Hey Pinside, been a little while since we talked, I know I haven't been around. I'll add a post about that under this. On to the topic at hand:

My printer reached out to me the other day to let me know they're retiring the high end printers we use to print my translites. Of the 7 machines they had they're now down to 2. He's not sure if they're going to keep even those. So he told me if I wanted to do another run of Shadow it might be now or never, so get off my ass if I cared. I do care, so here I am getting off my ass to make this post.

No telling what the future holds I guess, but it feels like this might be it this time. I love the quality of these prints, I hope they don't go away, but not much I can do to control it.

Same deal as always, high quality custom translite, new speaker panel, custom instruction cards. Costs have risen since I first started this however many years ago, so I've raised the price a little, otherwise this is the same package that's always made everyone happy.

I'm going to leave my Google interest form up for 2 weeks, just to give everyone enough time to see it and sign up, and then I'll close it down and submit the order to my printer. Once he tells me the prints are ready I'll email everyone with a payment link. I never take money before things are ready, keeps the stress down for everyone.

All are claimed from this run, but not all are paid for. I might have extras, I might not. Message me if you want to be on the waiting list.

(A note for international buyers: I've checked, no country I've ever shipped to before is on any kind of restricted list. But with the pandemic I imagine shipping times are slower, and customs will be more of a pain in the ass. I can't control any of that, so I have to say order at your own risk.)

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I didn't want to clutter up the top post with personal stuff, so adding a separate post. I know I have really been around in last ... year? Honestly I'm not sure, I'd have to search my own posts and look. I know it's been a while.

First off, I want to apologize to anyone who's messaged me. I see I have a lot of unread messages next to that bouncing mail icon. Wasn't purposefully ignoring you, just got behind on it all and sort of gave up trying to catch up and stopped visiting Pinside much, and then at all. I think a lot of them were about Shadow translites, so I'll try and go through all that, hopefully this thread makes you happy.

I basically hit burn out. With pinball, with the internet and everyone constantly being negative, with my creative juices. Has to refocus my energies, took a break from a lot of stuff, including things like Twitter and Pinsdie. I have this Metallica mod that I started before the damn Alien project that I've never finished, and it's a shame, because I still think it's a cool idea, and nobody has done anything like it yet. Just couldn't seem to find the traction to finish it off.

I've sold most of my pins, I'm down to my own Shadow, Tron Pro, and Metallica LE. Unclear what my plans are for them right now. No rush to figure it out I suppose, but they're really not getting played at all now, and that's a shame.

I did check back in a for a bit when I heard about Rick and Morty. Was so happy for Scott and Bowen and Eric and Spooky. All these people who are my friends and who's success makes me feel good. So that's great. I'm feeling pretty out of the loop now though, I imagine the pandemic is just crushing pinball stuff. I haven't read any threads before posting this. The only 'new' game from the past couple years I've had a chance to play I think is Jurassic Park. Keith killed it, no surprise. Was going to get out to play Rick and Morty but was too slow before lockdown.

I just checked, it was over 6 years ago when I first put up this Shadow project for sale. I can't imagine there's really anything more to possibly say about it at this point. People have been very gracious in their appreciation for a project that was never intended for so many, and I thank all of you for that. But if I can answer any questions just hit me up.

In the meantime I'm just riding out the pandemic in Southern California with my family. Everyone here is doing well all things considered. My passion project in a kind of post-pinball space, and one of the reasons I sold some more of my games, was building up my arcade. Been collecting more Japanese arcade cabs, and playing a lot of fighting games. Before the virus shut me down I was hosting a weekly fight night for the last three years. Sometimes people played the pins, but they weren't really here for that. I do miss it, had a great regular crowd who came every week.

I have a lot of friends here still I think. If you're around and reading this lemme know how you're doing.

Hey Ned, glad you found a good home for that Abra Ca Dabra. I enjoyed my brief flirtation with EMs, but they didn't ultimately hold my interest. Still one of my favorite backglasses though, and that repro I put on was super nice. Is Spooky even building games right now? I have to think at the very least Rick and Morty is slowed down just by parts availability. I did see that Pinball Life is shipping parts, just not allowing in-person pickup, which seems wise. I haven't spoken to anyone from the R&M team in a few months, before the pandemic hit.

If I decided to move more of my games I'd probably save Shadow for the last holdout. It was my first game, and still one of my favorites. And for obvious reasons kind of my emotional connection to the hobby, since it's what people really got to know me for. It's gotten harder to let games go as I've narrowed them down. I sold my TNA and I don't regret it, but I do miss it a bit. My rule these days is if new things come in old things gotta go out. It pays for the toys, but more than anything else I just need the space.

Thanks! I'm putting a priority on taking care of my mental health these days. I do need to go through all these PMs and at least link people to this thread if they asked about Shadow. Feels bad to not respond.

I've found other creative projects and outlets, but yeah, you probably know exactly what I mean about that one project you always mean to finish and can't quite see through. I still have different ideas for how to handle the lights/electronics for it sometimes, it's gone through so many different revisions. Not only on paper, built prototypes out of cardboard, 3D printed things, customs PCBs, just somehow can't quite finish it all. The bulk of the art was finished before Alien, it's the custom interactive stuff where I stalled out.

