I hope so too. I am just stating market trends. Coders last an average of 2 years. After that, they move on. The temptation of a more lucrative job is powerful.

I would think that this is kind of a side gig for Matt probably if it's the only machines he's working on for Spooky. Not sure if updating these two pins for final support would be a full time job, but of course who knows how big of a mess of code he's having to wrestle with either.

They have also mentioned they got future plans beyond this next update recently, so I think they are gonna get somewhere with it for sure, just they might be wrangling some bugs and such, getting it working right.

Not the case.

No.

Where do you guys get this stuff?

I was playing the new UM code the other day - she’s looking good.

rd

Hi,

Could somebody do me a huge favour and take a picture of their power supply, so I can make sure mine is wired correctly?

Thanks

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When there's a perceived lack of information it's human nature to create your own reasoning as to why that is... Usually it's wrong but being able to justify the "why" is oddly comforting to people.

He's got the code! GET HIM

Matt is contracted to finish a set list of objectives, the same objectives that we said would be in the game from the start. You guys are getting pretty wild with the theories of people quitting etc. As far as timeline, code never happens as fast as we want but we are working on it! Next update will be coming pretty soon here! Unfortunately, I can't give you an exact timeline because I can't program. I setup the timeline I want to see and what I think customers want to see but at the end of the day it really comes down to just each individual programmer and the speed they are capable of. Believe me if there was anything I could do to make the whole game finished tomorrow I would.

Are you able to reiterate these objectives? Glad to hear this isn’t time based. Thanks

Great!

Thanks Morgoth00!

I get the desire to have code finished RIGHT NOW!!! That said, Spooky hasn't left code hanging like some others (looking at you JJP) at least that I'm aware of. What makes anyone think that this'll be different? I guess not hearing directly from Spooky for a minute could make some people uneasy, but what other companies even jump into the forums with updates? Spooky has been SO MUCH more vocal with updates than their competitors. Am I a Spooky fanboy? Nope. Just able to observe their patterns of behavior. It'll come y'all!

This has already haunted them, in my mind anyway. I took a chance, dont have enough $$$ to buy every NIB and made my own adult decision, bought CR Halloween, thinking this would put them in the A list. Forever boutique it appears.

Now people are listing Halloweens for less than 7000 with barely any plays. $6000 for UM. What other pins in recent memory have dropped 33% in this day and age, WWF LE?

Never again Spooky. 2nd market only.

I can't understand it.

Stern can crank out thousands and thousands of a title and people will pay more used than NIB for their pins. It blows my mind.

Spooky's Halloween is fast becoming the Ford Pinto of pinball machines. Get it? PINto? I'll see myself out.

Jamieryan71 - If you're going to be in the back of your machine inspecting your wiring, I highly recommend you look especially close at all of the crimped connections, especially the ring terminals on the power supplies. I had issues with wires pulled out of terminals when I received my machine, resulting in all kinds of mayhem. A closer inspection of those crimped terminals revealed more loose connections, and more problems, that I had to repair.

Take a look at the terminal connections that are on the back of the main power supply (up against the back wall of the cabinet). There are three connections there (power, neutral, and ground) and each of those three connections have three wires going to them. In my particular case, each of those three wire bundles consisted of three 18 gauge wires being forced-crammed into a blue terminal, which is designed to accommodate a single 16-14 gauge wire. This was an incredibly unsafe wiring condition as none of those terminals could be crimped properly to hold the wires going to them. I had to repair all three of those connections to the power supply with more appropriate terminals.

This needs to be upvoted

Horrifying LOL

So I have i the game room right now:
MB
GZ
EHOH
TZ
DW
HWN
Weird Al (P3)

All killer games. KILLER games. Sidebar: I have had HWN turned on for about a week (a week!). Intended to play every day; only got to it today. No lockups, no problems at all.

I had one shot to pick a game and have a fun time in the short window available to me. I picked HWN, and damn if it wasn’t the right choice. 20(?) minutes later I’m going to my next meeting, got annihilated by the left outlane but I’m still solid that this game belongs in a lineup like this. Fun as hell. The market is a mystery

This is a killer theme; I'm really hoping that the final code will bring this game to the next level.

We will see.

I really don't care what the secondary market is doing, I bought Halloween for a dream theme, I want the game to be awesome and finished, so that's where I'm going with it.

Well it is time based as far as when we have agreed we want to see it done. However Matt has committed to finishing the project to the objectives we promised to be finished. I'll try to break down what we have committed to.
1. This update will include the final expert mode of the game which brings us to a total of 8 main Jack-O-Lantern modes.
2. The next main objective is "The night he came home" final wizard mode to culminate the game. Which brings us to 2 total wizard modes in the game as promised.
3. Jack-O-Lantern sub wizard multiball mode which is complete.
4. 3 main multiballs which are already complete.
5. The Judith add a ball jackpot feature which is already completed.
6. Further we have many additional assets including clips, text, scoring additions, polish, and bug fixes on the list.
7. (also boobs)

That should all wrap up together with a very respectable 15 mode game.
I'm also not opposed in any way to continuing to spend and invest on HWUM code as long as I can get a programmer to do it. We have done tremendous work over the last 2 years to set ourselves up to offer code support on our games for much longer and also release them with better and better code at launch. For now though what I listed above I believe fulfills what we laid out from the beginning!

