Huge thanks to Sasha the Kid, all of 9 years old, who actually wrote a lot of this. She is heir-apparent to Indie Gamer Chick and The Pinball Chick and a very talented pinballer who set her first world record at the ripe age of 8 (she was briefly Exploding Kittens world champion for Pinball FX and since then has claimed a few other records that held on longer). Sasha got the AtLegends Micro for Christmas in 2023 and she’s been putting more time into it than we have our other AtGames pins. She’s worked very hard with all of us to put this together. Like all Pinball Chick reviews, this is the product of my whole pinball-playing family debating the merits of these pins. With that said, each Natural History pack costs $25 and comes with four tables. Presented to you here are quick reviews of all twelve tables in that series so far, along with general thoughts on the Natural History franchise. Enjoy!
WE DO NOT OWN THE 4K MODELS YET, but these reviews should cover those builds as well.

Scoring System

MASTERPIECE: 5 out of 5, the cream of the crop.
GREAT: 4 out of 5, an elite pin.
GOOD: 3 out of 5. A decent but flawed pin. To be clear, GOOD means “good” at The Pinball Chick.
BAD: 2 out of 5, a poorly designed pin or a competent pin that’s just not fun.
THE PITS: 1 out of 5, an actively abysmal pin with a multitude of problematic elements.

Award System

CERTIFIED EXCELLENT: A scoring average of 3.6 or higher awards a Certificate of Excellence. We generally consider a table that’s awarded this certificate to have a value of $15 by itself.
PANTHEON INDUCTEE: A scoring average of 4.6 or higher earns the table a space in our Pantheon of Digital Pinball. We generally consider a table that enters the Pantheon to be a must-own table.
CLEAN SCORECARD: An otherwise decent table that, while not amazing, earned no ratings of BAD or THE PITS. We don’t place a set value on this award and suggest our readers decide what a table we ultimately all approve of is worth to you.
💩CERTIFIED TURD💩: A scoring average of 1.4 or lower earns the table a place in the Sewer of Digital Pinball. While we don’t penalize a set for having a Certified Turd, it certainly isn’t a positive thing.

NATURAL HISTORY GENERAL REVIEW

• Natural History, generic as it is, is also one of the most consistently good franchises in digital pinball. Most of these are basically Zaccaria Pinball Deluxe models by Magic Pixel. A couple are more like their Zaccaria Remake line due to really simple layouts, but all twelve use LCD scoreboards and overall, these are pretty ambitious pins.
• The LCD scoreboards are awful. The animations are too slow and too frequent. Some tables might see players go quite a while before they can even see what their score is because animations are constantly going off. We’re not fans of Magic Pixel/Zaccaria’s LCD scoreboards in general. They’re cheap looking, ugly, and pretty slow. We think a lot of the bugs were related to scoreboards, possibly because of the gameplay happening faster than the scoreboard can keep up with. Magic Pixel should consider new ROMs for every pin. It’s not too late.
• Out of the twelve tables, a whopping nine earned positive marks across the board. In total, there were four tables CERTIFIED EXCELLENT and five that won a CLEAN SCORECARD.
• Every Natural History pack has at least one table that won a Certificate of Excellence.
• No MASTERPIECE votes were cast at all. Dinosaur Dynasty 1 would have gone four-for-four if not for the ROM not reading every lit shot.
• The best overall pack is a little bit murky. Technically, Natural History 3 is the only one that made up its $25 price tag via certificates, as it has two Certified Excellent tables. But, it also has the only 💩Certified Turd💩 in the franchise. Natural History 1, on the other hand, had no votes of BAD or THE PITS cast at all.
• Four different tables were named “best overall Natural History table” by the four Vice Family players. Cathy named Dinosaur Dynasty 2 her #1. Sasha was the only GREAT vote at all for Amazonia and declared it her #1. Insect World was Angela’s favorite, while Oscar preferred Egypt. We’re all in agreement that if Dinosaur Dynasty 1 is fixed, it’ll be our unanimous #1.
• Some of the tables crash, which means it just takes you back to the table’s page on the launcher. One time, a table froze so badly we had to restart the whole machine. Nobody suffered worse than Angela. She had multiple high-scoring games that would have easily been the family high scores, one of which was even a world record pace. We couldn’t figure out any reason for this.

