I went to the Cleveland show last year JUST to take OKT for a spin. Got one quick game one it but couldn't hear it, so I figured I go back later when the crowds thinned out and get some quality time on it. Went back...and it (the only one) had went to the seminar room. Crap. Came back in the early AM again to play...nope - in the women's tournament. Never had another chance to play. Haven't seen it in the wild since so I never bought.

Our Houdini is the wife's fav pin, and I still enjoy the daylights out of it. Too bad, missed opportunity.

On the bright side, got some Magic Glass from Dan and chatted w/Barry (alway fun).

Not to mention way deeper modes and tricky shots, just too deep and challenging for most people to experience at a show or arcade unfortunately. Thats why they came out with this kiddy version for the complainers. BTW the person who is going to respond about "tricky shots" and how they stink hasn't played either game in a long time and needs to practice. Or the machine wasn't set up right.

What kiddy version?

Maybe your new alias should be DigDigDIG....

You're probably not the target demographic. They need 10 year olds with 6K plus to spend...

actually maybe it's meant to fit in with the redemption machines for the younger crowd. Seems like a good idea but with those ops used to low maintenance machines... would they even want a pin? Most don't seem to.

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A kids theme game with simple ramps etc. Not to say hot wheels cant be enjoyed by adults as well. Most of us still follow star wars I think. Its not steampunk magic or fest drinking.

They didn't make a kid-friendly game. Check out the VERY narrow shots on the left and right sides. They're essentially the same as the trunk shot on Houdini. Very narrow, non-kid friendly lanes in a kid-friendly theme. A pin made for no one.

Ok, how about this for a toy to replace the spinning car of repetition... with a spinning car of repetition?

How many of you ever joined the track together end to end to form a continuous loop, then put your car on it and then get it spinning in a continuous loop-loop-loop fashion?

Ok, put in a slowly revolving continuous loop of track offset at a 45 degree angle... a plexiglass disk with the car mounted to it could be spun from the perimeter using rubber wheels hidden in the base... a single motor drives both the rotation of the track mount and the plexi disk. Now you have this oscillating and mesmerizing centerpiece that speeds up and down as the car continuously travels in its loop-loop-loop path. At least you would have a car doing a loop for crisakes.

Heck, even Hallmark knew to put a loop in their ornament... and that vuk is technically not a loop... just saying.

2F7F84C8-150A-4821-826B-DE8A0BCA8944 (resized).jpeg

The VUK feeds that upside down vertical "loop" on left.
Looks like there's something there to deflect the energy from blowing up the ramp below.
(I set the time on this re-post) to see it. 3:12 -to- 3:19

Did you watch the video? They say it is simplified. Which it is. This is the second time I heard complaints about the outlanes? No one appears to be having trouble making the shots? Doesn't look difficult to me.

That right ramp and right outlane look super smooth. Maybe the left lane isn't as much, but still...two repeatable shots is more than Houdini and Oktoberfest. Dude loops the right ramp three times in a row

I can get over the theme, actually the playfield design looks fun and good for location play.

But I cannot get over that it is priced higher than a Stern Pro while it is missing the real loop (this is just a large VUK, why not use an angle, like look-to-loop?), has of-center display, ugly back box (total deal breaker) and sub-par back box graphics (the rest is good enough).

All can be fixed if they are willing, except the missing loop, or can they?

I like their work on the stop animation visuals...that was pretty clever, but then we come to the design, I've never been a fan of Balcer's work. He always finds a way to mess up a decent layout....I can't explain it. Also who the f*ck came up with Poker Run and Valkyrie as themes?! I seriously hope he gets his head checked.
So making pinball is hard, eh? Yeah, yeah...spare me. There are dozens of dudes who've made homebrew games that have great layouts so I don't buy that excuse for the design part. I emailed them early on about picking up Stranger Things as theme but they told me that it didn't fit their strategy....but Poker Run

I feel like I like the rest of the layout, but that car is going to make me mental. I second this motion!

Did I miss something? They are making a poker title next?

