John Popadiuk update thread……MAGIC GIRL, RAZA, AIW…..

I was gonna squawk about this earlier today.

I thought you were invited to play his Magic Girl. Podcast boy has done a great job of revealing the machine but its your review that I really want to hear. I'd be very disappointed if he reneged on that offer to you.

What we need is a forensic, detailed review of MG by Martin for Pinball News. Martin was in my house today to review Captain Nemo. Ok we talked and played pinball too, but he was here for 5 hours. You just know how good that review will be

For MG he might need somewhat longer (!), but man it would be cool to see an expert's view on all the stuff we've been speculating or been poorly informed about! K bless him doesn't have the expertise we need in his reviews (in fairness, nor would I have). Basically, we need the A-Team on this IMO, as it's no easy problem.

My MG was picked up by the shipper from Jpop today, and will be air-freighted to London Heathrow Airport at the weekend, so I should have it in my house within a week from now. This is a lovely feeling given it was originally ordered Aug 2011

In addition to a Pinball News review (if Martin is agreeable, of course), I've also invited Applejuice to my house to give his professional views on MG and what can be done with the Code to update and 'fix' it e.g. to get the magna flippers working, as well as Everything Else. He can stay here if he wishes, and if necessary I'm happy to lend my MG to Jim for as long as it takes. There's no point pissing around- we need to fix this, and after 5.5 years waiting I'd like to do this ASAP

Applejuice needs his game already, Jpop is still totally silent about his coder and artist??

Excuse me, I'm lost; is this the Tron VE thread?

Nevermind....back to the cannibis thread.

It would be fun to make a list... I'll get it started...

Ball Launch... WCS

Flippers: Humpty Dumpty.

I wonder if John used any of my RAZA money to complete MG? I think he might have. Definitely suing over this. Oh wait...

Pinballs, if Jim does agree to do this, it will be one of the best events in pinball this year.

Maybe you also sense a growing feeling that the community (at large) wants to help Jeremy and Jim in some way. I'd kick in a couple hundy to a Go Fund Me account that can at least get those guys paid--even if they didn't want to continue doing anything with MG.

What we don't know, though, is--will JPOP honor his agreements with those two, or is AP set to honor those agreements. Maybe if we knew more about that situation someone here could organize a crowdfund to help those two (if needed). (That still doesn't get JPOP off the hook)

No they will not. Jpop is "a man without a country".

Have to say, it looks well made, beautiful presentation and appears to flip as good as a few games out at the moment, kind of a shame that this didn't happen as expected but for those who get a game I'm slightly jealous.

So either JPOP is willing and able to pay off Jeremy and Jim or he isn't. Evidence heavily suggests he isn't willing and/or able. At this point I'm willing to send donations (as was suggested by a few people earlier) to a crowd fund for Jeremy/Jim to pay them back for their efforts.

We know Jeremy and Jim both were owed a machine (~$16K) and Jim has mentioned being out $11,777. I don't remember if Jeremy said how much he was owed in backpay by JPOP.

Part of me still says "let JPOP make this right" or "force JPOP to make this right" though.

This doesn't pay back other vendors though (Cointaker and the board mfg whose name I don't remember).

I'd be happy to bring my streaming gear down and do a twitch livestream on it?

Let's just say he has my number and my phone hasn't been ringing.

Considering that in about a week he's no longer gonna have a monopoly on the "willing to share MG with pinside" industry, he should get a skilled player over there while anybody still cares. Time is running out for him to get any more return on his investment.

For what it's worth I associate "Special K" with the abuse of cat tranquilizer by high-ons. But, now that we know what you really meant after your rant...

Sounds cool- I'm definitely up for it You could do Nemo too if you want!

Could you PM me to arrange?

Quoted from 27dnast, somehow the quotes didn't work! so here...
Sure makes me wish that Stern had some wild "outside the box" thinker driving innovation and direction.

How does that song go, don't go changin' to try to please me... well with Pinball that's what we want, yeah I'll take soma dat...

Did all the games ship out? Are there still some waiting shipment? Any chance John has not used RAZA money to build this?

doubt it, raza money was frittered away years ago on endless art revisions. general consensus was that AP paid for the parts in exchange for Houdini designs.

Put it to you this way. I last visited JPOP's shop in December 2014. I saw quantities of parts waiting to be integrated into assemblies for MG. MG was pretty far along. BHZA/RAZA was not functional yet, the topside of the playfield was about 50% mocked up components. BhZA customers had been paying installments for years by then. Where do you think the cash to pay for all those parts in bulk came from?

My assessment after gameplay is it combines the "greatest hits" of ToM, CV, and TOTAN. This includes the music, sound, and voice attentuation and styles.

Sorry, but can someone please post the link to the best gameplay video currently available, thanks.

There isnt any "best" yet.

A couple pages back are 4 or 5 vids, thats it.
Its shots, commentary, and exploration.

Where will he find one?

just playin'

Most of the gimmicks we've seen in his other games but there IS one innovation... if you can call it that.

By placing that rather cheesy looking plastic "magic lamp" (ala TOTAN) at the base of the ramp it nicely deflects failed ramp shots from coming straight back down and draining between the flippers. At first I though it was just an unwanted impediment to making the ramp shot but after seeing it in action I can understand it's purpose.