I like the scoring additions part. Hope we see more open scoring options during modes or to help prevent being locked out of so much of the playfield depending on whats running.

Pinside isn't reality or is it real life. That's point one. Two, your post is an example of why the game has dropped in value so much. Granted you're not anywhere near the most vocal but there is a small group of pinsiders who have it out for Spooky for some reason and always show up in every Spooky thread to bash the game or the company. Then you have so called "reviewers" who also shit all over the game and the company. Just a lot of negativity and no real justification as to why other than "we can" and don't give me the QC BS either as every manufacturer has that problem so why it gets magnified with regards to Spooky goes back to the overall narrative. It's unfortunate but I refuse to base my buying decisions on the negative or on the potential resale value. Sadly, the final code for HW could be spectacular and epic and it probably won't matter. The damage is done.

I love the theme, layout, artwork, gameplay, really all of it and want another Spooky title (Scooby-Doo) as a result. But that's me and to each their own...

Agreed. I love my Halloween and my Scooby-Doo. Code will come eventually.

The world thanks you for #7.

It's not just Spooky, it's Multimorphic, JJP to a certain extent (although man it honestly is getting harder to support them), AP... I've been pretty disappointed in the pinball community at large in how it deals with innovation and the new kid on the block. Sometimes I feel like it's just All Karens All The Time on here. People can vote with their wallet however they like, but the good-ol-boys club with the reviewers and the whisper campaigns is pretty bullshit.

These modern games take time, some of course hit it off early with strong launches, but many take time to bake in the oven. Too many pinsiders are constantly moving to the next big thing so they are quick to dump on games. Stern gets flak too, but they also seem to get lot of passes simply cause they put out several new machines a year which always keeps them in the spotlight, while everyone else is often stuck to one game every year or every couple years. And we just had a bunch of new machines all launched at same time, which hasn't happened in a while, so it creates another rush to grab the new. Lot of folks obsessed with values cause they flip flop their machines so much.

LOV is such an underrated game. Crazy it hasn't sold.

I thought we where getting new animations to replace those awful ones in the game

You need a jukebox option like TNA and all the new sterns have.

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As you seem to be pointing to my recent sale ad...
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There's nothing wrong with Halloween. With unlimited space and funds, it would be a keeper.

Currently can't access my living room or kitchen/fridge at night without upsetting my parrot while she sleeps. Half my small house taken up by pins, and two rooms dedicated to 3D printers/work space.

Other pins in my collection:

*BSD* - Greatest pin of all time IMO, and my first--Bolted.

*Rob Zombie* - Bolted

*Alice Cooper* - Bolted

*AMH* - Most underrated game of all time, and one of the best pins out there IMO--Bolted (A-list game out of the gate from Spooky as far as I see it).
*/\/\/\---No shortage of Spooky love from me*

*TWD Prem.*--Bolted

*Iron Man*--Brutal/quick ball time games are my jam--would be hard to ever let it go.

*Aerosmith Pro*--[[[Would be next to go, and considering listing soon if I can't sell Halloween, but I just got this one recently]]].

*Radical*--Incredibly fun pin that took me years to find in any condition.

*Whirlwind*--Took me years to find one with an original clear coated playfield (DP/CPR/Mirco don't compare, and the mylar ones all look bad), brand new ramps, tumbled hardware, etc., and I have Radcals on hand for a full cab restore when time allows. Perhaps one day I'd let it go.

*Foo Fighters LE* -- Just arrived two days ago, and the reason for needing to move a pin.

*Stranger Things LE*--Perhaps my #1 Stern--Bolted

*GB Pro*--Top 3 Stern for me with STh and TWD--Bolted

*Iron Maiden*--Feel like I'd regret ever letting it go. One of my favorites to shoot, and I love the theme/music/callouts, etc.

*Black Knight*--Favorite of the era, and would be hard to let go.

*Halloween*--Great, unique game that's coming along nicely with code (latest update helped a lot IMO).

Perhaps my predicament and choice of game to let go of makes sense with that in mind. SoF went previously, which was a difficult decision, and one that will be missed, and Godzilla LE left to make room for Halloween last year. After GnR left, there's no game in my collection I actually want to see leave.

