Pinball machines are, in a lot of ways, the perfect marriage of digital and analog. Simple electronics and flashing lights combine to create a space for you to smack a real metal ball around. Even as wholly digital games become the norm, there’s something special about bringing the digital and physical worlds together.

That’s where Flippaper comes in.

Flippaper is a machine that lets you draw (and play on) a pinball table of your own creation using nothing more than a sheet of paper and some paint markers. Each colour corresponds with a different pinball element, like flippers, bumpers, tracks, speed-up ramps and breakable blocks. Once you’re done, the Flippaper machine reads the sheet and creates a digital pinball table you can play on right away. If your design lacks excitement (or your ball keeps getting stuck in the same place), you can pause the game and add new elements as you go along, or save it so friends can compete to beat your high score.

You can check out a promotional video (in glorious ’80s techno style), as well as a video showing the machine recently in action at TIFF’s DigiPlay Space below.

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