Keep it up, Pinside!!! Can’t wait to get a Munsters Prem for like $2k in a few years. Wooo!

I think some of it is just how the game is choreographed & the nature of "action" vs. "comedy" implementation in pinball. In Iron Man, you're FIGHTING Monger. It's exciting to hit him, and he tries to attack back with the magnet. You're fighting Whiplash & War Machine as well. It's a simple AF game, but very immersive.

Munsters probably needs a bit more of a Pavlovian effect...each shot to a character that counts for progress should give you a jokey clip. Maybe that's improved with the last code revision or two, but for example when I played, hitting the Eddie shots didn't result in any Eddie related clips. Since the game has a simpler ruleset like MB, MB is a good template. Every time you hit a character's shot, you get a little quip from them.

Also - I really think in general players DO NOT LIKE rules that include "hit this shot, then choose to NOT get the reward". I really hate GOT & SW due to the "start this mode, that mode, or pass" rules....WTF would I want to pass? The game doesn't explain it, and it's intrinsically not satisfying.

I didn't start loving pins until around 2006...I liked them, but didn't understand rulesets or anything other than "flip the flippers and don't drain". So - my love of 90's games isn't entirely nostalgic. Good games are forever...and the 90's games are GOOD. That won't change with deeper/more complex/convoluted rulesets of modern games. Sometimes what's there is EXACTLY what a game needs. No more, no less. There's a reason people still love playing Pac-Man. It's exactly what THAT game needs to be, and it's still fun. Same with 90's pins. It's a myth that depth equals fun. Excellent design with excellent rules = fun. At the end of the day, a pinball is a 3 ball short experience. Sometimes less is more.

How am I supposed to have a clue how to play a game when I walk up to it for the first time? All I know is “is this fun or not”. When a game is asking me to pass on something - it’s not fun. You want to make a shot & get a reward. On top of that, it doesn’t explain on the screen what the reason to pass would be. F those games.

Good games, even deep ruleset games, have something anyone can understand right off the bat that result in something fun/cool.

LOTR - Shoot the ring---random mode will start---mode rules are clear.
TSPP - Shoot the garage---ball pops up top---shot to the couch clearly locks for multiball, player knows to do it again. Shot to the TV starts a random mode, mode rules are clear.

These games have a chain of events any novice can figure out relatively quickly. From there, they discover more and more and more until they have a satisfying gameplay/learning experience.

Games like SW are 100% slot machine/board game rulesets...there's really nothing up front to ease you in organically. Some like these types of games, some don't...they're clearly divisive, and I have valid reasons for disliking them. I haven't read up on SW ruleset...but I've played it tons...I have NO IDEA what's going on...it's just rando blinking colors, a lockbar button that doesn't make sense, choices like 2 modes instead of 1 or pass that don't make sense to me, a confusing LCD that looks like a PC CD-ROM with walls of text. Not for me. My wife is a HUUUUUGE Star Wars fan, and even being ultra familiar and in love with the material, she HATES the game. She'd rather play the DE version.

Oh yeah, I don't think Munsters is confusing at all.

I still don't like the Jackpot cancelation...but, I understand it. I just literally never want to see another game with "make the shot, cancel the prize" rules ever again.

No screaming, but absolute confusion due to the Magic The Gathering ruleset and boredom due to the game having absolutely no assets from the movie. Terrible game. Let us never speak of it again.

It’s 2019. People buy $6000-$25,000 games without playing them. Totally normal.

Garbage of the Galaxy? Garbage. Hate everything about it, and I love the movies. Bobaleebobo fake voices destroy it. Don’t care about Cleland’s mod...I want it done right by the pros from the get go.

Glad you like it, I’ll never find it magical. A game that lets you pick from 46 characters and has 53 “movie modes” yet has zero characters besides the narrator, and zero clips from the movies will always make this game feel like an unfinished prototype. Back when Spider-Man was unfinished, the 3rd Sandman mode was missing its clips & voices...so it was just a “shoot the lit shot” mode with no satisfying story beats. That was one mode...POTC is an entire GAME of that. I can’t hang. I’d rather play Stern POTC...it has Jack Sparrow & other pirates quipping which gives the game personality. Personality is a standard for pinball...I’m not going to like a game without it.

