Just listened to the recent podcast w/ Scott, that dude is way too humble. I've heard him say a couple times "It sold out because of the license, it has nothing to do with me". I can't speak for everyone but just want to clarify for myself at least (cause I know he's around here somewhere), there are VERY FEW designers I would've blindly trusted on a purchase like this, regardless of theme. TNA is one of the sickest, freshest pins I've had the pleasure of playing and I figured if R+M turned out half as good I'd be more than content with it. And after seeing the gameplay videos I can confidently say I'd be buyer even if it was a straightforward "TNA 2.0" theme.

Wanted to throw that out there so he'll hopefully quit downplaying his importance on this game.

Just praising someone that's taking pinball in the direction I like to see it go I just don't want Stern/everyone's takeaway from R+M's success "we need more young cartoon themes", I want it to be "we need more whole packages like this"

Odd way to communicate your agreement, if that's what you were trying to do.

I can't imagine they let anyone just come and set up on a machine?

That's killer, I wasn't expecting to hear that but love how friendly the pinball community is.

For those in the Minneapolis area, looks like Tilt is getting their game setup today

Not sure if I'll have time to make a trip up there before moving to Portland in a few weeks (speaking of, anyone know of any games heading to Portland in the near future?), but at least my buddies will be able to tell me what they think of it soon.

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I'm a Standard buyer so the ratings will do their whole thing long before I see my game, none of this really affects me at all (all very entertaining though). But the idea of comparing games head to head and having an algorithm rank them would be awesome, that's definitely something worth looking into.

Interesting light show I walked up to on location at Next Level in Hillsboro, OR. Reboot fixed things but figured I'd post in here. Sorry, no other info so I don't know what it's running for code or anything helpful.

You're the man, thanks.

I doubt you find anyone that was on the fence and regrets going with it. I've seen a butter TNA in person and it was gorgeous, definitely makes the pin look a lot more 'premium' overall. @zaphx's vid does a good job showing how glossy the finish is.

Is it worth the money? That's gonna be 100% up to you as it's entirely subjective. I'm a kid in my 20's with too many expensive hobbies and I'm thinking butter-money is better spent on an early space-themed SS to sit next to R+M

Franchi is definitely working on something for CGC, but I don't think it's known if it's the Spooky/Ben Heck game or a different project. Would be interesting if Chicago has 2 original games in the works. Whatever the Spooky/CGC game is, they said the reason for the collab was knowing the demand would be significantly higher than it was for R+M, so it better be something damn cool

So is anyone gonna make up some "SUPER LIMITED standard edition" plaques (in the style of the BSE plaques) for us lucky grey-armor guys?

Not everyone is buying this pin to kick it down the road 2 weeks later This got a laugh out of me, and he can always take off the topical Axl/Thanos reference if he does decide to sell it down the line. If you want to see something much, much dumber, go swing by the Trump/RCT thread.

gonzo73 did you write that "50 made, 700 made" note on your order sheet yourself, or is that from Spooky? Wondering if that's actually confirming the number of standards vs BSE. Doesn't matter much at all, just curious.

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I've had my ass absolutely handed to me by the R+M on location in my city, and it can be kinda demoralizing at times... paying whatever, 7k for a game that frustrates me so much just seems kinda nonsensical, and when people have posted up looking for a late production/standard pre-order spot I've definitely considered selling mine. But then I think about my current 2-pin lineup and how my big complaint with both games is the long ball times and how (despite loving both of them) neither game is making me a better player, and I realize R+M is *exactly* what I want in the house. It's a theme I'll never grow tired of and cohesive rules that make for good competitive scoring wrapped up in a brutal and unique layout.

Can't wait to get my machine and not have to pump quarters in when I'm sucking

Well this is obviously fucked and I assume Spooky did not intend for the games to be shipped like this (I'm guessing we'll see some sort of response from them when it's morning there). What a bummer for you guys, hopefully the situation gets made right.

Excited to see we're getting into the upper 600's (invoiced, anyway). I'm Standard #737, can't wait to get my game. Just a few months left

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737 (standard) paid; I thought it was never going to happen.

Decided to run it at a friend's arcade for a bit as I'm going to be moving soon and it'll be fun to share with my friends + the community; things are finally feeling a bit more normal here in Portland. I know the general consensus is to play the game and then go from there, but is there anything preventative I should do in this case to make sure the game doesn't turn into a big headache for the location owner? Right now I was just planning on mylar around the flipper buttons (cause the cabinet decals seem to wear out incredibly fast...) and letting 'er ride.

Just a little concerned at the amount of grinding/welding/drilling going on in this thread, this late in production... but still very excited.

edit: does anyone have a picture of the decal wear on a routed BSE (in the holes of the portal lollipops)? just realized no mylar is available with a hole cut for the magnasave button... I'm debating skipping it, but don't want to end up with a bare white cabinet.

