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THIS WEEK IN PINBALL: December 16th, 2019

THIS WEEK IN PINBALL: December 16th, 2019

— This Week’s Top 5 Stories —

0. Rick and Morty Revealed!

Who reveals a new machine on a Sunday night? Spooky that is who! Rick and Morty revealed – check it out! We’ll have a full breakdown next week

1. Rick and Morty: Teasers and What We Know – You Can Ignore This Now

We got some great teasers from Rick and Morty last week! Most notably, Spooky shared an image of the underside of the playfield – check it out!

Let the speculation and dissection begin!

Head2Head Pinball Podcast:

Our friends Martin and Ryan C. at the Head2Head Pinball Podcast shared some interesting nuggets on their podcast before the bottom of the playfield image was released:

“…there are rumors that this pinball machine is pretty different…there are rumors that this doesn’t have an Italian bottom…”

They go on to discuss the teaser video that briefly shows blue portion of the playfield that appears to be a pop bumper.

Ryan states “I think this might be replacing the – according to the picture – the left sling shot.“

Ryan also shares:

…there are ramps on this thing, this is not a single level playfield. It has ramps, it has more than one ramp, it has at least two.

…it will have a very unique locking mechanism I’ve heard – kind of like the Danesi lock, but not, maybe an evolution on that.

They also discuss possibly staged balls like Star Trek the Next Generation – listen to the full podcast here!!

Pinside Dissects:

The Pinside detectives started breaking down the bottom of the playfield image and sharing ideas. This speculative image is from our friend Matt Koenen from the Slap Save Pinball Podcast:

More Pinsiders even flipped the playfield and started trying to figure out shots – you can check those out here and here.

The ball on the bottom left seems to indicate a staged ball at the VUK above it about halfway up the playfield – it fell down to that point because the playfield was raised.

What We Know:

Scott Danesi design
Scott is doing “a lot of the music, sound fx and lightshows”
Eric Priepke (epthegeek on Pinside) is on code with Bowen Kerins doing rule design
David Van Es is doing animations
Intergalactic Custom Art – though we do not know who is on art yet (possibly one of the artists for the show?)
Custom Voice Over from Justin Roiland (co-creator and voices for Rick and Morty)
Game will have “adventures from the series”
Spooky is using a significantly larger PC with Rick and Morty
Limited to 750 machines
Two flipper buttons on right side (and looks like a magnet on the underside of the playfield)
It sure looks like a pop bumper is in place of the left sling (similar to Andromeda) – wait, we are venturing into What We Think We Know territory

We’ll keep you posted as we learn more here at TWIP!

2. Kaneda’s Pinball Podcast: Hot Wheels Rumor

Kaneda’s Pinball Podcast shared a significant rumor last week – listen to the full podcast here. He shared a rumor that has been going around that American Pinball may have acquired the license for a future title: Hot Wheels!

As mentioned, this is still a rumor, but there is enough evidence of this being a future American Pinball title that it has been added to the rumors below!

[Editor’s Note: We hear a lot of rumors – especially of future games – on different podcasts, how do we choose which ones to include on This Week in Pinball and which ones to not include? Basically it amounts to this – if we have already heard evidence to support the rumor, we will included it when another podcast mentions it. If we have not heard evidence to support the rumor, we don’t include it (example: the Karate Kid rumor from a few weeks ago) and just ignore it. If we have not heard evidence to support the rumor, it does not mean it is not true of course – just that we haven’t heard anything yet to support it. Since I get asked this question often, I thought I’d go ahead and address it here.]

3. Special When Lit: Chuck Ernst Talks Elvira

Our friends Ken and Bill at the Special When Lit Pinball Podcast talked last week about some things Chuck Ernst shared during the Flip N Out stream of Elvira the prior week. Here are just a couple nuggets he shared regarding Elvira and future code:

“[Chuck Ernst] said that there are 4000 clips that can be utilized…for Elvira House of Horrors. In comparison, Batman ’66 which is widely known for having a large amount of video assets, has about 1500 clips…in addition – I think right now there are 5 or 6 dead heads coded in the game. Chuck said…15 dead heads when it is all said and done will be coded into this game…”

Click here to check out the full episode!

The Flip N Out Twitch stream also hosted the one and only Greg Freres last week – check it out here!

4. Countdown to Stranger Things

A lot of rumors going around about Stranger Things pinball as the next game from Stern! From rumblings it is looking more and more like we may see something before the end of the year…stay tuned!

5. Project Pinball Charity: 24 hour Stream-A-Thon

Our friends at Special When Lit are hosting an awesome event starting this Friday that will benefit Project Pinball! This week we also learned that pinball enthusiast Adam Schwartz will be doing a dollar for dollar match on ALL donations!! Here are some details:

100 percent of proceeds will go to Project Pinball Charity with the goal of 24K (placing 3 machines in 3 different children’s hospitals).

*Pinball Enthusiast Adam Schwartz (NY) offers a DOLLAR for DOLLAR match on ALL DONATIONS!*

Hosted by Ken, Bill and Steve of Special When Lit Podcast

Guest list includes (but not limited to) Steve Ritchie, Eric Meunier, Scott Danesi, Roger Sharpe, Joe Katz, Ryan White, Dan Selakovich, Zach Meny, Jason Fowler, Ryan Kuiper, and Dave Brennan of Turbografx7 Twitch, St Charles Pinball Crew, pinball enthusiasts, and more to be announced.

Auction Items will include (but not limited to) Wonka Playfield (signed by staff and provided by JJP), Houdini Playfield (signed by staff and provided by API), RAZA Playfield (signed by staff and provided by deeproot Pinball), JJP Pirates of the Caribbean whitewood #2 (plucked from the wall of Eric Meunier’s office and provided from him personally) and more to be announced!

TUNE IN HERE when it starts!!