AFRICA

Like most of the Zaccaria Deluxe models, Africa is a zoner. If you don’t like that style of pin, you’re not going to like this one. I think all the Vices are fans of Zaccaria Deluxe pins, but they all have the same basic problems. Zaccaria DMs always shoot a little clunky, but I like that. I like that they use non-traditional angles that have to be learned for the first time instead of basing the angles off of famous earlier pins. Africa’s targets are built especially off the supplementary flippers. This is a shooter’s pin, with an emphasis on tight shots off the sup’s. Like most Zaccaria DMs, they never quite learned full scoring balance. The upper right hand corner has three targets that light a spinner that can practically open a scoring floodgate. When it works, at least. Sometimes the ball goes right on target and the spinner doesn’t budge. They need to patch this for Oscar and Cathy to bump their scores to GREAT. I think the overall thrilling targets make up for it. Africa is one of the best Natural History pins.
Pack: Natural History Pack 2
Vice Family High: Cathy “IGC” 274,732,360 (#26 All Time)
Cathy: GOOD – Sasha the Kid: GREAT – Angela: GREAT – Oscar: GOOD
Scoring Average: 3.5 – Awarded a CLEAN SCORECARD

AMAZONIA

They could have just as well based this table on the Panama Canal for how wide the flipper drain is. There’s a drain pin that can be highly effective with practice, but it’s never quite predictable when the ball will lose its bounce on it. It doesn’t help that the table mechanics themselves are unpredictable. The South American Jaguar hole kicks the ball out multiple different strengths and angles, sometimes right between the flippers. So, when playing Amazon, prepare to play defensively. On the other hand, like most of Magic Pixel’s Deluxe line, Amazonia goes BIG with a mixture of classic pinball and a virtual wonderland of ramps, secondary and, uh, third..an..ary flippers. How come “thirdanary” isn’t a word? Modes are short and pay off huge. Completing rows of stand-up targets pays off huge. Like with Africa, there’s a heavily unbalanced and relatively low-risk mini-field that puts a damper on everything because the logical strategy is to go for it and grind-up easy points. None of us hated Amazonia, but none of us loved it either. Except Sasha, but she beat the crap out of us on it.
Pack: Natural History Pack 1
Vice Family High: Cathy “IGC” 117,029,540
Cathy: GOOD – Sasha the Kid: GREAT – Angela: GOOD – Oscar: GOOD
Scoring Average: 3.25 – Awarded a CLEAN SCORECARD

DEEP OCEAN

One of the few bad tables in the Natural History series, Deep Ocean should instead be renamed “Deep Drain” from all the angles the drain swallows-up live balls. Most of the return angles are shallow and aimed at the drain. You’d swear this is a Zen original with how trollish those angles are. A sharpshooter can get away with a table based around rapid-fire transitions from offense to defense, but not a big, complicated monstrosity like Deep Ocean. Also, those left rails are among the consistently deadly of any rails we’ve experienced. This is a table that crosses the line into demoralizing, but it lacks the fun shots that make up for it. The best thing we can say about Deep Ocean is that it speaks to how strong the Zaccaria Deluxe line’s premise is, because it’s not even close to THE PITS for any of us. Instead, it’s just frustrating to the point of boredom.
KICKBACK – Oscar: How did I raise such soft kids? Deep Ocean’s problems are entirely related to how easy it is to work the bumpers for high-yield, low risk points. The return angles are dangerous, but you can defend against them. What was the point of buying an expensive table with relatively accurate nudge detection if you kids aren’t going to use it to defend the drain? Magic Pixel has got to start learning some semblance of scoring balance, but the challenge Deep Ocean presents is hardly insurmountable.
Pack: Natural History Pack 2
Vice Family High: Angela “ADV” 76,847,980
Cathy: BAD – Sasha the Kid: BAD – Angela: BAD – Oscar: GOOD
Scoring Average: 2.25 – BAD