Awesome, thanks for the feedback. Idk why some of the BSEs seemed to wear so bad but if yours looks that mint still, I'm not gonna bother with mylar unless I notice an issue developing.

#737 landed yesterday and holy shit this game kicks ass! I spent maybe 5 minutes "gently adjusting" the left ball guide to help with the upper flipper to garage shot, nothing else required any attention and the games a fuckin ripper. That shot was makeable out of the box but I suck with upper flippers and by Stern'ing it (making the shot as forgiving as possible) even my shitty self can hit spinner-to-garage combos pretty consistently. Played 3 straight hours and didn't notice weak flippers, left ramp is not an issue at all with the game set at 6.9* .

AWESOME WORK SPOOKY! 10 out of 10 experience, would absolutely buy another NIB game from you guys and I'm very very glad I didn't take all the complaining in this thread too seriously. If anyone is in the Portland area and having problems with their game I'd gladly come take a look and see how things compare to mine.

Is the August code just in beta still, or did I somehow miss a new release? Didn't see anything from Spooky

Where's it at? Latest I'm seeing on the site is 5/18

Waaaay up in the portal hole (in the garage)

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Too busy playing the game and nothing breaking to ask questions about. I think this is my favorite modern pin... perfect level of difficulty to keep me engaged and coming back for more at home. Still haven't beat Rick Potion, the flu hatin rap absolutely kills me every time

Seems like the export standards all got some wonky configurations, they built them out of order and some weird stuff happened. This is going to confuse the hell out of collectors 20 years from now

What was the solution for you guys? Made the mistake of trying to update to the August code today (forgot I hadn't done that yet) and I'm having a horrible time, tried multiple flash drives (including the one I used for the May update when I first got the game) and no luck. Boots into the update screen, tells me it's finished (very quickly), and then just gives me the "update required". Tried going back to May code with no success. Worth noting my May update had absolutely zero issues the first time around... I'm using FAT32 formatted usb 2.0 flash drives with nothing on them other than the .pkg

edit: 3rd (essentially identical) flash drive was the charm. No notable difference from this to the other two, I'll take the win but wtf??

Thank you for the quick reply, I somehow got it to work just by repeating everything on a different (essentially identical) flash drive. Will make sure to grab a bigger 3.0 drive in the future to dedicate to updates.

And I think I'll refrain from updating games the day of an event in the future

Is there anywhere I can get the coin-return Flurbo + "Squanch ball" inserts from still?

Nope, shorter bushings never came in any of the games from Spooky, AFAIK. I installed spacers in #737, didn't make a massive difference for me personally (other than rubber wear) but the ball is maybe a bit more controllable, less spin?

This is the only issue I've had on my game, I kept wasting time messing with the connector going from the node board to the GI itself, but in my case it ended up being a bad connection on the power going to the node board. I'm not sure the wire housing had been adequately pierced? I shoved the wire further into the connector/plug (using a small flathead screwdriver) and reseated everything and haven't had an issue since.

Thanks for explaining this, interesting to see how particular the license holder can get and hear the hoops you guys had to jump through.

Awesome to see this pop up in here, and nice it went to someone who seems to be very familiar with pinball (a pin can turn into a big headache for someone that doesn't know what they're getting into).

The backlit speakers were not standard on the BSE, all the Blood Sucker package got you was the lollipop/portal rails + purple powder coating (someone correct me if I'm wrong). All other options were a la carte, which is something Spooky has since abandoned. Hope you have a blast with the game, it's not for everybody but if you're into the show and into fast playing games, it's incredible. Wonder if your machine was built at the end of the run or right in the beginning... I'm not sure if there's a consistent way to tell. I got a late game and have had very few issues with mine.

Ending ball + spitting out extra means it has to be a trough issue, right? I'd double check ALL the connectors in that area, make sure they're seated well and make sure the wires are punched down properly. It's gotta just be something flakey down there, that's not an issue I've seen mentioned in this thread before.

Spooky needs to be careful with what they say/promise, and only make statements like that if it's written in stone... there's a reason the other companies play things close to their chest.

Eric opened the floodgates, my few dimension ideas:

- "Ball-Search dimension", firing all non-critical solenoids every ~15 seconds or so (not releasing any locked balls) would be entertaining and would work well as a 'negative' dimension... it'd definitely get a laugh out of pinball guys, I would think. My buddies and I refer to a search triggering while you're still playing (due to repeated bricked shots/poor ball control) as the 'ball search of shame' so I'd call it something like "5HAM3".

- I enjoy all of the lighting effect ones, idk how labor intensive programming light shows is but flickering red/orange for a generic "Fire dimension" seems like it'd be memorable. The fire effect on JJP's Hobbit always impressed people when I had that game.