No they wouldn’t. Great games are forever. People STILL love & want Addams. Modern math chess games that a few hardcore enjoy will never diminish the perfection of 90’s games design, mechs, and rulesets. Pure fun, no new game will change that.

B66 is Lyman. Lyman's are the only games where you can say "give it some time". You're taking a multi-year gamble with any other game.

Here's the thing - if I play my FAVORITE games with the sound off, they're not as fun anymore...even if I think they're brilliant and joyful under normal circumstance. JJPOTC will always have that feeling...it feels like someone partially shut off the sound and clips. If someone ever finds a way to hack the game and add movie clips to go along with all the modes and characters - I'll give it another shot. Until then, too many other things to do in life.

What constitutes as "more"? More complex code? Is that always better? Sometimes less is more. The 90's games still have almost all modern games beat with the PHYSICAL "more"...more interesting physical gameplay elements...mechs, toys, diverters, subways, etc. More for the player to enjoy (and on top of that, the gameplay/code is usually perfectly matched to the physical design).

Depth = good is a myth. Addams is exactly deep enough for a pinball machine. I love good deep games like LOTR and TSPP, but in 10 years, I've never seen the final wizard modes. If you never see them, does it even matter that the game is that deep? I'd rather play Addams, and get to the wizard mode every so often, honestly.

You're too close to it. I'm glad you enjoy it. I'm never going to play the game ever again, I have all the perspective I need. It's a licensed game that didn't get the assets for its license. Stern had the same problem. They solved it with a good Jack Sparrow sound-alike & other "generic" pirate voices, the Yo-ho song, and an awesome sinking ship. Their game had what it needed to be a successful POTC game & became one of Stern's top sellers. JJPOTC was released at the wrong time with the wrong approach. There's a reason they're canning it and moving onto Wonka.

Not just the music - but the canned/stock /slot machine/99 cent app sound FX are THE WORST. The generic clanks and dings and machine sounds....clearly just taken from a library and dropped in without any sound design or mixing. Offends my ears!

...but then they were $10k by Xmas!

Stern & JJP are just cutting out the flipper and fucking you up front.

TNA is perfection and a perfect example of why people throwing around terms like "shallow" and "deep" mean absolutely NOTHING. TNA is the complete vision of its designer come to life...it's EXACTLY the game it needs to be on all levels...everything works together in perfect harmony - design, art, music, sound, lights, rules...it doesn't need to be anything else but what it is.

This is a horrible attitude to have about $6000-$9000 products. It should achieve excellence at launch & be worth the purchase price. Any update after that should be bug fixes and gravy. You don’t spend that much for a mediocre game & hope that it’ll get better. There’s no guarantee of improvement.

There is a difference between legit unfinished code, and rules that you don't like and subjectively want changed.

Examples:

-Spider-Man might have been one of the first games that was noticeably unfinished, due to this: All modes had a video clip intro, clips when you hit a shot, and a finale clip...except the 3rd Sandman mode. There was just text, and this was clearly due to it being unfinished. When big updates finally started to hit, not only was that finished - but Lyman added TONS of new stuff...new combos, new rules, new light shows, new shaker FX. All great stuff...but, had it not been there, you couldn't have called "unfinished"

-Wheel of Fortune....WOF has a bunch of inserts that say "Wizard Mode Bonus"...those inserts are totally unused, and there's no wizard mode coded in the game. That's the main thing that makes the game unfinished...had those inserts never been put on the playfield, there wouldn't have been such a scandal. There are a few bugs in the game too, such as Multiballs ending with 00 on the display for your points earned...but if you put those things aside, it's a pretty robust, creative and interesting game...a person can totally play it and enjoy it, plenty of modes and puzzles to solve.

Now with Munsters...granted, I haven't played it enough to say if you could call it "unfinished", but I get the sense that the complaints are subjective...people just don't like the rules and approach...but if everything that was meant to be in the game is in the game, and all the features and inserts function and mean something...then, it's probably finished. If anything else gets changed or added, that's up to Stern & Dwight to take customer feedback into account or not.

OK, I'm gonna give Dwight some credit here. When GB came out, I gave Dwight a list of things that were driving me nuts, like:

-Starting a mode, cheap-draining, then having to start the same mode again instead moving on like most mode games.
-Timing out a mode & having to start the same mode again instead of moving on like most games.