DINOSAUR DYNASTY

Dinosaur Dynasty is the definition of a pinball killer app and potentially one of the greatest Magic Pixel pins ever. But, it’s not, because it’s one of the most problematic pins. Angela especially has a legitimate beef with it, as it became the first table to crash our AtGames pin, and it was after she had a 90,000,000+ ball (a top 50 pace). It also had an uncanny tendency to not recognize made shots during modes. Since all scoring halts during modes, it’s a dinosaur-sized problem to have even one shot be made, complete the circuit, and not count, for whatever reason, towards progress. This happens a lot with Zaccaria’s Deluxe line, but Dinosaur Dynasty 1 is the absolute worst with it. Now, here’s the good news: all four Vices are ready to roll out the red carpet for Dinosaur Dynasty to enter the Pinball Chick Pantheon of Digital Pinball. This DESERVES to be an elite pin, with a killer layout and a wide variety of satisfying shots and targets. The mini-tables never feel like a grind. The layout feels fully optimized for multiball. Look, we all hate the Magic Pixel “no scoring during modes” setup. It’s lame and I hope they mature past it eventually. But, Dinosaur Dynasty is easily one their best tables ever and worthy of a perfect score, and it’s only not getting one due to terrible coding. Magic Pixel, you have GOT to fix this. Dinosaur Dynasty should be your flagship pin. The ROM seems to be pretty slow in general, it takes FOREVER to count up points, but if you fix it and it recognizes every made shot, we will induct this in the Pantheon.
Pack: Natural History Pack 1
Vice Family High: Angela “ADV” 119,203,200
Cathy: GREAT – Sasha the Kid: GREAT – Angela: GOOD – Oscar: GREAT
Scoring Average: 3.75 – Awarded a CERTIFICATE OF EXCELLENCE

DINOSAUR DYNASTY 2

Yep, this is a franchise now. Actually, thanks to the ROM issues with the first table, right now the sequel has a high scoring average. 0.25 points higher, but higher is higher. We greatly admire that this follow-up to Dinosaur Dynasty plays NOTHING like the first. You feel it in the modes, which have a wider variety of targets and no timer running against you. Well, not exactly running against you. You can’t time out, but every mode is potentially high-yielding if you can get your shots off fast enough because they have hurry-ups attached to them. Good thing, too, because DD2 is one of the easiest Magic Pixel pins. This is a positive, though. Dynasty 2 can be an excellent trainer table for the more complex pins in the Deluxe line. On the downside, this is a pretty boring multiball table, which is a shame because it’s an easy multiball to activate. Dinosaur Dynasty isn’t the most exciting table, but it also makes very few mistakes.
Pack: Natural History Pack 3
Vice Family High: Angela “ADV” 289,935,470 (#10 All Time)
Cathy: GREAT – Sasha the Kid: GREAT – Angela: GREAT – Oscar: GREAT
Scoring Average: 4.0 – Awarded a CERTIFICATE OF EXCELLENCE

EGYPT

Egypt is so full of burst-scoring mini-modes that it’s almost a surprise this is a Magic Pixel table. The mini-modes are based around different Egyptian Gods, and each mode is quick to activate and scales based on how many times you activate each mode in a single ball. You can get up to five million per shot with these, if you grind-up the value. Other than the transfer shots required to make your way to the basement, they might be too easy. The transfer from the basement to the primary playfield is done via the plunger in a way that directly feeds the primary flippers. Because of that, the basement isn’t merely low-risk, but no-risk. Unless the game crashes. Angela, yet again, was the victim of a crash, during the basement when she built up a massive value of the easy-to-shoot HORUS mode. At least it was only once this time and there were no instances of the table just not recognizing made shots. The main modes feel like extended versions of the mini-modes, only there’s no timer and optional bonus points to be had by completing an extra task while the mode is live. Ancient Egypt is a digital pinball staple and, while this offers nothing new, the layout is pretty fun, even if the thrills are low thanks to the basement and the main table being so disconnected from each-other.
Pack: Natural History Pack 2
Vice Family High: Oscar “OEV” 430,481,570 (#7 All Time)
Cathy: GREAT – Sasha the Kid: GREAT – Angela: GREAT – Oscar: GREAT
Scoring Average: 4.0 – Awarded a CERTIFICATE OF EXCELLENCE

