Then you're *really* going to hate it when all the inserts are flashing RGB colours! Space is almost entirely devoid of light and everything. Everything we see is lightyears away. So, would you prefer a black playfield with nothing on it except for some specks of white? Of course not. Do the patches (and the nostromo, for me) jump out? Yes, and during gameplay, you want that, especially for a new player. Being able to easily identify things is great. Also, during play, you're pretty much entirely going to phase out the artwork with RGB lighting and a screen, so I'm not too concerned about it. It will look darker printed and in person than it will in these pictures.

Also - I was going to cry a little inside if the Nostromo patch didn't make it into the design.....happy dance for that!

Loving the Independence Day 2 playfield, just needs some Jeff Goldblum giving you some shit Aurich

The overall look is similar to Rob Zombie and Woz with the main Alien large by the flippers.

I'd be all over this if the LE version used HR Geiger assets and artwork.

Glad to finally see the playfield.

Wish I had unique perspective but I think my impressions are similar to several others that have been voiced.

Not quite what I built up in my mind over the last year but it certainly ain't ugly.

I won't judge too hard until I see it populated and in a cab with some gameplay vids.

Must feel good to finally get this out there Aurich.

Really glad it's out. Now we can discuss it like a normal game. All this public secrecy sucks, just the nature of the beast.

I'm done working on licensed games after Alien. If I ever do another pin it will be something where we control everything, and there are no teams of lawyers.

Sooooo anyone overlayed the shot map yet?

BTW I am loving the art. Can't wait to see it with mechs.

economicaly that would not be reasonable. I can understand that and i agree.

However, Do you think the "graffiti " ( sorry for The Word, i don't really like, just don't know How to call it) zone can be modified or not?

The space vagina inserts are my favorite.

lets_dock_(resized).png

i think it looks phenomenal. incredibly well integrated with the theme, and very handsome graphics and color scheme. See, Stern? it's really not impossible!

a lot of those inserts look great. I like how a lot of cool details are only visible on close inspection.

Honestly, it does kinda look like a Sega pf at first glance.

Are you able to adjust brightness/contrast in the lower playfield for instance, without fox approval?

If so, would that be considered?

Wow Aurich, you really stepped up your game. Spent the last 40 minutes looking over the playfield art. Really. well. done.

If licenses are this hard to work with, stern and Jjp are saints and deserve way more credit than we give them. Game of thrones is still an abomination

Looks great Aurich! I think you done an excellent job of balancing the three main considerations: overall atmosphere, fan service details, the feel of two different films.

I really like the way you've integrated all the mode inserts into the motion tracker, and the way the modes run linearly *towards* the player as opposed to traditional linear mode insert progression building up away from the player. Totally suits the theme of danger closing in on you and building intensity. I imagine you're thinking up ways to use sound and visuals to ramp the intensity up as the game progresses to match.

My only nitpick is the inconsistency in the existence, and weight, of the strokes/keylines surrounding each insert. For example, the egg differs from the face hugger and chest burster inserts. I think they'd all feel more cohesive if they had the same kind of weight to them.

Especially Alien vagina.

Alien_Vag_(resized).jpg

This is amazing

Reminds me of Stern Star Trek with the grid, space background and icons floating on top. Which is not a very good thing. When I think of Alien... I think of alien interiors, flesh, industrial metal. Not "just space and galaxies" or retro stars. Especially not "outer glow layer effects" on planets and graffiti. Would have been nice to see something more alien and organic. Or something with weight, like the ships interior infested by Alien.

And wasn't ST artwork highly criticized?

Looks good but does not wow me. I look forward to see it all together.

You know it, I really like it. I didn't really want a over-populated playfield. It reminds me of my Stern ST pin. I think once the toys and display gets added to the mix this playfield is going to rock (more than what it does). Besides, I think it will fit perfectly next to my ST pin. Good job Aurich.

As for early notices, I really appreciate these "cell phone" pics. I don't think it was a dick move. Just another pinsider sharing some early excitement to us pinheads who couldn't make the trip, so thanks. Besides, we knew it was coming today. Aurich hooked us up with that great high res shot later, so thank you sir.

