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  • TWIP – Iron Maiden/Deadpool Rumors (coming Thursday), First Look at Guardians of the Galaxy topper, Circus Maximus Manufacturing, More

TWIP – Iron Maiden/Deadpool Rumors (coming Thursday), First Look at Guardians of the Galaxy topper, Circus Maximus Manufacturing, More

Iron Maiden and Deadpool Rumor Roundup (coming Thursday)

Have you heard the rumors about Iron Maiden and Deadpool?  These titles are supposed to be coming up for Stern Pinball in 2018.  We’ve been sitting on a few rumors from different sources trying to get verification on some and rule out others.  On Thursday we’re going to do a full write up with information about the rumors surrounding the release of Iron Maiden and Deadpool by Stern Pinball.  It will have some good info, good rumors, and some good speculation!

Ben Heck Leaving Spooky Pinball

In sad news last week, Ben Heck and Spooky Pinball parted ways.  Ben was the designer/creator of Spooky Pinball’s America’s Most Haunted and has been with Spooky since their beginning over five years ago.  Ben had been working on a second game for Spooky Pinball which he had hoped to release in conjunction with him leaving The Ben Heck Show in June of 2018.  However, due to some licensing issues with the second game and other games being produced by Spooky, his second game was delayed which led to parting of the ways.

Alice Cooper’s Nightmare Castle Preview

In good news last week, Ben Heck shared a lot of new information about Alice Cooper’s Nightmare Castle during the interview with This Week in Pinball!

Read the full interview for the full preview, but here are some of the highlights:

  • “My big thing was I wanted people going through rooms – like there is a kitchen or there is a parlor.  Each room acts like a different mini mode and there is a map to it.  The orbit shot navigates you through the rooms…basically once you do four moves you get to the monster and then you fight it. Then you work to the next monster…there are nine monsters and you collect objects that have effects on them.  So the way you go through the castle will actually effect the mode when you get to the monster.”

  • “…you can just shoot the orbits, get to the monster, and break the legs off the bug or whatever and have fun.  But if you actually want to get the big points you need to traverse the castle a certain way and do things along the way to get the best advantage based on what monster you’re going after.”

  • [regarding the image above] “…it is basically a mini-map.  There is an X that is like “you are here”, and I believe – well I haven’t done this part – if you hold for flipper info, you get a big map.  So you start at the bottom and you’re going up.  It’s like a grid, you can go left or right and every time you go left or right you’re going up in the grid.  You can’t go backwards.  You start out in the foyer and there is a big painting of what monster you’re going to go after.”

  • “So you select a monster and you can spend as much as you want in the foyer.  Then you make a right shot and you end up in the library.  And from the library you can go left or right – if you go right from the library you end up in the conservatory.  That is on the right hand edge so you can only go left, and then you’re in the torture room or the dungeon or whatever they call it.  Then one more orbit shot and you’re to the monster.  So you choose how you move through the castle and the castle is a big part of it.”

  • “…left orbit goes left and right orbit goes right.  Or you can shoot other stuff to stay in that room and do other stuff.  As you mentioned you saw in the clip where there is nine rooms.  You always start at the bottom which is the foyer, and you’re always working your way to the top which is the monster room.  So all the rooms in between – that is where you’re collecting items and doing other stuff.  But you’re always moving up.  And once you move up through a section of rooms you can’t go back.  Basically four orbit shots or four navigation shots will always get you to the monster.  But if you do it too quickly you’re not going to get as many points.   It is better to take your time and explore and collect things, like shotguns and axes and whatever.”

Then recently we saw the following teaser:

Looking forward to the full reveal at the Texas Pinball Festival March 16th-18th!

Stern Code Updates and First Look at Guardians of the Galaxy Topper

We had two significant code updates from Stern last week, along with the first video of the Guardians of the Galaxy topper in action!

  • Guardians of the Galaxy v0.87 was also released last week, and contains the Save Xandar wizard mode along with enhancements for both Groot and Orb multiballs – check out the full details here!

  • Finally, we saw the first video of the Guardians of the Galaxy topper!  Check out the pic below and check out the video here!

Manufacturing Plans for the Rumored Kingpin Remake

A few weeks ago we saw some more teasers on the possible Kingpin remake, the rumored upcoming pinball machine from Circus Maximus:

There has been some questions regarding the manufacturing plans from Circus Maximus on game #2 (which has become game #1), as to whether they plan to mass produce game #2 or just produce the one example for Texas Pinball Festival.

This Week in Pinball reached out to Circus Maximus and confirmed that their intentions are to build significantly more than just the one they are bringing to TPF.  Circus Maximus does have a 12,000+ square foot building which you can see in this post on their blog, though is not yet clear if they will be manufacturing the machines in house or partnering with an existing manufacturer.

Pirates of the Caribbean – Live on Twitch with the JJP Team

Last week, Jersey Jack Pinball did a live stream of their upcoming pinball machine, Pirates of the Caribbean!  The stream included several members of the JJP team:

  • Eric Meunier (designer)

  • Keith Johnson (software)

  • Joe Katz (software)

Speaking of Pirates of the Caribbean, Zach and Greg from Straight Down the Middle: a pinball show (YouTube, Twitch, Facebook) travelled up to northern Illinois to talk with Eric Meunier and Keith Johnson and will be releasing another episode of their Deluxe Review in the coming weeks.  These reviews are very in-depth and they released a teaser of the upcoming review last week:

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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!