EXOPLANETS

If Exoplanets were revamped to be more inline with the current crop of new Zaccaria/Magic Pixel Deluxe pins, it’d be one of our top-ranked tables. Magic Pixel’s fatal flaw has long been the fact that all other scoring pauses during modes, but that really hurts Exoplanets. There’s so many fun targets that go unloved during modes. Of course, Exoplanet has the shortest modes of any Zaccaria Deluxe Model. Like, seriously, the first mode is done in a single shot. Not one shot done three times. ONE SHOT! Exoplanet is a great trainer table for pinball newcomers. It also carries over the concept of portholes that act as the multiball locks and suck the balls in, ala the Zen Studios classic Ahch-To Island. Only these seem to create a gravity sink whether they’re “lit” or not. It’s also worth noting that this was the AtGames exclusive we’ve reviewed so far that didn’t merely crash but froze the entire device and forced us to recycle the power. So, beware this one. The good news is that Exoplanets is likable. Almost like the logical spiritual successor to PIN*BOT. We really hope Magic Pixel realizes that there’s nothing inherently sacred about their original builds for all these pins and revamps them all with new rules that open the game up during modes. We think Exoplanets would be a shoe-in for a Certificate of Excellence. Right now, it’s only okay.
Pack: Natural History Pack 1
Vice Family High: Sasha the Kid “KID” 173,538,420
Cathy: GOOD – Sasha the Kid: GOOD – Angela: GOOD – Oscar: GOOD
Scoring Average: 3.0 – Awarded a CLEAN SCORECARD

THE INSECT WORLD

Wait, didn’t Magic Pixel already do a butterfly-themed table? Farfalla Deluxe, right? No? Okay, well, this is a solid table too. It’s one of the easiest tables to juggle a combo with any of us have ever played, but Insect World flows so smoothly that the endless passing between four orbits, two of which are ramps, never gets old. In fact, we were putting up monster scores without even starting modes. It wasn’t until Angela went crazy and shot the lights out after crashing a nine-figure first ball (seriously, don’t make her mad. It just makes her shoot better) that we even found out how to start a mode at all. The mode start is a six-shot locker that’s tucked away from other targets. It’s an odd choice, to the point that it felt like they almost forgot to make a mode start target and just shoved it wherever they could find room. Insect World is such a well-flowing table that we’ll grant them that one instance of inelegance. We liked that each set of lane lights are independent to each flipper, something we’d like to see a lot more of in the future. Angela wants to stress that they need to patch this, because she crashed it a couple times and was ready to quit AtGames reviews altogether. It started to feel spooky that it was only happening to her. It speaks to how good this table can be that Angela wanted to finish what she started. In a solid pinball franchise, Insect World is a standout. Get rid of the butterflies swooping over the playfield, though.
Pack: Natural History Pack 3
Vice Family High: Angela “ADV” 494,643,600 (#8 All-Time)
Cathy: GREAT – Sasha the Kid: GREAT – Angela: GREAT – Oscar: GREAT
Scoring Average: 4.0 – Awarded a CERTIFICATE OF EXCELLENCE

THE LAST ICE AGE

 Last Ice Age is a potentially great table that’s about one-third worse off just based on the violence of the bumpers and slingshots alone. We’ve had entire 60 second timers eaten up by balls bouncing around the bumpers. Mind you, you’re scoring NOTHING that entire time, too. This is one of those pins where the rest of the targets take a nap during a mode. The bumpers are too close too close to each-other, and for a few of the modes, they’re basically unavoidable because the lit shots feed them. The slingshots are equally as violent, so 60 seconds to finish a mode is NEVER sixty seconds of actual chances at winning the mode, especially since so many angles drop the balls straight on those ultra-violent slings. Ice Age is hypothetically a close cousin of Egypt, with lots of mini-modes that would be fun if not for the fact that the slings and bumpers prevent you from even being able to shoot the ball in the first place. This is also one of those tables where you shoot saucers instead of targets or cellars, and even if the shot is on point, it’s a coin flip if the ball will actually score the saucer or just roll out. Ice Age is a GREAT table rendered barely okay. There’s nothing it does wrong that Magic Pixel couldn’t adjust. They should, because the modes are good enough that this should cruise to Certificate of Excellence.
Pack: Natural History Pack 1
Vice Family High: Oscar “OEV” 250,082,060
Cathy: GOOD – Sasha the Kid: GOOD – Angela: GOOD – Oscar: GOOD
Scoring Average: 3.0 – Awarded a CLEAN SCORECARD