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They have a list of other public domain titles they're targeting. Sherlock is the best of the bunch.

OKT is my favorite period. I had sold a machine I was tired of and just wanted to try something new, and I like beer, and amusement park stuff, so I said why not. Glad I did, OKT not going anywhere.

My distributor kept talking about HOU, and how he loved it, and in his collection, so I sold another machine I was tired of and picked up a HOU. Still on the fence with my HOU, but it will also be a long time before I would get rid of it, too many things I still want to try.

So anyway, I have been like hell yeah, I love AP games, I am in on whatever their 3rd game is. And at no time did I ever plan to be first in line on their 3rd game, I always wait a while and read comments from owners.

For a long time it has been planned the next game here is a 2020 Golden Tee, and after that AP's 3rd pin. Hot Wheels may or may not happen here, depends on owners comments for me.

Who knows, Hot Wheels may have awesome code like OKT, with all kinds of things to do. From the pics I have seen here the shots look tight like on HOU.

Anyway, if any of you plan to be in my area, you can shoot me a pm to see if I am available to try the OKT. To understand it you do have to study the benefits from each Stein, and decide what strategy you want to try for...so many different ways to try this game it is so awesome. But so deep you have to sit and think a bit. With OKT if you just bat the ball around with no clue you will never enjoy it. If you have a plan before you plunge the first ball of what you want to try for, you will get it and love it. The game is deep in a great way.

And back to Hot Wheels. Like I said, looks tight like HOU, and I am still on the fence with that, but, BUT, if it turns out AP has combined the tight shots of HOU, with the awesome deep stuff that OKT has, I am in.

This is where I am at right now. OKT not going anywhere, TWD not going anywhere, JJPOTCSE not going anywhere.

MET Monsters Prem, and SMVE on the fence, along with HOU.

Seriously, you need 2-3 hours of OKT to get it, and once you do, GOAT. And I am keeping a open mind about HW, until I know more.

You like that work.....because it's not theirs. It's from the Hot Wheels branded Youtube show.

You're familiar with their animation work from Houdini and Oktoberfest...................

We were thinking along the same lines, but even more simple. Just make the continuous loop vertical and have the spinning car incorporate a 90degree gearbox. Now you have a car doing a vertical loop and could mount the track loop around the area it’s spinning.

Hot Wheels had some pretty cool art when I was a kid during the redline era (68-77), and I still have a collection of redline cars from that era. I was hoping American Pinball would have an LE that featured vintage redline cars and art, but I figured it probably wouldn't happen as Mattel would probably want to use modern art which they approved. Sure enough, that looks to be the way it went. Unfortunately the whole modern Hot Wheels City thing battling dinosaurs and other beasts is just weird to me.

What I was hoping for is the "mod" style art that appeared on some posters and boxes in the very early 70's (like the attached pics). I guess a lot of people might view it as being too dated and I'm pretty sure Mattel would agree, but I think it would have been cool.
HW1 (resized).jpgHW2 (resized).jpg

That is good to hear.

Holy crap that is cool! Reminds me of the styles used in stuff like Danger Mouse and The Phantom Tollbooth way back when. I wonder if Hot Wheels ever had some Ed Roth art going on?

I agree. Just watching the car spin over and over again in the video was giving me a headache. The spinning car appears to the single toy on the game and yet it doesn't interact with the ball, or player even, at all...

Has it been confirmed if pricing is lower on Hot Wheels due to AP scaling back toys / mechs?

First off, have you seen what Stern does lately when they “interact” with the ball? The truck in JP? The Black Knight in BKSOR? Pretty beefy toys, with a $$ hit on BOM. With AP “scaling back” from OKT and HOU it is no wonder the most interactive thing in the machine is a drop target and VUK...