- "Silent movie dimension" would be funny, another one that's **probably** more effort than it's worth, but if you can easily do a B&W filter over the existing screen and play public-domain silent-movie music (and obviously cut all other audio entirely)... even if you can't do the black & white video I think it'd have a jarring effect to have no SFX at all.

Good idea, otherwise EM sounds would be fun + seems fairly easy to implement.

edit: double post, sry

Eric hard at work adding stupid ideas from kids like me on the internet. I'm gonna be so pumped if this actually makes it into the game.

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Man, fairly substantial update, 2.5 years after every copy of the game was sold, when the game is already a highly regarded masterpiece reselling for 150% MSRP... this is awesome. I don't know if it was contracted by Spooky or just a passion project from Eric but regardless, huge thanks for the fine tuning + for adding even more variety to the pin. Hope to see more games with EP involved in the future.

Don’t get the rumor mills started (I’d love to see him get involved with Ultraman though)

Another advantage to the spacers over the short bushings; years down the line, you can just rebuild your flippers with standard bushings rather than tracking down a short set (or modifying a set). That was my justification, anyway... also the 5 minute install is nice.

edit: I will say, shorter bushings seem more 'legit' to me, just 2 ways to achieve the same end goal. Don't mean to hate on either method... and I also thought my game played fine prior to installing the spacers.

Just looking for your guys' personal experiences:

Do you have to reseat connectors often? I seem to go through periods of no-issues, and then will have month long stretches of having to open the game every time I play it to try and get my lights to all work correctly. It seems that every time I play a R+M on location, I notice some lights flickering/going miscolored too, which is in line with my own experience.

I've tried to identify the specific problematic connections, hot glued a few of them, punched a few wires further down, etc, but still have issues. This has been the only problem I've had with my R+M over ~2 years but it's always a bummer when I go to play a quick game and suddenly half my GI dies. Wondering if I'm overlooking an underlying cause or if this is just how things are with the old Spooky connectors.

Can not over state how much I love stuff like this, adds a lot of replay value/variety to home games (especially for us guys with small collections). Excited to get this loaded over lunch.

So what's next Eric?

They didn't mention "other games" though, unless I'm missing something? I wouldn't expect any new content for R+M at this point.

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Spotted in a for-sale ad, not seen this discussed before. I wouldn't do it, but this is a pretty cool mod.

Here's the ad:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/for-sale-rick-and-morty-blood-sucker-edition-33

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Agreed, I think it'd make the garage shot a bit too easy for my liking (especially a few dimensions in when it switches to upper-flipper-only), but definitely a cool idea. It'd be a lot of fun for the Meeseeks/Jerry hurry up.

Woah, I didn't even realize that when I posted it. That's very slick.

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You can disable specific dimensions in the menu, just turn Froopyland off.

edit: for the record I love having Froopyland in the game, I have it disabled for normal gameplay but use it constantly in 'challenge mode' (or whatever it's called) when showing family + casual friends the game.

My megaseed-tree ramp support cracked; is the PMC upgrade the way to go or is there an option that doesn't cost a hundred bucks? I'm not a big mod guy, just worried about function.

I'll see what AJ says when he's back from paternity leave (Congratulations, if you happen to see this AJ!), but was hoping for a potentially sturdier replacement/alternative. The original did last me a couple years though

Value wise they're about even so it's a fair trade, and that's really the only part that matters outside of your personal opinions on the two games. The other (objective) thing to consider is how difficult it'd be to get another copy of R+M down the line versus Wonka; I've never looked for a Wonka so not sure how often they get listed, anecdotally it feels a lot more common than R+M though.

But if you're asking for opinions... I would absolutely never consider trading my game for a Wonka, not for a second. Rick and Morty is a theme I love, the integration/voice acting is absolutely top notch, the music/sound is incredibly well done and never feels stale. The layout's an innovative ass-kicker that plays much shorter than the standard modern slog-fest, ruleset matches the ball time perfectly and is approachable but with a large amount of variety. R+M is peak modern pinball to me.

I don't need to bash on Wonka but almost everything above, it's the opposite (IMHO).

My scores were wiped recently, but I'll see what I can fondle this weekend and report back.

edit: This made me think, it'd be fun to see some more specific challenges like this in this thread, and easy to facilitate with the awesome "choose-your-own-adventure" mode EP put in. I might skim the list of dimensions and try to think of some interesting/novel combinations.

This has happened on my game off and on over the years. On my copy, it's from an inconsistent power connection to a lighting node board (difficult to describe the location but there's only a couple lighting boards on that side of the game, if it's like mine you'll figure out which one it is quickly by wiggling the power wires).

I hot glued the connector a couple different times, eventually replaced that segment of wire and put a new connector on, hot glued the new connector in place, and the problem still pops up occasionally. Leads me to believe it's actually an issue at the board-connection level, not the pinned connection. This generation of Spooky connectors is hot garbage though so it can be tough to narrow things thing.