Good news Scooby Doo pinball fans: I've found something new to set my sights on.

Dubstep, LOL. Tell me you don't know what you're doing without telling me you don't know what you're doing.

I mean this 100%: I'm sincerely happy that this game scratches the itch for some people. I really am.

Despite criticism, I want AP to succeed. More companies, producing more games, is a win.

I criticize, and I'm sure the majority do, b/c I struggle to see how making a game like this that caters to such a small crowd will ensure this company's existence for years to come. Payrolls need to be made, profits need to be made, and flops kill companies.

If I'm not mistaken, AP said they will be putting out THREE original themed games (so this is game one of that series, I suppose?). That seems completely delusional to me.

If they said, "We're going to put out two licensed games and one unlicensed game", I would still say that's risky. But I can at least see an argument being made for taking that approach.

But THREE unlicensed games? And especially when they are making such questionable choices with this game? I just...I just...yea... I'm sticking with the prediction I made a few months ago that they will be out of business in two years with this current plan.

There's a Pinsider above you that would disagree, and argue that this was really a well orchestrated game of chess. I find that thought adorable.

The Homepin thread years ago was solid. The Greatwich "whale investor"...chef's kiss.

But I'm ready to crown a new winner for my favorite Pinside thread of all time... Congrats GTF Hype thread!

Shout-out to the marketing team over at AP that is allegedly playing chess (according to one Pinsider) and generating so much hype. I have zero interest in this game, but if I had to pay to have access to this thread, you'd have my money.

I can't imagine how this could be true, but I hope it is.

Here's the thing: This release has provided a tremendous amount of laughter and joy in my life. I really want to see the same approach to the release of the next two slated original themed games. I want them to learn zero lessons from this. Maybe they double down and go even harder.

A man can dream.

Also, If AP sold 2,000 of these already without any real gameplay video, I'm pretty sure the Fed will decide to raise interest rates by a solid 75 bps.

As an owner of Bad Girls and one day, hopefully, Monte Carlo, this would be amazing. If AP put their full force into this, they could be the 80s Gottlieb of this decade. Which means, I'll own one of their machines, 30+ years from now.

Again with this bizarre logic that we're not allowed to criticize a pinball machine.

Do you apply this to other products/services in life? Or are pinball machines some kind of special product where one is only allowed to say positive things about it?

This might blow your mind, but I have opinions on games I won't buy. And they aren't all positive. Which is showcasing why I won't buy a game. Crazy, I know.

I'm willfully obtuse.

I respect all the missteps that went into making this thing, everything from selecting the dub step music, to boomer humor, cringe acting, and deeply confusing marketing approach. These things don't just happen, they take time, and I can respect the work.

And I think you misunderstand me: I'm extremely grateful this game exists.

Please, carry on personally insulting me for having an opinion.

This game looks like it could be fun. Great light show.

The dubStep is annoying as F. Cringe is still there, but doesn't seem overly in your face.

Seriously, if AP just showed the actual game, instead of the 4 BS trailers, and not showing gameplay at TPF, they would have had a much, much better launch. I almost thought they were trying to hide something by holding back any real gameplay.

It going to be an uphill battle at $9K and competing against the other stellar licensed titles, but again, looks like it's fun to flip for at least a few games.

That is indeed cool. It might also indicate that they don't see this game as a threat.

I get what you mean, but I was originally slated to buy Foo. Then I saw Karl's stream of Godfather and took my money and bought GF instead. I'm no longer getting Foo.

So in many cases, it is a zero sum game, at least for plebs like me.

All indications point to them being 3D printed, unfortunately.

But hey, they have a nifty lunch box you can buy!

After watching last night's stream, I feel even more vindicated in my assessment.

How do you not understand this?

There's people that have never owned a pinball machine before, but will buy Godfather, Pulp Fiction, Foo Fighters, etc, b/c it's their favorite movie, band, etc.

No random person is just going to buy "Galactic Tank Force" because of it's IP that has zero history.

As a route operator, people play the machines that are the hot IP. I can attest to this. Doesn't matter if the game is shit or not. 99% of the general public doesn't know what makes for a "good" or "bad" pinball machine.

That's it. That's how life works.

Let me head this off before it happens...

At this point in the thread, someone will inevitably pop in that's an operator and give an example of an unlicensed theme that did well for them. It's true, it can happen. However, it's way more likely to happen at a location where's there's hardcore players that can see past theme and recognize a good game.

But generally speaking, that's not the case.

I owned a DI. I can see past a license.

But my point, and the point of many in this thread, is that AP is a smaller company that has decided to tie their hands behind their backs by choosing to do original themes. This is simply guaranteed to lead to less sales than if they did an appealing licensed game.

