Peanuts Pinball

We have posted a little bit about this project elsewhere, but I thought a dedicated thread might be fun.

An artist friend and I decide in early September that it would be fun to work in some of his drawings into a pinball theme. He is a comic artist. He also studies the works of other artists and replicates their style as a development exercise. Even to the point of buying the same pens they are known to use. Recently, he has been doing a lot of work with the Peanuts characters and we thought it would be a blast to try making a pinball game around the peanuts. I have been working on other designs and thought we could try a simpler game for my first attempt, while using some of the abandoned designs from my other projects.

We looked back at the timeline and saw that I bought the wood for the first Peanuts Pinball playfield on September 13th 2015. Everything that has developed since then has been packed up and is coming with me to Expo. All the artwork was drawn by my friend and there is no clip art. This is a fan art project. This, like some of the other games that will be on display in the FAST booth, is really a project introduction. We plan to have the game completed for the NW Pinball Show in June.

We have been live streaming our pinball builds at twitch.tv/fastpinball and plan to do more after we get back from Expo. Here are some pics in order starting September 13th. Come see us at Expo and follow along on progress!

Aaron
FAST Pinball

#2 8 years ago

FST

fastpinball

Pics!

image.jpeg

image.jpegimage.jpegimage.jpeg
image.jpeg

image.jpeg

#3 8 years ago

FST

fastpinball

More (I will fix the relative order later)

image.jpeg

image_5.jpeg

#4 8 years ago

FST

fastpinball

More to come. Uploading from my phone is brutal!

Aaron
FAST Pinball

#6 8 years ago

FST

fastpinball

Quoted from pinballkim:
Please tell me there is a shot where the football (target) is pulled out from in front of the ball (Charlie Brown).

It is actually the best video mode in pinball! My friend Mike whipped up something that we will get running when we get to the booth in Chicago. I will post footage. Here was the outline:

image.jpeg

Aaron
FAST Pinball

#7 8 years ago

FST

fastpinball

image.jpegimage.jpegimage.jpegimage.jpegimage.jpeg

#10 8 years ago

FST

fastpinball

image.jpegimage.jpegimage.jpegimage.jpegimage.jpegimage.jpegimage.jpegimage.jpeg

#11 8 years ago

FST

fastpinball

image.jpegimage.jpegimage.jpegimage.jpegimage.jpegimage.jpeg

See you at Expo!

#18 8 years ago

FST

fastpinball

Quoted from charliebrown2417:
I can't wait to play this at expo. Thank you so much!

Me too! If you are around in Thursday you can witness some remaining wiring and the Mission Pinball Framework being fired up on it for the first time!

Aaron
FAST Pinball

#19 8 years ago

FST

fastpinball

Quoted from notaflyingtoy:
I was following the assembly of this over the weekend on the stream. Pretty impressive that a few guys can do so much working 14/7 for years working part time over a couple months. This project definitely deserves its own thread.

The streaming was a blast! We will do it again! Thanks for your patience while we figure out the whole live build streaming dynamic!

Aaron
FAST Pinball

#20 8 years ago

FST

fastpinball

Quoted from Mbecker:
Was hoping you would start a thread on this.. amazing amount of work complete in such a short amount of time!!

We want to show that you can get to the fun part really, um, FAST! (Couldn't resist!)

Aaron
FAST Pinball

#30 8 years ago

FST

fastpinball

Peanuts is in Idaho! But how much further?

Wah wah wa-wa-wa wah-wah wah

Any Pinsider want to meet up for breakfast? Should be in the Billing, MT (or a little beyond) around the time my stomach starts grumbling!

Aaron
FAST Pinball

#36 8 years ago

FST

fastpinball

Quoted from PinPatch:
Snoopy vs Red baron mode?

Yes it will! That was the first mode hat came to mind. I have an idea that I think will be pretty cool to simulate a dog fight.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

#37 8 years ago

FST

fastpinball

Quoted from Insane:
Freakin awesome...I wish I had the talent and knowledge of some of you guys building these awesome home built machines.

We are learning every day. I am so proud of all the hard work and effort everyone I have met via this FAST adventure puts into things. The biggest motivation for me right now to dig in and work on these projects is share the successes and failures with the other FAST family members. Love this stuff!

