Hello Pinside,

Today I released the first Alpha Gameplay Trailer of a game I have been working on. I will be maintaining this thread.

I got into pinball almost 4 years ago. A videogame company I was working for purchased a Bally Lost World that kept having issues. They would slap an "Out of Order" flyer on it many times and wait days or weeks for a tech to come out. I started looking into how pinball machines work and wondering if I couldn't build something cheaper. I've been working in the videogame industry for many years including EA/Take-Two. Videogames nowadays are free in some cases, offer endless hours of gameplay, and require no maintenance. $7,000-$12,000 is a steep threshold to get into the steel ball hobby. There are plenty of Pinball companies now, so I don't want to be just another pinball company doing the same thing. Let Stern be Stern, making the games the quality they have set. I see this is a new market and is much needed.

This product has been in development for several years. Nearly all parts and electronics are built in house, and still finalizing and testing various parts. I have built an entire production and software platform to expand our product line to multiple titles going forward. I spent over 1,000 hours designing, researching, licensing music, and so many other tasks one by one. And still more to go.

Final price is set at $2,100. We will be manufacturing a small first-batch of 5 to 10 games at an early discount price of $1,800. These will be final edition, full warranty games. We just want to make sure that everything from shipping, to quality control, is bulletproof before scaling. If you are interested in pre-ordering, get in touch via email at [email protected]. We will accept deposits starting Jan. 1, 2023. Our deposits are contractually 100% refundable if we do not ship you a game. In my journey I've learned of more than one company taking large amounts of money (millions) to play with as they wish, and never ship a single game. We built the product first.

There are still many awesome and unique features planned to announce for Pinball Eternal. Lights and coin door obviously on the list once gameplay is final. For users who want a one-of-a-kind custom game (bar, restaurant, home-use, etc), we also have a custom shop and pinball designer software. You can design a game on your computer, and play it in real-time. When happy, send over the file, and from there we can cut, assemble, upload programming and ship out. There is some early info here:

We will have a booth at Free Play Florida in Orlando again this weekend, Nov 18-20. Hope to see you there and talk pinball. If you can't make it, I'm also looking at hiring some help depending on where we get to in 2023.

Follow us via social media if you are interested in the most up to date info.

Cheers, thanks for stopping by. If you want to help support the cause, I have shirts available on the website.

https://www.pawlowskipinball.com
https://www.facebook.com/PawlowskiPinball/
https://twitter.com/PawlowskiPin
https://www.instagram.com/pawlowskipinball/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcn9iHJSIbiPuJX2pV1_rtg

Man I was hoping to but I'm behind schedule and don't want to book another expo after this week until final model complete. They sell out quick but we'll see. Likely a no for 2023 sadly.

Not too much. These bands all do the same work as Metallica but accept less pay because they love what they do. They understand not everyone has millions, and my pricing isn't greedy. I had a budget and let them know what I could offer. Various upfront fees + royalties based on each bands popularity. There a video of Chuck Billy playing pinball. I know Kerry King is a pinball guy too, so well see if we don't get a slayer one. I have spoken with Dave Mustaine and he is interested in doing a Megadeth game. If this does well, then Megadeth is first on the list if we can work something out. I don't believe it will be picked up by the other companies.

Some people never could afford it to begin with. I talk to people that immediately say "When it's done let me know. Can't afford other games.". I think there are lot's of people not being served because of pricing, which is why I say it is a new market. Also my current weight with everything is ~60 lbs, so cheaper shipping as well.

This prototype is about 42" long. Final is going to be 46". With that some things may move, but mostly just pushing things back 4". It's currently 24" wide, which I think will be hard to slim down with the current design, however my backbox is flush with the cabinet, so the total footprint is similar.

Never heard the term Zizzle, but the cabinet is going to change a little bit in dimensions. The board is not equipped to be fitted like a standard playfield, so that won't work. I've lived in many apartments for 12 years, so portability is a cool feature here. The entire game+cabinet collapse and fits in my back seat. My main focus is building something I believe in, and pricing is something I hold value to. Maintaining the same ideas, cabinet sizes, backbox exact dimensions from the 80's was never my focus. Those companies exist. Things will change between now and final, so both of us will have to see, and hopefully you like it.

I will definitely make decent money. This is a side gig unless it gets massively hyped. I'm not looking to buy a massive warehouse like JJP. We will be garage based, but looking at 1000sq ft warehousing. I spent 4 years to make an affordable game. $2,000 on any item, pinball, guitars, etc is still a lot to me. There are guys in bands that willingly accept less money in the metal world to do what they love. Not everyone needs to be Metallica to be happy. Extrapolated to 1000 machines, I'm saving like $2 million dollars in parts because this is in-house tech and hardware. I will raise the price if something changes in the coming months to warrant it, but that price has been run and calculated and crunched very specifically. That is the ONLY reason I built or want to have this company. Provide something different at the most affordable price I can afford.

There are cheap Kia cars that perform the same functionality as a Ferari. Right now Pinball is all entirely Ferari's. If you own Ferari's, and you can afford them, then not my intended market. If you have valid feedback, I will accept it. If you just want me to fail because you didn't like my prototype ALPHA trailer, then...cool(?) You have to at least commend me for building entire scoop and flipper assemblies (including coils) for under $8 ea. And making a working machine and pricing it as such. It's not polished just yet...

Was just looking for that company! but forgot the name (Zizzle). What was the pricing on those!

Probably at least a year out from releasing any kits. They will be nicely priced as well.

I've had great feedback thus far when. 1 year ago today without working power, I had a family visit my booth saying they want to buy it when its ready. They are psyched there is a game they can afford and like the theme. I had a pre-order within 5 minutes of SFGE in Atlanta opening in July. I've had reservations to wait until Final build before drawing attention, but I think it's far enough along that people see the vision of where the final product can get to. I also understand that I've learned almost everything I know from making videogames, building guitars, building pinball machines comes from others brains. It helps to get feedback which is why I've had booths at tradeshows since 2019 so people can give feedback.

For sure. That's been last on the list as you cnc route and slam an insert in. Something I know can be done so global lighting and inserts haven't funneled to the top of my list. I'm also looking to get away from traditional off the shelf arrow and circle inlays. A lot of my focus has been stuff you see under the game. Such as redesigning flipper crank assemblies, coils.

Several main features in the video, there are no off the shelf springs/mechs/coils that would ever remotely work/fit. The simplest way I can say get the point across is here:
https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/520-8438-00
1.) Out of stock. 2.) Price I can assure you my optos cost nowhere near $60. And what do I do if Dot Matrix Displays or mosfet driver boards go out of stock?

This also provides a lot of flexibility beyond price, to create future unique ideas. Stern's insider app and camera are proprietary. I have an idea if I go that route to do something similar, cheaper, and my own tech that would cost way less than slapping a camera in the game. I also like learning how everything works and have extensive programming experience.

Not much risk honestly. I've spent very very little money compared to Zidware/Deeproot to get this far. If at the end of the day I only sell 10, I make my money back and cool that someone gets to enjoy the game. Suncoast Pinball was another FL based company that made a game cosmic carnival for $7,000 some dollars. They made only like 20 or so units.

Not at the moment. Also, Cosmic Carnival again was $7,000. It's a tough market to compete and I'd rather not risk going head to head. My price could go up a tad bit, but I also recognize that this is a new brand that needs to gain trust.
Everything has a cost and there is no budget today to hire designers, that likely are on exclusive agreements. Don't want to jump the gun too fast and get into debt. I think it may be cool to work with Scott from Total Nuclear Annihilation on something. I also think there are lots of casual players out there, that just making the most masterful intensely deep game ever, doesn't necessarily automatically = profit. It may be unrealistic that people walk out of playtesting saying this game overtakes Godzilla.

Remember Magic Girl + Deeproot had professionals and millions of dollars and produced nothing. So stamping "Made by best pinball designer" on the box, as the highest priority item, doesn't mean too much to me (yet). Well get there in time. When I hit Beta (all gameplay and product features complete), I will be hosting some events at local pinball places around FL for feedback. There are some top rated players around that I've had contact with and will try to get playtesting.

Right now the game is not "fun". Its soley a functional alpha with most features complete, and the product proven that it can be completed. More ramps, ball lock, extra stuff going in. The bottom playfield is going to get bigger and likely have extra gameplay changes.

Well get there. All the other planned features currently in development are unique, and I think will be very cool. If I get 100+ pre-orders and there is a warrant to get expertise, then sure. I think tradeshow customers however are going to be a good form of feedback.

Right now the physics programming in my pinball software is just a tad bit off, but I have this game working on PC right now as you can see in my other October Update video. So it may serve some purpose to have people play that, but its not the same as playing a physical game.

I will say one thing that you don't see behind the scenes is that I'm still looking at a couple pieces of proprietary features. One being possibly replacing coil stops completely if that tech pans out. I follow a group with thousands of members on facebook called Pinball Repair Help and I can't tell you how many times people say an opto switch stopped working and they have NO clue what to do or how to get replacement parts. Happens all the time. So I am actively trying to improve on what has been done for 25 years, whether it ends up working or not. Just have to wait and see what works.

Thanks, will ping Jon when I get a little further along.

There will be switches. My next task is getting the ball-lock finished behind the temple door. It has a magnet to grab the ball and then raises on a pedestal like Indiana jones and it will stay up on there, glowing, until you unlock it.

