James Rolfe just called, he wants his shtick back.

(This is a joke.)

Well I did try and tell you - everyone is entitled to express their opinion, but since Team Pinball aren't selling the game, Pinball Adventures don't care and the market will decide how many get sold anyway, this whole brouhaha has been magnificently and predictably irrelevant.

I'll tell you what gang, I *did* a better time as an exercise helping to get Punny Factory made and refined than with the over-ambition the other Andrew had. After two micromanaged projects made way more complicated than they needed to be (as well as several backburners at the same time that didn't go so far but I can always revisit and repackage a lot of the work, since it's mine), it was nice to be able to dial back a bit with the small Cardiff team in a cosier environment, plus I got to design some of the physical models like the press this time. Plus it was a project where everyone was able and willing to listen to the others' input and advice on what was going to work on the game what wouldn't, and taking on board suggestions and possible alternatives to get ideas to work. Nobody has been so set in their thinking that the whole project ever logjammed to a halt. Yes, Punny Factory is a branding exercise. I've said it before here, that was always the point. This game is Pinball Adventures learning to walk before they can run, just as Mafia was Team Pinball learning to walk before they could run. And I'd already gone through that the hardest and worst way, expected to hit the ground running from day one and keep the same pace going under someone else's full control. You can't learn properly under those conditions, and nobody involved is about to do that again.

So, the next game. I won't deny it's been slow for a bit; without being able to meet up, Covid killed the pace a lot. Plus at short notice earlier in 2020 the comfort zone got interrupted to settle family affairs and other matters back in Northern Ireland, where as far as close family goes it's just myself and one brother left. Lockdowns and playing the waiting game with solicitor matter turned a stint of a few weeks into four months; I didn't have much choice but to wait it out when if I left, there was no guarantee of being able to return in a hurry if I was suddenly needed again. I had the design work to do, but it's a lot LESS fun if you're separated from the team at a point where the project is mainly on your shoulders, you have all the figuring out to do and there's nothing much the others can help with if they aren't physically present. That was beginning to feel way too much like 'old times' and I already had enough stresses on my plate that my mental health was taking a serious pummelling. If anything the design should be an escape from that, but if conditions aren't helpful and not anybody's fault, there's not a lot you can do about it.

So now that I'm back in Wales the group has to get things really moving again, get up to speed on the same page with a plan of action. In both design and mechanics, this will be a significant step up from Punny Factory. Sure the concept is weird, but that's going to be one of the creative challenges, taking the disparate elements and bringing them together as a springboard into one overarching style where the whole context makes sense in a funny way. Funhouse is a weird game. Roadshow is a weird game. Junk Yard is a weird game. Cirqus Voltaire is a weird game. Taken at face value none of those should realistically work, but they do once you get that 'oh, right' clicking point. I'm not about to brag that we're automatically in the same technical league, but I think I know how to approach this to achieve a similar effect, with a lot of it being down to how the concept will be presented to the player. The first person you have to convince that your game has legs is yourself.

Keeping my fingers crossed that the 'fun' part organically comes back into the project again. We still have a whitewood to make, and other part types to design and source that we weren't using last time.

There's more to the game than just that. Plenty of other score-based pinball rules. I'd need to check with Janos on the code as more is being added to it, but one of the ideas was the Punnys also work like collecting 'trading cards', and you have a set to complete over the course of longer-term playing. You don't have to collect them all within one single game.

'Tongue in cheek' is more of the direction I'm hoping to be able to get the Sushi game taken to, where the elements of the concept that PA wants to take themselves seriously as player-goals also become funny because the whole thing would also be wrapped in genre-pastiche; an option not available to a 'brand' game like Punny Factory.

Think about what Creature From The Black Lagoon does. It's licensed from the film, it retains the plot and iconic monster, but it's a stepping stone to a game that's really about '50s drive-in culture. Without straying from what Pinball Adventures want the game to do and to focus on, I think we can achieve something similar here. Style would be absolutely crucial to making it work though.

I'll be honest - being on the ASD spectrum with various underlying issues there's a lot of 'imposter syndrome' that goes on inside my head. I need the right sort of environment and encouragement to thrive. I've accepted that I'll never be a Keith Elwin, so to speak - I wouldn't be able to handle the pressure of somewhere like Stern.

Punny Factory is having more rules and code added to it at present. We all know it's the 'test' game to demonstrate PA can actually produce something, and Andrew McBain's most 'personal' project based on one of his brands. We knew that going in and were fine with it.

