Ever wanted to bring that imaginary pinball machine in your head to life? Well, maybe not for real, but virtually?

I think that everyone who plays pinball has, at one time or another, dreamt of designing their own machine. It's only natural to see the mechanical actions and believe that you could build sometime as good or better.

Well, dream no more. With Future Pinball, a free software package for Windows, you can create your own 3D virtual machines. You first design the playfield layout using standard components and then you script the game's logic using a Visual Basic style language. This allows you to easily tweak scoring routines, bonus awards, and complex multi-part action sequences.

The video below shows some of what can be done with Future Pinball.

Check it out - it looks pretty cool and at the very least, will allow you to visualize your imaginary playfield designs even if you don't get around to implementing the logic to actually play the game.