The music to me... sounds like... well, it sounds annoying and second rate. There's guys on YouTube putting out free tracks that sound much better. woodwinds??? Cell phones ringing???

I can't bring this thing to my game room, my wife will just tell me to turn the volume down.

Really!?! From disaster themes to talking heads to tz and Addams to...???? "Dialed in".

A disaster theme is what everyone really wanted, it would have been sooo easy. The cell integration could still have been implemented. Throw out the weird characters and make it a thunderstorm that electrocutes the buildings on the screen, make that light show AWE us. Damn JJP! we were really looking forward to this since we got woz. Not sure now

I totally agree. People being way to harsh and too conservative. Would take this over a cock rock band from the 70s any day.

Dialed in is fun as hell. I love that the camera interacts with the player. Get a lottery ticket and scrach it off. With your hand. How cool is that. Great flow. Super fun to play again

Uhmmm..... sorry, but are you crazy???

Yeah.... knights and castles, jousting, battles, catapults really dont attract the masses....

A phone does.... i am blown away by the idea of it.

Oh wait... i am not. It is that bad it makes me cry, cause this is the end of JJP. This is the most frustrating own goal in pinball history.

In your question lies the answer. "... all within Quantum City". Welp, there's your name. Calling it Dialed is just a poor attempt in social media era buzz words. It suggests little to nothing about what the game is about (a comic book?), where it happens, what's going on, or anything useful except that "hey phones, you like phones, right?". Quantum City at least sounds like a title inviting you into a futuristic world.

The current title is pandering to the ENTIRELY wrong audience while alienating the two markets they can't afford to lose - home use and operators.

The one saving grace here is that it still is unlicensed theme, so there's no approvals from some pinball-clueless marketing department (though clueless is the term of the day). JJP could read all of this and perhaps re-skin it by end of year with new title, art, and perhaps turn the phone into something that doesn't look like a cry to be hip.

At least I still have 4 WOZ machines all on route to play locally

WOZ and Hobbit are so outstanding that JJP deserves the benefit of doubt before I cast final judgement, but damn, that theme is rough! Then there's the matter of the continuing cynical industry practice of offering less for more with each new reveal. Day 1 of Expo SHOULD leave me feeling excited and my wallet feeling threatened (as it has consistently done for many years), but instead, for the first time ever, I'm a bit disillusioned.

I'm not sure how long the money grab will last, but that "pinball bubble" everyone's talking about has grown so large that it quivers in the slightest breeze, and has now begun descending toward a lawn of nice stiff Bermuda grass...

Where is the video posted at? I've missed it somewhere in these hundreds of posts.

Jack, for the next pin, let us know what you're thinking up front...we can help. Pinside can give you great feedback, you forgot about the Hobbit already? Damn, the sad thing is this game probably has great flow and code. I mean it's Lawlor, he knows what he's doing. Here is a tip, before this thing hits the line listen to these guys and change the name. Also get rid of the phone connectivity stuff along with the camera. Lastly, drop the price to $8000 at least...it's still f-ked but less so.

Bob The Builder on a stick is the worst part, possibly along with the animations. Other than that the layout looks pretty good.

A generic city based disaster theme would have been better than phone.

And where is the robot arm?

https://www.periscope.tv/jackjjp/1ypKdAVngdYGW?#

About 35 minutes in...

Edit

Made a quote mistake

Im with u man but people are just not open minded imo and just want licensed theme and standard everything ....the game is loaded with toys, mechs, technology, awesome lighting, very nice new cab features, shaker , huge screen, invisaglass, 5 magnets , phone connectivity and ton more stuff. Who cares what its called ...these toys are meant to b played and it has alot going on compared to other pins. Yea the price is high but at least its loaded with nice features to almost justify it...cant wait for gameplay video and to play it myself

I think the "robot arm" might have been a miss-leak about the video screen swing-out arm... he did make a big deal of it.

So stoked for this game for so long, how could they not realize that this theme is feckin brutal? Total fail. Alien promo video on the other hand looks awesome.....

The camera stuff is lame...feels like a kids redemption toy.

Nailed it.

This hobby is in desperate need of new blood.

100%.

Jack /Pat... JJP #4 FunHouse 2; Happy carnival times / happy kids, up till 12 midnight... then angry Rudy after FunHouse closes... Period!

I'm in at even at $9,000!

There seemed to be some foreshadowing in the lead up to the reveal. For instance, when Jack said something to the effect of, 'when you hire Michaelangelo, you don't tell him how to paint the Sistine Chapel'. That almost sounds like he's saying that this is all Pat's idea and that he thinks the theme sounds odd too, but he's deferring to Pat as the "expert". Also, when Pat was talking about an original them he said, "you wonder if everyone will be in on the joke". Like he was prepping everyone for an odd theme and was almost telling us to hold off on judging this, it may sound stupid at first. Just interesting to look back at their speeches after seeing the theme.

I can't wait to at least play it either...

But I for one was considering Pats new game to be in my brand new modern dining room, where everyone can see it. Right now Woz is there.

This is Star Wars Episode 1 all over again...
Old man with awesome legacy sits on ranch and wants to make a game his kids will like, but won't design to what the die hards with cash want to see... the game will still sell a few and bring joy to a few, but everyone will always remember and talk about how great it could have been... damn that jar jar, I mean bob or whatever

I know I'm being tough on the game without playing it, but it's just so juvenile to the senses as of now

Cut that price in half... and I'm still not interested.

#pinfail

And the sounds and music are a billion times better

Yes a bazillion

People need to stop conflating these things.

The hobby is doing just fine with plenty of new blood.

The industry on the other hand...

Actually, that big female toy in the back right of the playfield appears to block the ball.

