Rosh - I really appreciate how hands on you are and I can't wait to add this game to my collection! New website looks great!

Looking forward to the release! Updated. Website, test machines in the wild. Looking good for delivery soon (fingers crossed)

Just watched the video, thanks for posting link. Wow the game looks great and the theme is right. Definitely interested and will start following this thread closely now.

For sure! Wonder if a few guys will get one for Christmas

According to Tommy it's probably not going to happen.

I know we in Canada are screwed lol, but thought maybe they may squeak a few out in the US?

I was there on Monday afternoon so it sounds like that has already been corrected. Everything I pointed out was very minor- just wanted to point them out in interest of dialing in the machine as much as possible.

It was a blast to play! Thanks for putting it out at Level 257.

I particularly liked the redemption feature that dispensed a Schaumburg Chicago hot dog from a slot on the coin door instead of tickets!

-Mike

All good , appreciate the fact that the whole thing came together so fast!

There is some mystery part they are waiting to be built or shipped to the factory which appears to be holding up the whole line. Hope it happens soon!

It is clearly the pinballs that go into the goodie bag.....always waiting on the pinballs. Just cant ship without any balls!

More sand?

It's going to be difficult waiting past Christmas for Houdini for me. I could have a new Dialed In or GOTG in my house in time for Christmas. Some news on when the line is going to get going would be helpful in tempering my impatience. I'm just not good at waiting.

I know what you mean - I had planned on DI and Houdini being in the house before the end of the year - had to adjust slightly. we are not getting DI until some time next year and hopefully Houdini as soonas they start shipping!

There seems to be bug with the return from beyond showing the seance multi ball ready artwork on top of it.

Also in multi ball when you stack an added multi ball mode that ball saver light should come to let you know that you stacked something and it's not the game messing up giving a end less multi ball. I was playing and I seemed to be a very long time of balls just coming back out in multi ball with no ball saver light on.

Joe, thanks for the feedback.

The seance stuff is supposed to show in Return From Beyond, since you are trying to spell seance in order to return.

I'll look into the multiball thing, not sure if the starting of the new MB is obvious, and if it is a second MB starting, ball save should be flashing, also possible something else is going on with Seance Multiball putting too many balls in play. I've had another report of that, but have not seen it or been able to replicate it yet.

Was in Seance (can't really lookup at the screen to see stuff all the time when playing to see if it stated some other mode)

Does the bug have any thing to do with staged/locked balls getting unlocked / re locked in modes?

Hey Rosh,

How about adding a ball pause like in TZ to hold the ball on a flipper? Gives you time to rearrange the boys or drink half a beverage, before returning. It might come in handy and make sense to activate it during Seance mode as an Easter egg. If any game could make sense of this it would be Houdini.

Taking orders for Houdini. Shipping starts in December. Order yours now. PM for details.

Is this a fact announcement or assumption? So ready for mine but we have not heard that commitment from API as of yet not that I am worried.

It is half way threw December already!!

That would be a Fact #acerun! The worst thing a distributor can do is Over promise and underdeliver a product they have no control over. Managed Expectations is the best sales strategy. My distributors Love to sell products we don't yet offer. In the end the OEM is the one that is frowned upon.....

I will second that the Shipping starts in December. Taking more orders guys. Remember delivered out of IN saves $$$.

Pincades
Chicago Area Dist.
JT

While I wish AP the best, this seems like a very aggressive timeline. Good luck!

Going to wait it out , The best part of this thread has been the openness that Rosh has created. Sad that a distro would jump the gun and cause a wave when all info has been straight from AP!
After all the effort that has gone into this project it would be nice to let AP announce the release and shipping of their game!

For those interested:

DEEP DIVE into Houdini Pinball by American Pinball - Overview, Likes, Dislikes, Code, Features

http://thisweekinpinball.com/houdini-deep-dive-overview-likes-dislikes-code/

There's, in effect, only ONE week left in December. I'd say "shipping soon" to be safe. December can't happen unless they are literally being packed right now! My guess is they go out late January.

They just need to ship one game this month to consider "shipping in December" and I still see that as a possibility, plenty of time left to get 1 game out

Just read through the article and it's awesome! The breakdown of the shots and modes are very helpful to better visualize the gameplay variety. Thanks for putting that info out there for us!

