I say go for it and you have already provided some great insight and advice to John. But maybe try doing it with a little less vitriol and personal insults.

John is not Jpop, Andrew Heighway or Robert Mueller. Far from it.

John is an adult.

John knows what is best for John.

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That's debatable. I call BS on this myself! Prove me wrong!

He asked the community for money. And he's running the same failed business model as JPOP which is thinking the cost of development can be amortized across 10-20 games. It can't.

I'm sick of scammers. John is STILL fishing for whales. If he was pitching a license people actually wanted, we'd have a problem.

I think Iceman should start a club thread.

(please don't make me use the sarcasm emoji)

Some you guys are really good sleuths digging up some gold nuggets from the past. Contrary to what a few think I have been active talking with industry people over the years. Andrew Heighway was one who took some advice from me, & did it his way. I would of went really slow, watch my space requirements, & not try to do everything in house.

As for the challenge from Pinball Adventures feel free to post your update pictures here. People can see the difference between a one man build with help from contractors. Same with the Ballarama couple over the next 6 months.

In scheduling lingo. If GWJ were to create a detailed plan and allocate time to each step and sequence the steps to somehow end up a mere six months later, almost every activity would be on the critical path and there would be multiple critical paths. Total float on the project is already starting at zero. There can be no delays to almost any tasks and still end up at TPF2023. John is setting himself up for failure with a faulty plan. However many believe he has no detailed plan but for a few scribbles on a beer stained, cocktail napkin. Chances for project succeeding are low. I put it at 8% chance they develop a decent game. The theme is at a critical juncture. It should either be changed back to TPB as intended for a passion project or to a decent theme. Almost any theme is better than trailer trash red neck girls.

Kim the title still could change to Redneck Riviera, or what ever Doug wants on September 1. He is still the only mini whale or investor of $1k USD so far. I have a wealth of dealing with contractors & what can go wrong. Still enjoying my last few days likely drinking, & I usually do the same in tournament play. The playfield design is still from Jon Norris with minor changes by me.

Please, for the love of God, Keep that shit in its own train wreck thread.

I have full faith in my timeline, contractors, & myself. The plan is working & as you can see I am enjoying my summer of drinking beer. The whale hunt is winding down, & the build starts September 1.

Why, only one person's money is on the line and he is well aware of the risk
... what's to gain by continually getting on the soapbox - nobody else is giving him money and he is not going to listen to your advice
something like 80 pages ago there was plenty of good evidence that this is a less than cohesive plan.... not sure what constantly repeating it is going to accomplish/ I mean, any sane investor (no offense ICE) would read about his daily beer counts and run away.

Love to have a signed pic for my man cave...please pm me!!!

This might be an excellent time to inumerate on the sport of monster trucking. Is it a sport? Are drivers athletes? I’d say yea to it being a sport and no to being an athlete. That puts it in the good company with competitive pinball.

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Counts that appear to have recently increased by the way. Purely coincidental I’m sure. It is the end of summer after all…

The Canadian Border Beer Index is trending up but is nowhere near it’s 50-year highs.

I'll see what I can do for ya! I know he's got photos and also this awesome t-shirt he sells when he goes to events

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Wasn't Punny Factory announced 3 years ago? And is only now slowly shipping?

Will John take a hint? Of course not!

I hope Ice goes all "sunk cost fallacy" and turns his 10k POS game into a 30k POS game.

So now Ben is coming around to there will be 1 or 2 Ice games for Texas in March 2023 SXSW & TPF. That they have moved from being DOA to likely playable with more investment by Ice. Could be but I am trying to keep them at $10k USD each with out a industry professional artist. But ultimately my investor will decide the plan.

Yeah probably but come on they are only cutting one playfield. How long could that take..?

LOL.....John we ALL have known for weeks only 1 or 2 builds. It's YOU that is finally realizing 1 or 2 games and NOT up to 10!

Of course, you have to spread the blame!

There are even more wood cnc tables out in shops than 7 years ago. The printer that I was using for doing playfield & glass work was not used for cnc work even though they had one. The new contractor for the cabinet has a cnc. I want to stay with the sign shop that cut my playfields for years since they know how to cut a proper shooter lane to the right length (not like some others) or not being there (Jpop Magic Girl playfields).

The custom plywood in both 1/2" & 3/4" is stocked locally by Robert Bury for their biggest customer & others. Baltic Birch with thin hard maple veneers good both sides, no voids, & no boat tail repairs.

You might be surprised, & if you firmly believe that only 1 or 2 games for Ice is the only result. You will know by March 2023.

When I finally sold my business over a year ago to Fantastic Pinball I was in a serious financial crisis working on: Seawitch (30) & Star Gazer (18) playfields in production. Greg Walker stepped in to buy me out, take care of the few remaining Seawitch playfield customers (which has been done), & pay the last bill for cutting the playfields. I had all the inserts done & they were getting ready for printing. Over the years I personally had to get inserts done like the classic Stern yellow arrow (which CPR got 700 for their production of their titles that use them), & trans blue in 3/4" & 1" by the thousands. Pinball production is very hard, & I do know something from my last 15 years. Plus working on hundreds of games the last 27 years.

