Happy New Year from For Amusement Only Games!

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More games are going out every week - this happy little bat is part of the plastic set being produced for another run of Drained games by Scott Danesi at Pinball Life.

It's been really exciting to see these games received and played. After shipping this week's shipments, I'll (of course) be working on assembling more!

Between shipping, assembling, and wiring more games this weekend, Molly and I started collaborating on speaker panel artwork. I believe we've settled on a direction that will mesh well with the existing artwork. Molly is starting work on rough sketches later this week.

We're still working to complete it by the end of the first quarter, and as a reminder, this will be an optional add-on, which will be purchasable separately. This speaker panel artwork is used on newer model P3s only (those with motorized walls/scoops).

Making changes to the manufacturing process and measuring improvements is difficult when you're doing the measuring and the manufacturing!

By tweaking part of the harness creation process, I've increased the speed of wiring dramatically, which should allow me to sustainably ship even more units each week.

If you're interested in Drained, there's no better time to place your deposit!

Excellent - thank you for bringing your copy out there for others to enjoy wise1919 (and making some time to enjoy it yourself)!

Pinball Life has released a plastic protector set for Drained! If you'd like one, visit here:

https://www.pinballlife.com/drained-plastic-protector-set.html

Great question! Scott Danesi (@thenotrashcougar), engineer at Pinball Life, composer for Silver Falls, and all-around amazing person, designed this to mount underneath the existing plastics (he has done this for a number of games in their game-specific parts section). These are third-party mods for a third-party game.

Did I mention that Drained has a game-specific parts section (recently)? https://www.pinballlife.com/drained.html

Do you hunger for more Drained information as vampires hunger for the hunters in the game? I'll have some fun announcements in the coming weeks! Stay tuned.

They have not, to my knowledge!

Each item has some immediate benefit (usually points).

Stakes - collecting the first stake will launch a second ball into play (and award points). With careful use of this added ball, you can complete two vampire modes in a single turn. Collecting at least one stake before starting the battle will award a spotted shot in the vampire mode. It's important to note that only -one- added ball can be acquired each turn/ball to play. When in the added ball mode, both slings are lit (scoring 1000 or a multiple if a playfield multiplier is active).

Garlic - provides points and a randomly spotted target. Collecting at least two cloves will award a spotted shot in the vampire mode.

Holy Water - each set collected will award an extra bonus multiplier (and points, of course). Collecting two of these will spot a shot in the vampire mode.

Mirrors - provide only points, and collecting at least 3 before starting a battle will spot a shot in the vampire mode.

Swords - provides points only - collecting 5 swords before starting a battle will award a spotted shot.

Torches - provides points only - collecting 5 torches before starting a battle will award a spotted shot.

Collecting enough of all six items will allow you to stun the vampire immediately upon entering the battle. These items will also carry over to a second battle, if you have the added ball in play.

The amount of points awarded varies based on the difficulty in achieving the target sequence completion. Spotted targets are very, very helpful in that they can spot that one that always seems to be just beyond reach. Spotted targets can be acquired from side target completion, spelling GARLIC, or completing the lanes (to spell SPOT). A spotted award in Drained provides the player with the points that would have been achieved from a standard hit.

The thing I didn't mention: end-of-ball bonus! As you complete sequences, squish spiders, route rats, and bash bats, you are also feeding into your end of ball bonus. This can be quite substantial if you are completing multiple sequences in a given ball. Holy Water, for example, is a very difficult set of targets to hit - you must be very accurate and tag one target at the end of a drop target sweep (or bypass if you already have targets in the drop bank down), or get random action off the top of the pop to hit them. Therefore, your reward at the end of the ball is amplified compared to something easy/relatively safe to acquire like a torch or a sword.

Couple this with the multipliers that you can stack on your bonus through sequence completions of Holy Water... and you can pick up quite a few points from exploration!

It's also important to note that the vampire mode stacks on top of exploration. In other words, you can still acquire new items while the vampire mode is active. However, you cannot use those items to fight the vampire once it is awake, and instead have to complete the mode shots indicated for that vampire battle. Maybe vampires are stronger once they are fully awake, or maybe I wanted to reward the player's skill in acquiring items before starting a battle... who can say for certain?

https://www.thisweekinpinball.com/drained-pinball-deep-dive/

This article provides very in depth scoring and sequence information.

