Laying it bare! Are you not entertained?

JC-entertaining.gif

Ooh, I’ll be sure to bring that savory Zen ThaiJapanese Banning fusion for that unboxing party Eric!
(Yes, I went today...)
1BDEB6FB-27B4-48B5-992A-BDB1BB8B7EC5 (resized).jpegEB862306-808E-489B-ADD8-5D4108D7B8E8 (resized).jpeg

Jeez, enough with your delusions . The Hobbitt objectively sucks. Everyone knows this but you. It's boring as f&$k and easy as f@&k. However, yesterday at the banning show, I played a game that I honestly believe is the worst pinball machine ever made. That would be Thunderbirds. I'm still in shock at just how horrifically bad that thing is. And no, I am not using hyperbole to describe it.

I take it they didn't have the $9,000 Mafia pinball machine that looked like it was made from an Ikea kit at this show? That may have changed your list...

I thought Mafia was $7,500? I wish either or both Thunderbirds or Mafia had been at PAGG. Would have definitely tried a game or two to get an opinion on them.

What's the deal with Thunderbirds? Can software save it, or is the playfield design just too bad?

Once you flip one, you will have your answer to your question. Vic was actually being nice in his above description, I thought.

Well, just to tide me over since I won't have a chance at hands-on until next year, where would you say the problem lies? Hardware or software...or both?

Thats what I thought also till I asked. The 10 games made are 9k, IF they sell the remaining 90 of 100 will be made for 7,500. Overall I could live with the Very low cost overlay playfield and cheap build but Not for 9k. Not even sure if it had speakers as you had to play it with headphones which they didn't explain why?? If it was 3-4k I would have layed down the cash. 9k Or 7500 not a chance.

Wow. The playfield is an OVERLAY? I had no idea! With Mirco and CPR doing pretty much on-demand screening, there's really no excuse for that these days.

How did Mafia flip? It seems very basic...like Jetsons/Dominoes basic.

Haven't played that one yet.

The mafia guys think they can sell that game for a bunch of money because it will be rare. Thats like me starting a baseball trading card company, and printing out 10 Babe Ruth cards and trying to sell them for $1000 a pop because they are rare.

As for Thunderbirds, it's just awful in every way. What's with the center ramp to nowhere? It was designed literally as a ramp. A wheelchair ramp to take your crippled pinball over the pop bumpers and drop them in the top lanes for god knows what reason. Seriously, who's responsible for that design?

It played OK?!? Think Really basic 80s pin. Yes there was a mini DMD but the animation and sound (that you could hear from the headphones) was amateur at best. Yes, the playfield is just a wood sheet with a plastic printed overlay. Heck, even the shooter lane was just metal posts to eliminate fabricating any hardware of any kind. If this was a home pin for 3k they would sell a ton of them. They are playing off exclusivity to find a market. Good luck with that.

I think those guys were under the delusion that if Stern can sell Batman super LE’s at a premium because of their limited number, so could they. But like my baseball card analogy, I’m not Topps or Upper Deck, and they’re not Stern.

Sure, I guess. Pretty much every game released in the past 5 years has had a production chatter thread and one for actual owners that don’t want to deal. But whatever.

9039E647-56EF-44A0-B4CA-7915A988759D (resized).jpeg

How does this Theme suck?
Every bar & brewery would love to have this game. Bunch of haters!

I liked Thunderbirds partly *because* it's so different. It plays like nothing else on earth; it does have flow which you can employ by flipping, but it's very very unconventional. None of the shots lead anywhere that way, and it is a fair comment that if you're at all a risk-averse traditionalist, you won't like the game one bit.

So... it’s the spiritual and physical successor to Magic Girl?

Not really: the stuff on Thunderbirds is *supposed* to do that.

That sucks.

For those that played OF, what was your favorite part of it?

