The quintessential game of the sixties and seventies, crowds of kids in Led Zeppelin and Bay City Rollers T-shirts, corduroy flares and gym boots would gather around the pinball machines of the capital, located at corner stores, in milk bars and packed into the occasional gaming arcade.

Pinball was the ultimate game of hand-eye coordination, lightning-fast reflexes and immaculate timing. Rainbow lights would flash, index fingers were poised against the flipper buttons and the 'ding ding ding' of the small metal ball hitting light-up targets was the game's soundtrack.

The aim, of course, was to score as many points as possible by maneuvering the ball in and around obstacles on the sloping table.

Decades later, the rainbow lights and 'ding ding dings' still exist in Canberra - except now they're coming from the depths of suburbia.

A group of cult pinballers called the Vice City Players (VCP) practise on personal pinball machines in their own garages, spare rooms and man caves across suburban Canberra, before meeting once a month at Belconnen venue The Basement to compete.

The Vice City Players (VCP) formed in 2014, when Canberran Andrew Zeylemaker bought a 1979 pinball machine called The Cosmic Princess - "a real fixer upper" - and joined online forum Aussie Arcade for tips on renovating it. Zeylemaker interacted online with a fellow pinballer who happened to be in the next suburb, and through the forum recruited more Canberrans with a passion for pinballing.

Today, VCP is a group of more than 40 enthusiasts, many of whom are also part of ACT Pinball, hosts of the 2019 Australian Pinball Championships.

But while there's a serious side to VCP - all points won at The Basement are attributed to each member's International Flipper Pinball Association score - it's having a schooner and catching up with other retro gamers that Zeylemaker loves best.

"I love the social side of pinballing - it appeals to a diverse range, we get young people through to about 50 and it appeals to men and women," he says.

"It's a bit of an underground pastime but it's kind of surprising how many people just do have machines around.

"I also like that the physics of the game means there's a completely random element to it, whereas if you're playing on a screen you can't fully simulate that, the real thing is different."

Fellow VCP member Steve Hyde, who has more than 10 pinball machines and five Space Invaders machines in his garage, could be labelled even more of an obsessive than Zeylemaker.

Hyde hosts a pinball podcast called Pinheadz and his day job involves - you guessed it - servicing pinball machines. Hyde is the owner-operator of A Blast from the Past Amusements and says there are between 10 and 13 pinball machines in every single suburb of Canberra. In Jerrabomberra, there are even more.

"People bring machines to me from anywhere - I've had clients from Temora, the south coast, Cooma, the Snowy Mountains, you'd be really surprised how many people are doing up pinball machines and arcade games," Hyde says.

"Where previously there were only a limited amount of manufacturers, now there are so many satellite awesome producers of pinball - such exciting things coming back.

"The resurgence of home pinball and pinball on sites like pubs and clubs is amazing to the point where people are buying $10,000 pinballs for their home."

For more information on the Vice City Players head to www.vicecityplayers.com

Favourite pinball machine: Well, I actually own three pinball machines. I have an old 1965 machine called Bowler Strike - it's a 10 pin bowling themed game which is really cool and it uses old circuitry and has old bells and chimes. I have a 1994 World Cup Soccer machine and my newest one is a 2016 model Ghostbusters machine.

What I love about pinballing: I love the physical nature of it. I like all sorts of games but I love the physical random aspect of it, you have to have control over the ball and it's got that level of skill. It has depth of rule and gets really quite complicated.

My pinballing superpower is: I think patience is my superpower and knowing quite a few of the rules comes in handy, there's so many of them.

I'm also into: Retro video games. I've got a few old consoles and arcade machines like Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Atari and the old cartridge games. My favourite game is probably Mario, it's a classic.

Favourite pinball machine: I've got a Twilight Zone machine - not because I love the show but because it's one of the top-rated machines on the Internet Pinball Database. I didn't grow up with The Twilight Zone, I've since bought DVDs, strangely I've been introduced to it because of pinball. We've spent about $4,000 on the machine but they tend to go up in value if you look after them.

What I love about pinballing: I started out videogaming and then I discovered arcades which were dying out by the time i was able to go into them. I just love that they're mechanical and they clunk and they're real and it's a physical thing and it involves gravity and it's just really interesting. It's skill-based rather than luck which is cool.

Which skills do you need to be a good pinballer? When there's a multi-ball you need to be able to watch multiple things at once, you need to be able to learn different rule sets for different machines. You need to have quick hands, quick eyes and quick reflexes.

My pinballing superpower is: I'm not actually the best player in the world but I enjoy it. I enjoy the social aspect and I enjoy getting better by practising, it's a real skill so it takes a long time to become really good.

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