Engineering something to take ball strikes AND change the directional of movement of the ball requires more cost, more testing, more hassles. Operators know that if you put a toy on the playfield it better be rock solid, non-destructible, and if it does break, doesn’t take the machine completely out of commission with it. This machine looks like a Stern Pro on steroids that had its heart, liver, and lungs ripped out at the last second. Good for operating at Chuck E. Cheese, but not a great effort for the player/collectors IMO. They would have been better off re-skinning OKT with Hot Wheels art than this scaled back, Pro-like offering. But this may all be for naught with a shrinking economy.

And yet two years from now people will still be harping on the How Wheels screens. That's what we do. We're mindless sheep that can no longer rationally think about things or change opinion from an initial, blurry cell phone image. The complete awfulness of a font selection will be forever etched in our collective memories.

Yes, interactive toys cost money but isn't that why we are paying all time record high prices for games? If these games were still $4k-$5k I can see the justification for minimal toys, plastic ramps, etc. However, for $7k+ there needs to be more than two plastic ramps and orbits to justify the cost of a game in my opinion. A plastic spinning car for $7k+ that doesn't interact with the ball and it being the only real toy on the playfield? I don't see the value there.

I love Houdini and Oktoberfest as themes but seriously, Poker Run is the most stupid theme idea ever.

The first thing I think I would do on this game would mod that spinning car with a large redline style plastic wheel instead.
Should be far less distracting!

Mod # 1 - Lift playfield and disconnect spinning car mech.

Me either.

I like the game but that constant spinning car ? AP you need to change this !!!

I just looked at AP site and it doesn’t even mention Hot-wheels no pictures no video. What the heck is going on?

The pinball industry just never ceases to amaze me.

It is hard to explain but the spinning car actually causes me to have eye aching. I don't see the point in it spinning at all.

I've concluded in a brilliant tactical decision, API scaled down Hot Wheels to sell existing units of Houdini and Oktoberfest.....as they sure as hell seem far more appealing than they did a week ago in comparison

Ah c'mon be nice

Except for the nausea inducing spinning car it looks pretty good. They had to work with the license and I think they represented it decently. A different toy would have been preferable but it looks fast and fun to shoot. It's not too late for them to change/modify the car from the feedback they've been so happily given. Repeatedly...

I'm still not sure who it's marketed for but I gotta trust they did their homework on this.

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I was just thinking how the Houdini pops are some of the best ever, visually, in a game. Hot Wheels isn't approaching anything novel, at all.

I was being legitimately serious, as there are many API haters out there, and I've never seen so much praise for their 2 existing games, as I have since the non release, non announced yet announced, Hot Wheels game.

And if they'd done their homework, Oktoberfest would never have been created. (Personally, I like the theme!)

Ha, that explains it....thanks

Someone needs to reskin an Oktoberfest as Hotwheels using the same artwork so people could imagine what that would have been like... and if I was an employee of AP, I would do it in my basement and take it to a show as a home brew...

Nothing there and nothing stated publicly, wonder if they don't yet have approvals to announce and share stuff. Spooky was limited in what they could show on RAM, waiting on approvals. Maybe they had approval for it to be at the show but not to release things on the internet and elsewhere.

Seems like rosh and Ferret are usually active and responsive on pinside, and they have not shown up in any Hot wheels thread, but looks like they have been active in Houdini and Oktoberfest threads, so have to wonder if they are not allowed to talk about things yet.

They might be traveling back from the AMOA show too.

LTG : )

Maybe they're waiting till an official press release is made.

I do wonder what their thoughts are on this game.

If I was a buyer of this game, the first thing I would do is rip out that stupid spinning car. God that is pathetic! Who comes up with these ideas? Does anyone at American Pinball realize it cost them money to make the game less appealing?

the spinning car should be offered as an option.

a few quick twists of the screwdriver and that car spinning problem would be gone... I favor modders coming up with something less vertigo inducing...

Interesting....

Goes live/premieres in a minute, by the way!

Go toddtuckey !

When they asked for a show of hands of the potential upcoming themes at a show panel, only Sherlock got a significant number of hands. Hot Wheels wasn't on the list at the time.

Premiers. Not live. Some people in that video aren't with AP anymore.

LTG : )