When so many are eager to order before they have even played the pin what’s Stern’s motivation for shipping w the code complete? They crank out games, themes, and execute on deliveries. Efficiency is great but not if quality, code, or fun are missing. The only part that appeals to me is the B/W play field and artwork.

Fun and quality aren’t missing from Munsters

In case you missed it Stern has hit a brick wall on Munster sales, thus if they want to sell more pins they should improve code

That would be their motivation

I wrote this in the Dark Night for Stern thread a while back:

“I'm no longer going to buy a game for what it might become in the future or what a company tells me they are going to do. Actions speak louder than words. I'm going to be buying on what I get today, not promises of what I'll get tomorrow.”

I’m following my own advice for both Munsters and Elvira. Hope the code will be good enough for me on at least one of them. I have a preference for the Munsters but unfortunately don’t think that’s going to happen.

Jaylar. That ain't hate at all. People get it, so many want more on this spectacular looking, themed game.

Like you, I love everything about it, not the code.

I , like many others , have 12k AUD of Sterns money...... sitting firmly in my pocket.

And for now, it's saying there.

I usually don’t post much in the pinside threads for newer games. And my collection trends towards 80s and 90s Williams titles. I just spent a couple hours on a Munsters Premium on location at a barcade here in Denver and I think the game is fantastic. I really feel like the game was made for location play. Really satisfying shots. Clear but challenging rule set. Dependence on shot making and flipper skills. Risk/reward. Game really is a throwback to 90s Bally/Williams games. I had a few beers and had a ball playing this game.

Admittedly the prices are high for the home collector. And I think the Pro is not the game Borg designed. You really need to play the Premium/LE.

But I am baffled by the haters on this title. I think people are over thinking pinball. And their expectations on what pinball should be. This was just so much fun. Just my thoughts.

Well to be honest, I don’t like Munsters layout and theme. But beside that, I would be pissed if I had bought the game NIB. The game code is basic. Like mentioned earlier in this thread, i think the code is equal to WPC-95 code depth. I can play a Munsters Le on location nearby. The only thing wich is fun is the mini playfield. At this location is also DP LE and BM66 Pre. BM is deep as hell in terms of code and a lot of fun. I would say BM is focused for professional player code wise.
DP is also a lot of fun. I would say DP is one of a few games wich is a great compromise for casual and professional players. Code is not so deep, but deep enough.

Anyway, it seems like the wide majority of Munster owners is not happy for what they paid and what they got. I thinks this game and the whole Munsters and Ghostbusters code story will have a huge impact for Sterns future game releases with Dwight coded games.

I bought Munsters and Ghostbusters both NIB and i am extremely happy with both purchases. Both games are gorgeous and very fun to play. I don't think that i know anyone that bought a Munsters that hates it. That would be really stupid to buy a game that you hate wouldn't it?

Munsters should be fun, but it’s not really. We’ll see what they do.

Yeah, I didn’t say I hate Ghostbuster. I have one myself wich i bought NIB. And after 2 years still like
The point is. Everyone wich has either Munsters or Ghostbuster. Will most likely avoid any future release with Dwight on code or at least wait and see how the code is developing.
As i am saying the whole situation might or might not have impact on future game sales.

I was the very first person to point out how bad a game Munsters is... I must have got 150 downvotes. What is the big deal with down votes its probably the dumbest thing I've ever seen on a forum anywhere. You give a license to babies to be just that babies.

Stern in general has struck out now three times in a row... Beatles - Munsters and now Black Knight.

Each game has something in common ... very basic, limited effort to do something new and original, and the code is just that bad. I friend of mine beat Black Knight the first 4 out 5 times he played it. Boom done beat it game 1 ever played, game over. Where are the toys, the detail, where is something original on Black Knight. Black knight pro will be selling for under $4000 within a year, and if anyone is dumb enough to waste your money on an LE OMG you'll take a major league bath when you ever try to sell it. I'm predicting Black Knight LE will sell for less than 6k within 12 months, looks like Munsters might be following that path.

A friend of mine just bought a Munsters LE with less than 100 plays for $6500.00. I also see Munster pros going for $4500 and the game has paint still drying.

Stern needs to stop using all these oldie but goodie pinball designers and bring in younger guys with pie in the sky idea's. Look at Iron Maiden everyone loves that game and the designer it was his first game. We need to have term limits on pinball designers! LOL

Munsters is a boring game its not original, not very much fun, and gets old quickly.

Black Knight is even WORSE!

I think Stern is now an automated factory churning out games as fast as they can. Stern needs to slow down, take their time and look for the new twist before they release another same old same old game. I'm done buying LE machines from Stern until it looks like they actually tried to give you your monies worth.

The real question people should be asking is this... are games made today more fun than games made in the 90's? There has been so many games released can you really do something different that we haven't see before? Is any pinball company actually trying to do something revolutionary with pinball? I think its time to really start thinking outside the box because there is enough pinball games out there right now that even if no one ever makes a new game, you could buy something new to you every week and it would take you years to get them all.

