Alien and Aliens are one of the best movie pairings ever made imo. Both masterfully done, each really existing inside their own sub genre, and yet they go together so well.

Alien is a suspense film. Amazing set designs, great humanistic portrayals of blue collar workers in space. You rarely even see the xeno until the end, and yet it also has one of the most famously disturbing violent scenes in cinema. The chest burster scene was unparalleled for years. The effects of the whole film hold up very well.

Aliens takes the first film and flips it on its head. We go from blue collar workers to soldiers. Both existing within a relationship with a controlling corporation, that's the constant thread, but now it's a war film. We go from barely seeing the xeno to being swarmed by them. There's still suspense, but it's not horror in the dark, it's an action film. Nothing feels repeated or formulaic, the connections between the films are fabulous but each really holds their own.

Both have a wonderful balance between the humanity of the characters, who aren't just there to be killed off like in so many more by the number horror films, but also the wonderful design of the aliens. The eggs, facehuggers, chesbursters, xeno drones, the Queen, the space jockey, his ship, just everything actually "alien" about the movies was so well done. HR Geiger was a genius, and there were two visionary directors with long careers ahead of them who made the most of it all.

I don't hate the third film, but they threw out all that development for something that never measured up. It's not a terrible movie, but hardly worth of being part of a trilogy. I'm happy to forget the fourth film even exists, it was not only not good, it took the only really meaningful thing the third film had to offer, Ripley's sacrifice, and just flushed it all down the toilet. Bleh.

The license would have allowed the third movie to be in the pin (not sure about the fourth, only remember discussion of the third). Nobody wanted it. Definitely the right call imo.

I've been out of the pinball loop lately, life been busy, didn't realize these were really starting to ship for real now. Very cool, I'm with Joe, glad people are getting another shot to play this.

I'm not sure what info on the game changes is public or not at this point, so best that I just not say anything, but very curious to see how the differences work out. Since the games are out in public I think it's safe enough to say that the playfield underside sure looks cleaner now!

After all the BS with Heighway I have to say, it was some emotional closure for me personally to come back and finish the art package for the LV version. Not my role to talk details about things, I see some questions I could answer, but I'm sure it will all get sorted out. But taking the original limited design I did years ago, redoing it for the Pinball Brothers package, and bringing the rest of the art in line with it felt right. It's all come full circle.

There's some detail you can't see in the small promo image, but fans will appreciate the easter eggs. And it was important to me to find a way to keep the dark tone of the game while bringing more color to it. The monotone black and green on the standard is fine too, it's the classic look, but I wanted something else to contrast with it, and appreciate that the team was on board with taking it there.

If you want to buy it or don't want to buy it, or like it love it or are meh on it or hate it that's cool. This has been a long confusing saga, I get it more than anyone else. But I'm happy with how it all came out as a package in the end.

I'm especially glad to ditch the Heighway cab design for full cabinet decals. And have an actually coordinated and good looking powder coat color. Throw it all on the list of things I didn't agree with Andrew about!

I can't really answer many questions at this point honestly. I have an agreement with PB and it's not my role to step on their toes, say something accidentally wrong that will create confusion, or reveal something I shouldn't without meaning to. I'll say yes to the first question and leave it at that for now.

All I feel comfortable talking about is some of my personal feelings, that are separate from any reveals or plans. The PB team is passionate about making everything work, and whatever the final outcomes are there's no question they put a ridiculous amount of effort into resurrecting and redoing this pin. I'm happy to be involved again, and didn't think I'd ever say that lol.

When Roger sent me the first renders of how my backglass was going to work with everything I got motivated to spend whatever time I needed to make the rest of the package match, and it felt good to see it through. That's enough for me at this point.

If I wasn't happy with it I would have just said nothing and moved on.

I will say one last thing, and this is just me speaking personally about my history, not speaking for PB or anyone else:

I never liked the playfield screen. This notion that the game was designed for it is imo silly. It was there because it had to be, because Heighway had this dumb modular game design idea and didn't let it go so every game was locked into it after Full Throttle. Then Andrew waffled, the backbox got an LCD too, it wasn't even the same resolution or aspect ratio, but it was mirrored from the playfield, and was just half assed. The lack of commitment to the idea made it lesser, imo.

It's a unique feature. If you have an original game and you love it that's great. I recognize that there's this tension between 'original' and 'remake', and it's got personal feelings, it's got money and investments, and it will always create arguments. That's fine.

I wasn't around when PB took it out and changed the playfield art. Can't speak to it.

If you love your original I'm happy you have something we worked hard on. If you're getting a remake and are wistful about the screen, I get it.

