THIS WEEK IN PINBALL: December 2nd, 2019

The Scoop

— QUICK HITS —

Stern Star Wars Topper Revealed

Last week Great American Pinball revealed that the long awaited Star Wars topper is now available!

As of the writing of this there has been no official announcement from Stern Pinball, but distributors have started taking orders. Here are the details:

  • Limited Edition, sequentially numbered with LE plaque, limited to 500

  • Fully interactive moving R2D2 with lighting effects

  • $749 plus $25 shipping

Last year at Pinball Expo we saw a video of the topper (at that time) in action – check it out here! 

Joe Balcer: American Pinball Game #3 to be Revealed at Texas Pinball Festival

The new pinball podcast called the Super Awesome Pinball Show debuted their first episode last week, and as part of that podcast we got an interesting nugget from Joe Balcer who talked to Ed Vanderveen, one of the hosts of SAPS.

Joe shared that American Pinball is planning to reveal their third game at the Texas Pinball Festival next March! Stay tuned…

LAST DAY TO ENTER!

We’re giving away a bunch of stuff including a ColorDMD!! Today is the last day to enter, get the details here!

Jurassic Park New Code

Stern released a large update to Jurassic Park last week that includes multiple new wizard modes – check it out!

Slam Tilt: Steve Bowden Interview

Our friends Ron and Bruce of the Slam Tilt Podcast interviewed deeproot’s Steve Bowden about Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland last week! Here are just a few highlights:

On the storyline of RAZA:

There is a story that will unfold as you get deeper into the game, but not much of it was shown at Houston.  We didn’t have much in there to play through, but you were able to get a couple modes and start the multiball and shoot the crazy ramp and kill a few zombies.  We got a lot of data and analysis from those two days…and we’re going over it to see what we need to do.

Ned is the big bad guy.  You have to defeat him…and Angela is martian princess who is supposed to defeat him because of other reasons – the rest of the story you’ll find out as this game gets more fleshed out and you get the whole package.

We have the story that has been written by Quinn Johnson.  And I’m taking that and what the playfield gives me and formulating a ruleset.

On the left jump ramp:

That is a really short ramp that hits a stand up [target]…that is elevated.  That is going to be pretty important for scoring.   The Dizzie Doozie is sort of blocking it like a body guard, but you can spin him out of the way and then the path will be relatively open to that.

On the drop targets:

On the lower right you see three X’s.  To the right of those underneath the flap are three drop targets.  Those get missed a lot – that is the bowling alley.  You use those to get strikes and spares for bowling, so that is another part of the Adventureland you need to explore.

On the main ramp:

If you make the ramp powerfully, it will go past the diversion point and go down the left.  If you make it “normally”, it will come down the right.  If you don’t make it and you make it past the one way gate, it will bounce back off the one way gate and back into play.  People started to learn this and they started to use the one way gate to get the ball into the snack shop targets which you can’t hit directly.

Steve also talks about rules the were not in the game in Houston, talks about the kickback, the plunge, the magnets in the game, the display, and much more – check out the full podcast here!

Dutch Pinball Updates

Kaneda: Project Pinball TBL Sale

Speaking of Dutch Pinball, Chris Kooluris of the Kaneda Pinball Podcast announced recently that he will be selling his Big Lebowski pinball machine and donating everything over $12,500 (the price he bought it for) to Project Pinball!

The current leading bid as of this writing is $15,500 and bidding ends December 8th. There are two ways to bid – you can email Chris at [email protected] or bid on his Facebook page below.

904PinballZine: Christopher Franchi Interview

Other Quick Hits:

— What Else You Need to Know Today —

PINQUEST: Win a Free Market Trends T-Shirt!

Our awesome friends at PINQUEST are giving away FREE Market Trends shirts!! All you need to do is score over 300,000,000 on Stern’s Jurassic Park and follow the simple steps below!!

  • Star Wars Vault

  • Elvira’s House of Horrors

  • Jurassic Park

  • Star Wars (Home Version, The Pin)

  • Black Knight Sword of Rage

  • The Munsters

  • Stranger Things

  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

  • Led Zeppelin

  • James Bond

  • Godzilla

  • Rush

Jersey Jack Pinball
  • Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

  • Pirates of the Caribbean

  • Dialed In!

  • Hobbit

  • Wizard of Oz

  • Guns N’ Roses

  • Toy Story

Chicago Gaming Company
  • Monster Bash Remake

  • Attack From Mars Remake

  • Medieval Madness Remake

  • Cactus Canyon Remake

  • Theatre of Magic Remake

  • Big Bang Bar Remake

Spooky Pinball
  • Alice Cooper’s Nightmare Castle

  • Total Nuclear Annihilation

  • Jetsons (contract game)

  • Dominos (contract game)

  • Rob Zombie’s Spookshow International

  • Scott Danesi Second Game

  • Licensed Title

American Pinball
  • Oktoberfest

  • Houdini

  • Robin Hood

  • Sherlock Holmes

  • Valkyries

  • Poker Run

  • Cosmic Cart Racing (P3 Game Kit)

  • Lexy Lightspeed (P3 Game Kit)

  • Cannon Lagoon (P3 Game Kit)

  • ROCs (P3 Mini-Game)

  • Barnyard (P3 Mini-Game)

  • Lexy Lightspeed – Secret Agent Showdown (P3 Mini-Game)

  • Grand Slam Rally (P3 Mini-Game)

  • Hoopin’ It Up (P3 Mini-Game)

  • HeadsUp

  • Wizard

  • Magic Girl

  • Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland

  • Fire and Brimstone

  • 2 Dennis Nordman Unlicensed games

  • Alice in Wonderland

  • Nothing so far

Other Manufacturers

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

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