You can ask nicely, or just assume I'm your enemy for some reason. I have personally spoken with Dave Mustaine and his management dating back to 2019. So why you are angry or trying to be Megadeths lawyer is beyond me. I love metal. The metal community are good people. Dave wants to do a pinball game. If any other manufacturer reads this and wants to secure the IP, go for it. I love pinball and metal regardless and can try for other IP's I have to possibly do. Every single band licensed for music on this thing are excited and positive about it. Some are pinball fans.

I've built almost all parts, yes. 95% of R&D is behind me. I'm still building mechs. On average a mech with a coil costs me $5. So yes I can and very strategically have been solely focused on price and while not a direct bullseye, I'm in the green. The last time I ran a full update on my BOM on every piece to build the game was about 3 months ago. The circuitry is complete. A mosfet costs what a mosfet costs. Of all people I would know what my product costs....I built it.

People PAY money to play alpha build games on Steam. It's called Early Access. I'm not a fan to play early games, but this is merely a trailer of what is in progress. I haven't asked for anyone's money and will refund at any point. I also don't have an exact release date just yet.

By all means, if they offer good points and opinions, I would appreciate it. I don't know much about Levi, but I saw he was into metal and sent him a PM 5 months ago. He seemed intrigued and positive.

Sure I'll check out the other thread mentioned and see what I can learn from it.

There are tons of people on youtube like Steve Kondris who shares very early ideas he works on and I certainly appreciate that he does so. I think I'm at a very good point though to be announcing what is to come.

Not sure the acronym, but possibly(?) I've been to some tradeshows and had some posts around the years.

I have a cost of goods + labor calculated. These are built very inexpensively.

I'll be silent for a few days from this post due to Free Play Florida and circle back soon, possibly with a video update since I can't keep up typing forever. Most importantly, I'm doing this because it's just fun. I've invested little money. I've asked for no upfront money to build the company. My pre-orders are refundable.

I either ship the goods or not when the time comes. If I sell a game at $2,100, and a customer gets it and likes it, what does it matter. These cost less to build than you might think.

\m/ \m/

Don't waste your time (and mine) attacking each other. The meanest comments can have valid points at the core, and I can address those comments and progress the conversation further.

There is a famous story of a girl raised in the Westboro Baptist Church. The people who hate everything, including the band the Foo Fighters. She ended up marrying a guy who argued with her on Twitter. People can be persuaded if you approach the right way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megan_Phelps-Roper

I know my product and the vision for it. I think overwhelmingly people can see that I can definitely take this to the finish line. At the current price, and what I did with R&D this long: if I build and sell 40 of these myself, that's more money than I made at my first job on one of the Sims videogames as a software engineer.

I appreciate the passion to support me, but I got this. It's my job to persuade and I believe I will do so in the end.

Original plan was to be 100% ready before hitting pinside with 5 games ready to ship. I wanted to film some video before taking to free-play and the potential for a part to break or something go wrong. Earlier than I wanted to announce but I think its fine. I honestly don't want to take money right now, but people do want to get in line already. It's a tiny, refundable deposit.

Licensors who? Its all my code and hardware. Hadn't thought about it but well see.

Attached the original display I was working on (Mind the work in progress alignment issues). These are custom made Fire LED segments that are ~2" big. I didn't put in the video because I don't know if I'll ship it. I'm thinking a 9x2 display of those, or some smaller off the shelf LED's 16x2 maybe.

Not sure this had too much more info than I've already said, but anyone wanting to dig extra info, there may be some here.

Display (resized).png

I mean I don't see the skepticism, I already built a Christmas ornament pinball factory.... shouldn't be too hard to do the real thing Just a small item I sell at the tradeshows.
ornaments (resized).png

Sorry if I seemed to contradict my earlier reply, but my direct reply to you personally was that yes I have contracts in place. They have no creative control. Would be bad/impossible business to have to have sign-off from 15 bands on MY product + the record labels who own masters rights. I licensed music. They like the idea. Simple business. I thought he meant licensing for code or something other than music.

Can't be any more clear on anyone that might ask about Intellectual Property rights. Let's move on. \m/

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Get out to free play FL then.

Not final layout. Board is going to be longer. Adding another ramp is the plan and one or two other key shots that have animated playfield pieces as well. The video is to show proof of concept, and that I can build scoop/flipper assemblies for ~$5. The game is not fun and this weekends showing is not going to be fun. Well get there. Very unpolished right now in my opinion and very accepting of feedback, but right now its not a game. But just to re-iterate: These are my own coils, circuit board, plungers, flipper crank assemblies. I may build my own flippers as well.

When ready, I'll be on the weekends from Jacksonville to Tampa etc at various locations when I'm ready and well get some people to come out and play. At least the plan for now.

Cheapest wireform bending machine I found was $18k. I came up with a way to do any arbitrary wireform by hand by designing some tools. Took some thinking. If anyone knows of a wire bending machine much cheaper let me know.

Most everything. It's a mix of FDM and UV resin based. Some parts I may make molds and cast, but the main boss would take too much material and hard to mold for the size and shape of him.

Looking for something where I press a button and it comes out bent exactly to shape. I *could* build one. I may in the end. There are tinkerers on YT that have done it but well see. Right now what I built is way more sophisticated than that tool. I have a jig and the wireform in the video can be replicated by hand in about 5 mins.

See my thread here. Several pinball mfg's are not on the UL cert website. You can search yourself. I have the specs however and that will be documented for due diligence. I have the option to also have a single pinball machine inspected by UL and put a stick on only that machine. Shows due dilligence that I accomplished a good product at least once.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pinball-mfg-s-not-ul-cert

Even people that support me say to raise the price. Family as well. No hard feelings, I'll maybe clarify some things in a video response next week. But maybe understand at this one point: You are asking about UL. I already looked into it a year ago. I've talked with UL and I have the thread there. I asked this question a year ago. You are just pulling this as an after thought. So all I can say for now is I've honestly looked into everything about building a low-cost game at this point.

Will be back to do a video update on the many comments/topics. Much easier to converse than type. Just a quick link. Here is UL's website.

https://productiq.ulprospector.com/en/search

"Stern Pinball", "Jersey Jack" show up. Homepin, Spooky, American Pinball, Multimorphic, Pinball Brothers. Unless doing business under different names (Spooky is registered as Spooky under Secretary of State in WI), then not too many companies are UL. Doesn't mean I'm super lax on electrical standards and ignorant of testing. Will message anyone that thinks they can help in a specific task I have ahead.

Sent you a PM, get in contact [email protected]. If you are down the road you might as well wait. You can stop by and play anytime, just let me get some real gameplay in.

Right, and if you take just a small step back too. Cobrapin is an EE guy that sells DIY boards for pinball controllers. FAST pinball sells boards. Neither are UL. And there is no innovation in board design. You have mosfets and you have fuses. Everyone is dong identical circuitry to turn on coils. Stern uses electronic fuses anymore, but I'm not sure if on the modern games they still have at least one fuse somewhere in case something is not right. I'm looking at doing some electronic circuit protection as well with opto decoupling.

I'll be back on to do a quick video update today or tomorrow.

Think he's just bored on the topic. UL has been something I've looked and will look into again at some point. Spooky sells games. We will get there in time. Gameplay videos will come at some point. Don't want to release features one by one (I don't think), so I'll bring hopefully get a few more done and shown in December.

I dabbled with FCC recently. Will look again but on their own site, as an un-intentional transmitter and the frequency etc, it said that it was not necessary. PinMonk has told me that Stern coils run extremely cool when holding flippers, as opposed to others. It may be that they pulse their flipper coils at a higher frequency and this is why they have FCC approval. Gomez mentioned FCC in an old video talking about Spike 2 Don't own a spooky game, but curious if they have an FCC stamp on their circuit boards.

Nobody wants to resell epic death metal pinball \m/ \m/ I think it will be pretty epic all said and done. No rush to put something lame out. But also, I think the people signing up for pre-orders are the people that don't have a game already. So I can't imagine they just start selling them. If they flip for $2k profit, that leaves you with some extra cash but you still can't afford any other pinball machine.

Video ran a bit long, but for anyone interested, just a brain dump. Hopefully we can stop re-iterating the same things going forward. I will be ignoring any pricing questions and any UL questions. Really not much else left to talk about.

Some notes:
+At the lowest expectations, I think putting UL and business aside, I think I will make a cool game. Tech is there, let me prove out gameplay.
+Pricing can change, whether on Pinball Eternal, or 2 years on another IP, but I wanted a price on it for the trailer. $2,100 will never be a loss. Well see where we get.
+No release date listed right now, but sometime in 2023 is target.
+FPF I met American Pinball VP, Jersey Jack marketing, Marco marketing(met prior), David from Pinball Asylum (hosted IFPA this year, met prior), Pinball Pimp(met prior)
+Small sampling of my part pricing and prior videos testing parts.
+Background of my technical, creative, other knowledge.
+Cabinet size is going to change a little but still planning to be different sized from what is out there.
+Take IP seriously. I own rights. Megadeth is aware of me. There has been no cease and desist in 3 years. Dave wants to do a game and I'm the only person to show initiative to make a Megadeth game prototype.

A couple things I forgot to address. MBecker - not planning on have massively crazy light shows, but I will have some inlays on the board. I'm trying to move lights around, not just on playfield.