He made those changes & put options for these things in the settings. I also pushed for a randomized mode option, but he wouldn't budge on that one...he was committed to the linear ladder concept.

Soooo...he DOES listen. Whether he implements things come down to whether he agrees and/or whether he has time.

Do they? It takes Lyman years to get a game to where he wants it to be. Didn't Kiss just get an update years later from Lonnie (or maybe new guys took it over)?

I get that people want specific stuff from their games, but don't make it personal.

Here's the truth:
-Stern schedules are short...much shorter than any of these programmers got when they were at Bally/Williams.
-Stern no longer publicly tests games...so they don't get real world feedback & the time to make changes before shipping product.
-Working at Stern is a JOB. It's not a hobby for these people. If Stern doesn't give them the time needed, that's on the company & their corporate culture. A programmer doesn't OWE us anything, especially their free time. They're being paid to perform a task during a window of time. None of us should expect them to work free overtime at home. Work/life balance is important. These are human beings we're talking about...I'm not going to insult them if they refuse to work themselves to death so a toy is better.
-That being said, as a customer, I don't buy Stern games anymore due to everything above this line...lol.

But what makes code "good" varies from game to game...different layouts & themes lend themselves to different types of coding approaches. LOTR is 3 giant quest movies, so it's massively deep ruleset makes sense for that game. Iron Man is a simple layout with fast adversarial gameplay with 3 characters to attack (and they attack you back)...its code makes perfect sense for that game. MM has simple concepts new players can understand (hit the castle), that still remain satisfying and fun after 1000's of plays...plus nuance that you learn as you go (stacking Madness multiballs), clear progression goals (defeat all the kings), plus great sound and lights choreography that adds to the Pavlovian nature of what makes great pinballs really fun. 3 games with massively different approaches and "depth", yet all excellent games.

Metallica Prem/LE had the target bar for FUEL ....I don't recall many people complaining. Maybe cuz there are also inline drops, snake jaw, hammer lock, etc.

LOL - thats supposed to be Marilyn, not a little boy

Yeah - although I like the custom voices in Munsters WAAAAY more than other recent games, I do want it to have way more voice clips from the show. Those are the characters and personalities we want to shine through. For example, the Eddie shots are like the Monster Bash Wolfman shots...but every time you hit an orbit on MB, the Wolfman says something....Eddie shots should be similar.

Two thoughts about Tron's modes.

-Even though you start them on accident sometimes, playing them well results in reward. Just starting them all can get you to Sea of Simulation, but you need to complete all of them to get to Portal, and that's quite a challenge.

-They have very specific mode music & specific sound FX/callouts when you get the shots which have that very satisfying Pavlovian nature to them. I don't remember if Munsters is quite comparable, to be honest.

When a game is available to buy & it’s $6000-$9000, OF COURSE you can judge it!!!! Don’t accept being a guinea pig unless Stern is sending you a game for free.

None of these games are “shallow” and were never considered to be by the hobbyists/players/community. They’re all brilliantly designed from design to code, with multiple objectives & ways to tackle the games.

A true shallow game is something like BTTF. 3 drops light lock, lock. Repeat. Multiball. THATS IT. Or something like BOP. Great game, but it’s all about shooting the ramp & flipping the heads. Not much else matters really.

Exactly. They’re buzzwords. Depth equaling fun is a myth. Shallow as a term of negativity for any game that’s not math-chess is a false moniker.

That being said, Munsters might be shallow....I haven’t had enough time on it, but when I see my friends who love Tron & IM saying Munsters is shallow, that’s probably the case then ...and also the case that the gameplay isn’t as well rounded and addicting as the 90’s games it’s attempting to emulate.

...and how much did those games cost?

Higher prices = higher expectations = more complaints.

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.

Alien doesn't count, as it can't be bought. It may as well not exist.

Also, it's missing the movie's main character...Hobbit includes all 400 characters lol ...Flibbi, Schmibbi, Bibbi, Floppy, Gloppy, Sloppy....

That's the vaguest of vaguebooking. Means nothing.

Theme & art sold GB.

Layout is horrific & code makes it worse.

