Are there any shots of the playfield with the glass off? The glare makes it impossible to see much detail. It could really use some pdi glass.

Well, to be fair I think it may be a bit easy for advanced players. I have to see more to be sure.

That ramp is still a proto ramp and not a production ramp. Still needs refining.

Maybe by the end of the weekend an advanced player might actually try it.

They could make it like that jump ramp on No Fear and of you don't make it, it just drops into the pop bumpers.

the team appears to be:
Lead Programming - Edy Wang
Beta Programmer - Mr X and Nailbomb
Art - Federico & Grant
? Management & Sound Effects - Edy Wang
Electronics & Mechanical Assemblies - Mike Kalinowski, Sid & Edy Wang
Team Leader & Translator - Amanda
A Terry Anderson Production

So did Mike design the layout?

From menory he mentioned in some interviews that he had numerous engineers design. Watching the video a few times, the dead balls going up the centre ramp actually catch air. Mike must have known as there's a little metal bracket in that exact spot. Any airball seems to hit this and come back down. I'm sure he will have it sorted.

a while ago it was stated somewhere that it was a well known aussie pinball designer but in a recent podcast stated one team did the initial design and then went to some other aussie guys.

Yeah after I watched it again I saw that bracket get hit. Still looks like it'll be a fun game to shoot once it all gets sorted out.

Yeah it was such a weird reaction I thought maybe the centre ramp came up and the ball hit the pops. It will be a blast to shoot.

It's going to get air there for sure. Fronthand or backhand.

RGR (aka Richard Rhodes ex #1 Aussie player) has taken some video of him playing it on his private Facebook page. I'm sure he will post it here in the next day or so.

rd

Well, you know me Dave. I'm never in that much a hurry. I'm just happy for the scraps.

You're always in a hurry for another Jack and coke!!

I'll be at your place in 3 weeks, I'll bring some jack.

rd

a standard orange display wont stop me buying a pinball machine. critical of the display ?

thats the least of my concerns. if i like the theme and flips well.... im interested.

Sucks when the ice is running low.

I'll be stocking up on the ice!

https://www.facebook.com/100010442866941/videos/505095703181854/

He's down in Texas.

rd

IF? that video was to bait " trolls " like me, I took the hook.
I hate seeing good players play as it is soooooo surely someone has a better video than that?
Not encouraged YET! keep going

Agree with some of the shot comments here. I also played it today quite a bit. Looks fantastic artwise but the shots and shot layout/geometry is just all off imo. Nothing was enjoyable to hit. Just my opinion and im a crap player but unfortunately i walked away completely underwhelmed by the gameplay. If I had money down on this I'd have some concerns. A shame as it is a fantastic effort to get the pin to this point.

I believe there are still design adjustments to be made to the game before final production.

This was posted on Aussie Arcade by a person at Pinfest who was talking to Homepin.

Apparently the changes to be made are -
Flipper gap to be reduced by 4mm.
Center ramp entrance wider and steeper.
Mole target to be captive ball.
Outlane wire guides to be posts with rubbers.
Thunderbirds 2 toy reduced in size.

I'm sure Homepin will confirm these when he has a chance.

Yes, with the proposed adjustments, I think the casual player will have a better time of it. It is a tough machine, there is no doubt about it. I suffered short ball times. But with a wider ramp entrance it will help.

The other thing to note is both machines got banged up in transit and that is why the animated topper wasn’t working and one of the machines was having trouble. The back of the machines were all scratched up. Damn freight mob.

Here is a pic with the glass off. It’s not the best quality photo, but at least there is no glare.

5746A778-A4F1-4CEE-8090-7383B1183BC2 (resized).jpeg

Here is a good review by Koops at Aussie Arcade: (I'd write my own but I’m half drunk and his sums it up for me) (Koops also attached a bunch of high quality photos, but too many to upload...reception and internet is very bad here at Caves Beach- attached a couple)

"The following is all based on the prototype's which contain some non production items.

These are my own brain dump in no specific order, and may contain a significant number of inconsistencies

I won't have a massive amount of game play detail as I need to practice more.

Hardware

Cabinet

In in a similar fashion to the latest stern pin pictures of the side cabinet decals dont do the pin justice.

Originally I thought the cabinet looked too baby blue but in person it is a mix of white clouds and blue sky.

The decals themselves seem to be made from quite thick textured material (see upclose photo).

I'd guess its quite hard wearing in comparison to normal thin decals.

I quite like the cabinet side art with the predominate thunderbird 2 aircraft.

Cabinet parts

Nice Plungers, coin doors. All quality. All everything you'd normally expect so you don't notice it.

Nice little addition to the coin door is the IR hand logo.

Small things but nice to have in this in this day and age when stern cutting everything not nailed.

Headbox

This is easily a standout item. I love the sides of the head box.