I was going to mention as well that I already have code from 10 years ago that can link 2 phones in real time to play games, add users, track high scores in a database. All this tech can be used to recreate Stern Insider app in a couple days. Hooking up to my pinball board is easy as long as I have a wifi module on it. I see Stern has a patent on "Networked Pinball Machines". So I'll have to look at that. US patent office grants too many patents as it is and that would be lame if it restricts me from putting online code in my games.

Temple skull printed 120mm/s on printer. Just a test print which is why it looks bad. Reference for moving lights off the playfield and onto other areas.
Temple (resized).png

Wolfmarsh

The big bonus to doing my own coils is I can make cool toys like the 4x spike sequence. The coils are very thin and long and I tweak them to the power I need. I also have to make them fit in a tight space. Here you can see the magnetized rod is a simple straight 9-gauge piece of steel wire. The spike screws in from the top of coil if you ever need to perform maintenance.

Coil (resized).png
My electric demon shock coil is a very small 32 gauge right now. It's ~30ohm I believe and runs in parallel with another 12ohm 26 gauge that brings the current flow down and was to be shared with other small coils. It has a custom spring and the plunger is a simple galvanized roofing nail. Probably will just switch to a 12v supply on it at the same power rating.

Demon Coil (resized).png

My flipper coils currently are 3.0Ohm. Stern are 4.55Ohm. I investigated pulse times on here and it looks like a decent amount of Stern pulse times were ~40ms. My pulse time is 20ms. (506Watt vs 768Watt/halftime = 384Watt). So pending my mosfets stay happy with the higher current spike, my flippers run a bit better and with less wire wrapped, less clumped heating. But no official tests long-term yet.

Wife misses living in Atlanta, but I didn't plan to go again since I've gone a couple years and I don't want to sign up for a show unless I have full working/tested games.

Updated the prior comment with extra info you would be interested in.^^^

Here are my other pages. And most notable song I wrote (speedwise).

https://www.youtube.com/adamgtr86

https://www.youtube.com/dpadam450

https://www.artstation.com/dpadam450

I've been thinking to do an idea like this, where it shows the shot route via inlay line and not just an indicator in front of what to shoot.

Gmae inlays (resized).png
Talking with the guy who built the Elf homebrew, he has a magnet coil that stops the ball 3 inches from a secondary flipper. He was next to my booth and I watched people STILL not see or know there was a secondary flipper. Same on the Simpsons game, and that one even auto flips 3 times to indicate to player there is a flipper present. I'm approaching these kind of ideas more as a videogame designer. I hate not truly knowing what points I'm getting per shot or what is the best target to hit at the moment. Just everything flashing all day long. I'd like to display some kind of score feedback/multiplier via board inserts, not just flashing lights everywhere. And I don't like to study every game text at the local arcade or watch youtube tutorials how to get the best scores. I'm more casual. Even at that, I still had to watch youtube tutorials on the Metallica game that I've played so many times and sometimes it crosses fun vs tedious studying. (my opinion) In terms of baby-feeding and indicating, I'm actually looking to be way more aggressive on giving player feedback such as the ball route lines above potentially.

Again on Metallica, Sparky is pretty obvious to hit and know that he gets electrocuted into multi-bull. I played the Star wars game that has the death star circle wireform that goes around the whole game. Super cool effect, but I never got it again and never figured out how to when I was at the arcade recently.

Wolfmarsh
You said you wouldn't play with anything not UL. I guess you trust yourself since you made your own game, but for the boards and what not, what did you make Spaceballs on?

I also considered the armature angle when the solenoid engages to see if the initial stroke being more powerful (at 90 degrees to the lever) might help get a better kick. I iterated a bunch of designs in the past, so I'll come back to this when my assembly is finalized and see if there is any benefit.
coil angle (resized).png

For sure it was a personal failure that it did break down, and I haven't assessed or touched it yet. But doesn't mean all my work is lost. Once it had an issue, I briefly looked to see but didn't want to do something dumb and ruin the whole board in attempts to get a couple scoops and flippers working. I think you are the DragonBallZ guy(?) I would have gladly laughed at my game with you. I did with Bob and he made a super badass Elf game. I had a great time talking with him. Could have talked in person.....I was there next to you all day. Very self-aware of happy to be critical of my product.

If you don't want to support me or be awkward at the next Free Play, I don't know. I never asked to be enemies and I enjoyed watching you open your games and admire the relay system you have in your two games.

You have to understand, I got into this 4 years ago not to make the funnest game in the world up-front. Not to be a homebrew game. I did this to R&D if it were possible to bring something different to the market. I don't want to risk my life savings competing with the best pinball companies in the world at the quality/price-point they have. That's a certain way to lose.

Either way, I was cordial and respectful to you in person.

All good, was just curious.

Most people in person do not even know that the bottom playfield I have is actually playable.

Not sure I'll do it, but it would be either routed dotted line with individual lights, or solid line and filled in with epoxy. OR possibly EL-Wire or something else.

Send me a link if you got other info. I only brushed the surface on FCC. As the other guy said, I have to get a game flipping before I care too much about getting my FCC stamp. Just doesn't make much sense. Yes if FCC+UL force me to raise a price, for sure. But again at this point guys. Let me make a game to even be sellable.

Heard. For sure.

I'll take offline real quick not to derail the thread.

I didn't spend 4 years building a fun game. I spent 4 years designing a manufacturing process and tech. I would have to be massively naive to believe my game is awesome from a gameplay perspective and defend it as such. After today, it's Thanksgiving in the USA and then I'm back to work, I'll likely only respond to specific inquiries from here on out. I do plan to build winding machines just like guitar manufacturers wind pickups.....at some point.

Every record label I worked with on this game thinks it's cool. Every band. People understand you come into recording a new record with rough guitar riffs. This is early, but as far as product dev and design, it's in pretty good shape to take to the finish line in 2023. You either see that this can get better than this, or that this is all there is to it.

Maybe January. I think I blew a decent amount of traction showing the game early, and I'd like the next reveal to be even bigger, instead of just releasing things piece by piece. Follow on YT or social, and I'll be posting here at some point. I've started to save some things for an update video on general things more R&D/business so well see if I get enough content. Likely January for that.

I already have a successful career in videogames that I enjoy. This is about starting something that I own, not being an employee. I want to bring fun games at a good price. Only reason I am in this.

It will take a lot more shape once I get to the final board size and finish some of these mechs. If I do some local hands-on testing, we can get feedback and things can change. It will get finished and make sure it's good.

Update:

I went back and re-designed a lot of things. I added the remaining features and more. Playfield size has changed. Cabinet size has changed. Price bumped up a little bit (early bird $2,000 / final $2,500) for a few reasons . I do have plans to get FCC certification soon which costs a little bit of money. I've searched a lot of patents that have been granted to various companies/people relating to pinball. I plan to file possibly 6 patents right now just to be safe (costs money). Whether they get granted or declined, I just want to be able to release products without being obstructed.

Another reason for the slight pricing change: Just because I'm set on bringing low-cost games, doesn't mean it must be 1/2 the quality or 1/2 the fun as any other game out there, or that it will break down all the time. I think this is actually a very cool product when you see the final result. It will still go through a lot of warranty testing. The Alpha trailer was basic and an early sample. I wanted to document what I built before tearing down for an expo and anything that could go wrong in transportation etc. It had it's purpose though: *an estimated release date, *estimated price and a *working proof of concept.

I plan to ship out the first 5 games at discount as I have said before. These slots are currently full. I have not collected that money yet, though these are customers willing to pay. It doesn't do me any good to hold onto someones money while I develop the game over these months or if someone lost their job while I'm holding their cash. If those people do not come through when pre-order collection starts, those slots will open to the next people in line. If you think you have any slight bit of interest in purchasing at any point, or want to get in line, no fees due, then email me: [email protected]. I have another list of people interested to buy. I don't plan on taking any more than 5 early pre-orders, but that could change. Standard pre-orders will open at a later time when production is ready. I also plan to offer a yearly rebate system for any buyer willing to take the game to an expo. Rather than ship games back and forth or rent a truck, I'd rather fly to various expos without the hassle of driving trucks full of games or shipping games that get lost. I may not attend all expos in person as well, so it helps.

Timeline estimates, nothing hard set in stone:
Feb 5th: Beta video.
Feb-March: Popup play-testings at local arcades near Orlando/Jacksonville/Tampa. Pinball Lounge in Oviedo will be one spot, others TBA.
June-Sept: Window for when Early pre-orders will ship.
September-future: Hoping to visit Pintastic - Sept. 7(Boston), Pinball Expo - Oct. 18 (Chicago), TX Pinball Fest - March 24(Dallas)

If you are in FL near any of the 3 cities listed and think you would like to visit a playtest, email me so I can inform you event info. If I get feedback during play-testing, I can always make changes. I can always change prices etc. I have some planned iterations to polish electronics design and other parts. I'm sure that this can be done but it's still a decent amount of work ahead. Anything can happen and nothing is set in stone. It's a journey. The goal right now is get the game done and ship in low volumes first. This may or may not warrant quitting my day job, but under 100 units, I may build these all myself over some period of time, while keeping my job. If demand goes higher, we solve that problem when it comes.

Pending no other questions, the thread will get updated when the next video is up. I promise you, what is coming is a big step from what has been shown. If you want immediate updates follow on FB,Twitter,Youtube,Instagram: Pawlowski Pinball.

