Iron Maiden

We are hearing that Iron Maiden will be the next title released from Stern.  It is rumored to be designed by Keith Elwin, and possibly based on his home-brew  Archer layout (see that layout here).  It is also rumored to have Zombie Yeti artwork, with possibly Lyman Sheets and/or Keith Elwin on code.  It is also rumored to ship with v1.0 code.  For all we know (or all we *think* we know) about the game, view our Rumor Roundup here.

So when will the machine be revealed?  One possibility is at the Amusement Expo International in Las Vegas which starts this week.  Stern Pinball will be in booth #304 at that show (view the exhibitor floor plan here).  A second possibility is at the Texas Pinball Festival which starts March 16th.  Our guess is…TPF.  But wouldn’t it be fun to see a new game this week!?  Stay tuned!

Pirates of the Caribbean Deluxe Review – Interviews with Eric Meunier and Keith Johnson – from SDTM: a pinball show

Zach and Greg from Straight Down the Middle: a pinball show (YouTube, Twitch, Facebook) travelled up to visit with Eric Meunier (designer) and Keith Johnson (software) from Jersey Jack Pinball.  What resulted was an exceptionally deep overview of JJP’s upcoming machine, Pirates of the Caribbean.  For Eric’s portion, click here, and for Keith’s portion, click here.  Typically TWIP will go through interviews and streams and pull some of the highlights, but there just isn’t much “filler” in this video, it is jam-packed with information.  If you want to learn more about this incredibly deep and feature packed game, check out the video below!

Charlie Emery Interview with the Head 2 Head Pinball Podcast

Last week, Martin and Ryan C. from the Head 2 Head Pinball Podcast (website, Facebook) had an in-depth interview with Charlie Emery from Spooky Pinball.  Listen to the full interview here!  Here are some excerpts from the interview:

On the Dominos and Jetsons:

“…we did 136 Dominos games – I mean this is a game made for a pizza chain.  And I know a good 20+ are in the hands of just pinball collectors…would I like to see Jetsons sell some more?  I mean the contract can run up to 300 games…we do have a second programmer working on Jetsons code to get it a little cleaner, a little better, get the audio where it needs to be.  Even though it is technically a Pinball Company product – it was their layout and their design, we’re still the manufacturer and I put a lot of pride in that, and if there is anything we can do to make it better, I’ll eat that little bit of profit and get somebody else on it which we are doing at this time…”

On what the plan would’ve been with Alice Cooper’s Nightmare Castle if they weren’t building Total Nuclear Annihilation:

“…well the intent was we were going to stand on the gas with Alice Cooper and – Ben and I were kind of butting heads a little bit about if it was going to get to Expo last year or not.  The intent was for it to come out last fall.  Being honest, we struggled a tiny bit with the HD system – it’s sorted itself out, that is fine.  But as Scott and I began to talk more, it was obvious that TNA was going to get to production quicker than we imagined it could, and a lot of the credit goes to Scott Danesi.  Ben and I had the conversation and he’s like “yeah, if you can do that you really should”…”

On the castle:

“…when you walk up to this game, I want you to see the castle…this is Alice Cooper’s Nightmare Castle, we’re going to show you the castle, it is in the game…beyond that, I don’t want to say too much – wait for TPF.  But we really went overboard on this thing.”

On Scott Danesi possibly moving into a role similar to what Ben Heck did for Spooky:

“…boy I wish he [Scott] was here right now (laughs)…I don’t know that I want to answer that for Scott.  Obviously he’s going to finish writing code for TNA…we’ve definitely talked.  We would love to see Scott do another game, and I think you will see that…I think he’s just getting started…”

Also, this week Spooky tweeted out this picture showing what appears to be ACNC without a plunger.  Also a chicken wing.

