Punchy The Clown - LTG edition

Never will get old

I’d make it move .

Hurricane. Get a mechanical dunk the dummy. "Rollercoaster" ramps more akin to Nordman's white water/Elvira and the party monsters. A roller coaster ramp locking mech like the Simpsons/Oktoberfest. A ferris wheel lock or a merr-go-round lock. A day and night mode (WPC GI dimming). The dual ferris wheels was pretty weak as was reusing the traffic light from High Speed. This was the third iteration of the carnival theme and it was on the WPC platform no less, such a waste of potential.

Stern Star Wars:

What to keep:
Comic Art and sound Package.

What to add:
Hyperdrive would be clear plastic to see the inter-workings of the balls flying through, with a space theme. Would include Xwing fighters in a 2 or 3 array, with lights and sounds on the PF, going against a 2 or 3 array tie fighter group that blows up with sounds and lights, with some kind of ball interaction. Light up LE side armor.

What to change:
Mini PF TV would be better utilized and the 3 bank target position changed as to not be an instant left outlane drain Monster. Make the GUI more modern looking on the LCD. Open up the ramp entrance slightly to gain better entrance into the DS/hyperloop. Habit trails would be changed to be a bit more interesting. Better utilization of the DS blowup in the game.

Stern TWD:

What to change:
* Use frosted warm white LEDs all around to enhance the red, brown and yellow colors in the game.
* Replace the big weird head in the prison with a zombie hoard
* All of the callouts (thanks Cleland)

What to add:
* Steel mini-posts with rubbers above the plastic outlane dividers, just like every other Stern has

Fortunately, most of these can be done as reversible mods.

Jetsons because it needs to be stacked and loaded.pasted_image (resized).pngpasted_image (resized).png

I would make every game with a LCD display have the screen be under the playfield like in Full Throttle and Alien, so I don't have to look up.

Small changes:
Give Addams Family more of an incentive to shoot combos and multipliers.
Give Star Wars Episode 1 an autolauncher
Some sort of optional setting on No Fear so that Infinite Loops stop being a viable tournament strategy.
Change Banzai Run to a theme that has more to do with the vertical nature of the game.
I haven't looked into it, but it is my understanding that the board game on safe cracker is not that strategically interesting. I would see about changing that.
Try to give the Beatles a different tournament strategy other than side-loops all day.
Starting a Magneto multiball on X-men without setting it up first and being punished with infinitesmal jackpots is kinda unfriendly game design. I understand that it's supposed to incentivize players to play in a certain way, but I would try to think of a different way to do that.
I don't remember exactly but I think in Whitewater there were certain parts of the game that never got shot for. The bumpers add chaos to the ball movement, but it would be nice if they did something more than that.
Left orbit on Theatre of Magic, the thing everyone complains about.
Wizard Mode on TOTAN being farmable. I don't know if there's a fan-mod that fixes this for tournaments.

That was my choice as well, especially the shooter lane would move to a standard configuration to shoot up to the top of the play field, entering either into the pops or completing the orbit.

Thunderbirds.
I would not know what I was doing, and wouldn't want to screw up a good game.

I would like to see Iron Maiden re-themed. You could flip the layout and the only thing to change is the band.

-Make it so

Stern "Star Trek"

What to keep:
Playfield layout/ramps and most software/rules.

What to add:
Full working left side VUK habitrail that shoots the Warp Ramp, as originally intended.

What to change:
Art package (I would have gone all white and chrome, like the bridge of the new Enterprise, and focused on ships/planets instead of actors. Aurich's alternate translite was a great move in this direction).
LCD with movie clips instead of DMD/dots.
Sounds/music (sorry Karl, your custom call-outs aren't enough. Need the "Khaaaan!" callout to actually be Zach Quinto. Pinsider Nosro did a good job changing the music).
Add the third movie scenes into the mix (can you imagine a Swarm "Sabotage" multi-ball? Oh yeah...).

Later,
EV

Munsters.
Where do I start.........hmmmmm............... code!!!!

Roller Coaster Tycoon.