Just searched, sounds cool. I highly doubt anyone will use any of these patents anyway, so I'm not planning any royalties. I had someone approach my booth at a maker faire festival and his quote wasn't nearly close to $100k. I don't know much about him or how good he is, but I honestly could self file if it comes to it. The fee alone isn't that bad and I've been reading a lot of patents lately. We shall see but thanks for the heads up, never heard of that.

Can't show of the game just yet, but here is the beginning works of a topper I started working on last night. I have some ideas to add to it (and obviously need to finish off the hands on the demon).

Topper almost finished. Will print next week possibly. Hand will be edited so it doesn't cover up the head on the backlight.

Topper (resized).png

Prototype so it's not as clean/smooth as it could have been. Might scale down because it's pretty large. Or I just don't do the background props.

Topper (resized).png

Just a heads up, I lost 3 weekends to out of town+out of state family events. I'm also running a little bit behind which is typical. Not my full-time job currently. I do still want to get the next video out before the end of February. I like setting deadlines to shame myself and keep me working, but who knows, it could go past that.

A lot falls on the next video update, so I'm not going to release until it's done. Till then it's all just b/s talk on my end. There are a handful of pre-order people + other supporting people that have seen my final design blueprint and mechs working in action, so there is some behind the scenes credibility. Ideas still flow daily. I may release some sneak peak photos or videos before release.

I talked to a patent lawyer so I think I'm all set on that end. I'm waiting on some quotes for product liability insurance which is the last thing on the list in terms of pricing.

Just a small observation I made the other day. The number one roller coaster park in the world for 30 some years near my hometown (Cedar Point): after covid loses and current inflation prices, still only $45 ticket + $15 for parking. I'm a consumer just like everyone else and simply want to offer something cool at a good price. I was at Universal and Disney recently and to comparably charge only $45 for the best amusement park in the world, goes beyond logic of some people. Seems cool to me.

I'm not planning to take any pre-order money on first run games. When I have 5 built and ready to go I will ask full payment and ship that week. Here is a small purchasing terms for what would occur on future orders.
https://pawlowskipinball.com/purchase_agreement
You get an ETA for ship on date of purchase, if that's too far out, 100% refund. We miss your guaranteed ship date and you start losing faith it will ship, 100% refund. Keeps me honest. It's what would make me happy as a consumer. I'm not a big fan of indefinite backorders. Pre-order money will never be spent on production or purchasing. I just want things simple and stress free. No debt, no over purchasing, no indefinite backorders with upset customers. The second I hold someones money, then I feel obligated to get them a product at all costs instead of enjoy taking my time. I'm a metal fan and pinball fan, not interested to do my own people wrong.

With that, sorry this has taken so long. I know people are anxious. Something goes wrong, at least my name isn't up there with Deeproot, but I'm 36 and as long as I keep at it, I think I'll get something out at some point.

Coming

One of the critiques was about the zizzle-ness of the smaller size I was showing off. Was never intended to be final. This is what the beta size is going to be shown as (image below). This is a wide-body design still at 24" wide. Well see how it all works out and if we can squeeze it down 1" smaller if needed after I get it playing in peoples hands. It's a possibility the backbox could grow. The artwork however is not at that aspect ratio to change right now if I wanted to. Again, nothing is final till I say it's done and shipping.

The other critique I've had a couple people talk about is shipping. People ship products all over the world of different sizes and weight. Thousands of pinball machines alone and some via personal sales. I do have design considerations I have iterated on for brackets to shorten so they have less torque when bouncing during shipping. I've had brackets bounce around in my car during show transport causing lots of stress. In the end I'll be boxing the game up, throw it around, slam it, see what the results are. Games will ship one at a time to make sure each game arrives alive to start with. Well see though, maybe some other list of fixes pops up to take care of. I won't ship broken games so it will get figured out or I just won't have a company.

I was supposed to get product insurance quote today but should be here tomorrow. The next trailer will still have a price so people are aware of target price. I still think it's going to be $2,500 end of day. Build time is the last thing on the list for pricing out, however I already have estimated build hours put into the cost of the game if I had an actual employee making decent money+employee tax+ benefits. I've mostly finished the audit of how much time it takes to 3D print all the parts. Also, I've been doing this without a rotisserie or other handy tools. I just got a cheap drill press and that is life changing in my build time for how fast I can drill holes in my steel parts instead of a guided hand drill.

The final game has 6 flippers. 2 Ramps. About 4 unique gameplay features never been done before (that I know of. Lot's of games I still never played). I have one more cabinet design that is now shown in the image that is also a unique. One of the proprietary ideas that I'm saving to show off.

And a ton of repeated testing still to happen after that. I don't forsee anything that can't be solved with time. All this work still goes to future games, custom shop etc.

Also just because: here is a popup toy. May still get a small motor and have the DNA spin. Was my goal but my worry all the time is parts and I'm worried about that part going missing. 48V power supplies are still available but not abundant around Jameco/DigiKey. That is another main worry I have is making sure power supplies are available. I'll have to check other suppliers at some point. Always worried about external parts being out of supply.

DNA_Basher (resized).jpgDimensions (resized).png

Product insurance E&O and General Liability in. Pretty cheap which is what I expected from looking into it. Everything is greenlit at this point other than getting the game finished, and passing internal testing thresholds on all parts. And FCC as well. The next reveal is pretty close to the conclusion of the entire multi-year effort.
Will take as much time as needed to get the next reveal done so whenever it happens it happens. Hoping to get the final playfield cut by my homemade cnc machine if possible as well. Made some recent structural upgrades and will be the first test cutting a full board and not just some 7"x7" test squares and cursive writing. Cost me ~$100 to build and I can obviously build more in the future.

I may be nice enough to release bill of materials (BOM) and build time. Was nice when indie games release sales stats and what not as I was working to build a game company since I was 16. Shared knowledge doesn't hurt anyone.

Spent some time in another thread talking about time estimates for building new IP's, artwork, toppers etc. I wish I had the time to master 2D art, but it's just not a skillset I will likely have time to learn. Here were some previous first passes on ideas for artwork on the game. I like working with concept designers, not just people who can re-draw realistic faces. All the thumbnails+ final art you see on the game was under 20 hours of work (don't recall exact time because it was a couple years now). Send some reference art and get back some concepts that we iterate over.

Don't hold me strict to the release timeline. It will come. Progressing daily.

wippics (resized).jpgwippics2 (resized).jpg

Any changes to backbox would happen a little bit later. Send me a PM if you want to stop by and get first dibs on playing the game before reveal.

Scott Danesi just dropped the same exact idea I had! I've been sending people this idea in updates for a couple months. Bummer I didn't get to it first but cool we both came up with it. It's a simple spinner counter. I'm all about visual upfront feedback and it's a cool idea. For mine it has use in multiplayer games. Whoever has the highest spin count receives a floating jackpot that can be taken from you on any ball. The counter starts at 0 and counts up every time you hit the spinner. Turns the spinner into a little goal you can look forward to beat each time and in multiplayer adds a competitive goal to possibly tip the game in favor. Unless this idea has been done before(?) I haven't seen it though. Looks like his has a counter that is decremented each spin and likely when you get to 0 something happens.

counter (resized).png

"Had a highest spin to date and gave a special if your rips ended in certain numbers"
"but don't think there is an actual display of how many "

Nice. So many games that you never get to see or hear of and likely something done before. Only issue I have is it's not on the playfield, which is what I thought was a cool idea, because the spinner just spins with no true feedback or goals on it.

I see in some other threads about pop bumpers not being in any new machines which is another feature I just don't care for much. I think Maiden is the only one that I like because its a skill to shoot it through the bumpers and detrimental if not. Cactus Canyon I sat for a full 10 seconds in the bumper madness. I'm thinking if I ever do use them, they would be redesigned to be 1/2 the circumference and not take up as much space. I have an idea whether it works or not, to have like 10 of these mini bumpers in a spot and when you hit one, they go below the playfield. Cirqus Voltaire style popup pop-bumper. Then it creates a challenge to get them all down like the old breakout atari game.

"The fun thing about learning pinball history is learning how many "new ideas" are actually old."

I put in my lower playfield without seeing one and I think someone at work mentioned haunted house. My original thought was that it was just a good use of the empty playfield space to cram more stuff.

Yea Zilla has the single pop bumper too, I think the nests are just boring. They give me no excitement.

Does anyone know of an example of a solenoid that toggle locks in a game? I've researched some general locking solenoids outside of pinball and even mechanisms of ballpoint pens but recreating and 3D printing a ballpoint pen lock system wasn't that great during testing. Right now I pushed it back on my list so that I can focus on the game itself. I have some locking mechs like Medieval Trolls + Toy Story where they have popups that lock, but they need a 2nd coil to reset. I want a coil that works like a pen that can Pulse full power once to lock and pulse again to reset.

For power reasons I want something that takes no power. The gabby gabby mech in the video here shows how they do it, which I like better because it runs no power to hold it up, which is better than the trolls then because it's still 2 coils and 2 transistors but requires no power.

"Yeah it's a very simple latching mech. I used one of these on a game"

Yea I have a design similar with a second coil moving to allow the primary armature to move and then releasing with a spring so it blocks it from movement. I just don't like having so many coils. I have too many coils. The thing you posted and other ideas are all 2 coils. I want something like a ballpoint pen toggle.

