About the Northeast Pinball Challenge

Northeast Pinball Challenge (NPC) is a federation of leagues in the greater New England area, competing for individual and location glory! Play in a local league and compete to be league champion. Finish top four in your local league and participate in the NPC Grand Finals for more prizes — for you and your location.

Okay, So… What is Northeast Pinball Challenge?

NPC is like your favorite local pinball league, with a finals element that brings all the local leagues together. It’s this simple:

Play at your favorite participating location’s league that runs during the NPC season. All local leagues are $30 to participate in for the whole season (private locations may have a fee on top, and public locations may have coin drop added). This money goes to the location league’s prize pool, paying for IFPA sanctioning, and contributing to the NPC Finals prize pool. The leagues are single-location, which means you have to play at the same location each week. However —
You can play as many local leagues as you’d like! Have a lot of free time or just can’t get enough pinball? You can play one league or all of them. All league standings are local to that location, and are submitted separately at the end of the season. If you care about ranking points, that means you can get IFPA World Pinball Player Ranking points (or, WPPRs) for each location you play at! (and most leagues will be worth 200%!)
While each league may vary based on what works for them, NPC leagues will typically be 4 games of pinball each night, and likely 7 weeks of league, in which your best 5 weeks will count. Can’t make a week? No problem — as long as you play at least 4 weeks, you’ll be eligible for the finals at your league.
After your league is done, the top players will be invited to compete in league finals! All leagues will follow IFPA guidance for the “A” — or top half — finals. Many locations will also run a “B” final for those that don’t make the cut!
If you make it to the top four of your local league’s final standings — congratulations! You’ve qualified for the NPC Grand Finals! If you can’t attend the Grand Final, your location admin will continue down the player list in order of finish to field their representatives!

That makes sense… so what’s the NPC Grand Finals?

I’m glad you asked!

After all NPC Leagues are complete, the top 4 players from each league who wish to participate will be qualified to participate in NPC Grand Finals!
NPC Grand Finals will have two events: The Team Challenge, and the Individual Challenge

Team Challenge:

All locations will send their 4 players to the team challenge. The team challenge is a match play tournament where all team members are earning points for your location! You’ll play against players from other locations and earn points for your team in 7-5-3-1 scoring.
After 4 games, the 2 teams with the most points will be the last remaining teams! They will split on to two machines to play a match, with 2 players from each team. The lowest score in each game is eliminated. Play will continue until there are no players remaining from one location — the other team wins cash and a trophy that will be brought back to their location until the next NPC Finals!
Due to the team nature of this event, it will not be IFPA sanctioned, but it will be a lot of fun!

Individual Challenge:

As soon as the Team Challenge is complete, players will compete in the individual challenge. This will be a 6 game matchplay tournament scored 7-5-3-1, with the top 8 players moving on to finals.
The finals will be contested as 3-game sets, scored 4-2-1-0.
This tournament will be sanctioned and submitted to the IFPA.

Just a few questions…

How do I sign up to play?

NPC leagues will each have their own requirements for signing up. You can check the Locations Page for information on how to sign up for each location’s league. Most will allow you to sign up day of at the door, but some locations may require you to sign up in advance. All of that detail is on the location page.

You can bring your league fee to your first session, or some locations may offer online payment. Again, this will be mentioned on the location page.

How do I see standings for my league? Where are the scores?

NPC Leagues will be using Matchplay Events software for keeping track of standings, games, entry, and more. Once the league has started, their standings information will be updated on the Locations page!

Can I play at other locations if I can’t make my local league night (like New England Pinball League)?

You are allowed to play in as many different NPC leagues as you like in a given season, however, you can not have your play at one location “count” for attendance and scoring at a different location. Most leagues will be running the NPC format, so you have two weeks that you can skip (or drop!) without hurting your league standings.

Is this just NEPL with more steps? It sounds like NEPL with more steps (and less locations).

We’re appreciative of the size, scale, and impact of NEPL — really the largest league of its kind, and for the great job it does to bring new players to the core concepts of competitive pinball. We’re not running NPC at the same time as NEPL, so if you’re looking for summer fun and competition, we’re filling the gap. NPC is similar to NEPL, but with a few major differences:

– We emphasize the idea of local competition. We feel that getting to play against the same folks every week makes for budding rivalries, epic stories, and overall a more fun experience. Over 70% of players play at one or two locations in a given season.
– We understand that not all players can make it to a large, single day finals that’s probably a significant distance from you. NPC keeps a large portion of your entry fee at your location so your location’s finals can have cash and other prizes to share with local players, regardless of your availability to make it to the Grand Finals!
– We believe locations matter: that’s why we keep a large chunk of prize money for the locations, and we have the Team Challenge as part of our Grand Finals. Let’s see who the best location is in the Northeast every season!
– We believe that representation of our leagues in IFPA matters. Tournaments in every state collect $1 per player that is given back at the end of the year to all players who make their IFPA state final. By submitting all our leagues and eligible Individual Grand Final for IFPA Sanctioning, we are making it possible for more players to play at the end of the year for their state championship.

