Thanks.

Kind of funny that manufacturing history aside (which can be acquired) that they beat out American Pinball just pure product vs product. Seems the only thing left to checkbox is sales. Haven't heard any specs on the speakers, which are a hidden product, but that they are premium speakers that I guess cost a lot? You might want to actually push that salespitch since it's a non-obvious part of the machine to value or evaluate because we can't hear them over the internet. Are they Pinwoofers or something people already know and can place value on by name?

No reason it needed super expensive speakers and powder coating. Would make sense to think about offering a version without those options, or any other cuts if it can impact the pricing enough. There are collectors and then there are casuals. Millions of Stern Pro buyers seem to not care about powder coating. I would think a Ninja unlicensed game is a aimed as a casual product and undercutting a Stern pro would be beneficial. Still confused as this is the discount version and with zero changes, the price will be automatically bumped up after early access first 100 discount(?). Might need to be flexible on that concept and stick it out at $7k. The company pillar is competitive prices but you are steering into Stern Premium territory with no sculpts or unique mechs.

Seems to be on a good path, but when seeing the prior $10k pricetag choice, that only 1 person in the world thought made sense....don't fuck it up. The product is gaining traction at $7k. If you haven't sold out of the first 100, then it isn't even 100% proven at $7k just yet, then why are there plans to increase pricing? The only reason people threw hate was strictly the price, and there is still this lingering concern about you going back to work every day "Yea but our game is actually worth $10k" again.

The animation style from Mulan is always what comes to my mind first.

Wow, looking good!!

Gameplay and layout look great.
Well done! Wasn't really expecting it to look that good. Looking forward to playing one now.

Looks really solid. Congrats on making an original theme that just works.

I only got a few minutes into the video and I can't stop laughing every time I hear him mention that you can get a Commie Ally. I know it's actually Kami, but I can't help thinking it sounds like a Cold War theme game when he says that lol

I played this multiple times at TPF and is a fun game. The theme is nice and seems well thought out. Layout was fun. I suck at pinball so would need more time to try more but I am impressed.

The team are all super nice and passionate as well!

lol! Same! Good thing they’re Japanese and not Chinese.

Just watched the gameplay footage, it was very good - What a difference from last year TPF to this year. Excellent work Chris and team!

Only thing it's missing is some epic/ memorable music instead of the bland Oriental riff variation background.
Game looks really good.

I played the game at TPF and talked extensively with the team. They pulled out the playfield and showed me the in and outs of the game. The team is very friendly and seem very genuine. Personally out of all of the new machines at the event this one surprised me the most. For a first machine from a new manufacturer this is pretty damn good. It has a great theme and storytelling and the machine had some really good shots in it. Between what Barrels of Fun and Turner are doing my faith in other companies other than Stern is on the upswing. I would put this game in the same catagory as any JJP, Spooky or American Pinball any day. I will admit that there should have been a button for the lockdown bar as there are a lot of selectable features in this game. There should at least be coding to hit the start button to enter your initials instead of double flip, and there needs to be more instructional messaging on display like collected x # of jackpots to get to super or more intuitive information so that you know how close you are to finishing modes. But honestly this is a game I would be very interested in, if they had them ready to go might have even pulled the trigger right there. The days of preordering for a boutique pinball machine are done for me and unless they are proven to have it in stock and ready to ship I won’t be a buyer. Great job and I wish them all the success.

I kinda agree with most of this, but they have to prove they can manufacture and get games out in a reasonably timely manner, that are also reasonably reliable before I am willing to fully put them in line with other manufacturers who can and do produce games already. The prototype stuff seems promising, but thats nothing new. No major alarm bells ringing just yet, but getting games out the door is always the biggest hurdle.

After watching the game play video, I am liking the direction of this game. After my Haggis experience I can’t currently commit until games are in boxes and ready to ship like BoF did.

DOOOMTRAIN Are you guys going to come out to other shows? We have the Golden State Pinball Festival coming up in May over here on the west coast. Would love to flip this game.

Was this because of my review posted on Facebook ?

Looks fun, but scoring seems really low?

Scooby instantly became a better game once scoring was adjusted.

I think it was Wayne Neyens back in the 1950's that recognised the fact that players felt better scoring millions, thus the arrival of million point games.

Gotta make the brain feel like it's getting a big reward

For as odd as that sounds, one of our pins had low scoring numbers and it drove my wife nuts. If they would have added a zero on the end of the score, she would have been fine with the pin.

You crack me up, Jason.

My Turner receipt shows deposit was made on March 13th and my Pinside comment along with it, was posted on the 16th. Your FB review was great to read, but you posted it on the 17th.

No cigar my friend.

BTW. Are you now going to get a Turner Tattoo to match your JJ?

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Gotta say after seeing the gameplay vid, this game is looking like great fun, and I'm officially intrigued. Good job guys!