Here’s the thing - like AC/DC, Hobbit is smart enough to have that stuff in there for the hardcores, but you don’t even remotely need to know anything about it to enjoy the game. I don’t pay attention to any of that in the Hobbit - like LOTR, I play for the adventure, story, personality, and progression. The recent mathy Stern games lately don’t have any of that classic Pavlovian gameplay....it’s ALL about points strategy.

Classic projection.

I finally played Thunderbirds. Would agree with most of the above.

Some positives. The display is very bright and they have speakers with tweeters so the audio is pretty sharp as well.

This is a pin that should have used Photoshop collage art. Hand drawing the character hides the fact they were live action puppets so you lose the charm.

I keep seeing comments like this, are the bars where people live actually full of pinball machines? Because outside of barcades I've never been in a bar with a pin. It's not the '80s anymore.

Are we done discussing Oktoberfest? Turned into the ACDC (my fault I guess) Hobbit and Thunderbirds thread.

Who played it at Expo? Someone want to give some more hands on impressions? How it plays feels like the most interesting part of the game.

Visit Portland. Almost every bar has 2 or 3 pins.

Yea, most of the bars and/or pizza places have a couple pinball machines around here.

I know Aurich doesn't agree with me on this, but I believe deep down all customers really want are movie licenses (with good hand drawn art)

Could we possibly see an "Original Theme Crash" in 2019 when we get flooded with them?

Careful - it'll never be "All", but you've got a very safe "The Majority" to work with for your prediction.

In Chicago there are "barcades", places that boast about having pinball and alcohol. However if you look at the pinside map in Chicago there are plenty of places that don't consider themselves barcades, but are just bars that have 1-6 pinballs (Brixies and Brauerhause come to mind).

Every other shop of any kind seems to have pinball in Portland, the pins on the map just turn into a blob unless you zoom way in.

Until every town looks like Portland it's a myth to me that bars are going to snap up any theme, beer and boobs or otherwise.

I think people don't know what they want. Licenses from a favorite movie are just shortcuts to ideas they're not going to spend time developing in their head, because it's a lot of work.

If you create an awesome game with a cool theme and cool art and it's the complete package they're going to be excited. But "not a license" isn't some kind of magic wand, you still have to work on the theme. Oh, and complete package means it plays great, it sounds great, forget this box of lights nonsense.

Take the money you were going to spend on the license and get a creative director. It will be money well spent.

I think pinball right now is being run too much by engineers. And I don't mean that in a bad way, engineers are awesome, and they're an essential ingredient to a great game. But it's rare that people are really good at lots of different things. Being a mechanical genius doesn't mean you're an amazing story teller. Being a good illustrator doesn't mean you can animate. Everyone has strengths.

Licenses are just shortcuts to selling your game. In that video about Oktoberfest Rosh talks about how he thought it wasn't a good theme when Balcer pitched it, and then came around after being sold. You create an uphill climb when that's the first reaction, you gotta sell everyone.

I've done the licensed game thing. The restrictions were a nightmare. I'd never touch a licensed pinball again if I were feeling crazy enough to work on another game. Huge stone around your neck, and for what? There are easier ways to work hard and make money than pinball, why bother if you're going to be restricted left and right?

You have to fight past 40 homeless people to get in the door though.

If you ask a customer what he wants he answers a sequel to the thing he liked before.

Pinside Top 5: Medieval Madness, Attack from Mars, Twilight Zone, Monster Bash, Iron Maiden.

I only see 2 licenses, no movie.

Like Mr. Sharpe said in his recent H2H Interview, it's kinda sad that the Pinball game is not seen powerful enough in itself that it can stand on his own instead on a license. If pinball really is this weak maybe swe should all get the heck out...

They're all millionaires. It's a lifestyle choice in Portland.

lol...

WE KNOW!

Believe it or not, anyone that touches licenses are bound to restrictions and protective actions/requests by the rights holder. That's how it works. Every circumstance is different... I doubt you would have heard the same response right after Zombie Y unleashed the awesomeness that is Ghostbusters.

(MB is a license.)