I'd say with completed code this might get sold around what his WMS games went for... with inflation that would be under 6k.

failed ramp shots deserve to be a drain risk. you have to have risk-reward choices. ideally, you want the player to make long bets on their own accuracy and acuity.

Check out Pinballs post above. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/jpop-update-thread%e2%80%a6%e2%80%a6%e2%80%a6%e2%80%a6%e2%80%a6mg-raza-and-aiw%e2%80%a6/page/442#post-3614548

Right now the best bet is around 16 minutes of gameplay from this Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHK9MuIlhSb0a3HaCfG0wcQ

pinballs Maybe we should try and combine a date when i can come to assess the game and meet up with Martin and Yourself, and possibly the twitch thing to? I am happy to explain features,concepts etc to all in lew of 'Jpop coming to your house and setting the thing up...'

I may have missed it but did anyone mention that he appears to have stolen power playfield from Lawlor and TZ? His design history has a lot of these "homages" sprinkled in.

Do we know if any buyers have tried out the POWER letters spotting and power playfield/magnet flippers features? Still interested to know if its working ad what's going on with the left ramp to playfield diverter.

Yep, CV's pop up bumper is another example. It was done years before but he claimed credit for it. (I've forgotten the older game name. Anyone?)

And on the private owners blog he'd have a hissy fit if other games were made with "his ideas". He did a rant when Metallica came out with the Hammer disappearing ball. After reading that I remember thinking to myself "Jesus, who cares? Shouldn't you be building our games instead of stroking your ego?"

Whatever, Jpop.

Wow, he is so delusional. Tell me about that spinning lamp John. Was your great idea just to take an idea that has been around since 1970 and just stick a plastic lamp on it?

http://ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=11&picno=18537&zoom=1

Lamp (resized).jpg

Wow, what a jackass.

Gusher 1957 and Sea Wolf 1958.

"This" guy is "the" worst.

If I read a post like that from him I would have jumped ship right away, what a completely delusional guy. I like how he mentions their egos at the "other place" lol, and all he apparently cared about was stroking his ego. I'm guessing there were many more out of control comments by him over the years to the private group.

And I'd love to hate-read them!

Ball Launch... WCS
Flippers: Humpty Dumpty

Magna-flippers: TZ

Let's dust them off and get the whole collection up somewhere. For history's sake.

Someone post the one about his criticism at expo of other boutique manufacturers. So laughable in light of some of his short cuts... no shooter lane groove???

Who set up johnpopadiuk.com? Put the quotes up there...

This Jpop business of him whining about people stealing his ideas is absolutely ridiculous. The first time I played TOTAN I thought it was cute how he was paying respect to the same crappy Triple Action I had at home with the spinner. And I remember playing Gusher at the same show where I played CV for the first time.

He's certifiably out of his mind.

Thank you, Shapeshifter, you've saved me hours of head scratching.

Electro-mechanical, pop up, pop bumber, designed by the great Harry Williams in 1958 for Gusher. Pictures are from Sea Wolf.

image-8 (resized).jpg

image-7 (resized).jpg

I really like the vanishing magnet. If JPop was the first to do that then he probably deserves credit for that; but this coming from the guy that "borrowed" ideas from many other machines and outright stole the work from vendors is absolutely ridiculous.

EDIT: This is an interesting topic, perhaps a new thread could be created to discuss copyright and trademark in pinball.

Serious question - and not meant to be taken as a defense of Jpop or go off topic, but a sincere inquiry: At what point does an "homage" or "inspiration", even a subtle or subconscious one END, and "full credit originality" BEGIN?

The timing of this JPOP tangent is interesting, since last night while trolling the local Craigslist I saw a listing for a project '67 Jolly Roger. I'd never seen or heard of the game, so I took a look...

JollyRodger (resized).jpg

...and my first thought was "Holy Shit, that's like Firepower's father". I mean look at it: four top lanes with center target, surrounded by orbit shots, buoyed by a cluster of 4 pops, and a center "bonus" grid leading to the drain.

Give it a nip here and a tuck there to add some locks; populate the wasted space in the lower PF by slapping some targets in front of the pops, replace the right rebound rubber with a target bank, convert to an Italian bottom and boom: Firepower.

Firepower (resized).jpg

I always thought (along with most people, it seems) that FP was Steve Ritchie's original work. Obviously the flow revisions and rule set are to Steve's credit. But the basic playfield layout seems heavily inspired if not outright reworked from Jolly Rodger.

So at some point everything "original" is inspired by what preceded it. Being forthright, humble, and acknowledging prior work can get you some goodwill. But then the where do you draw the line for full credit?

I can't wait til someone posts the video mode, with the large LCD screen it should be stunning. Non functional and or pointless but stunning.

I am wondering if anyone wants to help me with a magic lamp mod. I would like to steal John's idea and get rich too.

IMG_20170223_111955669 (resized).jpg

I'm not seeing it dude. There's like a million EMs with that kind of layout and none of them remind me of Firepower. There are so many differences between the FP and Roger layouts that it would be silly to make a list.