I know it’s a great seller. Again, perfect theme and great art....and what you just said: FIRST TIME PINBALL BUYER. They have no frame of reference for what games are good and fun. They’re wrapped up in the fun of buying something cool. My first game was BTTF. At the time, I thought it was the coolest game ever...cuz I love the movie and a friggin PINBALL machine was in my house. As I explored the hobby more, I realized BTTF was a turd. Yet, it’s still desired by new buyers due to theme. South Park earns great due to theme. Not a good game. Sales & cashbox aren’t relevant to whether a game is actually GOOD.

Music is a bit more evergreen. An old band that’s now classic still has had its songs played & enjoyed over the years. Also - Spooky is doing small runs of 500, so they have the luxury of appealing to a small fan base of any particular theme. Stern doesn’t only want to sell 500. They want to sell 5000-10,000.

Borg wanted to make Munsters since the 90’s. He grew up loving it, and everyone knows what a huge hit Addams was...so, the logic was more that Munsters could be the next Addams....but, that was the 90’s, it’s 2019 now.

Depth doesn't always mean fun. Not-deep doesn't mean BAD. Addams is EXACTLY what a pinball machine needs to be fun, intuitive, addicting, and stand the test of time. There's a magic to making rules/gameplay match the physical playfield design. B/W games were the pinnacle of that. Munsters' "simplicity" isn't in the same ballpark of the 90's games. If it was, I think plenty of us would be overjoyed.

The only way Munsters could have had legs beyond the initial excitement from niche nostalgists would have been to have amazing mechanical features & great code, so the marketing hype machine could have constantly compared it to Addams Family. Even people who know nothing about pinball has played Addams. It's the "Pac-Man" or "Street Fighter 2" of pinball. If Munsters could have gained the reputation as the "New Addams", this whole gamble could have worked out. Unfortunately, the playfield is pretty standard, the torso bash toy doesn't inspire players to keep playing like Thing or the Bookcase, and the hardcore players hate the rules. So now - it's a theme that means nothing & a game that no one cares about.

That's what I meant...it doesn't have anything on the playfield to really draw in casual players like Addams did. The theme will make players think "oh cool, maybe it's like Addams". Then they play it. Nah.

I was excited, as I'm one of those people who has nostalgia for it (it was on in syndication in the early 80s)...but I always wait & see & play. After GB totally botched one of my favorite themes, and Dutch screwed up the greatest movie ever with the TBL situation, I can never buy without playing first.

This recent trend of diminishing 90's B/W games is BIZARRE. They are perfect. The perfect combination of great design, great features, great sound design, and great rules. Who started this whole thing about B/W games not being the absolute gold standard to strive toward?!?!

Yup...and unfortunately they judge "old" games based on what they hear other new players saying...and I think most of these people haven't played the great 90's games, or haven't played well maintained versions.

It's a shame. They're really missing out on the best of the best....and this is coming from a "Whitestar/SAM Stern defender" lol. When I started in the hobby around 2006 or so, ALL COLLECTORS HATED STERN GAMES lol...I was the guy going "they're actually really fun" while everyone else was saying "They're cheap, their ugly, the toys suck, the playfield printing sucks, the cabinet resolution sucks, the plastics resolution sucks, the ramps are thinner, etc etc etc". Full on hate. Even collectors who buckled and bought "good" Sterns like LOTR would still bitch about them. Anyway, I wish I understood what the new "new only" buyers are seeing in the new games...other than they're...new? I feel like if they played a nice clean lineup of 90's B/W games, their minds would be blown at the creativity, mechs, and organic & fun (and often deep or deep enough) rules.

Sure, but new games break and need troubleshooting and fixing as much if not more than the old games. Once I shopped out a B/W game, I almost NEVER had any problem with it for years and years. Almost every Stern game I bought, I had the "hood up" non-stop to tweak and fix stuff. Pinball breaks, period.

90's games really aren't "shallow". That term is being thrown around incorrectly. Certain games like BTTF are shallow. Light lock, lock. Repeat for Multiball. That's it. That's shallow. Nothing B/W made in the 90's is shallow. They all have tons of modes, tons of wizard and mini-wizard modes, multiballs, and just a balance of choreography and Pavlovian aspects that keep them fun and challenging and replayable....that's why those games are classics and were so desired well after arcades were dead. Perfect balance of rules with layout. They have exactly what they need to be a gold standard pinball experience.

