I'm not disagreeing with you on this - but my point was missed. Lexi is the pilot game -- multimorphic has been a lot more concerned with so many other factors than art and the dev time has been very significant. Now that many things have been worked out and once manufacturing is going smooth the future p3 games should be able to concentrate more time/energy on cool art and gameplay features. ESP. True for those that have taken the role of 3rd party game devs.

So...the artist also worked on the other parts of the game?

Love all this talk about the P3 in the Houdini thread.

There are other P3 games with 2D graphics, such as Cannon Lagoon.

Well, Houdini will never get made and neither will the Jpop games...might as well talk about something that might make it to market!

Bad 2D graphics. This thing won't fly until a game has a true top level art director/animation professional. Too bad P3 couldn't attract the great artists that Jpop was able to con into working on his games.

Maybe so but they had limited funds due to the fact that the concept was too radical for investors and that they didn't take preorder money. It's been a phenomenal effort so far given the capital they had at their disposal.

Good thing is, the P3 is one of only two pinball companies which offers the potential for an unlimited number of art packages for a single machine going forward. Someone is bound to create something you like for it eventually.

I imagine you'd want artists specializing in computer graphics to work on games for the P3. I think Dirty Donny did the artwork for the Aerosmith LCD and that does not look that great either in my opinion.

You forgot con in front of artist. Also, if he were so great he wouldn't have fucked up the woman in ToM nor had to rip off the martians from "Mars Attacks."

I think some of it is his, some of it is Stern's team. You're right, it's similarly amateurish - that said - it's just the score display...the machine itself looks great, and the game is what's under the glass. That's always P3's challenge - the monitor IS the playfield, and if it doesn't look good, all that great tech is meaningless.

I don't know P3 would have been a hit 20 years ago. But now with games on our phones, Ipads and Xboxes etc, it will not make any big waves. The adoption rate will be very low.

Contrary to what he might like to have people believe, JPop is not the artist on any of his games (including BW days), AFAIK.

As far as P3 commissioning the same calibre of work ... well that would probably rely on them deceiving potential contractors about remuneration, which I suspect they're very much unwilling to do. Good work costs good money, generally.

From their facebook page ''As promised, MORE exciting news here at American Pinball! Josh Kugler has joined the team as Director of Software Engineering and is hard at work on the official rules and coding of Houdini. Josh has been a pinball enthusiast since he was 9 years old when he built his first pinball machine out of nails and rubber bands. He is known to many in the pinball community as a leader in creating custom pinball machines and has been fortunate enough to feature many machines at Pinball Expo over the last few years. Before deciding to jump into pinball full time, Josh spent the last 15 years with highly successful start-up companies and brings that expertise and entrepreneurial spirit to American Pinball as well as his love of pinball. Please help us welcome Josh!''

More about Josh Kugler, seems he's got some experience in the industry -

http://pinballmakers.com/wiki/index.php/Kugler_Family

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/thoughts-on-a-project-idea?tu=snyper2099

https://www.ifpapinball.com/player.php?p=1629

ahhhh

jp (resized).jpg

Very interesting. Well - I like Josh and have enjoyed playing his custom games. He's smart enough not to get involved with a bunch of maniacs...still, they need to be transparent about the Jpop/MG situation before I can start giving them the benefit of the doubt.

I suspect that transparency will be something along the lines of.... We were contracted to build the completed/production ready MG for John for xxx dollars with a production ready Houdini used as trade minus any work we had to invest to finish it.... turns out John actually ows us more now since we had scrap everything and start over. Oh, and MG isn't anywhere near production ready anyway so just as soon as John gives us a game thats ready to be produced we can work with him on making those arrangements.

So I wonder if John will start blaming AP for them wrecking the deal.

Yes

You actually bring up a very good point here. All along AP has said that Jpoop is not part of the actual AP team and that MG was a contract build in exchange for "consulting". But, as you point out here, a finished product has to be made available in order for production. Who is working on(allegedly) MG in the background to make this thing ready for production? Balcer?

All I want to know is if AP will force his Pinside account to go inactive.

lol

Wow. Josh Kugler is Rosh, right? Smart move hiring this guy. Hope American Pinball produces his Casino game:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/casino

You'd think they might have withdrawn those endorsements ....

They shouldn't, but many people place a lot of stock in linked.in endorsements ... maybe Aimtron did too ...

I hope AP has success with Houdini and makes a good pin.

If they give any edge to MG without addressing the RAZA and AIW people then they are F ed in my book.

Why they would even bother at this point is beyond me.

There won't be any compensation for Zid customers anymore. AP at this time is a new startup. They made a huge blunder making a bet on jpop at the start, but it seems they realized their mistake.

"You'll have to talk to John. We are ready and willing to build them when he's ready. It's a zidware game." will be their answer for "What is going on with MG?"

One other thought....

John was ready to fly around the country and build machines in customers' homes for Pete's sake. It was only 19 magic girls "prototypes". He could have hand assembled them at any time. AP is not even needed for this.

But he can't even build 1. 1 stinking playing game.

Why? This makes no sense to me. AP was approached by John to contract out the build of MG in exchange for his services on Houdini. They unknowingly get caught up in a JPOP shit storm and are now in a position where they probably want nothing to do with him and have two choices.
1) Go back on their word and don't produce MG. IMO this option does not make them look good and more like a business you cant trust.

2) Finish what they were contracted to do and deliver MG and move on with their lives without JPOP. The second option would show that they are a true company that stands behind their word and are a company capable of producing a game.

