Or that has to PAY for it...

Probably. I was watching a lot of aluminum casting videos last week for a reference for a project I have. A little acetone and you can smooth out extrusion style printed parts pretty nicely.

Hold on, so those return lanes we saw in aluminum, there are other parts that still don't exist as anything other than paper?

Is there a hope in hell of seeing a "completed" game any time soon? What was the point of getting the aluminum ramp molds made if there are other parts that aren't done?

It certainly looks like it according to the paper pieces on the playfield pic.

My big question has always been: Will you even SEE the display in the back with all that rampage all up in front of it? Or has it pretty much been relegated to a "live" backboard?

I'm going to answer my own question:

The point is so in a month Jpop will post video of taking delivery of the "final" ramps, holding the ramps, showing them, maybe a photo of the lower playfield with the ramps installed... but still no playable game.

Because you have to start somewhere.. If he'd done the reverse would it have made a difference?

From the photo I saw before it was removed, yes there is a middle "corkscrew ramp" that feeds [the ramps he milled]

Everything else looked in place (laser-cut flat PETG, no problem) but yeah that last twisted ramp, not sure how you'd vacuum form that sucker.

Should probably be a plastic entry ramp that turns into a habitrail. John likes to say "nobody thought the TOTAN ramp would work either" but man, this REALLY looks like a long shot to get the ball to the top.

Haha i was wondering the same thing..

I still don't get why people are taking down the pf photos

The other thing I thought of when I saw the huge corkscrew ramp is that it'll likely take blue flipper coils to get the ball up that thing, which means, parts breakage everywhere else on the playfield!

Having to "start" somewhere isn't how this is being presented. John has been pitching these recent moves as completing his game, getting it ready to go on the road at shows and for production.

That there is a major component not done, or even being close to done, is not how this is being pitched.

He was trying to make the impression that he was going to show up somewhere with his game next month and people were going to play it. Magic Girl has been falsely presented as being "done" since last December with his big "reveal". Hearing about one thing after the next that is not even being close to done after being told all these things is what is getting me upset.

If he won't drag MG out to Chicago or MGC, then why would he risk shipping it across the country? My guess is he's heading West since that's the only place he can show up "without" an MG and nobody will be that disappointed for hearing that John didn't want to risk shipping it.

GLM we had that issue with AMH as well. Required bigger coils to get balls up the "jump ramp" and caused the game to be faster and more difficult as a whole. Should have ditched the jump ramp to begin with.

You can shoot a ball on a paper ramp. If that's what it takes to have a game flipping for a show or investor, so be it!

People would much rather play a game with an unfinished ramp than look at an empty cabinet.

Fair enough, but we don't know where he's at with development of that main spiral component .. we don't even know when this picture was taken.

Anyway my point is, if you're going to speculate then you need to in both directions

All this talk sounds like debating if the Loc Ness Monster is brown or black or some other color.

Everybody knows it's multi-colored with hues of blue, purple, green. Only seen in partial shots, never complete. Oh, you mean Nellie...

It's interesting that two guys (you Tony and Ben) that I've never heard say anything publicly bad about anyone are so pissed at John. Not giving either of you a hard time about it. It's just interesting that John pissed off two very even-keel tech guys to this point. Let this be a lesson to anyone thinking of working with John.

I just grabbed a couple shots from the Adobe video of the ramp assembly/thing. I've seen the game in person several times. Compared to any other pinball game I have ever seen, it is very tall and dominates the back half of the game. The main spiral ramp will require some major tooling and work to produce properly. I never saw it actually work.

Spiral-ramp.jpg

Spiral-ramp-2.jpg

The ramp might require a turbo charger like I500 or magnet propulsion to make it all the way up.

I will be willing to bet that ramp is probably shootable. Based on it's position and curvature, with strong flippers you should *just* be able to make it. Forget about less-then-ideal unshopped flippers though.

If you look closely, it's still going up the ramp (rising) on the right side of it's initial path, but that rise is going back towards the front of the playfield. That rise won't really be rising much, it will begin to flatten out but still technically be "rising" (taking the 6.5 slope into account) so it's not *that* steep if at all there. There is a little bit of a rise again on the upper left part of the loop around but the ball could keep momentum via the circular forces swooping around the downward motion in the front of the ramp's loop.

pfs.png

pfs2.png

The ramp in the above two pictures looks different than the one that was posted previously. Didn't save a copy of it, so I'm trying to remember what the difference was (if any).

Can anyone shoot me the OH NOES GREAT HARM pic so I can see WTH everyone is discussing?