The electroluminescent decals are outstanding. See video.

I believe the headbox is locked to the main body by bolts inside the head. No turn lock or external latch, all internal. No pic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
Armour

Side rails actually cover the front corners also. So good bye to the front decals getting knocked when moving the machine around.

Lock down bar seems to be a standard pin lock

Topper

I was told that 1 of the 2 toppers was damaged in transit and that was why only 1 was on.

I did not see the other in action. I don't know if it is or will be tied to action on the playfield (im sure Mike mentioned it somewhere but I cant recall off hand).

The topper actions seems to be that vehicles can slide into and out of view.

Sort of like a moving diaorama.

Back glass

The translite seems to be reverse screenprinted onto the plexiglass.

It has the speaker panels cut into them ahla circus voltaire.

The art around the speakers and dmd suits the theme and is better than just being stern black.

Backglass Art style. I don't hate it but I don't love it.

I can see why eclectic gamers suggested a retheme to "Team America" for a US release

DMD

Stock orange dmd style BUT seems to be made from leds.

I'm sure this is something Mike had also mentioned in the past.

I personally think it could have perhaps been single colored to more match in with the rest of the color scheme.

Say blue? Owners could possibly change it and put a blue gel over it or something.

The other thing was that I could see how all the little pieces goes together.

Once again this could be less noticable by using a gel cover or something. The leds are so bright that they should be able to compensate.

That is a minor issue.

With the games animations and score display it seems to be a standard high speed 2 style of animations.

Example. thunderbird 2's load module door opening.Not sure if I had a recording or picture of this.

I did notice something I mentioned to Toads in which when there is a score on screen it will noticably do an upwards "scan" through the score. Pretty sure its in the video I took.

I'm not sure if that was a deliberate effect or software bug. It didn't occur anywhere else that I saw.

Playfield

Flippers. Standard williams length flippers with a nice little homepin logo.

Standard flipper gap (as far as I could tell).

2 ramps. 1 of them is always available. I'll call this the main ramp.

The other is only available for small windows of time when activated buy the drop targets below it. I'll call this the T2 ramp.

T1 switch. There is a 1/2 loop up the top left hand side. Unsure what this actally does RGR ?

The mole switch. Unsure what this does. RGR ? Any time I hit it it said "too soft" or something. One of the moles was damaged in transit. So it was missing its drill section.

Left outlane has a post. Doesnt seem to have the 3 hole adjustments we are used to.

Right outland does not. Can drain quite easily here.

Slings. Now on the left most prototype machine there were "blinder" plastics covering the metal returns and part of the slings.

The right machine did not have these. See pics.

I forgot to ask sid what the purpose of these were for but he mentioned they were optional.

These made it significantly harder for me to time the shots as you only saw the ball just before it hit the start of a flipper.

The thing is that the design on them is really nice. See pic.

The pool mech. I never got to see this in action so I assume it is a multiball or other mode trigger. I did see that below the T2 model there is a diverter. I assume this is what sends the ball to the pool.

Small things. Clear washers added below rounded nut heads on plastics, What a novel idea!

The main ramp.

I believe this is not the final ramp and is due for redesign anyway BUT I did notice a couple of issues with what we were presented with.

Its size needs to be changed a little. This will reduce the likelyhood of airballs and also make the balls travel over it smoother.

I'd like to see the production one utilise a nicer method of delivering the ball into the top lane area. Prototype one just allows the ball to drop into the area.

I highly doubt the material this particular ramp was made from would be their production grade plastic.

I'd like to see this ramp be a little flatter. I did notice that there was some space above the pops that it could be put into.

This would reduce the steepness of this ramp. I think this would reduce the feeling of it being close.

There was also a colored led strip under oneside of the ramp. Not sure of the design aspect of this. Is it supposed to be like an airfields landing lights? Unsure.

T2 ramp.

This ramp is how balls are locked.

Once triggered by the targets below thunderbird 2 (big green aircraft) the amp will lower for something like 10 seconds.

During this time if you get the ball up the ramp it will allow a ball to ever the right side ramp where a pin just near the two palm trees will store locked balls. Similar to game of thrones.

Now, the trick here is that to get multiball you need to lock all 3 balls in a SINGLE ball.

There are led lights below the T2 model that illuminate the ramp when it is lowered.

T2 model.

Its huge! As T2 was my favorite I was glad to see it.

The model itself "seemed" to currently be 3d printed as I could make out the layers.

So my guess is that this is once again just a prototype model and not a production one.

No idea what the production version will be.

Would be nice to see the cockpit area or rear jet areas light up.

Flipper buttons

These seemed to have a slightly deeper finger goove. Trivial but I noticed it.

And then i went and played a range of other pins that had similar buttons so its perhaps my limited pin experience.