Fantastic Pinball will do the printing & finish clear coats of the build for playfields.

But what is the beer count?

No John, I am still sticking with "complete failure". Maybe you haul some POS WW to Expo a year from now but you won't make TPF.

It's slowly shipping? If you know that to be the case then jump on your twitter machine because you've got a global breaking news exclusive.

Thought they were still working on the first one for Bill? Ok now Ben is down to a playfield like Jpop Houdini playfield not until Expo 2023. The bar keeps dropping, you would think it would be better than that with my past playfield production & a Jon Norris design.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/original-jpop-houdini-coming-soon

That's why I thought my start a Club Thread comment was so funny. It would only be one guy there.
(and a fight would still break out)

Well, anyway..... I thought it was funny

I thought it was funny, but I think we should get it started anyway! No this thread is enough to deal with! LOL

I would love to see any sort of schedule John has made for the project

Pat Lawlor once gave an Expo presentation that he later reposted on his website https://web.archive.org/web/20061205224837/http://www.patlawlordesign.com/making/index.html

He mapped out the entire timeline for his project (full of actual experienced pinball people, not a mix of pros and hobbyist)

Look at his seven month projection for Monopoly (and John should have a leg up with Jon Norris providing a decent white wood design)

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>Every Monday I would loudly declare TIME MARCHES ON! and move a yellow post-it arrow sticker one click to the right. Then I would stand back and see how much work we still had to go.

I sure hope John has a similar system as he's mostly dealing with sub contractors and not direct employees in his workshop. I've said it before and someone else brought it up, if you're not figuring out your critical path now you are boned later.

Also I do think it's a feather in John's cap to be experienced with things like making specs, ordering, and receiving custom insert lenses....but ain't no body got time for that in this build

Have you started to learn how to wire a game to the FAST platform? Is that still the system being used? Has it been ordered? Because as I pointed out a few days ago, it's on backorder. Don't see how a coder can start without a flipping white wood (well actually I do see how they could start, but they could have also already started work by this point - just like John could already be working with artists, ordering parts, etc)

Parts are being ordered, light lenses will only be stock available ones, & it is to early for art. Still going with the Fast unless the well is bone dry.

Hey i thought it was funny Kim. Lol.

I'm enjoying just sitting back and watching the show right now.

Not sure why Ben really cares so much wasting his time here. He thinks John is an idiot and he'd love to see me lose $$$. How many other broken record ways can you say it? It's just John and I in this party with the peanut gallery!

Get them part orders in ASAP

Looking forward to this becoming a homebrew wiring troubleshooting guide later. Some people can learn things and laugh along the way. Everyone wins.

80 year bad parts shortages? That won't stop Wonder Boy John! How will he deal with it? Well he's had 8 beers by 5 pm that's how!

Getting ready for the weekend & drinking beer. Maybe pick up some more napkins at the bar. Skilled at a bunch of stuff besides raising a glass, can, or bottle of beer to my mouth. Should be a interesting 6 months.

I thought Ben Heck was working on a board set you could use.

If beer is the ingredient that unlock John’s irrational confidence to pull this off, start exporting cases Ice.

That is nothing like the paradox of throwing money/time at a problem making it worse…

That’s the plan! Gotta fuel the creative juices.

Heading out to happy hour now myself.

Btw, who was the AMH artist? Want to avoid that one.

They must have sketched it out on a napkin over a drunk happy hr

Whatever it’s gonna be, the artwork will be 10x

Exactly. Ben shouldn’t have been such a cheapskate and put more into the art instead of his house. Lol

It’s actually a decent game otherwise. Played it in Austin at Pinballz when it came out

It came out in 2014. 8 years later it’s been one helluva supply chain issue for Ben pin #2

No it paid for like a 1/3 of my house, after taxes. I haven't decided which rooms exactly.

Ice WISHES he'd get a game as good as AMH out of John. He knows he won't HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

What truly is most stunning here is that John has experienced countless delays and cost overruns on his previous projects. So he is seemingly not unaware of what can go wrong, even on just a couple of pieces of a full game. Despite that there is a bluster about everything is going according to plan - when let’s be honest there is no actual plan. I keep seeing this again and again where there is this reality distortion field people get caught up in. Despite all evidence to the contrary they choose to believe differently. And then when reality whacks them upside of the head it becomes all “I woulda met that timeline, I coulda been a contender, if not for thay awful person X who screwed up”. Surprisingly person X will never be GWJ. But we can help out here “John I think you coulda finished on that six month timeline if that awful person GWJ had actually had a written realistic plan, but instead he screwed up and drank beer for 2 months”. Tuck it safely away for 6 months from now.