Meanwhile I've got both Manias (Ninja and Sushi) on the drafting board and intend (given the right artist) to worldbuild both of them, so each will have an angle or a hook that the player can latch onto (ninjas aren't complicated, there's a lot of folklore you can add to them) and also get what the game is doing (so don't expect Sushi to finish up looking like that). One is a whimsical pastiche, one is a more serious action-adventure, both will have a storyline and both will have more emphasis on features and toys. I'm making games here with the intent on presenting something with a more unique layout approach and fresh playfield ideas that I'd want to play a lot, even if the brief to begin with seems completely mad. That's part of the challenge, and it makes the exercise way more interesting and satisfying to crack than I ever got out of doing Full Throttle. My function is to take game design ideas and see what works or can be improved upon with my own creativity. Give PA credit for at least thinking outside the box, even if the box is occasionally made of jelly beans, silly string and spam.

Ninja Mania / Forsaken Ninja is the one in particular that has me the most inspired and ambitious, where at the current drafting stage following the proof-of-concept digital test layout I'm looking at my work and thinking 'this is going to be something special if we really get it right'. A less-is-more approach with the shots will allow for a greater number of other features, larger toys, a more three-dimensional diorama look, and more ball interactivity with items like the skill-shot lookout tower and player-controlled ninja bridge as a primary flow device. If I'm allowed to, I could see about chronicling its development.

Punny Factory, as I've mentioned before, is the initial 'show you can actually do it' game. Their personal project with one of PA's brands, to create a playfield, cabinet and mechanical template, from which to springboard and advance an extra step each time. Process, rather than product; using time now to save it later, knowing the initial limits and calculating from that the investment level for improvement. The important part from PA's perspective is that the groundwork has been achieved. From mine, it's where to go from there for future plans, how to bring them to life, and the feasibility study of how much can be squeezed into a lower-cost, lower-run pin that offers something different from the norm in a hopefully appealing way. That's where a lot of the 'fun' lies, in the experimenting.

On the other hand, no preorder dollars.

No apologies necessary. Besides, Andrew starting small with (in all fairness) a cheap and cheerful 'vanity' game to promote a brand he owns gives him something tangible besides practical experience to build from, even if this first machine meets universal derision in these parts as a product. I've also seen far worse launch trailers than that one.

Bottom line is, after two more intensive and restrictive licensed projects, I was happy to take a step back for a bit, getting to work on something simpler and less demanding and just have a bit more *fun*. Punny Factory was the 'right' project at the 'right' time.

You are indeed correct; Andrew saw Mafia as a show, looked at how it was made, saw a potential easy-to-build platform that could be advanced upon over time, and TP got the gig to develop the whitewood, build the prototypes and do the coding. And since we were all ex-Heighway guys, it was easy and convenient for me to come on board as designer, and just chill with something simpler and more fun to do after two heavy licensed projects.

Here's something I've been saying since back in the middle of the Heighway days. The litmus test for a pinball company's chances of sticking around is never the first game; it's what happens surrounding their *second* one, if they can demonstrate the capacity to learn, improve, and build upon their foundations. Almost nobody in the Bronze Age pinball renaissance has come out of the gate really swinging. ABSOLUTELY almost nobody has managed to start with an impressive first effort without some kind of major error that hurts its viability.

JJP, Dutch, Spooky, they all came this close to losing their shirts for good with their first releases but are still here and still making waves; everybody wants to see what Barry can create next after TBL. Spooky saved itself by skillfully playing the 'rarity' card at the right time, when that really meant something. Jpop blowed himself up real good more than once and almost took AP down with him. Team Pinball bowed out of the bespoke end knowing it was never going to be viable for them on their budget, shrugged, and focused their talents into becoming a studio instead with more success. Haggis has yet to pass the second game test. Heighway only managed it because Pinball Brothers were able to pick up the pieces, and of deeproot nothing further ever needs to be said again.

The only exceptions appear to be Stern, where the equivalence doesn't count since they had weight of the entire industry to revitalise at the time, and CGC's remakes. But even there, Gene Cunningham had already shown how not to budget or manage the figures with the BBB remake, so in paying attention to that, Gene was basically their advance 'first'.

Precisely this, with the caveat that 'original' is subjective. Every idea is inspired by *something*.

WHY DID YOU BURN AN ASTEROID ANNIE?

But it's Asteroid Annie! The last ever System 1 game! 211 units made! Doesn't mean *I* wouldn't want one!

And for that matter, BLOODY GIVE ME A VOLTAN ESCAPES COSMIC DOOM AS WELL.