I have seen very few posts from people who truly hate Munsters. The vast majority of critics like/love almost every aspect of the game but are extremely disappointed with the code and level of asset use. And many of those people speak out because they really want the game in their collections. I think the new Black Knight game suffers from some of the same issues but I really don’t care because I’m not interested or invested theme (but recognize that others are).

Expectations of pinball have risen with prices. 90’s level code suitable for a DMD game doesn’t cut it twenty plus years later in the LCD era at the prices Stern charges for new games.

I hate to tell you this because its kind of mean but nobody cares what you have to say because you just arent credible around here and nobody takes the time to read your 20 paragraph posts either. Why do you even waste your time here?

As others have said it's the theme integration that needs to improve. Stern has the assets to the show, use more of them! Theme integration is partially what helps bring a theme in a pinball machine to life. Hearing few and repeated callouts gets old. Ideally there should be unique callouts from the show for each character mode and for each level of Munster Madness. I understand that Stern wanted to create a more simple / straightforward ruleset with Munsters. That's cool. However, there's no excuse for not loading the game up with a wide variety of assets from the show.

Look at the making of video. They clearly did the work to identify assets that would be good to use (and many are in the software, just unused). That’s what makes this even sadder. Not expecting Batman 66 level integration but there’s plenty of room for improvement.

Spot on. Theme integration ala BM66 is a no brainer for this game

Several good clips on the match sequence, it’s like they just dropped in some of what’s leftover and called it a day

I’m hopeful for much more integration of video regardless of code

Agreed, poor asset utilization a main concern from Munsters.

I also think with the "bare bones" code that is supposedly approachable for beginners on location, I just don't understand why pinball hasn't gotten into selectable difficulty settings at game start. By making code and assets worthy of the license, but also having an "easy setting" selectable at launch, the beginners could have any new game catered to their skill level, while the advanced player doesn't get bored by ball 2. When I play our ST against the kids at family gatherings, I play one handed to level the playing field.

Hell, even half my old NES games allow you to choose difficulty at start. Tweak some scoring, amount of lit shots, ball save timer, and whatnot to make games fun for new players, but not boring for all of us that didn't choose that setting. Then put in a good amount of assets to remove repeatability and you have something that will do well on locations and in homes and not one or the other.

Why not? There is no reason to lower expectations based on other games or coders. Games have become exorbitantly expensive in the last few years.. We shouldn't settle for mediocrity. Unfortunately, until people stop impulse buying games, Stern has no incentive to put more effort into the development.

I would *love* to see the same level of theme integration. But as much as I agree that Stern should put more into development, the reality is that Dwight isn’t anywhere near the type of passionate code designer/programmer that Lyman (or Keith at JJP) is. I don’t know if we will ever see another game from Stern with the level of theme integration in Batman 66 because it was special to Lyman and George and kind of a one off (anniversary showcase, SLE, etc.)

I don’t think Stern will give other teams the extra time needed to bring other games to that level. Maybe occasionally, but not every title.

Unfortunately my expectations on Stern game code have been lowered and the Munsters release further solidified them. Right now, if Lyman isn’t on it, it’s far more of a crap shoot then it should be. I hope that changes, but I’m not banking on it.

It’s the dichotomy of the home owner vs the location player.

I personally suspect that Stern thought Munsters could be another Addams Family. Take the same kind of theme, make it easy to play and understand, and create something to draw players in who remembered having fun with that. Everyone you meet who finds out you’re into pinball tells you they liked Addams Family right?

Maybe it’s working. I dunno that we have any real insight into sales numbers. My guess is in 2019 going after location play and not catering to collectors is a mistake. But we don’t get to see the books.

I do think it’s unfortunate that Dwight is being painted as lazy. My interactions with him have been minimal, Stern cut me off a long time ago, but I was briefly beta testing Star Trek code before that. I got nothing but the impression that he cared.

Have you read his old blog posts about making pinball? He sweated a lot of details in it.

Maybe he’s a bad fit for for this game. Maybe he’s only been given a limited amount of time to work on it. Maybe licensing is more of a headache than people know. Might be rights issues, that happens.

Either way I think criticizing the game is more than fair, it’s clearly not creating the experience fans want, but I wish we could do it without making it personal.

Just my thoughts on that, as someone who knows what it feels like to be on the receiving end.

Fair points. There is a difference between Dwight being lazy and Stern being lazy with the code. Dwight did a good job fixing the mess that ST was and brought much to the game. But the GB code fiasco and now Munsters doesn’t do his reputation any favors, regardless of where the actual fault lies.

I’m basically bored with license slapping. Munsters feels like a prime example. Take something people are nostalgic for, do a good art package (glad we get good art now) and get the fans to buy.

But then that seems to be it. There isn’t enough love and care out into actually making the fans hype. Maybe you need someone on the team who’s a big fan themselves.

For Alien the secret weapon we had was the whole team loved the movies. Getting the atmosphere right and representing the key scenes and characters was super important to all of us.

Not saying our game is the best, but I do think we nailed that. Nobody who’s an Alien fan feels like we didn’t represent the movies.

My take is if you get that right the “depth” of code won’t matter much. Always someone who wants more, but if the world and vibe and atmosphere and quotes and all that good stuff is there it’s probably enough. Just look at Tron.