Glad I could do that.

I often end up with extras of those just with the way the process works, can probably help you out when things are settled. Not sure if I have any now, I'd have to look, can't remember what's stashed away anymore.

I had hoped maybe I'd missed people cheering up some, and being happier about pinball and hanging out together to be honest.

One of the reasons I took a long break was that the vibe just seemed to be getting more and more negative here, and people forgot how to have fun.

I'm sure the pandemic isn't helping, it's really heartbreaking how it's crushing the remaining arcade industry. And it's become stupidly politicized when we should just be looking out for each other. Whatever your politics, whoever you voted for, stay safe out there.

Thanks! The pinball mod game has changed over the last 6 years, went from being a niche little hobby to big business. Can't really slip some of these underground mods under the radar now like you used to be able to. I dunno what the future holds for me doing more, I do miss it. But anything I do from now on is staying clear of trademark and copyright issues, just too much hassle. ACDC and ST were the last of that.

I'll try and start going through my PMs tomorrow, make sure anyone who's asked about Shadow gets pointed to this thread. I see I have a few new ones already, I'll get to you too.

I dunno that I have "an all time favorite", but yeah, Shadow is definitely in the top. For me it's just the perfect mix of things, from gameplay, to sound, to challenge, to innovative mechs, and then that magic element of being the first pin I owned. I forget how long I had it before I added a second game, we all know how that goes. But for a while there it's all I had to play, and I never got tired of it. That's something I can't say about a lot of other games I owned and loved.

I honestly don't know. I'm pretty sure it's over 700, but I don't really keep detailed records for that kind of thing to know more exactly.

I'll try and not be a stranger. I posted something in the covid-19 thread last night, and people seemed to appreciate my perspective, but then I realized I can't get sucked into it. My day job deals with moderating comments on the pandemic all day, I can't deal with another avenue. I think I'll try and stick to pinball here.

That's great. I mentioned this earlier, but for me the thing I was able to find passion in again was getting back to my fighting game roots. I was a big Street Fighter fan back in the original arcade days, and then lost people to play with and let it wane. Re-discovering my love for that got me a lot more serious about my arcade collecting. It's a way for me to connect with people, I really only have the cabinets to share them with others. Right now they're all staying dark until I can open hosting again.

This is what I'm looking forward to my garage looking like again:

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Okay, I think I've hit all my PMs about Shadow stuff, some of them were 6 months old, feel bad about that, sorry!

Yes, Priority International is how I’ve always done it. I did once have a package bound for Austria go by way of Australia, but otherwise been happy with the service.

Thanks! That was a fun mod. I'm glad I limited it to 30, was a real project hand making them all. I had a little help with the 3D printing for the core armatures, this guy named Scott Danesi, wonder what ever happened to him ...

I have my own 3D printer now, and all these things he was explaining to me back then about the 3D model I sent him and overhangs makes so much more sense now. Thanks Scott!

Best to you too Art, you stay safe in crazy Florida okay?

I don't know that I recommend planning your retirement on stashing Shadow alt translites.

Pinside has the best ignore features on the internet Robin, I compare what you've done against everything else. You don't see quotes from people you ignore, a common problem, and maybe best of all the drain thread feature is really helpful. I don't trust my own willpower sometimes when I get sucked into replying or reading trainwrecks. When I realize I'm just wasting my own time and energy draining a thread to remove temptation is really helpful.

I drained the covid-19 thread already after replying to it once for instance. I deal with pandemic comments every day at work as part of moderating Ars Technica, I just didn't need another source of people bashing science and making up conspiracies. It's sad how politicized it's become, but I just don't have the patience for it. But I know I'd keep reading it if I saw it pop up in my thread list.

Honestly I wish everything you've done with bbPress was just an off the shelf package, I'd move Ars to it. We're looking at Vanilla as an option, but I'd have to steal some of your good ideas for it!

No worries, I saw your post and replied there a moment ago.

Hope you're doing well too, I miss all the OC people. Heard from Doug yesterday.

Hey frolic! Hope you're doing well up North.

Thanks! Didn't really mean to disappear without warning, just kind of happened that way. Online communities are funny. But it's nice to feel appreciated to be around again.

One of my hats is managing the community for Ars Technica, where I'm the creative director. So I keep tabs on a lot things, but the pandemic is of course a really hot button issue, and tempers get flared. Our commenters are pretty chill in general, but even the rational people are sick of the misinformation, lies, and crappy management and are pretty grumpy.

Luckily I work with some amazing science and health writers, and they all have PhDs in topics like pharmacology, microbiology, molecular biology, and cell biology. We're pretty uniquely set as tech publication to be on this. But that means we're writing about it all a lot, and that keeps me pretty busy making sure things don't get too ugly.

https://arstechnica.com/series/covid-19-coverage/

These printers aren't exactly the kind of thing you can sit in a corner of your office.

They 'print' using lasers, up to very large format sizes. It's how my translites are able to keep such rich colors even when backlit by pretty bright LEDs. It's more like a photo exposure, with a continuous tone, which is why you don't see any dots or dithering when you look closely. Basically really high quality stuff, but they're pretty huge machines:

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