If you don't mind a post from a competitor who's played it and been talking with other people who've played it, my two cents is it's a cool game, it feels like a Lawlor, and JJP deserves credit for trying an original theme. That takes balls. I wish we could be a little less quick to judge.

IMHO the people mocking the theme, worrying about the phone ringing sound, and all the other little things are going to forget all about that when the game is out. David Thiel is a pro (which means he doesn't tell me about competitor's games to be clear even though we work together) and I simply don't believe any game he does is going to have annoying sounds if he can help it. Again, he doesn't leak things to me, but I'm pretty sure he's spent a lot more time on Alien sounds than Dialed In, give him time to work his magic.

I saw one comment earlier in the thread that said something like "they shouldn't call you, they should text you", and I had to laugh, because it does text you. The text bubbles on the screen are the instructions for modes or whatever. Just saying, wait until you play it at least before getting too critical, you might find that your assumptions are wrong.

Did they nail everything? Nah, but what games does, licensed or otherwise? You're never going to please everyone. I don't want to look at selfies of myself playing for instance, but other people might think it's really cool. It looks like there's an option to turn it off anyways, the game I was playing had placeholder images that said D.I.E. (I think) instead, which I guess must be a theme reference I don't get yet? Anyone figure that out yet?

If I can be permitted one criticism, and it's the obvious one, it's the price. I talked to a lot of people who didn't like the theme, played it, and changed their tune. Playing was believing. But they still couldn't stomach the price. Even if I love the theme I'm personally out at $9k myself, just too crazy for a game, no matter how cool.

And to be blunt more than one person told me they were thinking about Alien now because it was the only reasonably priced new game at the show. I hope this runaway price thing can be solved, and competition can actually bring prices down instead of helping push them higher. I'd be good with Alien selling big to prove that to everyone!

Bottom line: I was impressed, I never saw any of the 5 games need the glass popped (that's no small feat!!), JP's animations were a clever way to handle the enormous task of filling a high def screen with original animations, and the return of the Wizard Block inserts was cool. The theme isn't really for me, though I think people should give it a bit more of a chance, and the price is just way too high, but I saw the game, I played the game, and I think it deserves props.

Oh right, thanks! I read the comic and then left it on a table and forgot about it. Maybe stick to pins instead of publishing comic books. I probably should have kept it as a collectible, but I just didn't care enough to take it back up to my room.

Anyways, yeah the D.I.E. logo (looked vaguely Illuminati like) shows up in the polaroid on the screen if the camera is off I think. Someone had to cycle the power on the game to fix it, so I assume it's not necessarily on purpose, but I bet you can turn it on in the options.

Bingo. Licensed games are often actually cheaper games, because you're not just buying the name, and concept, you're buying a ton of assets (depending on the license) that you can leverage.

You can easily spend more than the cost of the license on creating all the assets from scratch.

If you've played Dialed In, just think of all the work that JP and whoever else had to do to fill that HD screen with all that content out of thin air.

Edit: Damnit Ben, stop posting right before me.

If they're smart they'll make the app a general JJP app, with more features than just Dialed In integration. I didn't download the app, does it have anything else?

Holy crap those are cheap. I'd stick three on a game too for that price, you couldn't develop your own toy for that money.

So it's the return of the Demo Man handles then? Interesting, I hadn't heard the higher scoring part before.

I had long ball times and I'm not a good player by any stretch of the imagination. It didn't feel like there was a lot of risk in the shots.

Haha, I just now noticed how thick the phone being held on the backbox sideart is. Need a lot of battery for that quantum effect generator I guess!

It's actually confusing at first, not sure how well the photos show it, but when it drops and diverts the ball it goes off the rails onto a piece of clear plastic over the pops, then hits a rubber, and drops into a little pinball-sized hole in the plastic to the pops.

The first time I saw it I thought the ball had just jumped the rails, because of how it diverts over the clear plastic it looks like it just flew off.

Whoever told you that was full of shit.