Congrats Hilton, looking forward to your feedback, sure it will be good.

That's actually the best photo I've seen myself of how they came out. Glad you like them. Dave gets the credit for the layered platform idea, Andrew came up with the acid holes, I just executed it.

Game rules code is mostly Joe Schober, and he's doing a killer job. There's lot of input from the whole team (David Thiel for instance was behind the mode that turns out to be a real tribute to Hudson/Bill Paxton), but he owns the coding aspect of it, and is really dedicated to this not only being a fun game to play, immersive and true the universe and all that good stuff, but also a tournament-ready game, with balanced scoring, deep strategy, and opportunities to improve your game.

Joe is a talented player, with tournament experience, is an experienced programmer, and he's getting the details right. There is already a tournament setting in the game to remove randomness from awards for instance.

Rule set right now is fleshed out and utterly playable, all the modes and wizard mode etc are there, this isn't a Stern launch experience. But I expect the code and audio/visual package to keep improving in 2017, without obviously being in a position to promise anything more specific than that.

Since we're printing on clear plastic, with a white ink base, anything I leave fully transparent in Photoshop gets no white, and so I can put literal holes in the art so you can see through them, without impacting the ball rolling. It in effect creates 4 visual layers for the platforms there, I think it's really quite clever. (Again, wasn't my idea, not trying to pat myself on the back here!)

I didn't really understand how the plastics were going to work before, if you saw the game at Expo with temporary art it wasn't nearly as interesting, but seeing it in person was super helpful. One of the challenges of the Los Angeles/Wales gap. I think the final idea came out great though, and of course on the LE it will also incorporate fiber optic lighting. Andrew actually revealed some new info about that on a call we had today, and without spoiling it I'm very curious to see it in action now.

I think we'll find more uses for it after more play testing too, it's got the advantage of being software upgradable to be more dynamic and flexible later on if we have new ideas (and we already have some that we haven't implemented yet).

No. If I have any say over it (and I don't really lol) there will never be one either! Not a fan, I'm here to play pinball, not guess stars or bacon. I highly doubt there will ever be one in all seriousness.

Joe is currently coding new rule tweaks for that. The left outlane is clearly hungry and we don't want the game to not be fun. I dunno what will end up in the operator adjustments, but being more generous with it as a virtual kickback seems like the plan.

Right. Dave explained the reasoning behind that recently in the main Alien thread I think.

As for how it shoots, I'm honestly not the person to tell you. I don't have one myself yet, I haven't flipped the game since the Expo prototype, and so I'm basically in the same boat as you as far as hands on experience.

But I think you're talking about the Hypersleep lock right? It's not a magnet, it's a post that pops up, stops the ball for the lock animation, and then drops down and releases it. Same idea, just different mechanism for stopping.

I'm not a fan in general, I enjoy some more than others. I like Shadow's okay for instance. It's fast, rewards you with something worth playing for, and it logically maps to the buttons. But overall I just don't see the appeal.

We did kick ideas around for one a long time ago, I wasn't into it myself, and I'm personally glad it wasn't done. Much better uses of time for programming, animation, and sound on the main game.

Whatever you thoughts on video modes, I don't think anyone is going to find content on this game lacking.

It's been a long road. Still a little bit of path to walk, but there are games in the wild! Man, what a milestone to finally reach.

It's really gratifying to see such positive feedback from so many people, especially those of you who've had a chance to play it and see it in person. Seriously, not looking to just get fawned over or anything, but I appreciate it, and I know the team appreciates it. It's good to have positive energy here, and be able to actually talk about the game finally.

And it's also really helpful to hear how the game feels from more players. I know Joe is taking notes and pondering everything, there's a code update coming soon I think that already has fixes and tweaks based on the feedback included, like the adjustments to the Revive rules to dial the left outlane in a little gentler.

I'm looking forward to seeing where things go with exploring the lighting more, Kelly doing more animations, David Thiel still has things he wants to do. I know Joe is going to tune the rules. And all together that represents polishing the choreography, clarifying things, making effects cooler.