The way it can work without special powerful coils is the same technique as used on the Totan ramp,

The ramp will have a decreasing radius as it get towards the center. This in effect adds momentum similar to a whirlpool effect which can increase the speed of the ball.

Yes I know a whirlpool is created by both gravity and the coriolis effect thats why I said similar!

I would like to see it, as well. Any news on the letter/memo that StevenP was editing? It ahs been well over a week since it was reported here. Did I miss it somehow?

Here is the picture. Great Harm abounds.

IMG_1308.JPG

I brightened it up in I photo so that we can see more detail

405548-i.jpg

Latest art revision for RAZA:

image.jpg

When you don't get paid, it changes things.
Does anybody think a vendor would open a new invoice for Jpop - ever again?

Its insane to me that so much finishing touches have been made to playfield art and cabinets and huge parts of the game aren't even engineered. That people were reporting this game as "near complete" 6 months ago or even last week is nuts.

Am I the only one that thinks the MG playfield is a cluttered, convoluted mess? I've never liked the way this looks to play with that monstrosity in the middle. I was always more hopeful RAZA (the game I'm in on) would be a better player.

This seems like a classic case of over-engineering something to live up to his "cool, innovative ramp and magnet guy" reputation at the expense of the game. If I wanted to see that little of what I can shoot on the upper playfield, I'd get a P2K or a Popeye.

Reminds me of JD. I always though you *can* put too much stuff, toys, crap into an area this looks cluttered.

With RAZA John was spitballing so many toys etc... I would be concerned that it too will become a hoarder situation.

The spiral ramp looks to have a gap / hole to drop the ball into the right ramp.

So maybe the spiral ramp can be done in 2 pieces? Still, a lot more complicated than the 2 "flat" ramps he milled.

Still, ramps aside, the rest of it seems to be there so... hope?

Nope... Code.

It's starting to remind me of another game that had a custom sized play field, custom cabinet and custom glass. Had to put the DMD in a custom location so people could see it.

Pinball Circus.jpg

This is getting towards the Pinball Circuis height. But with the circ, it was intended that way. Hopefully the pf glass wont slide down like a guillotine.

Causing great harm?

Almost looks like there's a hole up the middle with some magnets at play to elevate the ball up to the top.

All I can think of when I see both the wiggle ramps and that big long, steep spiral is "wow, this is going to play slow".

Cyclone phoned ... It wants its wiggle ramps back.

rd.

Too funny. Plus, it did have a clown with a wheel on the backglass:

backglass_sm.jpg

FWIW Jinx was the name of the cat in Pinball Magic. Not that it matters, just found it interesting.

Chris

Didn't John apply for a patent concerning a pinball "rolling-up" and/or somehow interacting with the LCD screen in the back of the cabinet? I remember seeing postings about that here on Pinside a long time ago, and I assumed John planned on using that idea on MG. So far, I haven't seen anything that would indicate he's using that idea on MG after all. Maybe he was saving it for RAZA or AIW or perhaps P3 put an end to that idea altogether? Then again, maybe the idea was to implement it on the Pussycat Bowling pin? Well, that could actually make sense! Shoot the ball up a curved/clear ramp which overlays the LCD screen in the back of the cabinet. You would use the pinball to "bowl" at virtual bowling pins displayed on the LCD screen?

Whatever the case, John needs to focus on a "complete" flipping MG and nothing else at this point. Whether that will make any difference this late into the fiasco, I'm not sure. This whole mess is so discouraging, but I hold out hope anyone who has sent JPop money will somehow end up with a pin in the end.

Ditto's

Jinx was the name of the cat in Meet the Parents.

Connection ?!

3 ramps, a lot of fuckin magnets, zero drop targets, two small stand up targets?

Never mind I see more now. Similar hocus pocus spots like tom

Upside down version of safe cracker spinner blocking ramp shot possibly when it's stopped

One ramp. Just like TOTAN: one entrance, many destinations.

I was wondering what the heck was going on with that post in front of the ramp entrance!?! The "upside down version of the Safe Cracker spinner" might just explain what's going on there...Good Eye!

Seeing the rabbits continuing to block the view of the ball in the inlanes makes me wonder about whether john can play pinball or knows what pinballers want in a game. I remember back in the good old days when Ben and Charlie and Jpop all got along. There was a spooky podcast in which the three of them were playing Tom. One of the players was gorilla flipping like it was going out of style. I'm guessing it wasn't ben or Charlie. I know a great engineer can make a race car and not be able to race, but they rely on feedback from the racers and I'm not sure john has opened himself to any pinhead feedback. As soon as I saw these Ramps I thought, glad I'm in on RAZA because that looks slow.