So cool - this game is even more beautiful than when I played it at the NW Pinball Show last June! Thanks for posting the various pics today!

The attention to detail is simply amazing.

Pictures do it justice and it flows like its actually part of the playfield. If the pix are better than what it shows.. hooray!
Keep them coming, everyone is enjoying these!

rosh will you guys be sending one to the DPO Expo in the Netherlands next month? Largest show in Europe this year.

Over 350 machines, maybe over 400 by the time it happens. By comparison Pinburgh (ReplayFX), which I think was North America's largest consumer show this year, had 'only' 305 machines.

Any idea on how many pre-orders for this machine? I'm only interested because the market seems to be tightening up and more players competing for a limited number of customers will cause some doors to close permanently. Stern warned about this a very long time ago and now they appear to be the ones people are flocking from due to price and quality. I am on the list for one of these at Little Shop of Games in Florida.

Sorry for short replies, other than photos been using phone and hard to be verbose -- which is not a problem for the machine, which is way too verbose, I knew it was a little chatty, but that has been the primary negative feeeback on the game. But hey I sit in a room all day with just the machine, naturally I would make it chatty (and did recently add a bunch of verbose female voice calls)

DPO is on our radar, we are running a few weeks behind our schedule so not sure we will have a machine "bulletpoof" in time to ship. A couple of other shows in same situation.

Left side shots were tweaked slightly and flow better with less chatter. The narrow right side shot was also tweaked, if it is any wider it would be no the 1/16 of an inch. Whatever little tweaks Joe did really cleaned things up as far as now it shoots.

Well, time to drive back over to expo. I'll try to get some video, but no promosis, pretty busy with talking to those st the show..

Take my money already....Looks so good.

ROSH, sure wish the game would make it to the Houston Arcade Expo next weekend.

Verbose is fantastic, the more call outs the better imo!

Good to hear.

Also, regarding your prior post, good that they're Mirco pfs rather than US-sourced ones. Firmly hoping the Churchill cabinets are more towards the quality end of the spectrum that JJP order, rather than the few Stern still get.

these were genuine concerns, having played one of the prototypes. new gameplay video will allow everyone an opportunity to assess how well things turned out.

the AP group seemed genuinely interested in, and definitely took note of, player feedback while on tour. I feel one of the smartest things they did was to ax a few shows and get back to work to finish the task at hand. also like the approach of holding back on the promotion of the game until they are in better position to ship/deliver.

I was hoping to see new video of Houdini in this thread but nothing yet. I did find this on youtube. Very interesting...

Interesting, but I wish phones would prompt people to record in widescreen mode. And holy noise-reduction-needed Batman!

Made in the US, and will be cheaper than what others are offering.

Played the game Many times and even got my name on the board! (YEL) What an amazing Team, game, and spirit. It is clear they are driven to succeed and quality of the machine shows it in every way. Met the entire team and Rosh is even more informative in person than the forum. The Really love what they do and it shows and I love that I am on the list. Amazing machine! For me, Houdini and POTC were the Only show this year. Other than the great attendees of coarse! And FYI, That ball throw across the playfield never missed! Amazing and made you smile every time!

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I played it several times at the show. Still has some software bugs in it, but a lot of it is there. Many shot layouts. Theater door trap is nice edition. I enjoyed it overall. Liked it better than I thought I would. Looks fantastic to boot. I did like the milk can on the left, works as a catapult and launches the ball halfway across the field into that box that opens up in the back left corner. Made it every time, without fail.

Only thing I would add is:

Game keeps the ball a long time to tell you things. Double flipper hurry up (cancel out)would help that
Wish the Planchette window was little bigger and they put a LCD behind it that would animate or give hints for things to do.

Other than that, I thought the rest was great.

Great game. I had a great time playing the prototype at Pin A Go Go last May. Awesome to see how it has changed since then.

So you didn't miss the LED strips on the backbox?

Ive been a Houdini fan forever, so the theme grabs me.
The art, look and reports on Game play have me excited.

But what excites me most, is Rosh himself.
A Gentleman, who has been selfless with his time on this thread, and the project.
I feel, and hope, with the little I know, that Rosh, has turned this into a challenging game,
with his superior skills at coding!

I cant speak more highly about his personal motivation.

Houdini, for the "win" this year.

Agreed. I also admire how Josh (Rosh) promotes and represents his company and product without spamming all of Pinside with negative opinions about competing manufactures. Very adult and professional.

I will say that the pics do no justice to this pin! It gave POTC a run for its money this weekend. It's classy, ornate, and just a thing of beauty. The Bentley and Rolls Royce of pins.

One thing I haven't seen answered is which of the insert (or GI) LEDs are RGB?

...suggest you at least let the owner select the chattiness level in settings. When I had ToM I couldn't stand the annoying, constant, and repetitive call-outs. Ruined the game for me.

Answered in the product Flyer. See AP's Facebook page!

Ambiguous.

All inserts are RGB, or just some? If some, which?

Also, since it hasn't been posted here:

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If I recall talking to Josh, all inserts are RGB and GI is white.