With servo motors, I have two worries: sourcing them reliably, and stability of part. Some stores I find them $5 each some are $10 and they are limited quantities around. I have a TON of locking coils in this game and if I have to replace with $10 servos, talking $100+ in servos isn't good for my price crunching. I can still wind up my own small coils and never run out of copper wire. I read people saying spooky having servo issues, I assume mostly on halloween where the Jason pops out of the bushes. It may be they are driving them too fast and stop too fast causing a lot of jerk and wear on the plastic gears. I had a servo motor for my main skeleton boss that died from gear wear. I put him to +5V instead of +3.3V. He was shaking his head super fast, but I'd have to test hours and hours at +3.3V to see if that is even a good option. I don't want things to break. The plan is likely to drive him by 2 coils instead.. Spooky is using the same blue servos I am.

Finally found the part you listed. Looks like it's doing something like the second video here that I was looking into before but never fully implemented. I'm thinking to maybe implement this type of drawer lock in the second video. Solenoid already has a spring so this may be an easy one to adapt.

Anyone cook coil sleeves? This is the stuff I test behind the scenes. There are tons of different types of Nylons, Epoxies etc. Most wire is rated 180C - 200C for the coating before it burns off and shorts the coil. I was curious though if the coil sleeves were a high temp nylon or not. I had thought about making my own either 3D printed ABS (90-100C) if the coil sleeves off the shelf were lower rated, 3D printed Nylon (which some aren't that good at heat resistance), Metal, or other resin epoxy higher temp. Don't think it's worth it to try to make my own at this point but good to test out. I baked this one to 150C and squeezed with some pliers with no deformity.

Cooking (resized).png

Video titled Texas Pinball in case someone searches, they might come across me. Didn't mention any patentable work. Will release ideas freely. Not all ideas may come to fruition still or receive thumbs up to continue to final game. Some of my ideas are not really usable by other companies anyway. I didn't show the physical game yet because it's still messy and will mislead people into thinking it's not close to being done.

Update Video:

EternalRed2 (resized).JPG

mechs (resized).jpg

Notes:
- Final design, toys revealed
- 2 color options
- $20k in this, thousands of hours of time invested
- Maurizio (death metal singer) confirmed for voiceover
- Mosh pits are basically people re-enacting multi-ball
- Foo Fighters Mod (https://www.printables.com/model/414199-foo-fighters-pinball-alien)

Next step is the beta version of the game and getting some people to come playtest it. I've been putting in a lot of time and I believe it is achievable goal for April. If Nuclear Blast and all these other bands that said they would help promote it: you are talking well over 1 million people potential to see the final game trailer if they share to social media accounts. I always saw this as half pinball and half metal product. Someone emailed me a few weeks ago which is exactly what I mean: "But yours is more of a unique art piece and I love the theme, so you convinced me".

I was in the Turner thread for a bit. Every person has their own time and money to do what they believe in. I wish nothing against him, but my only critique was on his execution. I don't think anyone needs to spend that type of money to prototype any type of product. (Any comments carry on in the Turner thread since my observation is there). I decided day one not to try and compete with the big guys. I never saw it as a profitable business plan for me to compete with the big guys. Even if I matched their quality. I thought it would be hard to convince someone to give myself $9k on a brand new product so I didn't want to take that risk.

It takes double digit hours to re-invent single parts, tiny little mechs etc and doing it part-time stretches the timeline. The coffin was a b****. The hammer smash was a b**** and I'm still not 100% happy with it just yet. It's all annoying stuff. I'm the only person dead-set on doing something like this. I'm simply spending my free time designing the game I want and the business I believe in. I'm casual, not a tournament player. I am always more drawn into games that have a cool moving mech and wanted to animate every piece from day one. I built every design I ever concepted for this game and just stuck with the annoyance and tedious work to build them.

I've been very full-throttle for the last couple weeks and hope to continue that into April. If you post back, include what color you think is better. I was going to pick just 1 but I had around 20 people 50/50 and decided to do both.

Feel free any comments on layout or ideas and if I agree with it, I'll definitely take it.

"Hopefully you can come to Texas next spring and show it off! "

Been years in the works. Every little bit is a failure and step forward. I'm way behind my intended schedule. The fact one of my flipper links busted at FreePlay sucked. But Pinball Asylum and David Fix from American got to slam it around before busting. There isn't much more to talk about beyond this other than getting the game 100% done. No public shows or video updates. I might hit SFGE in July if everything goes amazing and stay at a friends house and just put the game on the floor instead of booth. I don't want to sink money into it beyond what I got. It's do or die now. time to stfu and release it.

"wow ... for a start up company that needs support you certainly shat all over Turner! "
Some people want to judge him by the sins of his old boss, which is lame. I gave him props having a working prototype. He has collective talent and abilities clearly shown in his work. Just because I compare, doesn't mean I'm judging him. I think he's got a stressful road ahead to compete with Stern. Oh well. I think your analysis of s*** on him is not accurate to anything I've said. Never wished failure upon him.

Sadly I have not listened to it yet. So much content online to watch + my job + pinball work.

Sorry for lack of updates. Still a side gig and things take time when it's part-time R&D and you run into small issues. I also picked up a Foo Pro which is my first game ever.

I fabricated/designed 5 PCB designs for various parts, one being my mini display for the lower playfield bomb decoder jackpot from last video update (pic below).
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The design was randomized 3 digit code on top and then quickly scrolling digits you have to stop to match the top 3 for a jackpot. Quick mini game. Designed some SMT boards so I don't have to manual solder. I've been looking into actual LCD displays from a $100 mini-PC direct with HDMI which makes my entire custom shop, homebrew line, and programming visual graphics like any other company very easy, since I have done it for my career and have some advanced software experience. The mini windows PC run OpenGL 4 so I can plug and play my personal game 3D engine and do anything I want (like Star Wars 3D asteroids mode). Or just movie clips etc. My other option is something like a $6 STM microcontroller that can do RGB interfacing to a TFT display and I purchased one of their demo evaluation boards. Either way I still have to use a USB interface to run the pinball board itself, so either a $10 arduino or a $4 PIC32 micro-controller. I hit some small design roadblocks when building out the physical game that cause stalls too.

Sadly I have just been slow on things and I don't want to over stress. When it comes it comes. Someone close to me got breast cancer and is still young. Originally it was 100% survival rate, then after first procedure it's down to 85% after latest tests. There are still some lingering things like shipping that when the time comes will be nail biting waiting to see a couple games ship one by one and arrive in perfect condition. The LCD display will definitely expand my ability to come closer to quality matching the current games.

I learn more every day and knowledge is still an asset. A college professor who teaches pinball had their college reach out to try and license me some game design patent for pinball with a provided summary brief. I told the college I could talk with them but I likely wouldn't too have much to offer them and that I had a similar potentially conflicting idea that I would maybe just design around it based on costs. They wanted me to sign an NDA which was insane (2 pinball inventors/companies signing NDA's, How does that work? and with what sounds like very similar ideas). Also annoying since he's not a manufacturer so I don't understand the idea to restrict real designers/manufacturers from working and designing cool stuff. Call it bad business but I don't plan to ever restrict Jack Danger or any other designer for designing fun games. The amount of information and software shared in videogames including from big places like EA/Epic/Blizzard that publicly released whitepapers which list out exactly how they built really cool technology was the drive and fun of my entire career in software.

Also, a side fact of information. Since I bought my Pro Foo Fighters, I saw the coil wrappings and reached out to the company. The guy who deals in the pinball coils sales through that company is retired. I spoke with him for maybe 10 minutes and he talked about the possibility to add-on my coil orders when they do another run but couldn't quote me a price and never got back after a month. He said they supply pretty much all the pinball companies. So I feel I've always been on the right path to source/build my own components. If I can't get a direct supply as an OEM, it's not worth it to pay retail $16 for a pinball coil through the online shops, or see items go out of stock. Plus shipping on coils is expensive when I can source wire cheap from local sources. I've been lazy lately, no good updates.

I haven't updated the thread because there isn't much to talk about right now. 2023 isn't over yet I'm still alive and working, but it's been a very slow summer. Until I hit the next major milestone, there isn't much point to feed people with overzealous thoughts and talk my head off. There are also no true pre-order customers for clarity. There is an ordered list of interested buyers, but no money has exchanged.

1992 was a great year! Website sucks. Product development requires priority of tasking. I currently have get product fully working, tested and approved by FCC higher up the list than fancy webpage. Someday I will get around to it.

Hoping to get the next video trailer with the full game playing in about 2-3 months. Behind schedule but it's shaping up more each day. I cut the hammer into zombie smash mech feature. The impact animation to make the zombies limbs fly around was just not working out well and not getting good results. I replaced it with a Metallica Prem. style hammer that will smash the ball into the lower playfield.

Here's a quick shot of the new cabinet. Like I said, it's full size. I'm iterating lots of ideas. I've been definitely banging on my Foo Pro a ton. Great game. I have a lot of notes about things I like and don't like gameplay wise, visual feedback wise, missed opportunities for callouts or other things I feel are bugs.

It's very hot in FL right now. I decided to take 2 days off and have a go at replicating Foo Pro in my pinball editor. Figured since it's a known game people are aware of, and the fact that I know exactly how the ball should react when hitting with the flipper, let's me fine tune the flipper physics. It's pretty close, and most shots react very similar to real life game, but there are some issues that need fixed. Ideally get the editor out for public use to play around with and build games and use it for custom shop games.