**Guest Writers NEEDED – Please Read!!**

Do you want to write an article for This Week in Pinball?  We would absolutely love to post a creative/helpful/interesting article written by YOU!  Some topic ideas could include:

• Beginners Guide to Pinball Machine Basics
• Beginners Guide to Troubleshooting Pinball Machines
• Beginners Guide to Maintaining Your Pinball Machine
• Beginners Guide to Buying Pinball Machines
• Beginners Guide to Pinball Restoration
• Beginners Guide to Moving Pinball Machines
• Beginners Guide to Competitive Pinball
• Beginners Guide to Differences in Pinball Machine Eras
• Beginners Guide to Pinball Manufacturers
• Beginners Guide to Pinball Events/Shows
• Beginners Guide to Twitch Streaming
• Beginners Guide to Twitch (as a viewer)
• Pinball Restorations (your restoration projects)
• How to Use a Multimeter with Your Pinball Machine
• Are Remakes and Vault Editions Good or Bad for Pinball?
• …so many article options!!

Please help support this site by writing an article, email us at thisweekinpinball@gmail.com for more details!

Thunderbirds Distribution and Pricing

Highway Games, a distributor based in Australia, announced recently that they would be a distributor for Thunderbirds Pinball, the upcoming game from Homepin.  They also released this video that shows off the machine.

From what we’ve heard, the retail price for Thunderbirds will be $4,999 USD, with possible lower street prices and deals for free shipping, making this game one of the lowest priced pins in years.

New Code – Total Nuclear Annihilation and Batman ’66

New code was released for both Total Nuclear Annihilation and Batman ’66; both machines keep getting better and better.  For a full list of the Batman ’66 code updates to v0.88, click here.  For a full list of the Total Nuclear Annihilation Updates to v1.1.0, click here.  PLEASE NOTE – after the v1.1.0 release, Scott Danesi released a small patch to that version of the code (v1.1.0.02) – check out the details in this post on Pinside.

Zidware Claims – deeproot Pinball

Last week we started seeing posts on Pinside showing deeproot Pinball has been addressing claims from Zidware customers.  The first post, which can be found here, stated:

“Well I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised to receive a call from Deeproot today to tell me my Zidware claim was approved and I would be receiving paperwork soon in the mail. That’s more positive communication than I have received in about 5 years.”

It has been a long ride for Zidware customers and it is great to see something positive finally happening.

Don’t forget to file a claim if you were/are a Zidware customer –  Click here to start a claim.

Pinball Bulbs – advertisement

Pinball Bulbs SALE:  Visit Pinball Bulbs and enter promo code “ThisWeek15off” to save 15% off everything on the site!  

That includes their Mini Virtual Pinball Machine, which comes loaded with:

• Pinball FX2
• Pinball Arcade
• Ikaruga and Proycyon (shooters)
• Visual Pinball – MAME (ROMs added by user)
• Customer front end so no computer or technical skills needed
• Full online support fort your specific machine
• Real Analog Nudge

Click here for more info and pricing, and watch the video below to check out more about this machine!

Scott Danesi Interview with the Pinball Players Podcast

Total Nuclear Annihilation Storyline **SPOILERS**

Jeff Parsons of the Pinball Players Podcast (Facebook, Podcast Garden) interviewed Scott Danesi last week.  Scott goes into a lot of detail regarding Total Nuclear Annihilation.  One of the items discussed deals with the story behind the TNA, which if you haven’t heard it before, can be found below.  To listen to the full interview, click here!