I don't really see the point of rushing to push a handful of production games out now in the few days remaining in December. Especially since with the holidays, workers' minds will inevitably be on other things and the chance of "Friday afternoon" mistakes and oversights increases.

I don't think anyone who has followed this now believes Houdini to be vapourware or an eternal prototype, or AP purveyors of them. So proving they can 'finally' ship the first games isn't a huge hump to get over IMO.

Some useful info and feedback there.

Reaching the final wizard mode looks like it's going to be quite an achievement, as with some other recent Balcer games:

For the Master Magician (Wizard) Mode, you must collect all the HOUDINI letters by:
complete all 10 Stage modes
complete all five Movie modes
collect eight items from the Magic Shop
complete all five Jail Escape Hurry-ups
complete all five Secret Missions
earn a super jackpot during Trunk Multiball
earn a certain number of jackpots during Seance Multiball

Not sure how difficult each is, but that's a ton of stuff to get through.

As I have said previously, to me production is when machines are going off the line, and while we have a few dozen cabinets ready and a couple of dozen playfields that are > 90% done, they are not rolling off the line. However, I expect that to change in the next couple of days, as we got most of the missing parts earlier this week and the last missing items, I am being told, will be here tomorrow. Accordingly, unless some new issue pops up, always a possibility, I would expect that machines will start rolling off the line next week. I will say that the first couple of dozen games will go through the standard testing and inspection done by our production team, but these first machines will also be individually inspected by Joe, Jim and myself. Once those machines pass inspection, they will be shipping. Our stated goal has always been to start shipping games before end of year. We are going to do everything we can to get as many out the door as we can.

I actually had planned to use their phrase in another way in the game, but it such cryptic phrase I did not feel it worked for what I had intended. Still thinking about match, I have some more important things to work on first, plus I need to give you guys something to look forward to.

Yes it will, but there are a few extra balls that can be enabled to help you get there, and some settings to make it easier to earn Houdini letters. Not sure why you guys like to put the depth (or reverse flippers) on Balcer. Joe does not get involved in the rules very much, he is all about creating great playfield designs that are unique and challenging, as well as engineering the game to be reliable and easy to maintain. Watching him work and how he approaches things and make just small adjustments to make it shoot better, remove ball traps, etc. has been really impressive to me. Joe did have a few requests of things he wanted me to include, such as having 'ball drain modes' and having a video mode, and I was happy to oblige, just as he was happy to oblige some of my requests on the playfield. His previous games that had great depth, (TSPP, Woz, etc.), I believe the rules were primarily driven by Keefer, who has done the coding on some of my favorite games. It is my impression that each designer has his own desired level of involvement in rules, running along a wide spectrum of barely involved to heavily driving it. Ultimately all good pinball machines are the result of a collaborative effort, with many folks providing input and perspective into its design, rules, look, animations, etc.

Funny thing is you can sort of do this now in Straitjacket multiball when going reverse and inverted, since the flipper default to being up, although, you would only have about 2 minutes, since if both flippers remain up for that length of time the game will automatically drop them. I will consider this for a later release.

For those who have been following along, you know that some of the 'dislikes' can be resolved (or will be resolvable) via settings. Notably the length of the verbal instructions, and giggling sling shot women. As far as the cartoony comment, our goal was to be true and honorable to this amazing man, and we decided going with a cartoony caricature was not in sync with that goal. Like with all pinball art, it is very subjective.

Great update, thanks! Best of luck reaching your goal of shipping this year.

Awesome update!

Thanks for the continued excellent communication! I am looking forward to this addition as soon as it's ready.

Jim Z

One feature I haven't heard folks talk about but is one of my favorite is the chains linking all the pop bumpers!

Trigger one of them and you hear this great clanking sound!

Any update on the cost for side art, shaker, and magic glass add ons?

I'm pretty sure the "clanking" is generated by the speakers.

Yeah but it still sounds cool! It really is a nice touch in theme integration.

[ ROMANTIC VISION SHATTERED ]

I still reward creativity and this is REVOLUTIONARY, not evolutionary IMHO

Funny how certain ideas are easy and obvious and others are far more difficult to envision or come up with.

The whole locks and chains on the pops and having the rattling chain sound came together in a matter of minutes, when Joe asked "what are we doing to do with the pops, we get movement for free". It was probably less then 3 minutes of brainstorming to get us to what was a clear no brainer. Be nice if it was that easy to come up with cool ideas.