I reached out to Stern's coils manufacturer as well as the Pinball Resource as suggested above. Stern guy never got back after talking on the phone. Pinball Resource guy (whose job and website are to sell coils), said that a run of 50-100 flipper coils for was too much. Doesn't make much sense but I believe I will be able to make my own in a timely manner. So I think I'm on the good path to manufacture stuff in-house. I just don't like having a high percentage of things out of my control and time. Eventually before production I would like to build some kind of coil winder. I have some ideas.

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Not much yet to report. Just wanted to say I won't have a booth at Free Play Florida this year. I don't want to drop any more unnecessary money until it's done. Will be nice to play games for once.

I will however been presenting Sat. Nov 18th 10AM at Free Play on how videogames are made. Covering tons of topics in-depth. Will loose some time to make that presentation and see if people show up.

As always, I've been refining things, moving, adding things on the playfield. Currently I am getting deep into my planned platform switch to mini PC w/ LCD. I have a mini PC running my custom software and that is able to communicate both ways to an Arduino. Later on I hope to remove the Arduino and replace with another cheaper chip. I know even if I am only a custom shop and things don't take off that being able to support an LCD is the way to go. It's also so much nicer to write code how I have been used to for 20 years. Debugging is much easier.

Right now I'm simply dropping in things LCD side like music selection UI, getting the songs switching, I have placeholder High Scores. Working on templates for 4 player UI bar, Switch test screen. I only own Foo so I'm not sure, but it seems like it downloads a 4GB image every time there is an update. I'm not doing that for my updates. New assets and EXE only. Revert-able to older version if something goes wrong. I heard some companies you cannot revert back if code is crashing or something you hate(?). No clue why. Also my wifi signal is very weak so my updates on Foo take 1hr +/-.

Definitely been nice owning a game. Having Foo for 6 months and really diving into the ruleset PDF helps to continue improve my game code/rules ideas. There are some awesome arcades nearby and they stock all the new games so I'm thankful for that.

3-4 more pinball companies exist since my original announcement. Unless Turner announces their game under 6-7k this week, then I think I'm still the only one trying to go in the opposite direction on pricing. No guarantees I hit production, this is still not a full-time job. Bare with my on my loose scheduling.

Yea I remember you. Pricing is my primary goal and my only drive to do this. Nothing else matters. I think you said you had tons of games. Most people can't afford 1 game. Getting 10/10 rating on pinside but being at $5k+ pricepoint wouldn't mean a dime to me. That might not make sense to you. That is why my focus isn't 100.00% spent on the game itself. I hope that better explains what I meant during our original talk.

Yea I saw. Not that it makes me happy or sad, because I wish pinball were cheaper but business wise it keeps me set apart from the rest in terms of goals, so I consider it a win. I don't have any issues with the product at all. I saw a huge pinball barcade owner say Turner was "worse than a HS kids pinball project" after the reveal today. Looks fine to me. To say something that low is out of touch with reality of what he built, pricing put aside. Waiting to see gameplay videos. He should have made a trailer already if hes got 4-5 people on his team and looking at 10k x 100 games $1 million dollars in revenue. 10k is so weird to me. I said 5k minimum based on the cost of hiring people, traveling with 4 people to expos, hes full-time and now you got another 6 months (spring 2024). I'm surprised he wants non-refundable deposits also, with no date set yet when comparing to how the Labyrinth guys launched their game. Stern was selling home edition games at 4-5k.

I'm actually happy my product has taken so long, because I learn new things every day and I think what I was initially doing 4 years ago, that I'm really refining this whole business. There is still no streamlined custom shop that I know of either, so I think I have 2 good things pending I get this going at some point. I honestly thought he was going to be a direct competitor to me long term.

Maybe someone can help me out here: Turner claims he is filing a patent regarding a "Removeable Backbox". Does anyone else know of any prior game considered a removable backbox to conflict with this? By default any backbox can be removed, but I'm curious what exact invention you guys think he might be able to patent(?) More importantly, if a prior game in history already used something a little more "convenient or removeable" to prove this is not a new idea. I think removing a couple screws would be pretty crazy if he got a patent granted to screw in a backbox. I never thought of that concept as patentable. Let me know, I don't see any provisional or otherwise patent filed, but I'd have to be on the lookout / workaround. I'd have to assume most old school games aren't hinged like modern Sterns. I'll chat with the local arcade about their old games. Looks like even AT Games comes with backbox that is 100% detached and needs installing by customer.
Thanks.

Below is my Free Play Florida presentation on videogame development. May be useful/interesting knowledge for someone. Pinball updates will be coming soon.

They all have custom software and can do whatever they want. Not much benefit to it. Your eyes are only momentarily on the screen. I have been thinking to have the LCD in my game be real-time, but I don't think it has any specific benefit. The only thing I hate design wise is the queue system for jackpots. I'll nail a couple jackpots in some games, and the jackpot value isn't posted until the 4 second movie clip ends. If you hit multiple jackpots, then your score will post in 8 seconds. I don't understand that design, knowing people have extremely limited time to look at the screen.

I don't know if Stern would clarify if I asked them. I'm not at the point of focusing on this piece of tech yet to take that action or pay to have a patent guy look at it. I figure crowd sourcing knowledge is a good start. So many people I meet are always hyped on those achievements and it would be beneficial to have something in place day one as this grows to more games.

I briefly looked at this once again. Networked pinball machine. When reading it sounds like Stern literally own the ability to send ANY network data from a machine to a server. End of story. I think in another thread I mentioned this and some people said prior machines already did some things like this and this may be some very specific case, but right now it reads very vague and even says "examples listed or NOT limiting". Meaning these are examples of data we can send, but we own ALL data transmissions via this patent.
https://patents.justia.com/patent/11458384

I'm looking at putting in an insider connected concept(including the achievement system), as well as leaderboards and some other per-game/per-user information that a user can retrieve online after each game played.

I believe someone said online scoring was prior art from other games. I have no experience with it: but was Scorbit already a thing before Stern was doing that?

Help me out here. Expect business updates soon.

Right, nothing novel here (in my opinion).

"The pinball machine as recited in claim 3, wherein the supplementary gameplay data includes gameplay score data....during or after gameplay"
Sounds like after game scores would be infringing.

Scorbit has a phone app, so they definitely send data to a server. I THINK however, that maybe scorbit skips that entire authorization step. It's merely sending score data directly without any user tied to it.

Right, that is literally the insider login. User scan (sends auth event), server responds, press start to play otherwise login fails.

Might just pay to have my patent guy take a glimpse and see what he thinks. The fact nobody else does this (when they are netting double digit millions) makes me wonder that this is for sure in the books for Stern. It's only a tiny bit of code to send data back/forth to a server.

I suppose in the meantime I could have local code achievements and local players for home machines. Would be much lamer. Without authorizing a user I could at least let you put your initials/name at the end of game for high score, and those get loaded up to a server WITHOUT actually authenticating a user. Would mirror local high scores just across the internet it would have a separate high score + initials. And two people could sadly use the same initials across the world.

Edit: hmm I wonder if I completely bypassed the authentication this would be ok. It would only be for home machines then. You put your users in, the server makes sure your name is unique only, when you login to your game it does NOT authenticate you + there is no QR code/camera/card swipe. At the end of a game or achievement earned, it literally just sends your username and scores to the server. No authentication steps. This would mean arcades couldn't do it because there is no way to create a user / verify who is playing the game.

You know as you mention the concept that a patent has to be "novel" and "non-obvious". The fact that Stern itself could be considered a videogame product since they have video modes, aka video games, built into their products (star wars, venom, some others), I suppose if it really went to court, you could argue Stern themselves are a videogame company. Microsoft and Sony never patented the idea of going to a friends house and logging in to your online account. Why? Maybe it wasnt patentable. Maybe this is not a realistic patent. I may get some feedback from multiple lawyers. I'd definitely like to put this concept. It can always be retroactively put into the game regardless and put off till later. I'm a player before a business man and I can say for 20 years playing games, the headache that you couldn't play your friend online if he had an Xbox and you had a Playstation (even South Park had an episode about this), that restrictions like this are just damaging everyone's player experiences. Eventually we got cross-platform online play in videogames because the billionaires caved. You also have virtual pinball machines running PinballFX which probably send/receive tons of data. So you have people building physical virtual game cabinets for years, but the only differential here is Stern's has a physical ball.

The server doesn't need to be open. I'm just stating when you put your initials for high score on any a physical game cabinet, you are just that: initials. Not a user. Rather than it sending "authenticated user:993438 got high score: 1 billion.", it would merely send "initials: 'PAW' got high score: 1 billion". No authentication of the actual user, no QR code or magnetic stripe as the patent calls out. Just posting scores. No email addresses, no user data, just take the high scores screen and make an online high scores screen.

If you check this though, Scorbit had username profiles already. I'll keep thinking and researching. The patent came out around Insider release I think so I'm pretty sure they want to be the guardians of users logging in.
https://scorbit.io/app/

---That patent was granted in 2020, so it could have been filed like 2-3 years before that for anything claiming prior work may have to be before 2018.
Edit: sorry it was filed September 2020 and granted October 2022. My only understanding then if Scorbit did all this, is they filed this patent solely for Venom and the way that game works with it's features.

You can't patent ideas after a year anyway. You have one year to file a new idea. I'll take a look. It mentions code changes and gameplay stuff in the patent. It could be that it's only meant to cover what they did in Venom, which changes gameplay for logged in users
They patented a couple ideas for each release. Jurassic Park spinning newton ball is patented by Stern.