Deep doesn't = good. LOTR depth is good. Star Wars depth is convoluted and obnoxious. There hasn't been one "deep" LCD era game that even remotely has the artistic and "master game creator" touch that the older games have...not one of them has made me want to come back and play them again. Maybe Batman with Lyman behind it...but unfortunately the playfield & features aren't great.

I’ve never seen a Whitestar or SAM Game “die”. Worst problems I’ve ever seen on that era of Stern is a flipper transistor go bad or a DMD outgas....and even those probs are super rare. My LOTR was built in 2005. Rock solid. I’ve had my FGY since 2007. Still plays like new.

Ya know, I forgot about XMen. That had aux board issues hat blew up some CPUs. What a nightmare that game was. The 2 Whitestar & 5 SAMS that I have had for a long time have all been great tho.

Just put those whoever this is on ignore (I can't see them...just your response lol), Pinside is so much more pleasant. This is GB redux. People who spend a lot on horrible games with their favorite themes will defend them to the death. There's no getting through with constructive criticism or logic.

(Fortunately, unlike GB, Munsters is actually playable from a physical standpoint - so it's got that going for it at least lol)

(Pssst. Ignore button. It's Pinside's bug spray. Use it.)

Like I said, deep doesn’t always mean good. POTC is DOA due to lack of assets. Deep means nothing when there’s no content or personality to go with it. With no context for the modes or shots, it’s just a lot of “hit the colored thing for points”. That’s boring. I played AC a few times, had no idea what to do. It lacks any satisfying features to interact with, so I suppose I must read the code book before going in to get anything out of it.

Yes, I've played JJPOTC where I could hear it. Soundtrack is great, I love Theil....but what callouts? It's just one guy. Nothing from the 48 characters, no Jack Sparrow, no scenes or anything from the movies...it totally feels unfinished without any of that. You start a Wedding mode...there's nothing about a wedding while you play it. What's the point? I'd rather play the Stern version.

I love TNA. That's an LCD game I also really like Hobbit, but since we're in weird bizzaro pinball world, just that statement will get me shanked. Here's what I love about old games that almost no new games do: There is something really cool on the playfield that you know you want to interact with. You instinctively do that because it looks cool, and its satisfying to do. Then, after you do that...you can kind of organically learn nuance after nuance until you understand the ruleset. New games don't have anything cool on the playfield, so you have to know the entire ruleset before you do anything to get any enjoyment out of it. That's not the pinball I enjoy, sorry.

I'll play ACNC more if I encounter it. It seemed like something I could warm up to...but it didn't insta-grab me, that's for sure.

Yeah the Stern one gets boring...but it’s entertianing for a little while & sinking the ship & fighting the Kraken is more fun than anything I experienced in POTC. I didn’t find JJPOTC entertaining at all. The character selection is confusing from the get go. The modes based on movie events with zero context or content attached is a miss, it just feels like a weird slot machine with nice music, not what I expect from a $10k pinball machine. I know you don’t like Hobbit, but after playing a cinematic game like that with tons of voice clips in addition to custom callouts (like all good licensed pinball machines)...POTC just feels wrong.

What do we have going on now? Overpriced, unfinished untested games with no cool playfield features & goofy rules? Why would I look back on that with appreciation?

These are the darkest days IMO, and I’ve been doing this for a while. Games cost too much while offering too little...plus, untested and unfinished. Tons of amazing pinball machines from better days exist, and good games are forever.

Then stop. No one's forcing you. These are non-essential items, you're not obligated to purchase. If you must have a "new" pin, buy tried & true classics, not NIB.

It’s such a shame - just due to the nature of the theme, it could have been the spiritual successor to Addams. Now Elvira is going to totally erase it as the go-to Stern spooky/campy/funny/monsters game.

GOT & GB were great themes that sold a ton of units. Munsters was a marketing misfire. Still could have been a great game, but for theme recognition & sales, the buyers/players aren’t there.

Yeah I think the B&W Prem is one of the best looking games ever & I loved the show when I was a kid ...but I don’t like the rules, so...

Wouldn’t that be more due to the theme having zero resonance with the route players? Usually on route, theme is the pull...casuals don’t know the difference between good and bad games.