THIS WEEK IN PINBALL: December 23rd, 2019

— QUICK HITS —

Stranger Things Pinball Teaser Leaked

Last week Kaneda’s Pinball Podcast leaked a Stranger Things teaser video on this Facebook post – check out the video below!

The video shows the Stranger Things Premium Edition. Below are some stills from the video. [NOTE: all of these images have been edited and made lighter than they appeared in the video.]

First the right side of the backbox:

The left side of the backbox and the translite:

The lower portion of the playfield:

Upper half of the playfield showing the projection feature of the Premium:

The magnet ball lock feature:

The middle section of the white theater screen opens to reveal a demogorgon toy:

The middle section of the screen then turns into a ramp to shoot at the demogorgon:

A few more examples of the screen in the middle and the projection onto the ramps and targets:

Keep an eye out today for much more info!

Rick and Morty New Info

We learned a lot of new updates last week about the new Rick and Morty machine from Spooky Pinball!

First off – coder Eric Priepke shared some more details on the rules on this Pinside post:

Regarding the rules; It wouldn’t be wise to get into too much detail right now, as things are still very likely to be changed and tweaked as we refine what works and what doesn’t. In an overall sense, though, I can explain some of the larger pieces and concepts.

– The modes are ‘adventures’ and are what you’d expect from a mode based game for the most part. We’ll have a handful of them in the game to start, but fully intend to add more as we go along. Yes, one of them is Pickle Rick.

– You can open a ‘portal’ in the garage to travel to other dimensions. In other dimensions, things about the game change. In one dimension, certain parts of the playfield may be worth more, or less. In another dimension, certain features may not work at all. Dimensional travel can happen any time. During adventures or multiballs — doesn’t matter.

– You’ll want to visit other dimensions to harvest megaseeds. They don’t exist in C-137, and they’re very important.

We’ll be working on the game for some time to come, of course, and we’ll be cramming in as much content as we can possibly manage.

– Eric Priepke

Scott Danesi shares how the Anti-Gravity Device works on this Pinside post:

The Anti-gravity Device (magnasave) works in a really cool old school way on this game. You charge the anti-gravity device using the captive ball (Flooble Crank Post). If you need to use the magnet to save a ball from the outlane, you can tap or hold the secondary button on the right side of the cabinet. The magnet will activate for as long as you hold it and as long as you have charge left. It is 100% time to charge based. You can conserve the charge by tapping, but if you get in a bad situation, you can press and hold and attempt to gain control and drop it down the inlane. This is my personal favorite way that magnasaves are implemented and I have not seen it done like this in a while. There is no exposed core, so pressing and holding is not a guarantee that you will save the ball. I usually just tap it away from the outlane and some of the time, it will flip back up and over the sling back into play.

– Scott Danesi

Scott Danesi talks about the music and sound effects:

I made a crap ton of exciting music for the game and remixed some of the show music as well. I also did the sound effects with the exception of the sounds from the show.

– Scott Danesi

Scott Danesi talks about the Danesi lock 2.0:

The lock can lock up to 3. We are currently using it in really cool ways as a lock, a movable captive ball, and a fast-ass u-turn. I am extremely happy with how it turned out.

…Locks are stealable 100%. I would have it no other way.

– Scott Danesi

Special When Lit‘s 24 Hour Stream-a-Thon

In easily the most important and incredible story this week, our friends at the Special When Lit Pinball Podcast hosted the 24 Hour Stream-a-Thon over the weekend and raised over $50,000 for Project Pinball!!!

Pinball enthusiast Adam Schwartz matched the contributions dollar for dollar. What a great moment for the pinball community and one of the highlights of the year!!

deeproot Pinball Announces Launch Details

Last week deeproot Pinball announced details for their official launch on March 25th, 2020! Here is the tentative schedule of events that were posted:

The event is set to take place at deeproot headquarters in San Antonio, Texas. For all the details and to request access to the event, click here!

Multimorphic Introduces Warranty Updates, Tease New Announcements

Our friends at Multimorphic sent out a newsletter update last week – check it out!

As we increase production volumes and ready the launch of new games in 2020, we want to let our customers know we stand behind them.

