We will have some more available for sale in a few weeks. They sold much quicker than we prepared for and we are already waiting on the next signed batch to arrive, so we didn't feel it was right to keep taking orders until the rest that have already ordered have shipped.

I'll post here when we open it back up again.

There will only be 250 of the signed and number translites available. We haven't sold out of them, just sold more than we already had signed so we are pausing sales until we catch up with the existing orders and have the rest available for immediate shipment.

I'm sending an update out to all of the purchasers tonight, but I wanted to post a quick update here since we have quite a few purchasers from here and it's been brought up.

The short version is:
Translites through #103 will ship tomorrow.
Translites through #153 will ship late next week.
Translites after #153 will ship late April.

I'm including a Key Fob promo plastic with each of them as a thank you for your patience.

The longer story is we have only been able to get about 50 a week printed, shipped to Chicago for signatures, and shipped back to us. Round trip from the time they are printed at the printer, make their trip to Chicago, get signed, and then returned to us is in Atlanta is around two weeks start to finish.

The good news is that we are getting them weekly at this point since each batch was sent out a week apart and we are now on the receiving side of that two weeks.

Paul

Once we ship all the online orders that occurred while at TPF, we will add them back to our storefront.

I'll post here when they are available again.

Ayup! Through #103 as expected. We had two damaged during transit to us, which fortunately was what I had allowed for in my calculations.

You can't see the printer or the other crap laid out on the table, but my dining room table was a big shipping station tonight.

We should get the next batch back from Stan/Mark late next week for another shipping marathon. And the batch after that should get us caught up and ready to ship new orders.

Paul

Through103Shipped (resized).jpg

ShippingStation (resized).jpg

A Quick update.

The next 50 are on their way to Atlanta after taking a bit longer to be signed than expected. Currently Fedex has it scheduled to be delivered to us on Tuesday.

These will be processed that night and shipped out the next day. You should start getting tracking numbers between now and then as the labels are created.

Paul

Another quick update. I printed about 1/2 of the labels last night in prep for the arrival of the translights today. Many should have gotten a notification directly from the USPS. If you didn't get one last night, you'll get yours late tonight as I print the rest and pack em all up.

After they ship, I'll post here what number we shipped through. It should be around 153 depending on if there were any damaged during shipping to us.

Paul

We have about 75 translites left that will be offered up for sale after we ship to everyone that has already ordered. I'll post here when they go live.

The original code is about 95% complete. There were a couple bugs in the two available original versions (one version is missing music during a multi ball, and the other you cannot tilt on). We currently plan on letting owners play the original roms, or play an updated version with update graphics, etc.

I just dropped off translights 104-153 today at the post office. So they should be on their way to everyone.

That leaves a couple dozen left to ship from the final batch which is already in Chicago getting signed. When I get an ETA on it’s return to us I’ll let everyone know.

Paul

Are you talking about the Dave Christensen one that we only made 13 of actually on glass?

I've been meaning to start a monthly newsletter/update. I'll shoot to send one out around the beginning of the month starting in June.

Here is the cliff notes version. We've been working mostly on the BOM and some bug fixes for the emulation before we show the game off again at SFGE June 8-10 in Atlanta here. Along the way we've also been building a bigger CNC machine that will allow us to cut new prototype cabinets and playfields as we continue to refine or create any engineering diagrams that will be required for production.

We took the game to Curly's Little Shop of Games Charity Open House a few weeks ago to support a great charity and also further some relationships with some key pinball contacts.

The rest of the translites have been dropped off at FedEx to be return to us, so we should be able to ship the remaining orders out this weekend or early next week and then turn on sales for translites with immediate shipping available.

As I mentioned we will have the game at SFGE June 8-10 in our booth. We have also donated translite #1 to Project Pinball to be auctioned off at SFGE for their charity.

Paul

All orders that have been placed have now shipped, so we have opened up the ordering again for the remaining translites. We have all of them here and signed, so no more delays. If you order, it should ship within 48 hours at most.

http://www.circusmaximusgames.com/product/kingpin-signed-limited-edition-translite

Thanks to everyone for their support!