If I pay at one location league, do I have to pay again to play in another league?

Yes! Because all leagues are separate, you have to pay a league fee for each league you wish to play in. Your local entry fee goes to fund the prize pool at your location as well as the NPC Grand Finals.

If you play (and pay) in multiple local leagues in the same NPC Season, we will refund the portion of your registration fee to you that goes towards NPC Grand Finals. Please email derek@npcpinball.com after you have paid multiple league fees and played at least one week in each league, and we’ll get you squared away.

Why do some leagues do something (game assignment, group pairings) differently? Shouldn’t every league be the same?

With NPC, we believe that each location is best positioned to decide what works best for them and their players. NPC doesn’t dictate any specific league details — we only ask that all decisions made ensure that the play is completely within the guidelines of IFPA for a sanctionable league, and that we ensure that players are eligible for the most amount of ranking points as we reasonably can. Leagues are free to change their formats, scoring, game and player assignment, and more as long as our two standards are met. Any changes will be listed on the location page.

For season one, all leagues have chosen to follow the NPC Standard Format of 4 games a night, and scoring being 7-5-3-1. Some locations have specific rules around game selection, and some have chosen to re-pair groups after each game as opposed to each week. None of these changes will have any material impact on IFPA rating of those leagues. If you have questions, reach out to your league’s contact on the locations page!

Are games at leagues assigned, or do you get to pick?

Each location is free to determine what works best for them, and their players. For example, SNHPC is keeping with their NEPL format: one game selection from each era. TLP will be alternating choice/assignment. Check with your location admin to see what they are choosing for their league!

If I qualify for the NPC Grand Finals in multiple leagues… what happens?

You are but one person… so you will need to choose which location you would like to represent! The location you snub will be able to fill the spot with the next eligible player based on the results of the league’s finals.

Is Grand Finals considered the end of the series, for IFPA purposes?

Grand Finals is IFPA sanctioned and uses the individual league results as “seeding”, meaning that they don’t carry over any TGP from the leagues. The series is completely local to the location leagues, meaning the series ends at your location’s league final.

Where does my money go?

The entry fee for an NPC league is broken down thusly:
– $14 goes to the prize and trophy pool for your local league.
– $10 goes to the NPC Grand Finals prize pool.
– $1 goes to pay the IFPA sanctioning fee for your local league entry.
– $5 goes to NPC Oversight. This money will be used for NPC Grand Finals trophies, paying the NPC Finals IFPA fee, and other fees like securing a location for NPC Grand Finals. Within 30 days of the end of an NPC season, a complete breakdown of NPC Oversight fees and debts will be posted to a page under the About section on NPCPinball.org.

Is it worth playing in NPC if I know I can’t make it to Grand Finals?

This is a tough question that I think the answer will be different for everyone! On the positive side: you will still have the opportunity to win your local league, which would get you a cash payout. Also participating at a local league will be ~200% TGP, so if you want WPPRs for a state, it could be worth it. If your goal was playing at Grand Finals, I could see why it may not be worth participating in a given season. Ultimately the decision is up to you!

I’m interested in running an NPC league! What’s my next step?!

~~Amazing! Let’s get the conversation started. E-mail derek@npcpinball.org and we’ll talk!~~
As of June 17th, we’ve unfortunately reached our capacity for Season One. We’d love to talk about future opportunities at derek@npcpinball.org, but we cannot add any more locations for this season.

NPC Season One

NPC Season One will be starting in July, 2025. Grand Finals will be September 13th at The Lower Playfield in Goffstown, NH. Check out the locations page to find out where and when to play!

Just Play. Compete. Challenge.

Play!

Play at any of our Location Leagues — or as many as you like — all summer long! All leagues are open to all players and will be submitted to the IFPA for state and global ranking points.

Compete!

Locations will run their own finals for leagues to determine a champion. There will be cash and prizes at all locations — many also hosting B-finals so everyone can participate!

Challenge!

The top 4 finishers from each local league will be invited to the NPC Finals, competing in a team event for their location, as well as an overall NPC Championship — with both events having prizes. The Individual Final will also be IFPA submitted for WPPRs!

Join a NPC League Today!

See Locations and League Info