Aaron
FAST Pinball

#39 8 years ago

FST

fastpinball

Quoted from huo:
Very cool! Maybe one day I'll make my own

The first one will be frustrating and slower going than you want and sorta like you envisioned. The next one gets better. As does the next. Use cheap laser cut acrylic instead of expensive inserts and the rest is pretty easy to migrate from each playfield iteration.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

#48 8 years ago

FST

fastpinball

Quoted from KenLayton:
For me, Peanuts is *the* most boring comic strip out there. As bad as Blondie & Dagwood. A Peanuts pinball would put me to sleep.

MetLife: The Pinball

I don't disagree with that feeling. Looking to create something that is fun and holds true to the classic vibe. It's a challenge.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

#58 8 years ago

FST

fastpinball

Oh yeah. We gotta wire up some more stuff we ran out of time for tomorrow after I get there and get a short nap. We will all be working on getting the games all running after the quick pack of the trailer. Just checked and everything is still doing well:

FAST Cargo

Only slightly insane after driving 18+ hours so far

I will post updates all weekend. You will love the video mode. I just got an update. Looks rad!

Aaron
FAST Pinball

#71 8 years ago

FST

fastpinball

Quoted from Wickerman2:
Maybe Lucy holding a football somewhere...some sort of timed shot where she lifts it

This is in the video mode.

Aaron

#72 8 years ago

FST

fastpinball

Phew! What a great weekend! While I am disappointed that there wasn't enough time finish up the wiring I had planned, I am so stoked about all the time I got to spend with people coming by the booth to see what indie pinball and FAST are all about.

I honestly had no idea so many people would be so excited about a Peanuts Pinball game. I had visitors and messages all weekend from people interested in how they could get a Peanuts Pinball game. There were fans of all ages who came by just to see the art in person. I shared the mode ideas and showed some of the prototype toys with so many people and it always brought smiles.

I sure wish that the Pinball Expo allowed vendors/exhibitors access to the booth space throughout the show. The lockouts would have been a great time for those with games the time to work on them or make adjustments. I was able to run my wire and will get it soldered up and running soon. I will be streaming much of the work I do on this game. (I will post in this thread when I do stream.) I'll get to that after recovering from the travel and, of course, some quality time with my rad/patient/supportive wife and my awesome boys. (Does it sound like I miss them a bit!)

I have about 24 hours of driving left ahead of me to think about making this game something special.

Thanks again to everyone who came out to see the beginning of the Peanuts Pinball project and all the other games in the works at the FAST Pinball booth. We all had a great time sharing our work and look forward to showing progress in the days/weeks/months to come!

Breakfast complete! Time to get back on the road!

Aaron
FAST Pinball

2 weeks later

#77 8 years ago

FST

fastpinball

Quoted from Hop-Pac:
Wow. That looks great! I like the hand drawn artwork. I want to do my own too. Can you tell me what paint was used on the Playfield? I want to hand draw mine but I don't know what will work best. Paint pen? Air brush? Bristle brush?

The Playfield is a large polyvinyl overlay. A big sticker basically. It's a place holder for now while we finalize the Playfield layout and led placement.

Eager to get back to work. Been super busy since getting back from Expo

Aaron
FAST Pinball

#81 8 years ago

FST

fastpinball

Quoted from desertT1:
What did you go through in order to put the overlay down? Sand, clear, overlay, light sand, clear? Or just sand overlay, boom(!) and save the finishing process for the final version of the overlay?

The current Playfield is laser cut MDF. I just cleaned it off and stuck it down. This is a dev Playfield so it won't be used for too long.

If I was to do it again on a proper plywood Playfield I would have done what you described. Gotta be super smooth for the decal to adhere. Then clear over it.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

#83 8 years ago

FST

fastpinball

Quoted from desertT1:
Cool. Loving the thread and plan on using FAST/MPE for my build when I finally can get started.

Right on. We'd love to have you in the family!

Aaron
FAST Pinball

#86 8 years ago

FST

fastpinball

Quoted from rosh:
so are you going to use clips from the original tv specials, etc. or going to wait and pull from the new movie? Obviously less material, but the clips would look a lot better.

The artist is working in the original style. So the clips will follow it. I do think that the modern look was well done though. Really feels like the characters we know, but freshened up.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

4 years later

#97 3 years ago

FST

fastpinball