I expect this game to keep getting better until we're happy with it.

Summary answer: the pin is full of callouts from a lot of the actors from both films, and has a lot from Hudson, which I know people will love. There are a handful we couldn't use, including Weaver, but as you can see from the feedback from people playing they're not feeling like anything is missing.

The voice of Mother for all the custom callouts is by David Thiel's wife, who you might know from her voice in Tron.

I know there are callouts he's added to the media library for the game that aren't being called by the code yet too.

Joe and David have really worked together to make the callouts and sound effects work right. How the code chooses from a pool of options for instance, all really thoughtfully handled. David is such a pro, he's done this so many times, he knows how to make it all work. And once he has his own game he'll really get it all tuned to sound just right on the cabinet speakers too.

And I'm going to recommend an external powered sub, this is a game that will be awesome with it.

Sorry, just how it worked out. As I've mentioned before the game was designed around NOT having her, it was always a bit of a longshot I guess, and if we did get her at some last minute then we'd have adjusted. So it didn't cripple us, we just worked through a vision for all the scenes and how they would work, and all the major moments from the films are in there. Including the Queen battle with the power loader I should add, just with some clever editing.

It's not so much that you play as Ripley, just that you're kind of the center figure with everything happening around you. Ripley could have been part of that mix, but instead you take her central role.

Just like the animations aren't about just playing back a short clip from the film, we really just tried to grab the essence of these scenes, and then spill them out with the gameplay dictating the pace. It's all edited and chopped, so Kelly was really able to choose his own path through them.

I don't see why not.

We had a fantasy that Bill Paxton would somehow play one and then want to do custom callouts for it ...

I'm like 40 minutes from Anaheim, sure we could make something happen.

Not yet at least.

Not yet, but there's plans for one.

You're dead on, and that's exactly what we wanted to avoid, that's the reason you can't stack modes.

Yeah, no, Star Trek modes are boring garbage, sorry. I know you've got a long explanation about how deep and strategic it is to pick your way through the modes, and I believe you, but I have never even for a moment missed my game after selling it. I respect Lonnie for what he's done for pinball, I respect Dwight, but I'd put Alien up against Star Trek any day of the week when it comes to rules.

Also, I think my statement was maybe confusing, you can't stack modes, meaning one mode at a time, it's possible to stack multiballs with a mode.

Sorry, don't mean to shit talk another company's game, but comparing Star Trek to what Joe has done with even the launch code is ridiculous.

But I know SKB loves it, and he's at least 3x the player I am, so I'm just glad he enjoys it.

Nope. Unless you're saying "wow I just noticed in pinball you shoot lit shots".

Joe already refuted things better than I could though. He's already put way more creativity into the modes than that other game has. I reject the comparison!

Thanks, I really appreciate it. You too PBFan.

It was a challenging project in a lot of ways, the distance over the ocean from the physical machine, the license stuff, revealing things in a piecemeal fashion (Andrew had no choice, not criticizing, but it's hard to see a bare playfield and imagine it populated, you can't expect people to "see" it).

But it's really gratifying for people to see (and play!!) the final product and be excited about it. I don't want to say we always knew what we were doing, lol, but we really did have a vision that we were following. Andrew feels super passionate about this license, he found a team that feels the same way, and we just let the atmosphere of the films guide us. I dunno that we made a game like no other, but I can't think of anything that feels quite like what we have.

I know the word immersive is way overused, but I can't think of a better one right now; we really wanted you to feel surrounded by what makes the movies so great to us. Kelly (our animator if you don't know) and I really latched onto the "lived in" feel of the technology for instance. It's all CRT monitors, and the signals are shitty, and things break. The computer graphics are primitive. The high rez LCD screens let us play with all that, simulating the dirt and grit. The music is eery, the graphics are glitchy, the playfield is dark, it's not like a lot of pins, but the ones it does remind me of are all games I love.

He's got an open invite at my place when I get mine, so I can troll him about Star Trek in person!

(Eskaybee is a super nice guy, a great player, and I'm just giving him a hard time, we know each other, no animosity here!)