I reached out to the firm who examined the patent to see if I could pay the person who approved it for their interpretation as one step in this.

Talked to one patent attorney today. He showed me some things to view the rejection process and internals for patents. The one thing that is pretty sad in all this, is the offices original rejection statement. Logging into a videogame or entertainment device is 100% obvious. "A person of ordinary skill could have implemented this idea very obviously". I'm pretty damn certain that Scorbit was already implementing all of this as we already discussed. I'm going to reach out to them (if they are still around) and get some hard document of what they had and when.

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I didn't know a lot about Scorbit, but looked into their website and Youtube. They definitely have users and networking, so I'm going to store all their videos etc just to be safe. But I think as far as users, login + achievements, well be fine.

I'm working hard to get to Beta state before Jan 1st. Video will come sometime after that. For those who thought the video last year was cool or promising, it's definitely rounding the corner. I've been solely working on game related stuff for about a month, playing around with some shots and tweaking some mechs that I previously designed. So now is the time to finish it and make it as fun as I can without spinning wheels forever reaching for perfection . The pricing stuff is in the past. For now. I will have to time the build process for a couple machines and also re-run a bill of materials. Then I can slap a final price on it. I don't honestly know 100% what that price will be, but it will be working up from the price I had before, not just some random number. Expect to be on the low side obviously.

Moving to an LCD, from a prototype display with loose connections, has sped up my work. I played around a lot with issues on my old 8-digit display. Bringing in a mini-PC and porting my videogame engine to run all the pinball machine code was a good idea and has sped up development. Not worrying about SD cards and dealing with audio circuitry + software mixing just marked stuff off my todo list. Also having a backbox to rest my playfield against was big. For so long I used to have a headless cabinet, so to screw things into the playfield bottom, I was with my back on the floor plugging and screwing, which was terrible.

-My tech platform from software to circuit boards is working. I will FCC certify at some point, but as is now, I could probably drop it off and have it in testing since everything works electrically. I can't imagine any issues come from that. Every company has the same setup. I've only heard Stern say something about FCC when their power switch wires ran from backbox to front of cabinet, making it a super long AC antenna. CE is likely going to be on hold based on the cost being 3-4x the USA cost, so when I get around to it and get more info, I'll dive in.

-Right now I'm using off the shelf full flipper assemblies from PinballLife. This will hopefully be temporary, just wanted to move things along. My flipper assemblies worked pretty good/fast (comparable to Stern, with possibility to shoot even faster), however there is some power loses in the flipper mechs when shooting from the tip of flipper bat with the same exact electrical time on.
I performed a test by winding my own 22-1080 coil brand new and as tight as possible. I dropped it into the pinballlife mech and I think just some minimal imperfections with the winds not being as perfect and tight made enough variation that it was just feeling slightly less power than the stern, including holds. Wrapping them better will likely cover this issue. I could probably just un-wind them to 4.3/4.4 ohm instead of 4.55 ohm. It's a matter of tension to get no overlapping winds, but this was very close. Again fallback could be to just use off the shelf assemblies. Flippers are the only thing that has that "feel" that people need. Secondary flipper coils and mech coils can still be built in house.

-Will be looking at what a wire assembly shop can do for me pricing wise. I've been looking for an automatic crimping machine but most are huge and expensive. Hand-crimping is annoying and too time consuming. Even a shop that can simply cut and crimp wires to length at a good price will help me out on build time efficiency. Coils and crimping wire jumpers are the bottleneck in my manufacturing process.

I probably won't hit Texas PF. If I have a couple machines ready soon and can get squeezed in last minute, then I may go there. It's a long drive. Or I have to see if I can ship them somewhere and fly. I assume the convention center might allow direct shipments.

Will I hire people?, get a warehouse?, how will shipping work? Don't know just yet. First step to affordable pinball company is building a low-cost machine. Let's figure that out first. I have some people local to FL that are interested that could be direct deliveries. Then ship a couple later and see how that goes. Let's see how many people want to buy before jumping the gun and thinking you have to go from 0 sales to Stern mega-warehouse. Just not going to happen that way.

Taking cost out, whatever you thought of first trailer, good or bad, all I can say definitively is the second trailer is going to be better. I do have a ton of cool features. External people will be testing soon. The first machine will be getting continual play, checking for issues. So it will at least be getting beat up and tested a little bit over time before I really hammer on it. Worst of all cases I built a homebrew death metal, headbanging, pinball machine for myself. But I anticipate (and planned), for it to be more than that. 5 years since I started with my Megadeth prototype, 15 other pinball machine companies and still no Megadeth game? What gives?

Anyone have opinions on videomodes? I'm honestly not even a fan of virtual pinball. I was thinking to do something unique where it's not just 2 buttons to control a Millennium Falcon. I could have an additional number of buttons used for videomode only, either on the apron or elsewhere. Coming from the videogame industry, the two button video modes just don't provide enjoyment. Star Wars is one of the better modern ones I've personally played, but still not on the edge of your seat compared to moments like quick draw on Cactus Canyon or other experiences. The Venom "hairwhip" thing I really hated that.

The problem with these modes is if you were to just to die to get it over with or choose to skip, you are missing out on a ton of points. I know the star wars one gives you 30 Million+ points if you don't hit asteroids. If I did do something I could make them pretty rare. My thoughts are no matter how cool, you shouldn't force the player into it or make them feel like they lose out on points if they don't play it. Some videogames spend millions on cinematics but they still let you "Hold A to skip cutscene". I would just do a small, set score (around 1 Million + qualifying/collect bonus that got you to qualify the mode) so that you know what the reward is and if it is worth it. Otherwise you just get the qualifying/collect bonus and get back to flipping the real pinball game. I don't want to interfere with the actual pinball points you work so hard at, which is why as much as the star wars one is ok, the scoring is so jacked up.

I have some ideas and since my game runs directly on my game engine, this would be really easy to do something a little more in depth. I want this game to be as feature packed as possible, but I always feel like it's kind of too gimmicky and I like pinball for pinball and videogames for videogames.

Not sure of your angle here ViperVS. If you are just upset, don't like me for what I've posted thus far or what.

Those are things pinball machine companies make. Yes, I'm **trying** to launch a pinball company
I don't update my website really as nothing is changing business wise. I can update my dates for you, give me a minute here.
Yea inflation has happened, I put out my trailer for $2,100 price point and then added some additional features (LCD, audio, bigger cabinet and backbox). If you demand my price be $1,800 and I launch 3 months ago or you are dissatisfied with my post here, tough crowd to please. I still do work daily thinking about price and if I can make something quicker or cheaper, then my price goes down rather than pocket the additional money.

Not really. I wish I was quicker but I have a normal job. My entire pinball journey is less than 12 man months of work since the beginning. It has been on/off track for years. This is merely an R&D project right now that I started 5 years ago. The extra time, playing more, talking with more local players, re-designing my game, has made everything much better.

In a couple more days my game will be in a Beta state. A viable shippable product. Just finishing one final part that guides the ball. For those reading, that doesn't mean I'm shipping tomorrow. Lot's of logistical and other stuff to plan out. Ain't harmed no one or ripped anyone of thus far. I could have waited till 2024 and gave you a final trailer but I like talking with people and learning. I didn't know a single thing about pinball 5 years ago.

What is a reasonable timeframe when you work 8 hours a day and come home to work up till 3AM on some days. Some days I didn't work at all on this. You burn out. Do you have a family? Wife? This is not a viable business I can go full-time just yet. This is something I'm doing as a passion project. Take a look at thepinballroom youtube channel. Steve has been working on that Led Zeppelin game a long time also. We are just doing what we do. He is doing it for fun. I'm doing it to try my hands at a business. I got 2 hands over here.

How do you not compete with Stern? I'm not sure I understand. They are a pinball company AND had an affordable line. I'm competing with every pinball company. I'm not here to *BE* Stern.

I have no time. I have a job, life, and I do this on the side. I literally have to fly to Las Vegas next week because of something my wife is participating in. Once manufacturing it's impossible to stop. I would have no extra time at that point. You can't build the machine up and then stop it. I'm assembling these games myself until viable.

Nothing is simple. And I have to build a product that people will buy. Checking off minimal boxes is passionless. You don't go 5 years in with this much work to just say "whatever the product sucks but it's exactly $1,800 so just put out an advertisement and see if anyone buys it". I literally have one shot at this. Many pinball companies have died after 1 product. Cosmic Carnival (Suncoast) sold 25 games, Deeproot. Turner is in a tough spot right now. I don't know if I'm selling 25 games or hundreds, so why just stop either way and release something I'm not happy with.

From what I get from you, I made comments like "I'd like to aim for a *target price point of $1,800 in 2023" and I didn't hit those targets, so you think I'm pretty much doing everything wrong. I guess(?) This was not an easy journey and it's not like it's the most enjoyable thing being up late doing all this when I could have just played videogames for 5 years. It's just what I feel I have to do.

The game right now is done. Pending something doesn't go very wrong, I will be offering a pinball game, at a price in 2024. You can critique those exclusively of each other. Several people on my pre-order list have said "I want your MOST expensive game either way". At a convention in Atlanta,USA I had a guy come up to me 1 minute into that expo, put his credit card at me and said "I want this game". And we talked and I said just curious what do you think about pricing. He said "dude this should easily be $3,500". That's a paying customer telling me it's worth more. I'm in a good spot. Affordable is subjective. Maybe you think I'm false advertising now. Don't know.

