I have to admit that this game wasn't on my radar at all as the theme and designer don't do much for me but after seeing and playing the game for the first time yesterday I've come around 180 degrees. Great layout, inventive and fun rules and cool toys. Hard to believe that this is the same designer as the Hobbit and South Park! It felt like a throwback to the 90s WPC games of old. I really like how tight and satisfying the shots are to hit and I think the theme integration is really good.

I only got in 4 games and the ruleset was somewhat transparent as to what I need to do but I'm still not sure of a few things.

1. Can someone explain how the Houdini lights in the center of the playfield come into play and what the various colors mean?

2. I'm also not sure what the color chain link inserts signify? I apologize for being dense but I really haven't followed any of the progress on this game to date but now after playing it I'm looking forward to playing it a lot more! Glad they put one on location here at Geeks Mania!

It's also pretty cool that the game keeps track of your game time. On my 2nd game I ended up playing a 20 minute game where I got to see many of the modes and multiballs in the game. Man that multiball with the reverse and inverse flippers is crazy! I doubt I'd pick that one again unless scoring was made at least 3x instead of 2x. Not sure yet what I think of the videomode either but the rest of the rules seem great!

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Thanks Rosh! This will help immensely. Need to study up and then stop out and get some more plays in!

I'll have to give the reverse/inverse another chance or two. I feel like I'm good at reverse based on TSPP and WOZ but haven't quite got the inverse part down. At least you give a ball save for when it switches back. It is a fun mode to try!

Got to go play Houdini again today and got about a dozen more plays on it. Wasn't able to top my 1.3 million score from last time but had some good games. Probably the coolest thing was when all the GI went dark after what I think was a later stage of trunk multiball. There were some big 45k + jackpots and it got pretty insane! There really are a lot of modes and cool ideas on this pin and it would be a great pin to have at home due to the depth.

One thing I'm not that keen on is the insert lighting for the chain links. I'd much rather have them be either on or off as it's really hard to determine at a glance what intensity they are lit at. It just doesn't seem very intuitive the way it currently is. Minor complaint though... I'm loving this game more and more and really enjoy how tight yet satisfying the layout is!

Lol... Yep I meant 45 thousand. My score was around 300k and I entered trunk multiball and had a really good multiball where after a period of time the GI went completely dark making it tough to see. The guys I was playing with started shining their cellphone flashlights on the game which made it worse. By the time I was done with multiball my score was over 700k. I wish I had video because I wasn't completely sure of what I was doing as I was just trying to make my shots. When a game is as tight as Houdini is it takes extra concentration and I wasn't able to look up at the display often. I also couldn't here anything as this location is super loud! This particular game only 11 minutes but my 1.3M game was over 20.