Context is important when discussing licenses. The top games are popular not due to “lack of license”, but because they’ve had decades in arcades and collections to earn their well deserved reputation. They didn’t come from an era of $9k LE pre-ordering. Today’s companies prefer to have front-loaded sales. Something that nostalgic that connects to people who like pinball (like Ghostbusters, Lebowski, Metallica, etc) will have people throwing money at it because they already like “the thing”. Something like Dialed In, Full Throttle or Oktoberfest...people will say “I’ll wait to play it to see if I like it enough to spend that much.” People have to fall in love by playing it first. With a nostalgic license, they convince themselves they already love it without even seeing it.

Dracula and friends are pretty old, Universal doesn't hold any rights to them...
Don't know it of every character of course.

Yes. And while what you say is correct, in context I'm right.

Almost every bar by me does have Pinball. But I am from Milwaukee, we have bars everywhere and we have a large German population. So yeah this game is going to sell very well. Can't speak for other places. I am excited to shoot this game. I know the game is like 30% complete and they can fix most of the issues listed in the previous pages (Music, callouts, animations, etc). I do wish they would rethink the playfield art. It just doesn't scream Oktoberfest, it screams festival. Like this could be any festival in a park.

Maybe once I see it in person I would change my mind.

They aren't homeless.... they are just hipsters.

I have no idea, I don't know anything about Ghostbusters development, but I do know I'd be way more interested in seeing Zombie Yeti do original illustrations, rather than drawing a bunch of movie actor faces. I know he said he had to redraw a lot of things for Iron Maiden because they kept asking for changes. Maybe that's for the best in the end, I dunno, since we didn't get to see the early stuff.

Frankly the Iron Maiden art doesn't really do it for me, because the parade of Eddie's from the comic books doesn't really capture the feeling of the original album art for me. Not ZY's fault, but that's what a licensing is like, you gotta work in their framework. He was drawing someone else's character, using their rules. Cool game, not hating, just saying the potential to be even greater was there. So it goes.

I'll say this though: Stern seems to be getter smarter, and picking licenses that will allow new art, and not the mess that was Game of Thrones. I know that was one was frustrating licensing hell for them, heard it first hand.

Those particular versions they do, yes. It's a license. Just like you can make an Alice In Wonderland game, but you can't make it look just like the Disney film.

I'm just gonna be blunt, those these suck to me. It's not that they're not pre-chewed nostalgia, it's that they're straight up not good themes. Mom Jeans Cell Phone Guy, Boring Motorcycle Racing, and Beer Polka Party aren't gonna sell games in and of themselves.

Taste is always subjective, no way everyone agrees with me about all the themes. But I do think those are all uphill battles to sell. Do a great package and any theme can work, White Water being an excellent example, but that hit on all cylinders. Takes a lot of good work to do that. The music alone in that game is genius.

Oktoberfest looks fun. The art is whatever, you can get past it for a good game if you don't care for it. It's something to talk about on a forum, not any kind of end of the world for the game. But I think they need to nail the sound package for instance, they need to hit all the marks for the whole game to win over the big crowd of buyers.

Lets stay focused people this is the Oktoberfest thread.

The art package and the layout are Done and look fine to me. only thing we really got any influence on now is the Call Outs and the Music if AP feels like listening to us, which i think they are doing.

So back to searching for some genuine music we could all live with and of course getting the Chicken Dance song into this thing

Not exactly what I said, I came around after I learned what Oktoberfest was really all about. But certainly I was not the only one, and while it is a reasonable argument to say that if folks don't get the theme, it is not a good theme, but at the same time I think we have seen how quickly you can change that perception. Might be it is better to have a theme folks are not initially excited about and then let the machine convince them otherwise, than to have a theme everyone is excited about, and then end up having it not living up to expectations. Of course worse case is a theme folks are not excited about and then prove them right. I have no doubt all of you can all put recent games into each of these buckets.