The P3 doesn't have a global method to set the clock, though there may be one in the future (which is why those functions are off by default), but there is a way to set the time. I am happy to discuss via support (I'll email you).

Drained is currently the only application that makes use of date/time checks for game functionality.

Sure did! There are some date-related bits of fun in the game as well.

Oh it's very possible... !

Thank you both! I look forward to your business! It also let me put in this subliminal advertisement for others who might be viewing the thread.

Always happy to answer questions!

For FAO Games, I work out of a maker space, and the maker space just had the opportunity to move to a larger portion of the big industrial building in which they inhabit, which included rooms to rent for business incubation. I jumped on a dedicated space immediately. Prior to, I had to slice up my work such that I had to carry supplies and parts back and forth for each session of making games. This was -very- tedious.

After spending a couple of weekends cleaning, painting, and moving equipment within the maker space to the new part of the building - I started moving the smaller things into my new space. I still have the run of the maker space as needed (including use of their very fancy tools), but it's really nice to have a space of my own for building games.

This weekend was my 40th birthday. There were many surprises this weekend, but largest among them was RyanClaytor driving all the way to my home to visit! Unfortunately, part of what I planned was to finish moving the last of my larger manufacturing supplies (racks, artwork, etc.) into the dedicated space I'm renting so that I can resume production on schedule.

After moving all the stuff in (with Ryan and Molly's help), I had one more task - there are three pinball machines that are on location in the maker space. I had helped to move them and verified functionality a week before. The owner of those machines is a friend of mine and very busy. The games were due for a cleaning, which I had previously offered to do that day as well.

Ryan designed the logo for For Amusement Only Games, and I had a decal printed to place in the window of my dedicated space. It wasn't die cut (cut to shape), so while I was cleaning machines, Ryan offered to cut the decal down to size and position it in the window (neither the cutting nor the centering were tasks I was looking forward to doing, haha!).

Here are some photos of the exterior of my manufacturing space, decal applied - with bonus Nick and Ryan pic! Thanks to Ryan and the kindness and generosity of many friends near and far, I had a very memorable and meaningful birthday, and I'm pleased to announce that the move is complete, and production will resume on schedule!

Thank you to my customers, my vendors, the maker space, my friends, and my extremely patient family - you've all made this possible, and allow me to keep making games for everyone to enjoy.

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Haha, thank you!

Ryan is indeed awesome, and I imagine that that decal would have remained square for some time without his help (priorities).

Funny you should mention that... the "Vampires Kissed" board is for gobbles without starting the battle mode.

I love to hear that!

Thanks for your kind words! I look forward to having you as a customer.

Sorry for the silence here - I've been head down building Drained! More games are shipping every week - if you're interested in a Drained, there's no better time to put in an order. I've increased my build capacity to record numbers each week, thanks to the move!

It absolutely is, thanks Ryan! I'll have some cool things to announce soon...

Speaking of cool things, if anyone is going to Texas Pinball Festival, Multimorphic just announced they'll be swapping in my games into some of their demo models throughout the show. After checking out Multimorphic's new game Final Resistance, play Drained and see the fun, challenging, delightful game in person!

Play quick, competitive games on Ranger In The Ruins, and if you play Silver Falls as a group, start a team game (co-op) by holding the flipper and pressing start before launching the first ball. If you beat a song on Flipper Foxtrot on Challenge mode, let me know so I can congratulate the first person outside of myself to do so.

A big thank you to Multimorphic for bringing these games and swapping them in for people to play. I wish I could be there, too!

Awesome @mrmikeman, very kind of you!

cait001 - the beauty of any platform is choice, and the P3 has many options for different styles of gameplay (and growing). The ability for new owners to purchase (or trade) previous releases is fantastic!

Awesome! I hope you're enjoying your game!

A giant thank you to Multimorphic for showcasing Drained in their Texas Pinball Festival lineup! I've heard from many people now how much they enjoyed the game and were surprised by the challenge and variety in gameplay. Thank you all for playing it, and I wish I could have been there with you.

I've got some big things in the works to announce soon - stay tuned!