THIS WEEK IN PINBALL – 8/1/22: Spooky Pinball to Rerun Total Nuclear Annihilation and MORE

LoserKid Pinball Podcast: Interview with Scott Danesi reveals rerun of Total Nuclear Annihilation coming from Spooky Pinball

LoserKid Pinball Podcast did a great interview with Scott Danesi and discussed quite a few things from his audio work on Weird Al with Multimorphic to the rerun of TNA.

• Currently working on audio for Multimorphic

• He has a ton of ideas for pinball designs but wants to take a break for awhile

• He wrote two tracks for Weird Al for the game

• His main project now is the soundtrack for a VR game which will be released as an album later.

• Doesn’t think we should be calling the new run of TNA’s 2.0 since it isn’t an update, but just a rerun with some minor tweaks – Scorbit integration, possible new multiball if it is fun

• Spooky to rerun them in the normal TNA cabinet with a new LCD screen

• Will be loaded up with mods – green plastics protectors and translucent drop targets

• Scott owns all of the IP for TNA

• Don’t know if Spooky will limit it or not

Check out the full podcast here.

Pinball Designer Wayne Neyens Passed Away

On a sad note, the prolific pinball game designer Wayne Neyens passed away just after his 104th birthday. Neyens worked for Gottlieb during the 50’s and 60’s and created over 175 games for them during his time there. The most produced game Neyens ever worked on was the Spirit of ’76 that he did along with Ed Krynski. Check out the full list of games he worked on from IPDB.org.

Barstool Chicago: Interview with Gary Stern

Barstool Chicago, which covers the Chicago area sporting scene, did an interview with Gary Stern. They discussed the basics with Gary like how Stern got started and what model games Stern creates each year.

• A bit of history about Stern Pinball

• About 400 employees

• Went from a ½ mile of wire in a game down to ¼ mile of wire

• Control 85 – 95% of the market

• Discusses Stern Insider Connected

• How they handled the pinball downturn with the fall of arcades

• Discusses themes

• Sports are difficult themes because of limited markets

• Discuss rock band themes and their popularity internationally

• Talks about licensing and how it has gotten harder

• Mike Myers bought Austin Powers games for his cast

• When doing Rush the plan was to produce 800 – 1000 of the Pro initially but parts supply stalled that start

• Still having chip supply issues

The Super Awesome Pinball Show: Interview David Fix and Ryan McQuaid

The Super Awesome Pinball Show have yet another great interview. This time with David Fix and Ryan McQuaid from American Pinball. They mainly focus on how they did not end up getting the license to Sonic in order to make McQuaid’s Sonic Spinball home brew that won the TWIPY for best home brew in 2020. The gist is that McQuaid is helping out on the next game at American Pinball.

• Future of Sonic Spinball discussion

• American Pinball was going after the Sonic license but it was picked up by another company.  Roger Sharpe worked on the license for American and Sega was on board.  Stern Pinball did not get the license.

• The plan was to use Ryan’s game with tweaks

• Was planning to use a blue powerball  

• Barry Ousler’s game is getting produced with the help of Dennis Nordman and Ryan McQuaid

• Franchi is working on the art on the next game which is coming out in 2023

• Wanted to release 2 games this year but are trying to catch up

• A third line is being installed

• Streamlined cabinets are being made to help with production

• LOV Classic will come out when the Deluxe Limited editions are all completed

• Will continue to do unlicensed games

• They are NOT producing Food Truck from Barry Ousler.  The next game is a fresh new game from Ousler but it wasn’t created under his previous company.  Barry had an idea for his next game with American before he unfortunately passed away.

• Fix mentioned that two new companies in Chicago that will be producing pinball games in the future

Check out the full podcast here.

The Slam Tilt Podcast: Congrats on 6 Years!

A big CONGRATULATIONS to the guys at The Slam Tilt Podcast for surviving each other for over 6 years now. Their podcast has always been able to make me laugh and give me some good info on fixing and repairing games. Their eBay finds are always quite interesting and sometimes have me scared to even look. Thanks for putting out great pinball content!

Check out the full podcast here.

Skill Shot, BABY! Pinball Epiphany

There is a new Kickstarter campaign by Imoto and friends of MarcoTV. They are looking to create a pinball narrative short that they hope can turn into a full featured film. Check out their Kickstarter promo video below.

Miniature Table by Pinball Fantasies

This looks cool but might be hard to play for folks with big fingers like me. Check out the details on Sprites Mods.

Nick from Buffalo Pinball has a great video on products and instruction on cleaning and waxing pinball playfields. These are the techniques I’ve been using to clean my playfields for many years now and I’ve had good results. Make sure you clean and wax regularly to keep your playfields from getting scuffed and scratched.

Make sure to check out the Latest Games and Rumors page.

Disclaimer: Any articles, interviews, or mentions of pinball manufacturers or pinball products is NOT an endorsement.