As for my Halloween having low plays...ever since the mental hospital stay in 2020 after the Elvira stress, and losing my fiancee, my emotional/mental state to play pins alone hasn't been there--feel guilt or anxiety, and bury myself in the mod work (or procrastinate plenty in other ways). Having friends over is my moment to feel calm and happy playing pinball, and until Nov. 2022, I only had one local pinball friend, and he's gone the 6 months in the summer half of the year...I didn't receive my Halloween until just before he left, and he also owns a Halloween, so we never play it here together.

Halloween would have been sold in the 7s if I offered shipping. Trying to get a local sale in a college town that's nearly a couple hours away from any of the main cities.

It's possible that nearly 100% of Halloween games being CE models harmed the perceived value a bit (*MSRP was under $7k NIB for the same game experience*), and horror games also tend to not reach the price points of equivalent family friendly titles. I'd say it was expected, and with the market softening on top, 8+ new games on the market etc. No reason to sound an alarm.
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------Unfortunately a lot of stellar Spooky games are plagued by this mentality (insert game of choice):
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This all sounds great but wanted to confirm - new animations are coming as promised right?

Boobs.

This is why Halloween still has a higher value than Ultraman.

Unless UM is getting boobs too....

I imagine that's what they meant by new clips, polish, and so on. They mentioned new assets coming before as well.

But I don't think they are replacing all the old animations at this point, like that Sanitarium animation is probably stuck with us at this point.... would love to be proven wrong

Totally agree on both of those points

I believe they have already implemented many new animations. I am not sure what is left at this time. I should note obviously there are assets in the new expert mode and will be in final wizard as well.

SpookyLuke gimmie co-op, I didn’t forget

Seriously though, if you could make that happen it would be awesome.

Thanks

Appreciate the response and totally get there will be new animations with the new modes but it was mentioned earlier that previously released animations are being replaced. I thought what’s been updated with the new code was a taste of things to come but what your response sounds like is that no old animations that still exist in the latest code are being replaced? Just wanted to confirm. It’s disappointing if so but want to know what is reality at this point.

I can live with it but the sanctuary animation is really bad. Hopefully something can atleast be done to that one

Just the timer on the sanitarium mode was a godsend since it limits how long that animation is on the screen. When it used to be locked forever on loop, that was bad

Very helpful thanks - is the Judith steal a ball in multiplayer still going to happen?

Hey folks, total newb hedge servo question. Pulled the trigger on Halloween CE at a fest.

2 out of 3 hedge Michaels are busted, so I am replacing them with the upgraded metal ones. I am reading you replace them from the top of the playfield. I see how to do it, but making sure I am not overly complicating it.

Do I really have to remove the wire ramp, the clear plastic bridge over the playfield pop-ups, and the leaf print trim on the left under the wire ramp? Am I missing something?

If you cut the zip ties securing the servo wiring bundles under the playfield you can pull them out enough where the connectors are exposed above the playfield without removing any habitrails or plastics.

Holy hell, thank you kind sir for you quick reply. You caught me before I royally hosed myself.

Be careful those servo’s are fragile, also they do not screw down tight but don’t worry as the hedge screws go over one side of the servo and hold it down tight.
I just fitted a set, one broke and another is a bit shaky and they were the more expensive original Tower metal ones not the copies. Just ordered 4 more as I used my spare and the shaky one will drive me mad eventually lol

Hope you enjoy the game

It is super disappointing but I guess it is better to know than to keep hoping on something that is never going to come. That sanitarium animation is so bad and has almost symbolized problems from the start. I thought with all the time it was taking that we were looking at cool new surprises or modes. Maybe I am reading it wrong but it sounds like it is pretty much wrapped up feature wise other than adding expert mode and final wizard mode. I guess I was hoping for more like playing through young Michaels eyes or something cool. oh well, good to know.

First Kill mode is likely the young michael's mode since that's the image for it and well... his first kill.

This new mode we know about now but it wasn't originally in the game so we are getting an extra mode, and they made Judith and actual multiball mode with its own rules, so we did get two extra modes that weren't in the original game design layout presented to us. Judith MB mode though still needs some assets, sounds, etc cause it's kind of just a mode that you can start and its in the background, so hoping that gets some love to make it stand out more

Game has lot of modes already, so I think the polish aspect is what is most interesting, as I do feel the game is mostly complete, but needs some fine tuning on various aspects which sounds like they are working on.

I agree. If they said no new modes besides wizard but we're going to clean up some of that jank, that works for me. The game is pretty loaded already - that sanitarium animation though is just abysmal.

Spooky - please at least correct that if we're going to take off fixing the remaining old animations. The game has so much going for it already that legacy cleanup should really be the priority.

I actually think a simple fix would be to remove the animation itself, just leave it as a still picture. It's just in motion it's terrible. Do it like the other modes which feature a still image that slowly zooms in and pans, just don't actually play it animated.

Yeah I noticed one is shaky and jittery. I bought the upgraded metal ones on Amazon, might just contact the seller to get a replacement.