The Big Lebowski Update – Dutch Hopes to Begin Manufacturing in April/May

Dutch Pinball released a newsletter update last week on the state of The Big Lebowski Pinball Machine.  They said they hope to begin assembly in April/May – here is the full newsletter:

“Welcome to our regular update on the status of the production of The Big Lebowski Pinball.

Although things seem to take forever we finally see light at the end of the tunnel. Xytech has finished Engineering Sample (ES) number 4 of the pilot builds and it will be send out to us next week, just after Chinese New Year. The ES 3 is in The Netherlands for a few weeks now and besides some issues we are very happy with the overall quality.

We hoped to be in production already, but because of the immense complexity of building a pinball machine, things take longer. We know this game inside out, but for the Xytech team it is a complete new type of machine and it takes time for them to learn and understand pinball.

We expect game 4 will be 99.9% perfect and, if so, that’s the point when we are ready for starting ‘real’ production again in China. On February 26th the Chinese New Year will be over and Xytech will then start setting up the pinball production line in the factory.

Giving a specific time when production will start depends on lead-time of parts. Most parts will take only a few weeks, but some parts may take up to two months once ordered. This means that at this point we expect to begin assembly in April-May. In the meantime we won’t sit still of course, because we and Xytech can use this time to prepare everything for production and start with sub-assemblies with the parts that are already there.

We are working very hard to get you your TBLs and this is the only important thing right now for Dutch Pinball.

We will come with a new update after we have received and reviewed game number 4 from Xytech.”

What is the Hardest Shot in Pinball?

Jeff Parsons of the Pinball Players Podcast (Facebook, Podcast Garden) is conducting a vote this week to determine the hardest shot in pinball.  From Jeff: “I decided to change up how I do Top 5 lists on the Pinball Players Podcast and am going to put it out to the listeners to decide. The 5 most popular votes will make the list to be revealed on the next episode. Voting is open from Monday to Friday.”

Supreme Pinball Machine

The Supreme Pinball Machine that was announced recently is getting a lot of talk in the pinball community.  The unusual minimalist design, the expected high price on a Spiderman Home Edition re-skin, the Supreme company, and the huge amount of exposure for this machine have all contributed to the controversy.  This Week in Pinball wrote an article last week that covers:

  • What is Supreme?

  • What does Supreme sell?

  • Why a pinball machine?

  • Is this good or bad for pinball?

  • Features and Info about the machine

  • Price and availability speculation

Victory Laps – End of Post Bonus

 

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

  • Around the Playfield with Charlie Emery coming tomorrow  Seriously this time!

  • More info coming on Iron Maiden and Deadpool on Thursday

  • We mentioned last week we’re working on a massive page/resource for competitive players and are hoping to release it within the next month…well right now our laptop speed is having a hard time keeping up the size of the page so we’re exactly 7.4% done with the page.  It is slow going but we’ll keep plugging along!!

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We do NOT share any confidential or “off the record” information without permission from the source of the info.

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 [email protected]

Upcoming Games and Rumors

Stern Pinball

Most Recent Titles

  • Aerosmith

  • AC/DC Vault Edition

  • Star Wars

  • Guardians of the Galaxy

  • AC/DC Luci Vault Edition

Announced/Confirmed

  • Elvira 3

Rumors of Future Titles

  • Iron Maiden? <-MOVED!

  • Deadpool?

  • The Munsters?

  • The Beatles?

  • Jurassic World?

  • Pulp Fiction?

  • New Ka-Pow Title?

  • Steve Ritchie Unlicensed?

  • Keith Elwin Game?<-MERGED!

Spooky Pinball

Most Recent Titles

  • Rob Zombie’s Spookshow International

  • Dominos (*contract game)

  • Jetsons (*contract game)

  • Total Nuclear Annihilation (*contract/house game)

Announced/Confirmed

  • Alice Cooper’s Nightmare Castle

  • Ben Heck’s game<-NEW!

American Pinball

Most Recent Titles

  • Houdini

Rumors of Future Titles

  • Oktoberfest?

Dutch Pinball

Most Recent Titles

  • Bride of Pinbot 2.0

  • Bride of Pinbot 3.0 (on hold)

  • The Big Lebowski (production issues)

Circus Maximus

  • The Pinball Circus Remake

  • Kingpin?

Jersey Jack Pinball

Most Recent Titles

  • Wizard of Oz

  • The Hobbit

  • Dialed In

  • Pirates of the Caribbean

Rumors of Future Titles

  • Toy Story?

  • Willy Wonka?

  • The Muppets?

Chicago Gaming/Planetary Pinball

Most Recent Titles

  • Medieval Madness Remake

  • Attack From Mars Remake

Rumors of Future Titles

  • Monster Bash Remake?

  • Cactus Canyon Remake?

  • Big Bang Bar Remake?

  • Theatre of Magic?

Heighway Pinball

Most Recent Titles

  • Full Throttle

  • Alien (shipping)

Rumors of Future Titles

  • Queen?

P3 (Multimorphic)

  • Lexy Lightspeed

  • Cannon Lagoon

  • Cosmic Cart Racing

Homepin

  • Thunderbirds (coming soon)

Phénix Pinball

  • Olympic Goblin

deeproot Pinball

  • Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland?

  • Alice in Wonderland?

  • Magic Girl?

  • Original Houdini design?

Silver Castle Pinball

  • Timeshock (coming soon)

**TWIP dreams of the day Harry Potter Pinball will be added to these rumors. Ms. Rowling, I’d be willing to regrow bones by drinking the dreadful tasting Skelegro if you approve this!

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