Played it tonight, by far my favorite JJP game. Layout is great and its a ton of fun to play. Third flipper has multiple shots including a ramp!

Just a small taste of Alien I know, but Thiel you know absolutely nailed it which is so critical on a pin like Alien where total immersion should be off the charts with his great work.

They would have to work hard to F this one up. Theme, sound, callouts, great video and cool toys. How does it play, I guess neither one of the protos were working well.

I did he exact same thing and my wife (who loves playing pinball too) had virtually same reaction... "so thats what you've been excited to see huh... whatever."

Maybe this is just a clever marketing gimmick to sell more Hobbits.

This is like having a game that features a microwave or toaster oven. Everyone has one of those too.

I want to hear more feedback like this. The reveal stream was disappointing and lackluster but people who are there and have played it, chime in so we can see what the game is really like.

Feels like the complete opposite. After playing this game and then playing The Hobbit immediately after I think it's going to hurt The Hobbit sales.

I'd love to know how it plays and what the actual plot of the game is. Are you preventing or provoking disasters? Anyone here put any time in on it? Glad to have a game with original characters and writing, though I do agree it feels kinda Bob the Builder-y (blue! orange!). Mostly I'm curious as to what kind of tricks the game will have up its sleeve - the theme is ok, I just can't tell what the game is doing with it yet.

So who's in?

Are you? You're a distributor right?. Are orders pouring in?

toy (fit the theme perfectly) for the SuperLE edition, in black, only 7k will be made, send money now!

dialed in (resized).JPG

I just checked the JJP facebook page, and people are gushing with praise. That confuses me.

I do have a strong feeling that the game is going to surprise a lot of people when they play it and start to understand what the theme is about. The price point for a non-licensed game just kills it for me as a game to buy. Shouldn't there be some savings in the price of the game because there is no license to pay? Sure I would play one at an arcade or friend's house if I saw it but I am not planning on spending $9000 on something that is not a proven elite rated game.

They need creative direction, the designer and team are not artists or writers and why they missed the mark so badly. What does any single component have to do with any other component on the playfield.

If I had to take a stab at this 'idea' or had to try to save this within the 'theme' of time travel and the playfield design:

New Title: Infinitum -
The story thread is an escape from an inter dimensional time prison (so done before but what can you do with a time travel theme)

Cellphone becomes a portal, likely graphically as a door that changes to reflect the mode/time/zone for the story thread.

Theater becomes an hourglass,

Ramp becomes a worm hole

That awful building become the time prison

Beanie wearing Overall lady become a Time Warden monster gatekeeper of the prison

The rest builds out from there.

What a mishmash..phantom drones, 50's style screamer, flying saucers, horrible 80's bob text, cartoony lightning guy with sad cellphone holding 'super'hero pose. Trust us? In this age of information and cyberwar? So horribly disconnected.

The challenge here is like P3 those awful dated city graphic are likely difficult to replace and costly to bring to the level of modern gaming, this is why the licensed materials are so valuable. For the dollar, they get a LOT of production and that's hard to replace and why non-licensed themes are less likely.

For this title, without the licensed assets, I'd lose the screen to simplify and lower cost. I think it could be saved with some tough love.

Apparently we have learned now that waiting for a game reveal is not the toughest part of the process, rather the game theme is...

Here's an idea. Call it "Quantum City" like everyone is saying, and have the player be a character that solves catastrophes by dispatching people or drones. Shoot for the right ramp to send in the fire dept, or something like that. Maybe something like R911, but better.

The sim city 90s look needs to go, though. Maybe take a page from the Supergirl show and model some of the flybys and flyovers like that.

I don't understand the hangup on title.... particularly since it's a common pinball term. Sounds like any other game release thread on Pinside

1. People get hyped up based on baseless rumors
2. People see fuzzy pics and shaky video, think it's the worst game ever
3. People get the play it and like it

For the average player, it would sound too far-fetched and they would have trouble grasping and understanding a theme like that. Leave out all the timey-wimey and spacey-wacey stuff.

That doesn't seem correct at all. Look at the games Lawlor has helped to create in the past. A lot of those games tell a unique story. Funhouse was a very unique take on the common amusement park theme. Safe Cracker and No Good Gofers have a lot of personality. Addams Family and Twilight Zone are great adaptations of existing properties.

Friends and family maybe? Obviously they haven't heard any negative criticism even if it was spoken, there's not any restraint or a solid recognizable thread in anything shown so far. How a modern company can get through iterations and a design process and miss the mark is beyond me.

Maybe removing or filtering negative comments out?

Let's not forget it's way more of a finely polished, high end luxury game than what any other company is producing right now. Hate the theme all you want but the game is still a few years ahead of the competition.

You wld think but it has so much innovation (new cab and head, 3 lcds, new electronics, new sound system,phone connectivity) plus the usual jjp stuff like invisaglass,shaker and huge screen, super high quality cab decals. Then all the game features and mechs /toys. It definitely has alot to offer compared to other manufacturers but it seems people cant get past the name/ theme unfortunately to see all the value compared to other pins.

1) There basically were no rumors one way or the other--just that the concept that the game would be focused on cell phones. And low and behold, it was.
2) The whole concept for the game just doesn't seem to work or come together. It's not just about gameplay that you can't see too well through a low-quality video.
3) The idea of a game is that it has to attract someone and make them think, "Hey, that game looks like fun. I want to play it".

If your talking about the graphics on the big screen, I actually thought those were very neat. I think it was supposed to be a news helicopter flying over the city.

I think we need a gameplay video to clearly see the story this game is trying to tell. Still don't like the title though.

I mean, it looks fun, and I want to play it, so...