hmmmm, might have to change your name!

As far as audio quality on the voiceovers, I chalk that up to trying to sound "of the era". The art is not all bad, but it's uneven, with a heavy bend toward amateurish. The animation is all pretty bad.

From everything that's been shown so far, the things that bothered you on Houdini seem to be worse on Oktoberfest. AP DEFINITELY needs to hire an art director and a couple of professional artists with SPECIFIC EXPERIENCE in games.

Houdini, taken as a project, was pretty impressive really.

They cranked it out fast, managed to sell some games, with apparently no major QC issues.

The game itself isn’t so hot and according to my limited hearsay from ops isn’t earning. It’s the newest game to get pulled from sunshine’s lineup, maybe ever.

Seemed a little rushed and half baked I’ll leave it at that. Maybe their next one will be better.

Either way they pulled it off out of the wreckage of yet another smoldering jpop disaster so you gotta give some kudos for that.

I got a lot of time on one at pincinnati. I grew up performing magic at kid birthday parties so the theme is right up my alley. I liked the animation and call outs! But the shots are just too tough. I think they would have a bigger hit on their hands if there was one less lane, and that extra space would provide forgiveness for remaining lanes. Bummer!

Yes. Played it for the first time last month.
Not bad as a first effort (especially considering how fast it was developed) but it seemed inconsistent (art / sound).

And about the monkey again - the bandaid on his crotch isn't something I want to see at the end of every game. It's nice they want to include it but hide it in a corner of the artwork.

Now I get why stern uses licenses.. don't have to develop all the artwork and it looks better all together.

Sadly it was the one NIB I purchased that I felt foolish on. Yes some will sing its praises and that is Totally fine but for me a pin must be Fun to myself and more importantly my family. They All honestly disliked it and I felt the same on many levels. Say what you will if you want something to fine tune your ability to be a sharp shooter you'll love it. We play pinball to have fun not practice skills. The end all for me (sold in less then 2 months) was all the missed budget cutting issues that in time became "Upgrades". Sorry, power supplies to make the game work are Not upgrades. Nor are EOS switches so the flippers work, nor is a knocker. And no, I don't see a credit to buy something I don't want a solution. The design and game has Many issues (specifically fun) and the secondary market is showing it. Buy used and save a Ton. Please note this is how my Family and friends felt about the game. NOT bashing anyone that likes it more power to you, pretty but just nothing else going for it for us.

Is this a joke? They go next level with so much Houdini history the game could be its own Houndini documentary.

Oktoberfest looks fantastic and is very fun to play even with 30% complete code.

WOZ is a great game. Also at least 1000-1500 more expensive than AP games.

Sunshine did not have theirs set up well and it was a drag to play - allegedly. On the route I help with (and keep Houdini in top shape) it's the #3 earning pin, against stiff competition at the same location (Iron Maiden, AfMr). So it's earning well at at least one location.

Allegedly huh.

Thanks for the awesome intel!

(I’ve played a bunch of Houdinis and it sucks everywhere. Allegedly)

I think that should be praised. WOZ had its fair share of qc problems. To the op and his new, old woz, hope it has the lightboard upgrade because that is an expensive and time consuming bit of work.

There's no v3. There's 5v, 5v buffered, 7.5v, 7.5v buffered, and 2.0. 2.0 is the only one that is designed properly and will not fail prematurely.

Just my 2 cents, first time I played Houdini I hated it, flippers were weak, couldn't make any shots, just wasn't impressed. The second time I played it I walked away thinking it was one of the better games I have ever played, the second one played totally different, and I believe it was in the way it was set up.

There are huge variations in play experience on Houdini based almost solely on setup. It needs pretty extensive dialing in from the factory. But once you get it right, it's very good. Unfortunately most ops just throw it out without setting it up properly.

Yeah, it's way too much.

Josh over studied Houdini while making the pin IMO. Got way too caught up in the history and trying to "teach" people about the history of Houdini. I don't need a history lesson when I'm playing pinball. If I'm that interested, I'll google it.

Fair gripe. Just thought it was weird when the OP thought they didn’t do their homework. If anything they did too much homework. Haha

Houdini is a decent enough game. It's a pretty solid first game from a new start up. Some people will not like the layout, callouts, lcd work, etc but that is the case for every game. I think the layout, looks, and gameplay are just overall lacking in a bit of polish. It's far from a bad game though.

What we have seen of Oktoberfest looks like a mess right now to me. Interesting layout but no way I would consider buying it in it's current state. Not a fan of the art or looks of that game at all. I couldn't see how very many people blindly prepaid for one so it puts AP in a real tough spot. Houdini isn't really selling as anyone can save 1K or more and get a used one and Oktoberfest looks a long way from complete and wasn't exactly received all that well. Hopefully they can survive this but a pinball company with no pinball machines to make is going to have a hard time making it.

They'd be way better off delaying Oktoberfest 3 months and getting the art/animations/music in much better shape, IMO. You're right that it looks like a mess currently.

Oktoberfest is fun, the art isn't fantastic, but it isn't as bad as everyone makes it it to be. The animations could use some work, it is pretty hard to see what ball you are currently on.

Houdini is pretty good, though I will say the flippers seem to have some issues. I don't know what is up with them, but the games I have played all of the flippers feel like they get sleepy after a weekend of playing.

To be fair you just named 5 versions, so someone could call one of them v3

Everyone will have different tastes and preferences. For me it's one of the worst looking games made in the last 25 years. If they want $7400 or whatever from me they are going to have to try a lot harder. Its baffling to me that several people looked at it and thought, yep, that's it right there. Let's roll it out and start collecting money.

