In 2015, synthwave musician and engineer Scott Danesi set out to build his own pinball machine from scratch — no company, no license, just a tribute to the brutal, electronic-driven pinball he grew up on. Spooky Pinball picked up his garage project for production in 2017. This episode of The Skill Shot steps up to the machine built entirely around one designer’s vision: an original synthwave soundtrack, a single pop bumper, and an ending where winning blows up the world — and you along with it.
| FlipScore category | Score |
|---|---|
| Shots | 13 / 20 |
| Code & Depth | 12 / 20 |
| Theme | 18 / 20 |
| Build Quality | 15 / 20 |
| Resale Value | 17 / 20 |
| Total FlipScore | 75 / 100 |
The verdict: A 75 is a solid B, but it needs context — Total Nuclear Annihilation isn’t chasing deep code or a movie license, it’s chasing one designer’s pure vision, and it nails that completely: an original synthwave score, a punishing early-80s difficulty curve, and one of the darkest endings in pinball, where blowing up all nine reactors ends the game for good. It won’t out-code the modern Sterns, and it’s not trying to. Pinside still ranks it #76 with only 800 units ever made, and resale has climbed from a sub-$6,000 launch price into the low eight-thousands. If you love synthwave, retro aesthetics, or punishing pure-skill pinball, this one’s close to perfect.
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