Wait, 2 catapults?!

I have to echo Oldpinguy's sentiments - Rosh was so genuinely enthusiastic about the game when we talked with him at Allentown, his love for the theme, the company, the team, and the huge work ethic they have obviously put into this game is astounding!

Let's not forget others, though.

Balcer quickly turned an absolute stinker of a JPop design into something workable, and has since refined it into something that now looks like it can compete with JJP, let alone Stern. Many no doubt currently nameless individuals helped.

Hmmm,... you're right. In my head I matched that up with "all LED lighting", but I still think it's all inserts.

That said I still like the otiginal art better... but this has way more steampunk vibe to it so I guess I like both.

In the revised playfield Houdini looks a bit more 'drawn' an less photoshoppy, pops out more due to the lighting/ contoures in in Face & Hands so I that's becoming really nice.

Not a Fan of the colored photoshopped-shadowed/contoured insert outlines but I won't give a F*** as soon as I'd be playing it instead of starring at the new screenshots.

Looks that way to me also!

One detail I think is really cool is the narrow target switches - less than the width of a rubber sleeve post. I hope to see those available for custom games soon. Really opens up room for larger ramp openings without eating up valuable playfield space.

This is the game I'm most excited about. I hope they make it durable enough because I want to put it on a route when it releases.

Rosh, thanks for posting some footage! Would love to see some more. What is the accuracy of the second catapult below the trunk? It seemed to miss in that brief clip. The game looks amazing! Great job!

Here are a couple of crappy videos, best I could do, have not really looked back at what I recorded to see what is in them, I think they were both during movie modes, put pretty sure there are a couple of catapult shots in them. Guessing these have me talking to someone while I was filming, so, sorry about that, and hopefully I did not say anything I should not have been saying.

I will try next week to get a decent video shot where you can also hear the sound.

Here is the first, second one seems to be stuck uploading

Hey!!! There are NO crappy videos of Houdini!!! They are all Magic! Loving this game. My gameroom is prepped for delivery.......

I don't understand why some shows don't stream and archive their speakers. It's easy to do and collectors love it.

I finally got to shake hands with rosh and introduce myself. Good guy, Houdini is going to rock this collectors market. What I will be interested to see is just how many of these machines end up in operator's hands and out in the wild. There is no doubt that the physical machine is very appealing to the eye, and the game play is even better. I know I want one.

as it should be. GI's should always be white. If color is used should only be used for a mode or specific purpose then go back to white.

saw that the video already had 25 views and I had not yet posted it, but see that dts was one of those who found it. I'll try to get the other one posted soon, seems stuck on the upload, I'll try again shortly. Again, I'll try to get some better video shot in the next week.

First off, I want to thank all of you who came to expo and played Houdini and took the time to talk and give us feedback. The machines were played non-stop from open to close and there was always a line. We did have the game set up with 3 balls. I did not look at final audits, but the last time I had looked, over 1000 games had been played across the three machines, with an average game time round 3 minutes and an average score of 110,000. High score was around 1.6 million. 12 players had game times over 15 minutes, 17 players had games less than a minute.

Did get an email reading some catapult misses, so figured I would share the info here. One of the machines was dropped when being move to Expo, I didn't see it, but I guess fell off the hand trunk and landed hard on the back of the head. The mini display and backboard took it hard and had to be repaired on site. It appears that at some point during the show the switch that detects if the lid is open game loose and was not closing correctly. If the lower catapult does not see the lid open, it does a short throw to avoid throwing the ball over the trunk, etc. To be honest, I don't know if it is really a necessary feature, but, we did to be on the safe side. Once that was adjusted it was back to its normal high accuracy. Plenty of folks here can attest to how well it did.

We did have one major software bug that was causing us a lot of grief. And that led to a couple of more as I tried to track it down and fix it. The symptoms of the issue would not show themselves until long after the event that triggered it, so took me a long time to track it down. If a player started 'return from beyond', which is a mode that, if earned, starts if you drain out the left outlane. The mode puts the ball back in the shooter lane and gives you 30 flips to spell seance, do it, and you get to continue your ball, fail and your ball ends. It appears that if you fail, the at some point for the the next player, typically, the stage will then decide to ignore balls that enter it, and even if ball save would drop it out of the stage, the issue would continue. While I was not 100% able to correct the issue at the show, we were able to minimize to rarely occur, but that was not until Saturday. Normally it is harder to earn return from beyond than I had it set at the show, i wanted you guys to get to have fun with that mode, and that is probably why we and not seen this crop up before. Needless to say we will be doing a lot more play testing over the next few weeks to work through these kind of issues.

Houdini is chatty, no doubt about it. Keep in mind I sit in a room all day alone with Houdini, so, you can't blame me for wanting someone to talk to, heck, I even added a bunch of female callouts this week . While all stage modes and movie modes can be 'flipper escaped', I have not yet determined the best way to handle callouts in those situations as well as balancing them at other times. Rest assured I will be giving this more through both around a verbosity setting and how it behaves. Obviously everyone has an opinion on this, and I heard lots of them. At that same time, I don't think I had any other negative feedback the whole show, other than some thoughts on lamp flashing (which I believe was from the player in one of the videos, speaking of which, it looks like the other video finally uploaded . . .

