Just to clarify our position - Dennis has indeed designed the playfield layout of Alien Pinball, and development of the game continues, even though Dennis has now moved on from our company.

Although Dennis has indeed left us, we still consider his work to be complete with us and development continues with our team.

Dennis's announcement is unfortunate but it is his prerogative to move onto other projects.

Are we behind schedule at the moment? By approximately 1 1/2 weeks, yes. The prototype playfield gets cut next week and ball guides either just before or after Christmas. Testing of the prototype is weeks, not months away.

As for April production? We have a fully playable version of the game, complete with rules, on a digital platform already.

I apologise to our customers for having to give an update his way, but it was not our choice that this post appeared in this way.

We will always be grateful to Dennis for his contribution to this game and continue to have the utmost respect for his work as one of Pinball's design legends

Hi everyone,

We understand that there are a lot of people asking questions and that there are a lot of rumours floating around. Regarding Dennis specifically, neither he nor us can, or will, be commenting on any contractual matters.

Please understand, though, that there are always two sides to every story and there are many things that happen in a company that most people never get to hear about. But as I stated before, we are very happy with the input Dennis has had on this game, and development continues, as planned.

In every pinball game ever built, there is a 'team' behind the end product. With many games in history, there are more than one pinball designer accredited to the game design ... in other games, multiple designers had a direct influence in a game but were never credited at all.

What we can tell you is this. Dennis was involved from the beginning of this game. Dennis designed the playfield layout, the game toy concepts, the game-specific mechanism concepts and was involved in aspects of rules development. The game has been tested virtually, and the shots play very well. We will, no doubt, need to make changes between the whitewood and the first proper prototype, but we have other designers involved in this project now and this is all part of the development process.

Dennis may not be listed as the actual 'game designer' but he will have played a big part in the final game and we are very grateful for his contribution to this game.

We have true Alien fans within our company, and everybody at Heighway Pinball is determined to make the best 'Alien Pinball' game that it is possible to make.