball have any standard forms and shapes, or the wiggly thingies can be whatever and wherever?

This is interesting... I might have a go at this (it will probably be like 2 days within the limit if I do, lol)