But I'm not sad to see it gone, and have the backbox LCD be done properly finally, instead of this weird mix of mismatched signals. It's sacrificing a little uniqueness, yes, but for a better overall package.

Glad you like it. Enjoy your game!

I think that looks nice. I prefer the blue color, black isn't interesting to me as something special. But powder coating isn't expensive, if anyone wants to get their armor done up custom I say make the game yours and do it.

I was just telling Roger the story of that screen being added the other day—I don't think he'd heard my perspective on it—since it was my concept, and the only real physical part of the playfield I had a hand in. I fought hard to get it put in the game, there was a lot of resistance at first. Who remembers what was there before?

Coffee Can Queen™

That whole thing was a mess. Matt from Back Alley really battled with Fox over that sculpt, it's not his fault it came out the way it did. But nothing was working there. A ton of time had been put into it, but sometimes you gotta walk away.

There's no question we have to give credit to JJP for making the mini LCD work first too. Not only with Hobbit, but remember when I first saw the rotating Queen on the prototype in person at Expo and knew we had to fix it, that was also the same year Dialed In was revealed at the show. I'm sure I used that in my arguments for the screen even, I don't remember now.

I have zero comment on Queen. But I'll tell you this: it would be nice if you could just have this mythical LICENSE and then do whatever you wanted with it.

It doesn't work that way.

I think at least in this particular instance that we can assume I know more about the topic, when it comes to pinball, than a lot of people.

Checked out the video, fun to see the new LV art in a real environment, I still haven't seen it in person.

But what made me do a double take was the Metallica. Someone just emailed me tonight to ask about that roadcase speaker decal, I haven't thought about it in years. And there it is, on the game next to Alien.

Thanks. It felt good to be able to work with PB to get that done, it really washed away the last of the bad taste from Andrew.

They really just let me do what I had always wanted it to be, which was to fill it full of Alien themes, but offer a backglass that wasn't so visually dark and monochromatic. The green and black version is fine, but to me pinball needs a little color and pop in a game room. Same deal with the cabinet art.

I'm glad you like it, I've never actually seen it in person, just photos and video.

I can confirm that this is not only not true, the Brian Allen version was just a redraw of my original LE backglass. Andrew didn't want to use it for whatever reason, and being a giant cock just backstabbed me and hired Brian (not his fault, and I helped Brian get paid for his work, no bad blood between us) to basically draw what I had already done.

(After Andrew told me an original drawing wasn't an option, but hey, just one more lie.)

Also—again, no disrespect to Brian—but it really showed how ridiculous the whole thing was. His drawing wasn't not at all accurate to the film, the number of fingers was wrong, he added horns that didn't exist, and Fox just rubber stamped it. Clearly we could have done whatever we wanted, Andrew was just incompetent and wouldn't let me talk to Fox. A ten minute phone call would have saved years of grief.

No worries, it's a bit confusing how things worked in that time period.

Also, remember that back then it was a constant game of changing specs. Originally the games only had a playfield display, and the backglass was big. Then they started adding the giant backbox displays, and there was little room for art at all. Things that were designed got tossed.

When PB standardized on the single standard sized backbox LCD they came to me and asked if I would redo my original full LE art to be the LV one with room for the LCD. I took that opportunity to add more detail and color.

And of course now with a 'standard' cab design the old side art was way too small, so redid that to match, got to work with them on the powdercoat color, basically put together a cohesive package. Which is why it's nicer than the old Heighway stuff, because adults calmly sat down, made a plan, and worked together to get it all set.

What a lineup to be at the end of, damn.

Oh dang, didn't know you were getting an LV, funny timing to get it right as I ship you your hammer.

Nobody actually cares about the Pinside top 100. But Joe is right, that it even got to #1 for a bit is cool, simply because it means there were enough people who cared enough to say nice things about the game and put some effort into promoting it in the system. I appreciated seeing it, for entertainment purposes only.

Yup, Kelly and Lior worked together to re-render the doors to match the frame.

PB offered to fly me out to Expo this year, but I just couldn't fit it into my schedule, got a lot of my plate right now. Sorry I didn't get to see anyone there, hope people had a good time. Was fun to see all the pics of the cab on the show floor instead of just having Photoshop.

The xeno is just not lit clearly often in the first film, but if you look at the airlock shots where it is the skull is pretty readable.

xeno1 (resized).png

xeno2 (resized).png

xeno3 (resized).png

That is a lot fancier than mine.

IMG_3066 2 (resized).JPG

Kelly and I discussed it and I did the art for the back glass as a full image, so the LCD area is not blank.

So my answer is I assume so, but I can’t give you an official response.