I read all of the comments and posts both positive and negative, as do others at American Pinball. Some I agree with some I don't. For example, I think those who have played the game have walked away with very different feel for the music, then those who have only seen it on the stream. Not saying everyone is going to love it, but clearly the steam did not do it justice, both in the variety of music and the actual compositions. As I've posted previously, I expect the mix to be 75/25, polka/oom-pa to rock, right now it is probably 40/60. What is most important is to have variety so none of it gets old. Music needs to not just fit the theme, but fit the mode or multiball to create the right atmosphere and energy.

Some of the animations I am happy with, some I am not, and some where clearly placeholders. Plenty of comments by critics in this thread on the animations and few who fully understand the dynamics around it. Things will change, but I have no doubt, they will never live up to some people's expectations.

Very strong and diverse opinions on the art package, no surprise there, in fact I put money on it. I have come to learn that art is probably thing thing folks get most worked up over, especially right after a reveal. Whether things change with it, time will tell. At the end of the day, I only know of 10 things carved in stone.

If there were questions or things posted that you would like a response to, post them again, I was keeping up with the thread over the course of the show, but don't recall if there was anything in particular that a response is needed for, sort of got lost int he AC/DC, Thunderbirds conversation.

The stories are old... but the Universal Monsters are their IP and they do control the rights to THOSE VERSIONS OF THE CHARACTERS.

So not 'all draculas' but 'their dracula'

Ooh, there's a good game idea for the current climate - traditional monsters, but trying to be heroes and really having to struggle to shake off their bad image. NOT ALL DRACULAS.

Right. they don't own Stern's dracula. Or Bram Stoker's Dracula.

But they own the Dracula we all know and love.

I for one was also like WTF when i heard AP wanted to do Oktoberfest as their next pin. Then it was shown and "Boom"..... well thats pretty cool. Then since i only know the American Oktoberfest stuff like 2 for 1 at most bars on Oktoberfest beer i watched the video of Josh explaining it so everything on the Playfield makes sense. I sent the pics and videos to a friend of mine who just moved back to Germany a few months ago and he thought it was cool, he didn't dig into it and point out things that were wrong just thought it was cool.

I loaded up Oktoberfest music on my Pandora and have been enjoying it, i plan on jamming it this Saturday at our Halloween / open arcade party.

Can't wait to play it and see how it comes along with code and music/call outs.

Screenshot_2018-10-22-15-53-39 (resized).png

I do understand the difficulty with animation within pinball. However, don't dismiss this important feedback from your customers that you (API) really should be listening to. The quality of the animation on Houdini is not even remotely on par with the year 2018, video games, cell phone games, and most importantly, other pinball manufacturers. It is terribly inconsistent, dated and doesn't represent the quality of the rest of the product.

If Spooky can put together an amazing animation package then it is within your reach as well.

I was in attendance at the reveal with my son and we stopped by to congratulate you on the excellent work. In person, the art package looks really good. There are some things I would hope you could clean up and make it a much better package.

The music was awesome. I think the mix of rock to polka should be more like 60:40. I thought the transitions to the polka style music was well done and the driving guitar riffs definitely should drive the emotion and adrenaline.

Where did Spooky put together an amazing animation package ?

Supposedly Dracula is the most represented fictional character of all time (tv, comics, movies, pinball etc). There is a piece of trivia for you.

Alice Cooper has the best LCD animations IMO of any indie pinball manufacturer, and frankly better than almost anything I've seen Stern do.

Thanks for weighing in rosh From what I’ve seen of early gameplay video and knowing the quality put into Houdini, I’ll offer this. OF looks fun, ballplay looks solid and rules interesting. Can’t wait to find one on location or friends to play. I won’t be buying it though, unless some things changed. I want to help AP put one of these in my home.

I’d suggest a critical review of every element of the game except playfield layout, mechanisms and rules (those are working well). AP would need to make wholesale adjustments to the soft stuff over the next two months leading up to manufacturing. The game has great bones, it just needs more meat and a different shade of lipstick.