The idea behind the Kraken theme is you're the captain of a ship and you hunt mythical sea creatures. I like it when a pin takes me on a journey, and this one will take that literally. When you start the game, you set sail on the open seas. The shots you make steer your ship in different directions. Every encounter you have with creatures or other ships along the way changes the journey you're on. The plan is to be able to upgrade your ship's weapons, crew, etc. as you progress through the locations on a big open map.

The end goal of this journey is to hunt down and defeat the mythical kraken. The weapons, ship upgrades, and crew you collect over the journey will play a massive role in the end battle.

This idea is based on the video game 'FTL'. If you haven't played it, the idea is you control a crew on a spaceship and you're on the run from a rebel flagship. The goal is to make it back to your base, then you battle the flagship. Along the way you choose different paths, encounter different enemies and can upgrade your ship and crew in different ways. This means every game is different. Half of your crew may die in one playthrough, then the next time you might be lucky to upgrade to a powerful weapon early on. What makes me keep going back to FTL is the idea that I don't quite know what's going to happen along the way and each game can be quite different.

I want a similar experience with Kraken - each game has a similar journey, but the path you take and encounters along the way can completely change the later part of the game. If you fly through the modes and avoid conflict, you'll have less weapons and crew to deal with the kraken. If you work hard to get the most out of every encounter along the way, the battle with the kraken will be easier. That's the goal - whether I can code something like this is another story.

As you can see, this is an ambitious project (at least for me). Multiple branching paths to take and different ship upgrades means I have a lot of coding and media work to do. While I really enjoyed creating pixel animations on the RGB DMD in my last pin, I feel I need an LCD for this one to display the map and objectives as clearly as possible. I feel it's going to be a lot harder making animations and art look good on an LCD, so we'll see how I go.

The music I created for my last pin was based on a style called synthwave (I was heavily influenced by TNA). It was fun and easy to create after a few YouTube tutorials and really fit the theme. For Kraken, I'm thinking a big and epic journey needs music to match. I'd love to hear suggestions on what type of music you think fits with the theme. I'm thinking big guitar riffs mixed with orchestral parts like a movie soundtrack.

Cabinet Build
I've ordered parts and while I wait (I'm in Australia, so everything is slow to get here) I thought I'd whip a cabinet together. I pulled off the lockbar and leg bracket from my other pin to measure up the new one.

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I found other people's homebrew threads really helpful when I built my first pin, so I'll try and share as much detail as I can along the way to hopefully help somebody else out.

Keen to hear what people think of the theme or any ideas on what should happen in the modes!

While I'm waiting for parts, I'm going to start sculpting a big kraken model for the playfield. The plan is to have a big head sticking out of the water and legs looping around the playfield. I like the idea of having the legs wrap around the ramps. Sort of like GOTG where you have Groot's head over a scoop and hands stretching over the playfield.

I bought some Monster Clay, which is used to sculpt these type of things. Never used it before but there are a stack of tutorials on YouTube.

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The plan is to sculpt the head in clay, create a silicone mold, then make a rubber cast and paint it. I've never done anything like this before, so I'll be watching a lot of tutorials.

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This stuff is surprisingly easy to use. Heat it up in the microwave and it softens until you can scoop it out. It's hard to come up with a good looking design though.

Knowing that I'll have a big kraken head as the main feature makes it easier to start planning the layout. Here's a rough head and mouth sitting on a MDF board where I've been sketching out different layouts in pencil.

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It makes sense to have the head somewhere around here and sit it over a scoop. With the head roughly in position, I spent some time looking over different pins with this main shot. Groot in GOTG, the ship in Star Trek, and Sparky in Metallica are good examples of what I'm aiming for. I like playing those games so they're good starting points.

Here's my first attempt at a monster head:

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More Cthulhu than kraken, but a good practice run.

Cabinet is now ready for when the legs arrive. I might spray the inside so I can start installing the power supplies and FAST boards straight away (bought them a year ago).

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It's a lot of clay. The good thing is that once you use it to create a cast, you heat it up to melt it back down and you can start again.
You can't see it in the photo, but the head I made was shaped over an upside-down bowl. So you can cut down on how much clay you need for big objects.

I guess if the rubber doesn't hold up I re-cast using harder plastic.

Been experimenting with different playfield layouts. I decided on having three flippers before I started, which sort of automatically positions a few shots to feed the flipper.

The orbits and lower third are pretty basic, so I'm using pieces of paper to quickly sketch out different ideas for the middle shots. It'd be interesting to see how the pros plan out their playfields in the early stages.

Here are a couple of layouts I like:

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I want to have lots of loops and use a drop target to block off a path at different times. Some of these shots look tight, so I'm making some cardboard ball guides to quickly test out the layouts.
If they're too tight, I could cut the two captive balls to one. The idea is to make these look like cannons on the ship.

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As soon as the parts arrive, I'll be able to wire up the flippers and see how these shots feel.

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Having my other pin and some spare parts makes this one easy to measure up and get ready for parts.