“…the main character, her name is Scarlett.  She is the girl that is on the backglass.  What she has to do is travel to the future because some scientists in the 1980s, which is where she is from, they discovered that someone in the future – this other group of people, they have discovered reverse time travel.  And they’re about to get reverse time travel, and once they do they’re going to come back and completely destroy everything…so the scientists [in the 1980s] have figured out this is going to happen, so they need somebody to go into the future to stop them from discovering reverse time travel.  Scarlett is actually the daughter of one of the scientists, and she offered to go and save her family from the 80s.  So she’s going to go, and it is a one way mission and she cannot come back – because if she is successful and she stops these people from discovering reverse time travel, there is no reverse time travel…so that is it.  They can send her into the future…she has communication device that can allow her to talk back to the scientist so she can get information from them because they know a lot more detail about where she has to go and what she has to do.  She has to go into this civilization, and what she’s going to do is use these dormant nuclear reactors against them by bringing them up to critical and basically causing a nuclear meltdown.  She’s got a map, which is the center of the playfield which has nine reactors on it.  She goes to each reactor…she has to first solve a code to unlock the reactor…once that is solved, the reactor can actually go online.  You shoot the scoop and that actually brings the reactor online.  Then you have to get that reactor to a critical tipping point in terms of temperature.  Once that temperature is up all the way the reactor is completely critical and then she has destroy shots.  It is basically her chucking something into the reactor that pushes it over the edge and makes it…meltdown.  She goes through all nine reactors, and she’s getting out of there quickly.  She is setting a timer and getting out of there so she can get to the next one.  When she gets through all nine reactors, the ninth one is the actual last one, and the music gets very tense, and it is basically her against all these soldiers and they’re trying to stop her but she’s in the core already getting this thing critical.  When she’s ready to blow up the ninth reactor, she’ll destroy it and it takes out the last of everyone who survived…and it also takes out her.  So it is a super sad ending but she did that to save a whole bunch of people in her time.”

A couple of weeks ago, Karl DeAngelo from IE Pinball (Twitch, YouTube) destroyed reactor nine and “beat the game”.  And he recorded it all in glorious 4K video with direct video and audio feeds.  Check out him beating the last reactor here, and check out the funny message that comes up after he enters his initials!

Pinburgh Sold Out in under 45 Seconds!?

Last Saturday, tickets to Pinburgh/ReplayFX went on sale.  Pinburgh is the largest pinball tournament in the world, and last year featured 328 pinball machines and 800 players competing over three days.  It also included a guaranteed $100,000 prize pool.  This year, the tickets sold out within 30-45 seconds.

This is a great testament to the growing popularity of competitive pinball and to the popularity of this great tournament!  But should something be done to make sure top finishers from prior years are guaranteed an entry?  What about top ranked players in the world?

Houdini Pinball Upgrade Updates

An update to “Add-ons” for the Houdini Pinball was released this week by American Pinball:

“Interior Side Art is now in stock and distributors are being notified about their availability. Priced at $99. Sometime in the next couple of days they will be up on our website for purchase.

Changes have been made to the magic glass, and sounds like the price will be higher than originally projected. They have now added a “hard coat” that I am being told will make it more durable, scratch resistant and easier to clean (I assume these are all issues with current offerings, I’m not that familiar with them). I have not yet seen one installed. Sounds like it will a few weeks before these will be in stock.

Shaker Motors — these are not yet available, not sure of when it will be, but suspect sooner rather than later. Installing these will be four bolts to T-nuts already in the cabinet, a couple of screws for the cover and then plugging it into a nearby board. So easily installed by pretty much anyone.”

Victory Laps – End of Post Bonus

• New Color DMD Release – Indy 500!  Check out the video preview here!
• Modern arcades growing in popularity with craft beer, family-friendly approach – from WGN out of Chicago
• ‘Legends Of Tomorrow’ Cast Celebrate Season 3 Production Wrap…by playing pinball!  Check out the article here and the tweet and pic from Caity Lotz here!

MATCH! – Next Game…What is Coming Up on This Week in Pinball

• Around the Playfield with a special guest coming Thursday this week
• Update on the page/resource for competitive players – we’re still at 7.4% done but we got a new laptop this week so things should move quicker from here on!  (hopefully!)
• We’ve got big plans over the next month or so – stay tuned 🙂

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Disclaimer

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

Have a scoop or anonymous rumor?  Email us at thisweekinpinball@gmail.com

Upcoming Games and Rumors

**TWIP dreams of the day Harry Potter Pinball will be added to these rumors. Ms. Rowling, I’d be willing to eat an earwax flavored Bertie Bott’s jelly bean if you approve this!

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