It just begs to be redone with that unique layout, but horrible code and lackluster theme. I'd lose everything but the layout and make it a Tron 1982 theme. The roller coasters would turn into light cycle tracks, they are already red, yellow and blue. The drop targets up the middle could be incorporated for the MCP. Scrambled eggs would now be Dumont on his spinning platform. Troll could be turned into Sark. I'd get rid of the DMD and put an LCD in it with movie clips and custom animation. I wish I had the time and ability to do something like this.

Add a feature to all games where cradling the ball(s) during multiball would drain your points.

Gilligans Island and Hurricane could use make overs.

Gottlieb's Big Hurt

Retheme it. Needs great playfield artwork and non-repetitive call-outs and sounds. Shots are fun, flow is great, toys and mechs are out-standing.

Hardbody. I love that game but it is the worst theme and art package ever.

How aboot a Bicycle theme instead?

FUNHOUSE, needs to be a DMD display with awesome animations.

The predecessor, yes!

ST:TNG is my all time favorite pin, but the main attraction only appears briefly in one episode, and that is the "borg ship" used in the game. Why isn't it a borg cube! I would re-release this game with a proper borg cube and make the animations to match it. I would also change the inlanes from optos to physical switches, randomize the shuttle simulator and make it harder to get, and change the shot geometry slightly so a rejected neutral zone hit didn't brush the left ramp and go straight down the middle. Other than that, 11/10 as is and bolted to the floor.

BSD: re-use the theme and redo everything else. The game is such a bore now.

Stern Star Wars, pretty much a complete redo. Change it from a tournament points machine to a progression work your way through the films machine. Add a proper force magnet toy that interacts with the LCD. Vader throwing shit on you at the screen and the ball gets thrown around the playfield. Luke trying to force pull the lightsaber from the snow and the ball mimics it on the playfield.

Jetsons

Am I really the first person to say Ghostbusters?

Baywatch. Keep it all the same except put in an LCD screen and give it fully modern code. Love the layout and features, bored of the Data East code.
If need be slap some modern IP on it. You could make the layout work with almost any movie or series, really.

I redesigned the No Fear skull last night by coincidence.

He’s a fucking methed up maniac now.

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Heh. He *DOES* look like a meth head now!

I upgrade every game I play. Tremendous fun, coming up with new ideas for old games.

It was so fucking bad I don't even want a good one

I would redo Creature from the Black Lagoon...deeper rules and a 3 ball multiball..I'd leave the flipper gap in tact.

Pops on white water change which award is lit. It can mess up your strategy if you accidentally hit them or maybe you want to take the risk to get 5X or whirlpool challenge lit?

Dialed in

Change the Simcard hole to smooth Out the Shot and retheme the Game.

RAZA

Any "Punchy" reference gets an automatic "thumbs up" from me.

I scanned the comments and was amazed it wasn't mentioned earlier.

beatles,,, use all the beatle songs.....

It was a big miss, not doing a psychedelic version of Beatles for us younger old people. Revolver, Rubber Soul, Sargent Pepper…

SW a new hope needs to be a widebody with a lower PF trash compactor theme .Honestly each SW pin from here on out needs to concentrate on 1 movie alone .Way too vast to cram a trilogy in a standard body.

I think maybe those were just the stories they told media. Is there any doubt they went hard on LSD in that era.

Terminator 2. So many good things in the game and could have been so much better with better movie intergation. Sooooo much you could do with it now.

Also, any star wars game. I don't understand why they can't get it right! Hahaha

Re theme AIQ as LZ. The tower was sooo supposed to be the stairway.

now your talking

I'd love a Harley Davidson game that stands up to their reputation. Stern HD is a huge dud.

GB as a vault with some tweaked changes would be nice.

Back to the future. I’d keep the theme and change the rest.

El dorado (EM) - make it so when I turn on the game I don't have to start a game to turn all the lights on. On my Williams Klondike you flip the power switch and then press the left flipper button to turn the lights on.

King of Diamonds - add a power switch so I don't have to bang on the bottom of the cabinet.