You are behind tattoo updates…
Here’s my Spooky
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This was a game I enjoyed quite a bit at Expo last year but had a few issues that seemed to have been addressed with the latest demo at TPF.

Two things of note:

Only a phone number is available on the website, no email or contact form is available on the Turner Pinball website. I would like to reach out but a call seems a little unnecessary.

The sculpts that were present at Expo seem to be gone from the latest units which is sad because they were extremely well done and made the game feel a little less flat. Maybe offer these as a set sold separately? I'd be sold if the sculpts were going to be available.

Video showing the machine with the sculpts present:

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Is there some sort of insert lighting to help guide the player on the order? That seems very hard to discern if you aren’t familiar with Japanese characters

I think people give BOF a little too much credit. They had 10 machines ready to go, and then immediately took $1000 deposits on 500+ orders within some days and 6 months later they are on around #140.. I mean that's not nothing, but they haven't proved they can ramp to 1k a year, and they're still doing the $1k non refundable deposit with long wait that everyone else is.

That’s still a pretty good rate for a new company. It took Spooky like 18 months to do their first 150. Then 18 months to do about 300 on their next title. Its taken Haggis over 2 years and counting to do less than 250 Fathoms. It’s a slow ramp up to build a sustainable line. The beast must be continuously feed at it scales up

People are going to be waiting a while on these new games too as they figure out manufacturing

I love seeing/reading stories like this where a team is nearly pointed at, laughed at, and thrown to the curb; only to turn it around a full 180 deg exactly one year later. Really rooting for them to move to the next level. That said and keeping things real, how do they plan to build and manufacture 100 games or more adequately? Was it discussed and/or are they tooled up to manufacture?

Wow, I totally missed that those beautiful sculpts are gone! I have a feeling not only a cost thing but maybe the ball was just busting them up.

Agreed. But that's all due to listening to customer feedback. Other companies should take note.

And having a physical game on display and playable.

Maybe you could make it a game setting like easy/medium/hard game rule installs? They just seem like a pretty long combo chain to memorize for a lot of different battles. But it does give a home owner more depth to learn and explore, so I can see that logic as well. I'm sure with enough time you'd figure out which character is which shot. Lighting/blinking the inserts would be helpful for flow combo'ing it though.

I had a lot of fun with it at TPF. I went back to it multiple times, tagged both high score boards, and played a fairly long game with Bowen. The lock shot is my favorite shot in the game. It's tight, but it's smooth. I like a game where multiball isn't practically started for you, so having the game's most demanding shot be the one to award locks is a good touch.

The scoop-to-scoop-to upper flipper combo is nice. It's reminiscent of a ninja doing wall jumps and hitting that side ramp to complete the series feels great, especially if you end up getting a few loops to up that playfield multiplier.

I think a lot of people will be pleasantly surprised by just how solid it feels and how smoothly it shoots when they get actual hands on time with it. It doesn't feel homebrew and it compares well against other modern pins. My only real critique would be to make it play a little shorter, but in a home environment that can be accomplished with some tweaks.

What did Bowen think?

Lazy Ninja here.

Memory, research and planning would interfere with my real world escapism and Happy Hour mentality.

About the same as me. He felt it had an interesting layout and shots. It could definitely use some shorter ball times, but when you're Bowen few games offer low ball times.

It is a longer player but from what I seen there are adjustments that can be made to make it harder for sure as I was wondering the same thing. The slings were not that sensitive and I am sure the kickback could be put on hard and extra balls removed. The normal player is not Bowen, and the average player does like a longer game so as long as the machine is adjustable to make it harder that works for me being a competitive player and a TD. I would never play a stock JAWS either every Stern I need to bastardize too.

The kickback to scoop to scoop to flipper is interesting. Kinda surprised they didn’t have a ramp and diverter to purposefully feed that system, like a Hobbit or Whirlwind or Funhouse. Just to show it off more than as a very complex ball save.

Checked out the PDubs interview and I’m really hoping you succeed. The game and artwork looks great and you can tell how hard the team is trying to make it work. Hopefully they work to get these on location and get people playing them. I can’t go in on a brand new company sight unseen, but I do hope to get to play one some day and judge for myself.

And BoF last year. No way people were going to take a $10,000 Ninja vs a $10,000 BoF given a side by side comparison. Turner listened to customer feedback, but knew they had no chance given the new competition. Good job adjusting..

I can appreciate that and its reasonable to be cautious. For me, I've been fortunate in my life and I like to support new pinball.
Sure I'm taking a risk but so is Turner Pinball whom I've met and interacted with personally at TPF and in private emails.

And for the record, I was one of the people that warned against Deeproot Pinball, of which Turner has evolved from.

Certainly my risk is calculated but right now I'm feeling confident. Stay tuned.