Nice! It's probably no surprise that after I chose the theme I somehow managed to build up a small collection of Kraken Rum bottles.

Finally able to test the ramp to see if it actually works. I designed it without knowing whether it would work or not, so it was a massive relief to see this:

kraken_ramp.gif

I was surprised by how smoothly the ball landed on the wireforms and by how fairly light shots still made it up the ramp entrance.

I still have some work to do on each end of the wireform, but here's how it looks on the playfield:

kraken_1 (resized).jpg

I'm not a fan of how some ramps will bounce the ball around before releasing it to the playfield because it looks clunky. So my goal is to have a smooth exit that releases the ball a bit faster than normal towards the flippers. I'm sure I'll need to add extra protection to the playfield, but I want a fast and smooth ramp exit.

Same here. Would have prefered to weld it properly, but this will do for now until I properly learn to weld. If problems show up later on, I'll mention it on this thread. All stainless steel 304.

Great minds think alike! The plan is to make tentacles to wrap around the ramps.

Needed a bit of a break from making ramps, so I cut the plastics:

kraken_1 (resized).jpg

I was going to order laser cut plastic, but the cheapest quote was $110 (AUD), while a blank sheet of clear polycarbonate cost under $20 on eBay. So I printed the design out on paper, cut the paper parts out, taped them onto the plastic, then used a jigsaw to cut them. Pretty simple.

kraken_2 (resized).jpg

kraken_3 (resized).jpg

Just need to sand the edges so they're nice and smooth and drill holes for posts. The art won't be done for a long time, so these will just sit around until then.

kraken_4 (resized).jpg

Despite the 38°C weather (100F), I sweated my way through finishing the left ramp.

kraken_1 (resized).jpg

It's not as smooth as the right ramp so it needs a bit of fine-tuning. The area to screw down at the back is way too big, so it sticks out into the orbit area. I'll cut the left support off and try something else, otherwise I'll change the design and get a new one laser cut.

Here are the ramps in action:

kraken_2.gif

Pretty happy with the progress I've made in under two months. But things will slow down now that I need to start working on the art. I really want this machine to look professional, so I'll be taking my time to get the art as good as possible.

If I was rich, I'd throw a wad of cash to Zombie Yeti as it would be awesome to see him come up with wild sea monsters all over the playfield and cabinet.

You can see in the other photos that the spinner leads to the orbit. As I mentioned, the support for the ramp sticks out too far, so I'll need to cut it off so it doesn't block the orbit. That's why it doesn't look right in the latest photos.

I fully had planned to finish this pin this year, but then I kind of got a bit distracted with this: HoloPin Projection Mapped Pinball

It's been a lot of fun this year experimenting with different themes for that machine, but I am keen to get back into building this one.

I just bought a 3D printer and plan to use it for this pin. I'm thinking of modeling cannons, sea monsters and ship parts to fit the theme. Mixing up the sculpts with 3D printed parts will be interesting.

Thanks, sorry I've been out of the loop for quite a while. We had our first baby and she takes up quite a bit of time I would normally sink into building pinball!

Congrats on your build, I just checked the thread out. It's really interesting how similar both of our builds are - great minds think alike!
I like the plank-style on your cabinet and playfield. I was planning on using stickers with a plank print, but yours looks so much better. The brass wireforms on yours definitely suit the theme better than what I'm using.

The kraken head was molded with polyurethane resin - it's very rubbery so not like a typical hard resin.

I've had a bit of a break from Kraken after I started building Holopin, but now that's done I've been slowly getting back to it. I've been playing around with the idea of adding an upper playfield, because I think the layout needs a bit more than what I've shown here.

Keen to hear what upper playfields other people enjoy playing so I can get some ideas on what to do.

Thanks! It's definitely different compared to traditional pinball, but I love that I can add new themes at any time. It's just a lot more work creating animations compared to typical inserts and GI lighting.

An epoxy sculpt for your backbox would be really interesting to see. I struggled with creating good looking clay sculptures - people on YouTube make it look too easy.

Yes I use MPF for all of my projects. If anybody is intimidated by the thought of coding a homebrew, MPF is the way to go. I've contributed quite a bit to the MPF docs as a way to give back to the MPF community. I wouldn't have been able to get my homebrews flipping without it.

The light show creator is also fantastic and I use it for everything. Once you learn how to use it, you can create some impressive light shows that rival what you see from the big manufacturers.