NATURE’S FURY

Nature’s Fury was going to be the worst of the Natural History pins even if it didn’t make some of the most mind-bogglingly dumb design choices of any AtGames exclusive table. This is a house ball machine, with several auto-plunges ricocheting off fixtures and down the drain in a way you can’t possibly defend against. Seriously, this plunger needs to be taken out back and shot like Old Yeller, then replaced with a new plunger that actually sends the ball up and into the playfield. It doesn’t matter though, because randomly killing balls is this table’s thing. We only managed to play the first two modes, the first of which is lightning strikes. You have to hit the flashing ramps five times, and while you do this, the table shoots your ball with lightning, stopping the shots dead in their tracks. We’re not kidding. Anyone want to play a pinball table where literal sky magic stops your ball from completing a shot that’s on point? More than once, the ball was literally on the ramp when the lightning hit it and sent it backwards. The final straw was that getting into a shooting rhythm isn’t possible because if you make the ramp shot too close together, the game likely won’t count it. This is one of those tables where the ROM is so slow that you have to wait for it to finish processing the previous made shot before you can make it again. So even making the ramp five times doesn’t guarantee you win because it just plain might not count some of the shots. Hey, Magic Pixel: your scoreboards don’t need as much animation as you do with them, because those animations are breaking the games! They’re scoreboards, not Hollywood productions! Stop it! This table themed around disasters lives up to the theme in the worst way possible.
Pack: Natural History 3
Vice Family High: Angela “ADV” 364,172,320
Cathy: THE PITS – Sasha the Kid: THE PITS – Angela: THE PITS – Oscar: THE PITS
Scoring Average: 1.0 – 💩CERTIFIED A TURD💩

POLAR EXPEDITION

We assume they gave this a polar theme because the pace is glacial. Did this table REALLY need seven jet bumpers at the top? Seven! It slows the gameplay to a crawl, especially since so many angles lead to the eight lanes that feed the bumpers. Yikes. Well, at least they didn’t do anything truly moronic, like tying a high-scoring two-ball multiball to the bumpers. Oh wait, they did. Yea, it doesn’t take that many bumps to activate Antarctic Multiball, where you can juice the jackpot values by shooting the SEAL saucer. Okay, well, tell me that they didn’t further compound this problematic design by, say, tying the ball save to the slingshots, which are basically unavoidable. Oh wait, they did that too. Both Angela and Sasha had 200,000,000 point multiballs from this easy to get multiball alone. So, why aren’t they the world champions? Because they couldn’t avoid starting the low-scoring modes, where all other targets stop putting up any points. Since basically every shot is tied to a different mode start, you could end up stuck grinding out the lit mode shots when multiball will earn you 50x their value. Any table where you DON’T want to start modes is guaranteed to fail. Ignore the 2.0 we gave it, because Polar Expedition’s entertainment value is sub-zero.
Pack: Natural History Pack 2
Vice Family High: Angela “ADV” 396,258,060 (#14 All Time)
Cathy: BAD – Sasha the Kid: BAD – Angela: BAD – Oscar: BAD
Scoring Average: 2.0 – BAD

WORLD OF MICROBES

Easily the most odd of the Natural History tables, World of Microbes has a fairly conventional layout that’s made “wacky.” The mini-field is mostly (but not entirely) accessible through a whiparound loop, which is shaped like a half-moon dimple on the left wall and basically acts as a transfer if shot correctly. It’s so satisfying to shoot, and the mini-field pays off high enough to make it worth shooting. The rest of the table is downright tame, but there’s one final twist: Magic Pixel’s best use ever of digital targets. The “modes” see players shooting at different viruses that roam around the table. While they make for good targets, they’re not as good as they could be. Because the whole Zaccaria Deluxe engine is apparently slow, the little viruses and bacteria sprites that you shoot don’t die on impact. There’s a pronounced delay from the time contact is made until they go into their death animation. Thus, there’s no OOMPH, and without that, it takes away all satisfaction these targets should, by all rights, be loaded with. In general, we’re not happy with the performance of the ROMs for any Natural History table, but World of Microbes is the first one where it actively sucks the excitement out of the gameplay. If they fix this, it’s another game that can cruise to a Certificate.
Pack: Natural History 3
Vice Family High: Angela “ADV” 208,916,960
Cathy: GREAT – Sasha the Kid: GOOD – Angela: GOOD – Oscar: GOOD
Scoring Average: 3.25 – Awarded a Clean Scorecard