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I've seen other people use foam core, but cardboard seems to work just fine.

At night I've been experimenting with different sculpture designs. Here's one that really didn't work out to show how hard it is to come up with original designs:

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Those people on YouTube make it look so easy.

I like your idea of having a drop target at the entry to the mouth. It sounds like a good way to mix things up during different modes and would look good with a beak decal. I'll see if I can squeeze one in after I try the first layout with the drop in the loop.

I'd love to have the tentacles move around or even come down onto the playfield to block off shots or use as targets (the suckers on the tentacles would work perfectly as targets). How good would it be to be able to change the layout of the playfield by lowering or raising tentacles!
But I have no idea how to do something that complicated with off-the-shelf parts. It might be easy for someone like Ben Heck, but it seems like a daunting job for me.

Not much time to work on Kraken over Christmas, but managed to set up some cardboard ball guides to test out a layout.

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Making cardboard ramps might take a bit longer, but should give me a good idea of how this layout flows.

I wired up the power supplies, FAST Power Filter and Controller boards.

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I also added some terminals in the cabinet to be able to easily connect and disconnect the playfield.

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The switches for the flipper buttons and start button also need to connect to the playfield because the switch board will be mounted on the playfield.
As soon as I have my playfield parts, I should be able to quickly wire it up and test it out.

Well, I do have a bottle of Kraken (the ceramic one) sitting next to the cabinet. So it's definitely influencing the design in one way or another...

After trying to make a few different monster heads and getting frustrated with them, I thought I'd try a more straight-forward octopus head.

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Pretty happy with how it opens up at the front for the ball to go in. It should look good with the ball flying in and out. It sort of looks like a mouth without looking weird. Looks more like a kraken than any other attempts.

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I also made a tentacle loop that will stick out of the playfield in a few spots.

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I'm boxing it up in cardboard so I can try making a silicone mould. Never tried this before, so it'll be interesting if it works.

Seeing as I'll be using an LCD for the display, I've been playing around with different layouts on a cheap sketchpad.

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The idea is that you will have a map showing your current path, what shots you need to take to go to different places, and an overview of your ship with what weapons you have, crew, etc. What else do you consider essential to have on the screen?

Need to research how other pins use an LCD. I'd love to hear what pin you think does the best job of using an LCD and why. Or what pins do a bad job so I know what to avoid!

Smoothed out the clay head and added some texture to it. Pretty happy with how it turned out.

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Boxed up the tentacle loop and prepared it for mould making.

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It used a lot of the silicone, so I'm going to need to buy a lot for the head. It started to firm up within about 10 minutes, which was plenty of time to work it.

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Once I cut the clay out, I'll try casting it.

Not much else I can work on while I wait for parts, so I'm going to start working on the media for the screen. Here's a mockup of the layout I'm thinking about for the main screen.

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It won't have bright colours like this one, this is just so I can figure out what works and what doesn't.

Last time I built a pin, I did all of the physical work first, then started coding at the very end. This time I want to be able to play my pin as soon as possible! So last night I started working in MPF (Mission Pinball Framework) to set up the basic game modes. Went through the MPF tutorial to refresh my memory and set up modes for mystery awards, combos, shots, and skillshots.

If you're thinking of building a pin, I highly recommend MPF. Once you get used to the basics, it's so easy to use without having to know any programming languages.

I designed a Kraken logo and used some Adobe After Effects templates to use for different awards and titles.

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Combos, jackpots, and skillshot awards will pop up over the top of the main screen like this:

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Found a great template that animates a book and opens up on a page. This is perfect for mystery awards.

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I was a bit worried at first about using a big display, but this is way better than hand drawing pixel animations frame by frame from scratch for a DMD like I did last time.

The resin tentacles turned out fine. It was a bit of work to get the clay tentacle out, but the silicone is pretty flexible.

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On my first attempt, I didn't add enough resin, but slushing it around was enough to build a firm wall at the ends as you can see above. On the second attempt, I filled it properly and it turned out fine.
These loops will stick out of the playfield to make it look like the Kraken is coming out of the water.

Now that I've had some practice, I can finish the Kraken head and try casting it.

Parts arrived, so I'll finally get to make some real progress. The plan is to wire up the minimum parts so I can get it flipping and see how the shots feel. Then if I'm happy with the layout, I'll add the other parts and wire everything up.

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The cardboard ramps were a pain to put together, but they do a good enough job.

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Hyperdrive was the first pin I made back in 2018. It was a practice attempt to see if I could make one and is heavily inspired by TNA.

You can see the entire build process here with photos and video: https://www.aussiearcade.com/forum/pinball/pinball-restoration-s/home-brew-pinball-projects/99290-homebrew-tna-inspired-build-first-time-build

Wired the FAST boards to the flippers and flipper buttons so I can quickly test the layout.

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Pretty happy with how the shots feel and make some adjustments to the cardboard positions. But overall, the layout feels good.