That's fine and well, I guess. But many of us wonder how they can continue like this. Do they have an unlimited bank roll? Why make life harder? Why not do some licensed games so that you can generate more money for the company. You can then bring more talent in-house. You can then upgrade from aggressively mediocre 3D prints to actual molds. You can help ensure your survival to make pins not for a few more years, but maybe decades.

If the company wants to let their "creative side" run wild on a few games here and there, more power to them. But as an insurance policy against such high risk, why not crank out licensed pins that we all know will sell more? Hedge your bets, FFS.

Complimentary Buffalo Pinball mug to the first person that gets Franchi to sign a picture of Christie Brinkley.

Pinbrew (resized).png

Tough crowd.

I hope he can laugh at himself. It's a good, healthy, quality.

Just got back from PinBrew in which I played this game over the course of 3 days, probably amounting to playing it 5 times and watching others play it. Here's my overview:

Let's start off with the most important fact, and that was despite having two games there, they were both malfunctioning constantly. Both of them. Every time I looked over, whoever was operating them either had the glass off, or the playfield up in the air. It was funny and then it was just sad.

Every single game I played on them, I had an issue, despite what machine I played on. Here's some I catalogued:

-Ball would get hung up on an orbit switch. Happened on each machine, different orbit.
-Balls would get stuck/jammed in the right VUK
-Magnet would sometimes not catch the ball when it should.
-Ball got stuck under the upper right spinner gate.
-UFO wasn't moving on one of the machines.
-The plunger was whobbiling up and down on one of the machines.
-I asked the tech to turn the sound up b/c I had trouble hearing it. He did, and then it was SUPER LOUD. I asked him to find a middle ground, he said there was none. Apparently when he would hit the volume to go up or down, instead of going 5, 6, 7, 8, etc... it would go 5, 6789, 10. The switch was too sensitive or something. It was either 5 or 10, no in between.
-Speaking of sound, I don't know what was up with the speaker system, but it was a bit high pitched. Some of the callouts I heard fine, but when there was lots of sound effects, voices were drowned out.
-Sometimes I would see a character pop up that was supposed to be talking, their mouth would move, but no audio from them.
-I'm not sure if there was a ball search
-The cowabonga mode had stupid high scoring. Like, one shot would be easily over 100M. Was super easy to do. I saw a friend's score jump by a billion from that multiball.
-There were frequent air balls from the tank.
-The glass rattled horribly
-The auto launcher was intermittent on one of the games, so I had to manually plunge the ball during multiballs.

I managed to get grand champ on one of the games. Basically just avoided shooting the tank unless I was in multiball or got so bored that I shot it anyways. For a good player, the game seemed pretty easy if you ignore the tank and just shot the other shots.

There's probably much more, but I'm exhausted. I'll talk more in detail about the positives on the podcast, but seriously, they should be ashamed of shipping a game this broken.

The jig is up guys, iceman44 caught me. If you look at my collection, you will indeed note that I have a bias towards working games and ones that don't involve fudge packing, er, "pumping and drilling".

Others may note that this is nice way to respond to my personal experience. It wasn't a personal attack, just letting others know that he has had a better experience, which is great. I'm only here to share my experience, and it wasn't good due to the numerous documented issue.

Oh! I remembered a couple others:

-The flippers started getting weaker over time
-The balls weren't releasing from the locks and had to be fixed.

I thought the art was great: cabinet, playfield, and backglass. Someone else mentioned a couple of weeks ago that it reminded them of Cinemaware games from the Amiga, and I would agree.

The lighting was fantastic.

The trend with games being released these days is to make them longer playing, with safer shots. So in theory, a game with dangerous shots like the tank is up my alley, if anything to break up the monotony of these longer playing games. But at the same time, you're pushed to avoid shooting it, so that it tends to play longer if you're a good player, somewhat negating the intended shorter experience.

I found my shorter playing fix there with Pulp Fiction. Absolutely loved it. Didn't see them working on any issues once, despite the fact that it was constantly played. Going to add that to my collection when it's released.

The one at PinBrew that I mentioned was the one where the target wasn't swinging. When that multiball started, I remember seeing something on the screen to the effect of "138M" for super jackpot. That popped up immediately as the starting value, I think becoming eligible after a certain number of jackpots were hit.

Hope that makes sense and this additional info helps.

The moving tank was an attention grabbing marketing gimmick. Most of the potential buyers weren't looking for that, they wanted some actual game footage.

For me:

-Speed/flow of the game
-Audio package
-Animations and quality of animations
-Rules and how they are incorporated
-If there's any quality issues that happen during a live stream (see Jack Danger's stream of GTF)
-Lighting and how well that's incorporated

So in other words, quite a bit. Not sure how that's hard to understand.

A gameplay stream is in no way a substitute for actually playing the game, but it is the best way to judge it, short of playing it yourself. Much better than just looking at a picture of the playfield.

Get the hell out of here with that kind of rationality. Sense making has no place here!