Similar when Joe and I were deciding where to the put magnets. The lower stand-ups were screaming for a purpose, and once we decided to put them near those, the idea of having Houdini's hands there immediately popped into my head. I did a quick sketch, with the hands and the idea for chain links to track progress and sent it over to the artist and he had his first mock-up of it the next day.

Sometimes these things just come together, sometimes you spend weeks trying to come up with the right idea/concept/solution. And plenty of times what at first seems like a good idea, turns into, "what were we thinking?".

Wow, cool. This is the kind of work that's been missing from Stern lately..some thinks we just like to dump on them but if you been around pinball for more than a decade you remember the kind of work deaigners/programmers used to be put into pins. Keep it up Rosh.

I tend to think the Stern designers and programmers still do as much of this kind of thing that they can. I suspect part of the challenge that they have, and that we have to be careful about, is having the production line, and the need to feed it, can negatively impact the game development cycle. Stern has a big production line and they need to keep it running. If a machine is not selling well, it likely results in timelines changing for the next machine or two in line, so suddenly they have to 'finish it' so it can be ready to go when needed. In addition, Stern obviously likes to use licensed themes, which can be challenging, but they know how to work through the approval process -- and I suspect part of that is them going for the path of least resistance, which likely turns into -- keep it simple, don't do something they might object to.

We will face some of these challenges with game 2, relative to feeding the production line. The better Houdini sells, the lower the risk. Sticking with unlicensed themes, for now, lets us not have to worry about approvals, so it gives us the latitude to take creative risks, as well as not having something else outside our control potentially impact timelines.

I have to think that designers at Stern have had frustrations at time when timelines and approvals get in the way. I'm sure Steve, and whomever else was working on it, had a lot of cool ideas for SW, that they could not do given these various constraints. As we know some of their games ship with minimal code, due to these timelines, and while some of the programmers are really good about getting it finished, when, and if, they are given the time, the playfield designer can not 'finish' the things they wanted to do due to a lack of time or the concern of it not being approved.

With more competitors have entering the marketplace, giving buyers more choices, it increases the risk of a game not selling well, and the cascading affect that can have. Of course this can then become self fulfilling prophecy as you speed up a game's development since the last game did not sell well, and since you sped things up, this next game is not up to professional contemporary standards, so it does not sell well, and that can start a dangerous repeating pattern.

Of course quality issues are a totally different thing, but can also plays a roll in all of this.

Despite what Deeproot says, pinball is hard.

Josh, I will concur, and add that SELLING pinball is hard...

Wanna make my life easier - contact PinballSTAR to buy your Houdini ! : )

Contact Joe at [email protected] - $ 250 refundable deposit to grab a spot in line - we are one of the larger AP distributors so we'll be sure to get plenty of those puppies when they start shipping !

Coming soon... A Houdini Launch Party potentially at a Houdini Museum ! oooooh, now ain't that special ! Details to come soon... : )

Now just ship ‘em!!!

Very true...precise analysis.

But on the other hand it can't possibly be a 'home run' based on the license alone, so you have to work even harder to make a great game and take more risk sales projectionwise. - At least that's what I suspect, wich is why I wish you best of luck!

I think that pro / premium split hurts stern vs others in terms of constraints.
In software to have to make differnt coding / rules for the split just makes it so that it takes more time to get the code done. For the ideas it's like how can we work it so that X is only in the premium but also make so that that thing you take out does not mess up the flow of the pro game.

At least I have my updated B66 to help the wait!!!!

One would have thought Star Wars would be a 'home run' based on license alone, but your point is valid. I tend to think that what is more important is the other extreme, that it is not a theme where a large chunk of collectors/operators would say "ugh, no way", since that shrinks the size on market vs locking in a small segment of it. Not sure how many games sell just due to theme, I suspect depending on the title, it can be a decent amount. but without a good machine behind it overall sales are going to struggle -- plenty of examples of a popular theme that fall flat due to playfield design, rules/programming or overall theme integration, and sometimes it can just be one these that misses to have a big impact on sales -- I'm sure some here an name recent examples. But even a great shooting game with great rules, but with a relatively unpopular theme is not going to do great -- again some recent examples exist. With Houdini, we had an unlicensed but a very recognizable theme, so not like we have to explain what it is, what the story is about. What we don't get with it, are assets to work with, images, video, music, call outs, etc, so there are always trade offs.