I've been toying around with the idea of reimagining a System 80 game ever since the LISY80 board was introduced. I purchased one last year when I had an El Dorado City of Gold in my possession. Unfortunately I didn't really like the layout that much so I sold the City of Gold and put my own project on hold for a bit. I now have a Hollywood Heat that I am picking up in a couple of weeks along with a spare populated play field. The game itself is working for the most part although it does reset occasionally. I plan to fix that issue before I install the LISY80 board. I will also be stripping down the spare play field to use as the final play field with art so I can continue to test and play.
THEME
There were a few themes I was kicking around but ultimately went with Beetlejuice. It is a amazing theme with an equally amazing soundtrack and several of the play field parts lend itself to the movie. The ramp will be transformed into a sand worm. The heat bumper will have a 3d model of the Maitland's house around it (hoping to have it bounce with the bumper action ala Simpsons). The two ball lock area will be dedicated to Beetlejuice's grave. The jump ramp will have a decal of the handbook for the recently deceased. Several areas of the play field will be dedicated to certain characters. I hope to post some sketches by next week.
RULES/CODE
I have a majority of the rules written in a notebook along with some sketches on a play field diagram. I am going to keep the bulk of the game intact to keep the process as simple as possible. For coding, I will be using MPF as it supports LISY80.
PLAYFIELD LIGHTS and MECHS
I'd like to keep it simple so no RGB lights (will most likely replace all inserts withvlear versions), no new mechanisms with the exception of retrofitting an auto launcher (hopefully). There will be a few 3D printed toys (Beetlejuice gravestone, Maitland's house) but just for decoration. I may try to add a spinner in one area. The jump ramp will have an opto so those shots will finally be tracked. I will be repurposing some switches I don't need (coin chutes etc.) along with relocating some lighting and losing some of the insert lights to free up real estate for more artwork.
AUDIO/VISUAL
I work as a motion graphics designer and video editor so this part excites me the most. There will be an LCD in the back box for scoring and mode tracking. I will be utilizing movie clips, both original and altered by myself along with some custom animation. Music will be from the movie. I am hoping I can rip the entire soundtrack from the movie as there are a lot of various pieces that didn't make it on the OST. I found a VO artist that does a spot on Beetlejuice impression so as long as he is not too pricey, I will be using him for all the call outs once I have the rest of the game nailed down.
ARTWORK
I might do the art myself or I may ask a talented friend to help. I've pulled a few pieces of cool art that I want to use as inspiration. I would really like to silkscreen the final art with a 5 color design (black, white, blue, purple, and green) We have a silkscreen setup at work but not sure if I can make screens large enough. I am going to use artwork from the movie poster of the upcoming documentary for the cabinet and I’ll be backing the kickstarter for the documentary just so I can get a decent sized poster to scan, enlarge, and retouch.
RULES
Pretty straight forward. There will be qualifiers you need to complete to activate three different wizard modes that follow the story arc. A couple of the qualifiers are multiball modes while others are character specific modes. There are some other modes you can activate along the way.
I think that is it to start. I will be typing out and organizing all of my notes this week along with some visuals that I will post to this thread.
Riverside, CA