Well, Borg IS a big fan of the Munsters, but that clearly wasn’t enough.

As for license slapping, I agree 100%. Sadly, I suspect Stern will continue that until they close their doors. But imagine what the teams could do if they were given total freedom to build their version of GOAT with an unlicensed theme that could stand the test of time.

The audio/visual part is the real failure right? I haven’t played it, but I’ve also never even watched the show, I’d be a terrible judge.

But what I’m hearing is people want more quotes, more clips, more things that represent the big scenes.

That’s stuff does take some time. But, it’s also not that hard. I can’t design a playfield, but I do know about integrating video and audio clips into a game.

The work on Black Knight’s media package was way more time intensive than what doing a bunch more Munsters clips would be, I can tell you that.

The rules for it all are kind of a separate thing, but just adding more to the screen and speakers isn’t rocket science. They could at least mix it up more so you heard and saw some variety.

The bet they could buy a lot of fan goodwill just doing that.

It literally BLOWS ME AWAY that Stern would be “lazy” on any code for any game

Look at the results. Are they trying to sell less pins?

All the development work that goes into making a pin and the initial excitement of Munsters and then THUD

I mean I love the pin but it should be so much more on theme integration at least

Maybe all they care about is hitting a goal of 12k machines per year no matter where they come from?

BUT I really think stuff like this is gonna come back to haunt them eventually if they keep it up

Yeah, that’s what gets me the most. Making a pin is so much freaking work, it really is. And then to not follow through on the rest after all that?

Stern just cares about pumping them out and running the line and cashing checks I guess. And fair enough if people keep buying. For for the money they charge people should definitely expect more.

DR coming out

I mean the “perception”, whether or not it’s reality, is that Stern seems to take us buyers for granted

Yes, that would go a long way though I think there has to be more to game play than the one trick “press your luck with jackpots” strategy. Other than the multitude of match sequences there’s very little focus on actual characters callouts/video/audio.

Family Guy is a great example of how to make a comedy/sitcom into a pinball. Granted, Munsters can't use the actors for custom quotes...but the Stern team did an excellent job in plucking audio quotes from 5 seasons worth of the show for use in the pin in "pin appropriate" ways. For example, if you drain without hitting anything in a mode you might hear "Swing and a miss" from Brian or "You did....you did goooooood" from Stewie. Every time you hit Meg, you get a quote of her crying or saying something whiney. Every time you hit Chris, you get a Chris quote, etc. I think this is what people expect from Munsters. Lots of character specific quotes since the game has so many character specific shots.

Remember that episode where Grandpa Munster stacked a bunch of jackpots before cashing them in? That's what the goal is.

Edit: Yeah, I know.... I don't remember that episode either.

Stern needed to pick 1 or 2 classic episodes for each character and make you play through that episode to collect each of them.

Agreed. It isn't that Dwight is lazy, all you have to do is look at other pins that he has done code on. Not only Star Trek, but GoT and probably his best to date: Star Wars. If anyone is familiar with the code/rules on Star Wars they would know that Dwight is not only not lazy, but is very capable of doing great code.

I agree with your other comments about the dichotomy of home use vs location play as well. Who knows whose idea it was to go with a more simple ruleset on Munsters for sure, but it sounds like it was something that was mutually agreed on at Stern. It seems like it can be a fun ruleset with the risk/reward aspect, although some might argue that it's a one trick pony.

Fun would be dependent upon the player but I much prefer recent Stern offerings like IMDN or BM66. Too each his own play and enjoy! It just baffles me that FOMO leads so many to buy before they flip. Utilizing some patience would alleviate buying games with code you find incomplete.

Well i also own BM66 from day one. Worst code ever at the outset. But it was Lyman.

As for IMDN, my LE is gone.

Calling Major Bullsh*t on this point. No way he beat this game the first 4 out of 5 times he played it. Did you see Keith Elwin Struggle with it on the release stream? And he works there! Aside from being one of the absolute best pinball players in the world. No need to lie, just say you don't like it.

I don’t know who this guy is but let’s just say that this isn’t the first time he has posted something that could be considered BS

finishing quickly a game not always means that this game is too easy/shallow/simple/dull...

for example : my son did fully complete LAST MAN STANDING on our TWD the 3rd day pin was home !!!
but than, in +/- 1 year owning it, he only reached a second time LMS (without completing it)
of course he's a good player, but let's just admit that day was just "his" day

now, back to Munster (and we will see for BK3), thats another story, nothing to compare with TWD, which is surelly a masterpiece from a code point of view

Agree, except I would buy a Keith coded game.

Maiden is as good a game as any game done in the past - code wise.

It helps if you like the music and can accept the lack of playfield toys.

Good to know. Haven’t played IM because i don’t like the theme (or music pins in general)

Last impulse buy I made was The Hobbit LE- never again!

Hobbit LE is the bomb. Love that game. Leaves Munsters in the dust.

My next nib game is a game I am going to hate.

That wouldn't surprise me. lol

I like the Munsters, will be buying a premium this week

I may not be too far behind you.....