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Now I'll unplug everything, remove the cardboard, then add all the other hardware. I'll trace the layout before I add all the other hardware so I can scan it into my PC and start planning the artwork, inserts layout, etc.

Wiring up the flippers made me remember how much work it was to wire up my last pin. Not looking forward to doing it all again!

Added the other hardware to the playfield. Not really worried about adding rollover targets at this stage, still want to test the layout and make sure the shots feel good.

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Added a lower scoop that points at the right loop shot. The idea is that the scoop would return the ball to the upper right flipper. I didn't think it would work but it does. The cardboard does an okay job at passing the ball through towards the right flipper. Hopefully the metal guides will do a better job.

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Here's a rough idea of what it will look like with the kraken head in position.

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I'm happy with how it looks so I boxed it up and added the silicone.

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It would have taken far too much silicon to cover completely, so on the second half I added cornflour to the silicone to thicken it up like a paste. Cut down how much silicone I needed to use by a lot.

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In the other thread I linked to in the first post, I talked about how a lot of people do a retheme as their first homebrew as it's easier than starting completely from scratch.
Hyperdrive is sort of one step above a retheme, but all the credit still goes to TNA for being an awesome layout.

Removed the clay from the mould after it cured. This is a big chunk of silicone.

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It was a pain to pour the resin in the mould. It would have used a lot of resin to fill it, so I had to do it in stages and slosh it around.

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While it's fairly flexible, this thing is tough. There's definitely not going to be any problems with flyballs. You can see I added more resin at the front where it is most likely to get hit by a ball.

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Just need to trim the edges and clean up the ball entrance.

If you meant the scoop on the left, it's pretty easy to hit it from the right flipper. Instead of aiming straight for the scoop, you aim slightly above it. I'll be putting a post somewhere above it to widen the shot and help the ball bounce in from above. I also managed to hit it a few times from the upper flipper, so I'm not too worried about it.

Designed the two ramps in CAD a week ago after some YouTube tutorials and had them laser cut.

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It's probably not obvious how these ramps will work, but these photos should give a good hint:

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Have no idea if these will work, but luckily it's pretty cheap to cut different versions if needed.

I borrowed a friend's TIG and managed to weld the ramps together. First time using a TIG so I was glad I didn't destroy them.

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The holes in the sides and the brackets sticking out are for the optos. The sides will be covered with a sticker, so the scratches you can see don't matter.

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I like it when I can always see the ball, so I designed these ramps so they don't block the view to the outside orbit.

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Note that the ramps will be pushed back behind the blue targets compared to what you see above.

Next job is to make the wireforms. The plan after that is to make tentacles that wrap around the ramps.

I made some rings so I can start trying to put together the wireforms for the ramps.

Started by wrapping the wire around an old vacuum pole.

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Cutting the rings was a bit messy as the tension would change as each ring was cut off. So the wire kept shifting as you can see below.

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But managed to get a few useable rings out of it.

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After cleaning up the ends and bending them to form a decent circle, I used silver solder to join the ends. I don't know how well this will hold, but I just couldn't get the TIG to weld it properly.

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Pretty happy with the end result after cleaning up the join and I couldn't pull it apart with my hands, so that's a good sign.

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While I work on the wireforms, I've been trying to figure out what I'm going to do with inserts.

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I'm a bit stuck on what inserts I need to have vs what aren't essential.

So far, here's the list of must-have inserts: ball lock, playfield X, bonus X, at least one indicator per main shot, ball save, light mode/mode ready.

What's missing? What indicators would annoy you if they were missing?

It's going to be a mode based game with a lot of branching paths, similar to Stern Jurassic Park. That's why I'm having trouble figuring out what to do. I plan on having a lot of modes, so don't really want to have that many inserts to map the modes out like Stern did.
The idea is to also upgrade your ship's weapons and crew based on mode performance, so I'm not sure what type of inserts would be relevant for that aspect of the game.

I haven't added it yet, but there will be a post or target somewhere above the scoop to hit from the right flipper that will rebound the ball into the scoop. I tested it by holding a post down with my hand in a few spots and it worked well.

I now know why so many homebrews don't use ramps or use ramps from other machines. It's a pain to make your own!

It's surprisingly hard to create smooth curves in the wire. As I mentioned earlier, I'm aiming for maximum ball visibility, so I'm trying to bend it so the ramp isn't blocking the view to the upper flipper.

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The hardest part was getting the two bottom wires to line up nicely with an even gap all the way along. Once that was done, the job wasn't too bad.

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I'm glad I only have two ramps to make. Well done to all the other homebrews I've seen with complicated ramps all over the place.

Thanks for your suggestion, but I didn't weld these. I mentioned earlier that I'm not skilled enough to use a TIG on these so I'm using silver solder. I know soldering isn't as strong as welding (I researched all my options before starting), but that's all I'm capable of at the moment and I'm prepared to deal with issues later on as a result. The gunk all over the place you can see in the photos is flux and will be cleaned off later on.