Super excited for this one, even though I haven't put my deposit in yet. Just watching this thread VERY closely. If Andrew keeps this up, I'm going to have to book him on the next Ed Sullivan show for this "British Invasion".

Yes! Can one of you computer savvy Pinsiders please do this?

uh oh, here come the Illuminati conspiracies...

ST art sucked IMO. This does not! The only thing it has in common is space

I think it looks good. Interested to see it populated with all of the playfield items. Surprised they would release this ahead of that.

Brian

I think it looks pretty good, would really like to see a populated playfield with the plastics. Sounds like dealing with the license was a pain in the ass Aurich, how many versions were submitted till fox was happy?

Being that they're not inserts, and not informative to play, they aren't going to be significant to the game during play. I have no problems with the parches being on the playfield. I think all the other elements relate and are well integrated. These look to me as if they were dropped onto the playfield by another artist after Aurich was finished. That's just my opinion. I still think the whole thing looks great and I believe it will look better still when we see it fully populated. They just look out of place to me.

It is a dark version of ST playfield.

Some information from my chat with Andrew that people might be interested in:

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- Full launch of the machine (playable) is hoped for and expected at the Texas Pinball festival in March.

- Per Aurich & Andrew's missives on Pinside, they're still open to ideas about differentiating factors for the LE, and there may well be a choice of colour for rails / legs / trim etc. Receptive to requests and feedback.

- Their fibre optic lighting is still being experimented with (hence delays on Full Throttle LE). He didn't say so, but I expect LEs won't be among the first to be built for this reason and later asset approvals.

- Didn't really talk too much about details re: Alien, as so much is still subject to approval by the studio. Alien and Aliens are his favourite films, though, and a "dream" franchise for him. Could have had Alien 3 rights too, but didn't want to convolute theme too much, and he doesn't personally like it - even prefers Resurrection. Therefore stuck with Alien and Aliens.

- Bram Stoker's Dracula was originally meant to be Alien.

- Andrew's background in the industry was pinball (and amusements I think) in Ireland (first the Republic, then Northern Ireland) from the 90s onwards. Then more recently in England he's organised the UK Pinball Party show which will enter its 6th year this year.

- Had looked into establishing the company 9 years ago, but time wasn't right.

- The company is privately financed, by him and other private investors. No bank or venture capital backing.

- Has no association with Wales or South Wales. Was simply the right place to establish the facility given cheapness of factory and warehousing space, large catchment area for labour (Cardiff & Bristol close by) and good transport links.

- Facility is 42,000ft2 (~4000m2). Same size as JJP's factory.

- Capacity is (perhaps significantly) in excess of 3500 machines per annum (order book and staff depending), and they will be taking on more assembly line staff. Didn't ask whether they had the option of taking on or building more space at their existing location.

- Machines only take 6-8 hours to fully assemble, compared to what he said was an industry average of 12-14 hours.

- Work on Full Throttle is finished (presumably except for code). Still very actively working on Alien. Hope to ship before middle of year.

- Should have 4 games in full production by the end of the year. Chance of 5 unless I misunderstood.

- Barry Oursler (who didn't work on Full Throttle or Alien) has finished his design work on games 3 & 4 already, and wants to move on to game 5 now. He apparently works incredibly quickly according to Andrew - going from start to finish in 3-4 months.

- Games 3 & 4 are both licensed (didn't ask about 5). Intimated that at least one is a movie IP.

- Intention is to put out 3 titles a year, to take advantage of the swappable mechanic of their cabinet. Vast majority of underlying components are modular, so design to production should be pretty swift. Could have as many as 8 titles out by end of 2017.

- Seems pretty bullish generally about their prospects, Alien, and thinks Barry Oursler is great & considers him a legend**

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Pleasant guy to talk to. Would have asked far more, but I'd caught him in the lunch hour lull, so didn't want to take up more of his time once that was ending. Will add other bits if I remember them. Look forward to having a look round the factory at some point as it's only a 90 minute drive from me.