Inserts are all RGB, GI is white. We did not have the right GI LEDs at the show, the ones we will use for the slings, etc. are frosted so less harsh on the eyes.

I and lots of folks ask how the backglass looks so great, with deep rich colors and balanced lighting. Not really sure how, it just does. It is a real backglass and has no 'white' backing layer, which I guess helps. There are just three led strips to the do lighting, but it just seems to work well, with how it is positioned with the monitor and its integration in the head. Obviously I am biased, but I do think it is the best integration of an LCD into a back box so far.

At this show I did not hear anyone complain about the low scoring of the game, seems with us and JJP doing that, on at least some of their games, everyone is getting accustomed to lower scores, that in reality help you know a good game or not. If you break 200K on Houdini, that is good game, 500K on Houdini that is a really good game, you break a 1,000,000 well that is a great game, I am sure at some point, after players learn how to maximize scoring, that someone will 'roll it over'. The main display is just 7 digits, but the smaller player displays can go up to, I believe, 9 digits.

Well, there is a cup of coffee and a bagel and lox calling my name. I'll check better later to see if there are any questions, etc.

Rosh

Unbelievable that in 2017 we sit here actually facing an embarrassment of riches with regard to the number of desirable and attractive NIB currently available, and I for one am having a harder time than ever choosing one! It's really kind of amazing how many new drop-dead gorgeous and feature-packed games (Houdini being high on the list) there are to choose from.

One thing which IS making the decision a little easier is the refreshingly transparent way AP is providing status updates. Willingness to openly discuss problems and bugs speaks volumes about integrity and makes me tend to take them at their word when they say they are working on fixes. It's obvious they are sweating the details and want the game to be as absolutely fully-baked as possible before releasing to customers, and I greatly respect that; also makes me confident regarding ongoing support.

rosh

I don't know if it has been discussed or not, but I'd strongly suggest revisiting the AP logo. Perhaps by the artist responsible for the pf and cabinet.

It looks very out of keeping and amateurish compared to the rest of the package. Particularly when on the white decal in the middle of the speaker panel.

Rosh, thanks for posting video and describing the process so clearly. That makes a huge difference in making a decision. I didn't get to attend the show, but from what I've seen, Houdini was a standout! I'm in.

Rosh, Game is beautiful. On list for one. May have already been answered but is this still planned to start shipping this month.

I think rosh said they are a tiny bit behind, so goal is end of the year

I think the game is beautiful too, and seems most people do. Having one artist do the cabinet, backglass, playfield and blades (as well as some of the art used in the animations) can really help give a cohesive look. He was also given a lot of leeway on what he could do, which let him really get passionate about it and was constantly looking at how to add little enhancements. There are a lot of interesting things in the art. As far as the logo, I can't say I love the white background on the logo on the speaker grill. That was just recently added, not sure if it will be changed, when it comes to the physical machine I have less control than I do with the rules.

When we did our reveal in Texas back in March, we said we would be shipping by end of year, and we are still expecting to meet that goal. I expect production to start in the next few weeks. We just got in first batch of playfields, I think we are waiting on some wire forms and a few other small items, so getting close to being able to flip the switch. We need to review some things from this past weekend to see if any additional tweaks/changes are needed (definitely a couple), which could have some minor impact on timelines. First machines will go to distributors for showrooms and some will go out on location for testing, then we would start on customer games.

Joe just celebrated his one year anniversary with the company this past week, and my one year comes up just over a month from now, so it would be nice to be boxing games by then.

So pulled some photos of factory, from our expo presentation, as I have promised. I do believe the seminar video will be available soon. Right now the production team is deciding on which work will be done at each station, they will then adjust once they can accurately determine total work time per station to get the right flow, which is critical to really get up to speed. Our team leading production all have industry experience having been at Williams and/or Stern, and have some strong feeling about what not to do.

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Beautiful factory! Whats really great about it is that you only have to build it once. I know im in on this bad boy, its the next couple games im intersted to see by maybe expo next year??

This is only my second NIB pinball machine, the first being LOTR which I liked but sold because it just didn't stack up to my other machines. I have 4 games, SS, CV, TOTAN, and TZ (TZ done by high end pins for me). I feel this machine will be the perfect addition to my other titles. I owned a Theatre of Magic but hated the trunk breaking all the time and the repetitive game play so it went too. Two other games I owned were Star Wars 2000 and STTNG. I am really looking forward to this game. I was a buyer of Wayne Gilliard's MM and waited 6 years before I asked for and received a full refund. While MM has been redone, my desire for the game faded so here I am with this machine.

Let's be honest, all the pinball company logos are kind of crappy. So if anything they're just matching the competition on that one.

Wow, you didn't think LOTR measured up! You do have a great lineup, but what was it you didn't like? And same for STTNG? you've owned the top pins of all time! (Ok not Star Wars