AP has ZERO obligation to address RAZA and AIW owners because they have not been contracted to do so. Those are JPOP's games and if AP is to produce them it would take JPOP contracting them to do so. After what John has done for their start up so far, I'd be floored if they would even consider it. Sure early on they made mention of the possibilities of addressing those games down the road, but that was before I think they knew how tainted John really was in the pinball community. If you are a RAZA or AIW owner, don't be mad if they only make MG. It is, after all, their only real obligation that was contracted through them with JPOP.

We all really need to try and stand behind these guys and look at AP for what it is. A company that wants to produce pinball machines. A company that, if successful, will be offering people around the world another option when choosing their next machine. Another option for when you're sick of bitching about Stern's ghosting inserts or unfinished code. Another option for when the JJP pin you've had on order for the last year and a half still hasn't arrived. Another option for (insert any other overblown pinside rant here), Etc. I think we need to be positive and do all we can to help AP succeed. Because more options will be good for the hobby in more ways than one.

I don't think many people are rubbing their hands with glee hoping AP will fail, but in choosing to work with JPOP for a year or so, NOT realizing there was a problem (when the record is clear as day on that one), THEN promising the sun and moon for the end of 2016... and only THEN realizing they were completely screwed... makes most people rate their chances of success as being "small". Pinball is hard after all.

And I echo the sentiment above, JPoP has not made a playing game from scratch in how long? Zizzle era probably. For all the smoke and mirrors alleged in the Predator thread, SkitB had a functioning game, produced parts, and had a number of other functioning one-offs. And considering those guys were screw-up's, AND were able to get that much done, where does that put John? New verbiage might need to be created.

That is for sure.

Yeah when you put it like that, which was the bigger scam?

There's probably no way to know this, but if you knew who all got a refund from Predator through a credit card chargeback, and figured out the list of who is left who is owed money, and then compared that to the list of zidware customers who are out money, it would be interesting to see which list is larger.

Has AP created some bad PR? Yes..
Have they taken any pre-orders or screwed anyone? No.

Knowing what pinside knows about john, you can imagine the mound of info they've discovered since expo. While they haven't officially cut ties with john, it's surely looking like that's likely.

When houdini finishes, it'll probably play good, and I'm sure it will sell. My hope is that they survive and the many homebrew projects floating around can finally get mass produced if the designers choose to do so

Problem is, are they obligated if Jpop didn't meet the terms of the contract? I assume the terms were:
1) Provide a production ready MG (not 90% complete, with AP to do final coding, design and engineering)
2) Pay for the production of these machines (and I think we all believe that delivering a complete Houdini was that sweat equity)

If MG is still unfinished, there was nothing to put on the line. And now it looks like his Houdini work was deemed unsatisfactory, so there isn't a payment either.

Zidware/Jpop is still ultimately responsible for delivery of MG/RAZA/AIW. I give props to all those who have tried to help get these games made, but Jpop can't dump that responsibility/blame on anyone else.

Such as Forbidden Planet!

I'm not going to pretend I know any of their actual terms, but I would have to agree that those are probably close. Knowing that JPOP did not hold up his end of the bargain (them admitting that they had to scrap JPOPs version of Houdini) only makes AP look that much better if they happen to follow through and deliver these games. They are likely taking a huge loss on this whole deal and that would be all the more reason to get behind these guys.

What is there to actually deliver? It is my understanding that 1) there is no working prototype. 2) As currently designed, the game is not playable 3) Neither AP nor JPOP own the rights to the game and, therefore can't legally complete it 4) there may be other legal issues around work performed for Zidware, for which the contractors (developers, artists) were not paid.

AP is certainly deserving of the backlash they received for not doing even a modicum of due diligence. However, I suspect their hands are pretty well tied and, as Frolic and others noted, AP's only option is for JPOP to work through all of these issues and provide the complete design/manufacturing specifications to AP. Then again, I am probably wrong.

Only time will tell.

I just dont think these guys deserve the flack they are receiving. JPOP duped them like he duped all of his customers and they seem to be doing all they can to still make things right and continue on with their main goal, which is to manufacture pinball machines.

You think they wanted to make Pinball machines... before or after JPOP got involved with them?

What I see is a contract manufacturer that saw a business opportunity to make stuff from their parent business and showcase their business and make some money while they do it.

Not gonna happen. John breached the contract with AP. Never even had the right to deliver MG. That simple.

There is NOTHING for them to make right. That's on Jpop.

It is possible the rights were straightened out . . . We have not heard from the rights owner about this since the initial "no reply". But with the up and down of this crowd I understand. It is up to him if he wants to comment. Would be nice to have an idea of what has transpired there.

If you are AP please tell why on earth they would even want the MG rights.

The game is apparently garbage and now they have Balcer and a coder.

Are they going to make them and give them away for free?

Maybe Bill has something up his sleeve

If you mean Pintasia / Bill Brandes, I suspect he's the last thing holding back MG from being produced. Just look at how Houdini was delivered, as a supposedly working or workable design, and the subsequent fallout.

Why isn't there more legal recourse and retaliation taking place here like there is against that other POS in the predator debacle?

From the outside its hard to tell. The best guess I have from casually following it is that he better protected himself from liability making the predator scam the easier target to invest resources in going after.

I'm just thankful that I wasn't in a position to get in at that time.

The main difference is that Kevin declared bankruptcy.

That's not the case with JPop.

See the other JPOP thread for an update on the civil case against him:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/jpop-update-thread……………mg-raza-and-aiw…/page/411#post-3540757

Any new news?

from Urban Dictionary:

Nunu - Bangla word for penis

Use in a sentence - My nunu hurts.

Someone should correct this posting. It should read New HOUDINI game by American Pinball. JPOP has nothing to do with this game. Interested to see more on this work in progress..

I vote to keep it the way it is until AP proves otherwise.

#bingo !

Agreed. I edited the thread title.
If AP wants to revert to the initial name, please contact one of the mods, thanks.