Regarding Alien and my opinion, as others have said one can't say too much about the playfield art without it being populated and lit. It has potential definitely, but it's not brilliant. I am hoping for a few more flourishes and something a little more special on the LE.

Will also cross post this to the Heighway thread as it's less busy and this is mainly non Alien specific. Perhaps people already know most or all of this, but I knew little of it.

**That will probably divide opinion here. Personally I love Popeye, though, so I'm stoked at least! Possibly finishing the design of a 3rd game for them before the first goes into production does seem quite ... prolific, though?

Doh, they are all the same, it looks like I accidentally turned on a layer or something last night when I was taking screenshots. That extra white border shouldn't be there on the eggs, I'll look into it.

Good catch, didn't see it in the rush to get things up last night, thanks!

I like it Aurich, great work. I'm not even a big Alien fan, but some of the stuff you've said about the game makes me want it Looking forward to playing this game someday!

Oh, just saw another thing I really like. The arrow inserts have the fading trails (or tails) that look like hazard stripes. Nice touch!

It looks very "Cartoony". I was expecting something much more "Dark" and not photoshop filter'y. A ton of glowing objects and the multiple use especially of the 2 center oriented aliens so prominently is redundant. Also the grid art and purple coloring at the top looks like some of the work you would see coming out of the ACiD/iCE art packs of the old days. (That's not a good thing)

One final thing, the images of the ships look grainy and the photoshop "scan lines" action gave me a chuckle

The shot map provided is horrendously low-res so it's not really possible to do this without make the whole thing look like a piece of crap.

Aurich, or someone from Heighway will have to do it properly by overlaying the CAD vectors.

I agree it would be nice to have a bit more context, if only to better imagine the gameplay.

Surely you can't be surprised when:

A) everyone has been clamouring for this art reveal for ages now
B) the rest of the items equals the whole game, which is quite some time away from being done

Rubberducks, What uk collectors say about pf artwork? Just would like to get a opinion overseas. Thx

Check the forums at Pinballinfo. I'm not part of a network

I will when I get the latest CAD from Dave, the one I have is slightly out of date, he's making some minor tweaks that I'll need to incorporate into the art. Shifting some posts around, stuff like that.

Let's not go down that road please

Proof that you should think about what you say before saying it. You can edit your post, but it's too late:

AbFWpeT[1]_(resized).png

yeah what's with his ninja edit?

Agreed! Everyone can have an opinion, it's all good. I don't care who they work for or anything like that, no need to fight with each other, and especially not on my behalf, I definitely don't want that.

It's not possible to make everyone happy. Especially not with a license where people already have an image in their heads.

It looks like just a lot of cut and pasting from clipart. The inserts and icon art do not blend in well with the background and looks too photoshoppy to me. It doesn't blend together as a whole.

decals_(resized).jpg

Looking at the uncompressed picture I think it looks pretty darn good. Can't wait to see it fully populated and playing!! Only suggestion I'd have is drop the highlighting around the ships in front of the inserts. That would make it look a little cleaner. Perhaps it wouldn't pop as much but would look better overall IMO.

I know Aurich takes this as constructive and its not supposed to be mean spirited in the least. I was very much expecting a dark and scary, nee ominous playfield. This isn't that. That was my expectation, good or bad. If this was the look they were going for than thats the look.

This is exactly my point. The grid lines HAVE to go as well. It brings the cheese level to a maximum as do the random "planets". This was the first thing people who got a warez copy of 3dsmax were doing was making cheesy planet art because they could skin the sphere object.

Also the mixture of the drawn alien (with the unfortunately placed groin insert) and the movie snap aliens at the bottom looks odd. Pick one.

No additional comments from me.

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At least Star Trek looked that way for a reason...it was giving the player a HUD of being Captain Kirk.

No, it doesn't. You missed the point of Star Trek's playfield. See above.

This art blows ST out of the water hands down. I really disliked ST PF art no detail at all this has the detail to go with the color scheme.