Neither am I. Just doing what makes sense to me. If you have a strong opinion this is wrong and there is an easier path that wouldn't take very much time to just put out a basic game and the cheapest price, then the market is open for more budget friendly games.

Everyone is here because of some scale of passion for pinball. I'd suggest searching for "Things that go bump in the night Spooky Pinball". You can find it for free if you look hard enough. When Spooky was started he put his house and family on the line, to launch in a timely manner. He took his first game to a convention and came back with 2 sales. That's exactly what I'm not interested in doing to start off. He took a hard path. I'm taking the nice one that has fallbacks and cushioning and a current day job where I can retire early.

All I can tell you is my game is done. Be happy for me or not. Pinball Eternal is officially Beta. Every day I tell my wife this thing is gonna be sweet and she busts my balls "yea show me when it's ready". This is my old 900 sq ft apartment. This is where I came from in 2019. And I finally have a working game, on my own platform which I deem affordable. I did everything I set out to do. And committed to it for 5 years.
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Honestly, I doubt any companies are taking me serious at this point or if anyone at Stern even knows a thing about me. If I had a guess, they'd say no way what I'm doing is going to happen. I had Am. Pinball (Fix) and JJP (Ken) visit my booth last year. Fix actually got some flips in before things broke down. I was a bit worried about those discounts, however FlipNOut has those relisted at the much higher price so it took some weight off me. I'd look them up again for current pricing. Also heard they won't be making the affordable home pin line any longer, so either way that option will be gone.

Because it's fun dude. I spent 4,000 posts since I was 16 years old interacting with people on a website (Gamedev.net) talking with programmers from various companies, learning, teaching each other. Why even talk to other humans? Clearly 60 people clicked the like button on my thread here for at least some portion of what I showed.

Since being a part of pinside I've learned a lot. However stupid you think all it is, I've made 500 connections on my email list. I've gone to conventions learning small things like a guy in 2020 telling me "Hey be careful with 'x' because Stern did this and their cabinets were splitting when people would nudge." You don't learn anything in life sitting in a box. The community at those conventions and here are little pots of gold.

Yes our business ideas, executions, philosophies and software implementations don't line up to mine. I gave you a small window into a business before it is born. Just wait a little longer. If nothing appeals here to you, and I can't teach you anything, then you are just telling everyone how YOU would start a pinball company at this point. Nobody else is visiting my website every month for something to come back here and tell me "gotcha you suck I visited your website again". Do we know each other personally?

The next video will be it. Beginning or the end of this venture. It takes time to make a proper trailer, the actual one these record labels are going to show off. The trailer the bands will show off. The one that will be the "Pinball Eternal Official Trailer" to hopefully drive sales. I like sharing but it would be stupid to relelase a half ass stream of me playing with a static camera just for pinside. I've been pretty honest with my product along the way: so it's at the point of viability and I'm really going to crunch my price as best I can.

Technically I'm lying, because the gamplay rules+animations of the software itself is not Beta. The playfield, shots, mechs, things all work and have gone through some amount of testing. Rules and modes are going to start going in within a week or so. I have some of them in my head, just need to code them. I have some test LCD animations of zombies/demons animating and playing reactions. I have a list of callouts I'm going to record. Unknown if I will get Kataklysm lead singer to do them or not. I have a private list of people I've met and sent behind the scenes of the mechs and animations. Everyone approves. Nobody is upset(that I know of) about any possibility of price going up. Keyword: possibility. I'll do as best I can.

I have two more smaller bands for music. Gorgatron (which is cool cuz I have a mini playfield called the Torturetorium which is their song) and The Absence which have a song called Coffinized, which I have a feature where the player becomes Coffinized when they hit the coffin power up enough. I have some unique rules planned. I still have a laundry list general stuff to do and I am picking random things. Tonight I threw a ball in my homemade scoop assembly a thousand times. I'm taking a break to eat and will get my ass back out and slam that scoop thousands more times. A mix of durability testing, private playtesting for feedback, possibility to open shots a tad bit wider. Really anything. If someone has a great idea, that isn't some brand new hard to make mech, then I am all ears to them. I need this game to ship and work out of the box no issues. I still need to put in over 200 more hours of work to get this thing done. I've been working my ass off though, so those hours are going quick.

Yea if you followed, I told people that was a prototype to prove I could build some mechs and trigger them, and show the theme. Right now I think I have a really strong first product. I think it will be accepted. If I can make the schedule work and I have 3 games ready, I'll slide into Texas pinball fest. 99% chance that doesn't happen though. Far to ship or drive games and a little bit tight still. However, I'll have a local event here with multiple machines so you will see a lot of footage more than just a 2 minute trailer. I have plans.

Viper, I just don't get why you have this much energy and on my project specifically. I have nothing really additional to give you whether you want it or not.

Barrels of Fun was founded by multiple people 5 years ago. There is an Adam Savage video where the guy says he started on that topper 3 years ago. Turner, a company with 5 guys who worked 3-4 years at deeproot + released their game right after mine, still have no game done for sale after 6 years and multiple people. Videogames with 100+ employees get delayed 2 years. There is also TiltBob who has been working who knows how many hours to launch his company/first game. I'm delayed two years. NASA just delayed putting a man on the moon again for 2 years. Cut me a little slack or not. I had to learn a lot of stuff a normal pinball designer doesn't have to think about. A lot of people on pinside reached out to me about lawyers, various things, some are already in queue for the game when it ships. This thread was 100% a benefit to me. I'm humble and smart enough to know that even today, this is not a 100% in the bag done deal. I'd ask that you at least stop posting until I release the next major thing for you to actually critique. You've already critiqued the past.

I can't explain every decision I've made, why I made them. I believe in my heart this game will come out 100% in 2024. The draw for me to get up every day was to build the cheapest machine possible, to offer to people who otherwise are not able to buy pinball games. That's still my driving force. I'd again suggest, if you have not seen it: Things that go Bump in the Night Spooky Pinball. Look at where they started and where they are now.

It's a bold claim. I expected much more pushback last November honestly. Pinball is littered with some unfortunate past claims that pissed people off. When someone warrants it, I like talking shit. I wish I were ahead, but at the same time, every day you learn something more. I'm glad I didn't push a game out in 2021. Like I said, stopping the machine when it's rolling (if it ever gets rolling), is extremely hard to do. The time to perfect the platform, software, decide if I want a networked features, is literally now. Easier to eat the cost now when customers aren't demanding stuff when they actually paid.

I was able to move away from the Arduino package ($25) and get my chipset working ($3). The holdup was USB to PC communication that I resolved. That's $3 for the brains, not the entire board. I ordered a small test batch of various different boards that I received last week, and tested fine, so my hardware controller is 100% checked off. That was a non-negotiable thing I stuck to since day one since I knew the cost to build in house would be way cheaper. My system is more decoupled than a Stern node board ( additional smaller boards) and none of them are smart (Stern's node boards have microchips that talk to each other). I've been working on various lcd animations: jackpot+skillshot score tweens, zombies doing stuff, multiball animations, game over animations.

I'll just give one thing maybe to help explain where I'm at and why you haven't seen anything new:
I have a ball lock similar to foo fighters and I had to spend some time making sure it could catch the ball on time all the time. Randomness happens, balls can bounce. Sometimes it would miss. I want that to hit 100.000% of the time, so I had to work through it. Like I said before, I stopped at about 2 hours throwing a ball into a scoop and watching it spit out, but even then I still need to test scoops and all other parts a lot more before I deem it ready. The first batch of games have to work or this project could be a failure depending on what issues could come up. Showing working video clips knowing something only works 90%, just pushes you further out from the initial hype.
Galactic Tank Force had the bent bracket situation. Whether they just missed it in testing or what doesn't matter, I just personally don't want to hold the line because an external issue is found later.
The last few months have been the most consistent work block without gaps. I was working 4 years before my alpha video. I've been working after. I'll continue working. Sadly I have not had any people come in for focus testing just yet, but that is the next milestone.

I'll have to keep testing but so far it's good. A mix of buggy code that was delaying the up-post originally 60ms to wait for a separate locking pin to disengage. That was left in from when I first programmed the lock and was testing throwing the ball by hand. I then put in some firmware to allow the switch to engage the lock without telling the actual game software about the switch first. Last time I calculated USB packet ping it would around 10ms+, so that causes lag. By default only my flipper switches had direct control to fire solenoids. The switch at the back, inside the lock could angle back too far causing ball rebound to lift a tad bit which could cause it to do various things to get out of the lock and the posts being a little too far spread apart, in which the ball could Marvel Hulk and separate them a bit since there is some flex in the posts.

R&M, interesting. Been a while but don't both drop targets lock at the same time always? They have 2 optos on each side inside the lock that detect ball velocity(?). I'd think one opto being triggered on either side would trigger the lock. The additional one in front here doesn't let you lock since you have to wait to see if the ball will make it inside the loop, so my guess is they are wanting 2 optos to trigger back to back first before engaging the lock, so that one outside the lock helps? Is that shot speed dependent? From the work I've been doing I'd think you could just put one opto in the back midway between the two targets. Should have plenty of time to detect the ball and trigger the drop target lock. TNA had some pretty quick locks.
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