Under playfield

I did see a couple of times when work was being performed that there were a couple of arms to help hold the playfield up (just like the ones in a williams)

It also seemed to have a smooth action when putting the playfield back in. No stern hump!

I didn't get to see the entire playfield up so can't comment on anything else inside.

Rear of playfield

I almost forgot about this. It seems like the back of the playfield had el like the headbox sides.

Game play

paging : RGR

In short it was brutal to me.

I got in perhaps 10 games but I still didnt know what to do. Given more time (without queues behind) i'd probably read the game card and try and understand what I should be doing apart from shooting ramps.

From watching others is was generally short ball times.

Overall

I've gotten use to playing more recent sterns in which everything is so far away at the other end of the playfield, so playing this was different.

The main ramp felt close, but different can be good.

Cabinet is solid.

Art style is subjective. Some will like it others won't, but hey everyone said the same thing about star wars

Really felt like i'd expect a pin to feel like. It had the weight in it.

There are a few little things that need taking care of but it seems like Mike is getting there.

https://www.aussiearcade.com/showpost.php?p=1122468

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655120A1-0D25-40B8-B92C-0E522FA34D71 (resized).jpeg

The game looks cool. One real quick observation with the multiball sequence is it should start AFTER the 5-4-3-2-1 countdown, not during it. Simple timing change that would help alot with the the effect of multiball. Also, did I hear you have to lock all 3 balls during a single ball (ball 1, 2 or 3) or they get released on the next ball? That would be weird, need to handle multiplayer and virtual locks if so.... I like what I see though for the first public showing.

Indeed. It's a center hump ramp. Really cool idea. Hump ramp!

Game looks cool. Can’t wait to play one in the USA!!

Totally agree that needs to be allowed to play out before the balls are released, when I was watching the video I was watching the DMD and didn't realise at 3 the balls where back in play, it is the most iconic moment in the series/licence so it should be given priority and allowed to play out to full fanfare. Game does look promising, I am certainly going to keep my eye on this as it develops further, so far it looks great.

EDIT: Is Thunderbird 4 represented anywhere??

It looks good, and build quality doesn't seem likely to be an issue.

I think the big Thunderbird 2 model if reduced in size by 20-30% will offer drastically better visual balance. Glad to hear it will be addressed.

Just hope the extra time to fine tune the shots will be taken.

Did you happen to take a head on overhead pic? Hard to see all the detail from the side.

Looking at this pin, it reminds me of a late 80s early 90s data east.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=dKUCsyzs9cE

TB4 is at the top of PF three roll over switches feeding pops "T" "B" "4". Cheers

RGR provided some video, thanks..

playing with glass off
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=505252533166171&id=100010442866941

rules explained
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=505250529833038&id=100010442866941

Unfortunately no. The glass was only off once for a short time and there were people everywhere. I didn't want to get in the way of RGR playing. If I get another chance today, I'll see what I can do.

You are absolutely right. Every time you make a centre ramp shot, you gain a letter on the international rescue. Once all the letters are lit, you gain a free game.

The other thing I might add is the soundtrack is fantastic. All custom recorded tracks and there are about 18 different songs. The track is changed by hitting two switches on the right hand side of the playfield near the T2 ramp. With the volume up it sounds excellent.

If you could get a close up of the upper playfield that would be cool. Hard to see what's going on up there from the video.

I'll ask one of the guys if they are able to upload a video of that end of the playfield.

Uploading both videos on youtube in HD. Will be done in a few hours.

apparently the playfield has art on it with no clear but has a playfield protector over the art - could be for the protos only ???

Glass off...

IMG_2357 (resized).JPG

IMG_2358 (resized).JPG

Some game play recorded today at Pinfest.... had not been cropped yet but not a bad start...

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Game looks fantastic packed PF nice.

So Mike when are you going to give a attribution for using the AMH audio/video system for your game? (as Creative Commons requires)

It's so blatantly obvious, right down to the out-of-sync issues with the end of ball bonus numbers.

I know I'm just a "dumb litigious American" but my code was good enough to steal, right?

A bit... Data Easty sort of. Centre ramp looks odd. Be interesting in the flesh.

Plenty of toys - retro , which fits theme.

Really dislike the led strip going up the ramp - doesn't suit the game. Needs to be totally hidden or made to be like CV I think.

I had no idea your framework was open source, have you got any links?

If this pin does use it, there should definitely be some credits some where!

I like the play field art and toys but not a fan of the central ramp which looked a little flimsy (may just be prototype quality) and my preference would have it a little higher up the play field but tough given the packed play field...

I 100% agree the LED stipe on the ramp looks like a tackie after market mod and does not fit the game plus makes it look a little cheap to be honest.

See the video in the link below....

This has been mentioned a few times, i haven't seen the machine in person, just going off the available pics and vids BUT the ramp looks no closer to the flippers than what the train scoop/ramp is on Monopoly.