Paul

I posted a cliff notes version a few posts back. We will start sending out at least a monthly update to those on the Translite list and on our main mailing list around the first of each month too.

Paul

Finally caught up on some sleep after expo. I have a newsletter pending that will go out tomorrow. Nothing earth shattering was announced at Expo. We didn't even have a panel. It was mostly meetings with partners and potential partners while at Expo.

Here is a preview of the newsletter:

- Lots of work behind the scenes continues on non-sexy stuff like engineering diagrams for parts that need to be fabricated for production.
- We are working with Matt at Back Alley Creations to spruce up some of the playfield. Matt has some awesome ideas that we can't wait to share and show off. One we've mentioned while talking to people individually is a better Hotel Lex building.
- An interesting tidbit on something we learned while adding flashers to our dev game
- We believe we may have found a manufacturing partner and there are ongoing discussions working towards a firm agreement. This also would be a partner for Python's Pinball Circus after Kingpin.
- We've begun working with some really cool animation people (with very cool resumes) on the custom code side and we were hoping to show some of that off at Expo but we are not to a point where we are comfortable doing that yet.
- We will be at Free Play Florida with our dev game and have a panel at 5pm on Saturday. Jimmy, James, and I will be joined by game artist Stan Fukuoka on the panel and Stan will also have a booth selling some of his art prints.
- There are only 20ish signed translites left which hold you a spot for the game
- New Pinbo Stone Blue shirt and Bad Cats & Insert Coin shirts back in stock.

I may have missed something, or may add some more to the newsletter tonight before it sends in the morning.

Paul

We've actually been in contact with him when we announced the project originally. He was super excited about the project. We had some discussions about him doing the new animations too.

Paul

The playfield layout will stay exactly the same as the original. You will be able to play the original ROMs on the game too, in addition to an updated graphics/code version. Owners will pick when they turn the game on if they want to play the Classic version or the updated version.

Feedback on gameplay has been very positive, including from those that own or have played originals.

This is a reasonable question. Most of these items we are update/adding have little to do with the main development of the game. Meaning they do not affect the timeline. In fact, some may accelerate the time line. Adding updated code and graphics does take some time, but again, most of that can be done in tandem with pre-production of the game, so it's mostly overlap in project time, not extending it.

Most of the comments we've had as far as constructive criticism has been directed towards the art. Both the original art and the new art. With the original artwork there have been comments about the cabinet art and all of the grey on it. And there are those that have seen the updated art by Dave Christensen that hate that art.

Dave's art needs some cleanup and recoloring. As well as making the ladies on the art a little younger as Dave is in his 70s and drew them like the ladies his age.

The cabinet art we are looking at changing the grey by adding something like a Chicago Skyline. We are not sure if both sets of art will be available on all models, or if we will just do Daves art on a special edition or something.

Overall, all of what we look at as enhancements have to make sense. Meaning we are not just going to change something for the sake of changing something.

The gist of how we look at this game is that we don't consider it a "remake" since it was never released. So we are shooting for a good balance of respecting the original and also what would they have done differently if they built it today. These are mostly cosmetic changes as the playfield geometry and layout will be identical to the original. And you'll be able to play the original code as I mentioned before.

It helps that both the original artist Stan and the game designer Mark Ritchie are advisors on this project. As well as several original Kingpin owners.

We are very open to constructive criticism and welcome it.

Paul

I'm not sure if we can do this on the emulation side, but I'll ask Compy next time he's in there.

We will definitely add that feature to the custom code side.

Paul

We have more meetings scheduled with the potential manufacturer in about 2 1/2 weeks, so maybe we will have a better idea then.

Surprisingly they were pretty good. I'd say 98% complete if I had to put a number on it.

That said, the two publicly available original ROMs for Kingpin each have a significant bug. One version you cannot tilt on. The other version is missing music during a 3 ball multi ball. I can't remember which version has which bug though.

Paul

Actually I think we have 8-10 left (I'll have to check the spreadsheet). We had a handful get damaged during shipping that I replaced from the original batch of 250, so I have to get another 8-10 signed by Stan/Mark before I can add the last of them to the store inventory.

Paul