RCTC is extremely ugly but some what fun to play with wild ramps. I can spend 2k on it instead if I want an ugly theme park game to bat around on.

I’m not an artist. All I can say is that even if it had no mention of Oktoberfest in the art, I’d have zero problem identifying the theme.

I think the art is great. But I’m easy to please in that dept. stay away from this and I’ll be happy:

F304BC0A-DA21-4FAC-BF70-EA7553E0A96D (resized).jpeg

good advice, perhaps someone will listen this time.

Maybe keep your ACNC obsession in an ACNC thread?

GOT is far from great in the art department but it's a million times better the Oktoberfest for my tastes. I cant think of many games made this decade that I couldn't easy figure out the theme if they removed all the logos.

They weren't released in serial fashion. I listen them in order for clarity's sake, but if you're calling one v3, it could be 5v buffered or 7.5v unbuffered boards, depending on your perspective. So listing which of the 4 broken design version boards or version 2.0 is the only way to be accurate.

This should be made a poll with a vote!

I wanted to believe... It didn't work for me on several levels.

TL;DR...
I have played Houdini, on several different machines setup by different ops , owners, and by the manufacturer (at Expo), and I played OF at Expo.

My take on Houdini... TNA taken to the 3rd dimension, but way less fun. Animations do look like their graphic artist phoned it in from the turn of the century. Callouts that sound only slighty better than "Come here Watson, I need you" or "Marry had a little lamb..."

Oktoberfest is a snoozefest, artwork not that great, the monkeygate issues, twisted sister barmaid... and the Creapy Lederhosen-clad Grandpa Zippy the Pinhead... a Rollercoaster return ramp that takes a minute for the ball to wheedle down... A beer barrel lock that currently is seriously under utilized. The Stein selection and how it helps conquer objectives is a bright spot, but arguably JJPOTC does it better.
Only one thing left to say on Oktoberfest, hope you like death metal polka music.

I was hoping to like it but definitely found the game to be incredibly slow and boring. Felt like nothing ever happened. The art is also creepy as heck, the two small LEDs in Houdini's eyes on the playfield look absolutely horrible, makes him look like some sort of cyborg.

What art? It's all photo collages. Worse, the photos come from different sources, different DPIs, so one face will be noticeably sharper than another next to it.

GOT art is MIA. Oktoberfest art looks a little amateurish, Houdini isn't much better. Have all the good line-artists been hired away by the comic industry?

The ones marked "NEW" (in this picture from years ago then they were new!) are buffered. The buffer board looks the same for 5v or 7.5v.

woz-boards (resized).jpg

The game looks great in my opinion, the theme was very interesting, unfortunately the game play is just to difficult for it to be fun. The shots are far too tight and it quickly turns into a frustrating experience, rather than being fun. Shame, so much potential wasted by a lack of playfield layout development in the early stages. A flippable whitewood playfield during the early stages and the ability for the design team to play and tweak things would have helped this be much better than it is. I just don't enjoy playing this game.

Hopefully AP's next game, Oktoberfest will change all that.

Where will Houdini, Mafia,Thunderbirds, and ACNC be this time next year..

Lots of good pins in 2019 to spend your hard earned money on. And the games that are 50% questionable will drop like anchors .

I own a Houdini and I have to tell you that it's not a game that I would own as my only game... that being said it's a good game for the reason that it makes you a better player. You can't fake it through this game and just bash everything on the playfield in the smallest bit. It has a different pace, and requires stop and go with calculated shots in my opinion. Development has been responsive to requests, and so far it's been very fun.

To each their own.

Actually, if you wanted to reprogram it then you could. Pretty sure it runs off the P-ROC or P3 system. You would need to attach a pc, but you certainly can do it using the skeleton game framework

It still blows my mind that "whitewood" was a corner they cut to get this thing out the door quick.

Is there another commercial pinball machine since the invention of the flipper whose development cycle didn't include a whitewood?

I must be drinking wine to early on a Friday as I agree completely with Bubblehead???? lol

You bet there are. Houdini was actually created in skeleton game. It’s a free framework created by Micheal Ocean. Wether AP uses P-ROC boards I’m not sure. It wouldn’t be a small undertaking to reprogram it, but at least the machine is all there in place. That’s the hardest part

Skeletongame.com

Have a look

If they redo the playfield art entirely I WILL purchase.
In its current state it is a huge mess and eyesore.
Too bad since i like the theme a lot.

Not sure people look at this game correctly.

As far as play, it is a very challenging game, but if you play enough, and or are a very skilled player the game can be very rewarding. These same people that bash the play of this will vote Twilight Zone as one of the best games out there. 20 years ago people bashed TZ because it was too hard. Now it is one of the most desirable pins out there.
I laugh about the quality position. The mechanics are WPC Bally williams parts, some people will argue they are the best. For sure they are good quality.
Playfield is done by Micro with a great clear coat. 1000X better than the stuff Stern uses.
AP is 1500 to 2000 cheaper than JJP and also cheaper than a Stern Premium or LE.

I like the play, I like he Quality. I can’t say I am a Houdini historian, but I know more about the guy today than before the pin came out. Theme is kinda cool. But honestly not my favorite.

IMO, not a top 10 game but for sure in the top 50 and has earned it.

Quit moaning it is too hard. Play it some more and get better at it. You will appreciate it more.