Multimorphic evolved the pinball machine, and now we’re evolving our warranty as well. Today we’re introducing an industry leading 2-year limited warranty on all P³ Pinball Platforms and game kits. With our years of experience with in-house testing and feedback from users, we know the reliability we engineered into our machines can be backed by an amazing warranty. Supporting information can be found here at www.multimorphic.com/warranty.

There are many platform announcements coming in early 2020 as well. For starters, we will be releasing a free software update for Cosmic Cart Racing with many new capabilities, including an entirely new 3-ball gameplay option with modes and multiballs that deliver an exciting, fast-paced, and traditional pinball experience.v This will also be one of the first games for which we enable internet gameplay for head to head matches with other P³ owners anywhere in the world.

Stay tuned for additional news as we ready for the The Texas Pinball Expo in March 2020.

For more information on Multimorphic and the P3 Platform, click here!

Willy Wonka: New Topper and New Code

Jersey Jack announced some updates last week for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, including a new topper – check it out!

They also announced code version 1.32 which you can check out here – and if you want to buy the topper you can do that here!

Willy Wonka Candy Kodes

Our friend Kevin Manne of Buffalo Pinball is compiling a list of the new Candy Kodes from Jersey Jack Pinball!!

What are Candy Kodes? Check out an example here:

There are a bunch though, including switching up the flippers and all sorts of fun gimmicks – check out the list here!

Star Wars R2D2 Topper Gamplay Video

Check it out!

SAPS: Mark Ritchie Wants to Design More Games

In the Super Awesome Pinball Show’s most recent episode, they interviewed Steve Ritchie, Mark Ritchie, and Butch Patrick!! Steve Ritchie discussed Black Knight and the Black Knight Topper, and also why he is missing part of one of his fingers. Butch Patrick discussed Munsters Pinball. And Mark Ritchie discussed talked about wanting to design more games!!

Check out the full podcast here!

SWL: Adam Schwartz Announces Battle of the Pinball Titans

Our friends at the Special When Lit Pinball Podcast were joined by Adam Schwartz, who announced a high stakes pinball competition that will take place just before the New York City Pinball Championships. It is called the Battle of the Pinball Titans – check out the details below!

This is a new high stakes pinball exhibition event. We haven’t announced the players yet but you’ll know who they are…they are four of the world’s best pinball players. It is going to be very short, they’re going to battle it out in just three games. It is going to be a winner-takes-all purse of $1,000. We’re also going to do a match of that for Project Pinball, also for $1,000. So it is going to be four amazing players…they each get on game number 1, the lowest score drops out, and you have three players, then you have two players battle it out on the third game. We’re going to broadcast this worldwide live. This is going to appeal to a lot of people who otherwise don’t really watch pinball tournaments…The idea is – why don’t we get the four best players, three games, $2,000 we’re going to give away, and it will be done in a matter of minutes, certainly under an hour…We’re going to stream it live…it is going to be May 14th, right before the actual New York City Pinball Championship start on May 15th. If you’re interested in attending this, in mid-January keep an eye out on social media and what not, that is when sales will go on for all of this stuff.

– Adam Schwartz

SDTM: Cary Hardy Clear Coating Series

Our friend Cary Hardy of Straight Down the Middle posted the second part of his tutorial in clear coating last week – check it out!

If you missed part one, check it out below!

Buffalo Pinball: How to Direct Capture Video For Stern Streams

Our friends at Buffalo Pinball wrote up a guide on how to direct capture video for Stern machines for Twitch streams – check out the write up here!

Head2Head Pinball: Dwight Sullivan Talks Ghostbusters Code

Our friends at Head2Head Pinball Podcast were joined last week by Dwight Sullivan! Check out just a couple highlights:

On the Are You a God wizard mode on Ghostbusters:

Dwight Sullivan: “The original plan for Are You a God was…you had to do something on every part of the game, you had complete the whole game. But I took that idea and I made it Jedi Multiball [in Star Wars]. So I already did that. So I came back to Ghostbusters and I did not want to do that again. And I didn’t like the old We’re Ready to Believe You. So we threw the We’re Ready to Believe You out, and we wrote it fresh. And [we decided to make it] super simple…and if you complete it, then you get Are You a God.”

On the God Mode on Ghostbusters, and if we’ll see that on other games (where you start the game at the Wizard Mode):

Dwight Sullivan: “Maybe. There is some discussion about that, and I can’t talk about it much.”