Budge The Nudge 1: Solvieg’s Party
We’ve been cooking up something special this year. Yes, we’ve already had the debut of a podcast, issue 4, and even an ill-conceived white t-shirt, but we’ve been saving our biggest reveal until right now: we finally started our own gameshow. It’s true. Right now you’re living in a world where Budge the Nudge exists.
But what is this rad new game, how can you play, and where is it gonna show up next? Well chill TF out, my dude. That’s literally what we’re here for. So what is Budge The Nudge?
Budge the Nudge is the newest gameshow from Nudge Magazine
At its core, Budge the Nudge is a gameshow and like all gameshows it really sets out to do a few core things well:
Make a fun game for the people playing it and show them how dope pinball is.
Humiliate those same people for the enjoyment of onlookers and rubberneckers (you lot).
Give me the chance to give away some fabulous Nudge prizes. (hopefully not a lot)
With those ideas in mind, we set about creating a game that would be infinitely replicable, super fun, and, most importantly, allow me to do it while smoking copious amounts of weed. In the end, I think we can all agree we at least accomplished that. The Nudge’s budged were the J’s we smoked along the way. But in reality, what is this thing?
How do you play Budge The Nudge?
Budge the Nudge is a simple game. One person is designated The Nudge. That could be me, it could be another Nudge writer, or it could be a pro pinball player. That person is willing to take on all challengers in a single game of pinball of their choosing.
For our first night, we only had one game (a Xenon) which made choices simple, but ultimately the choice of game will ALWAYS be at the discretion of The Nudge. Here are the rest of the rules for Budge the Nudge.
Budge the Nudge Rules
Contestant will play one (1) game of pinball against THE NUDGE.
If the contestant wins the game and BUDGES the Nudge, they will be entitled to one (1) free magazine of the Nudge’s choosing.
If the contestant LOSES the game, the Nudge will take one (1) extremely ugly picture of said contestant.
That’s it. We keep it simple, stupid.
How we set this whole ding dang thing up
Being a photographer has been fun and connected me with all kindsa people in the art and music world that I might not be in contact with otherwise. One of those people is local indie rocker, Solvieg, who invited me to their birthday party to take some pictures. I thought it sounded fun, so I said yes, but on one condition: I wanted to bring a pinball machine along with me. Solvieg said yes. Now came the hard part.
Most of you know this, but I don’t really own any pinball machines except for a Torpedo Alley that literally no one wants to play except for me and my sick friends – so what was I thinking? Well, I was thinking of Dan Hansen, one of the original founders behind Northstar Pinball Collective, an amazing pinball tech, and all around lover-of-a-good-time. Dan has a ton of awesome pinball machines, so the first thing I did was call up Dan and asked if he had any games that would be good for a party like this. Namely, a party full of hipster, fun-loving 20-somethings who weren’t pinball serious the way us freaks are. Dan came back immediately with a great pick.
“How ‘bout a Xenon?” he said with a wild little glint in his eye.
Xenon Still Rules
Xenon has been the subject of numerous Nudge shoots already, but let’s get the basics out of the way. Xenon is a 1980 Bally pinball machine designed by Greg Kmiec with art by Paul Faris. It’s perhaps best known, though, for its use of sound and speech as a storytelling/gameplay device. These mechanics were built from the ground up by Suzanne Ciani, the experimental artist and musician, making Xenon a groundbreaking pin for its time – and a vibey as hell experience even today.
It was gonna be perfect for us.
7:30 PM - Dan’s office
Dan has an office in Savage, MN – about a 40 minute drive from the Twin Cities proper. I drove on over and met him at an office that smelled a bit like soup and a lot like pinball parts. Dan seemed excited and a little apprehensive about this whole experience, and some of that apprehension ended up coming my way when I realized after looking at the invite that this party was NOT in minneapolis as I had assumed, but was instead even further south, like another hour away, in a little college town called Mankato. That was gonna put our return ETA to our respective houses at well past 3am.
I was like oh shit, do you still wanna go?
And Dan was like “Hell yeah.” So I guess first hurdle cleared.
Dan already had the hard part of loading the game into his pin hauler already done, so we got in our respective cars (Prius for me) and sped off into the night. Responsibly.
8:30 arriving at the house party/set up
By the time we got there, the party was already started. There were people sorta just chilling out in the main room as Dan and I walked up and had the shitty realization that we’re a lot older than anybody else up in there. To those dudes' credit, they didn’t blink twice. They acted like it was completely normal to have two crusty dusties come in and set up a pinball machine in the middle of their living room.
Solvieg showed us where we could plug in. I asked where I could smoke a bunch of joints I had in my pocket. She said right here and sorta just motioned in front of the pinball machine. I proceeded to smoke a j basically by myself as Dan set up the game and the party sorta curiously watched. Like I was a talking animal that had walked in the door or like my fly was open and I was the only one that didn’t know.
The end of the world as we know it
I spent a little time wandering through the party, taking pics of people and generally being at peace that the old classics of getting fucked up and having fun with your friends is still alive and well in this generation. COVID didn’t ruin that. By the time I got back, Dan was set up and a couple curious onlookers had already started rubbernecking.
I explained the rules for Budge The Nudge and we got to business, and let’s just say this: the business for ugly pics was GOOD. My favorite thing to do was definitely yelling at people to make their faces uglier. I might actually like that more than pinball. My next magazine might just be people making super ugly faces. Call it Grimace, I dunno.
It was cool teaching people about pinball. With a few exceptions, this was everyone’s first time really knowing what to do in a pinball game. Like teaching them the basics of setting up a two player game, understanding that flippers are supposed to help you aim for stuff and control the ball. I taught them with joy in my heart, as one by one I mercilessly crushed them.
Did we give away any magazines?
Yes, we did. But overwhelmingly I got to take a LOT of ugly pictures of people, and in that way I like to think we all won. I mean look at these goofenbachers. They fought valiantly, but in the end fell a couple spinner rips short. I still couldn’t really tell you a good strat for Xenon other than rip the spinner and hope for it to fall in the gobble hole or whatever. That’s also my general advice for life. Rip that spinner and hit the gobble hole when you can. OK, here are some more ugly faces. Enjoy!
