I caught the last hour or so and it was interesting. As a creative person, I liked hearing how caring a bit too much about the end product can bite you in the ass, as it has here in delaying the season. I'm glad they want to make it great and most of all made the decision to wait vs letting it go and caving to pressures of the business. It show's integrity but also shows that the network is willing to let that happen. A good sign what they saw was worth the wait, and that the value of the show is enough to let the viewers feel some pain.

I wasn't a fan of the show before this thread, it just didn't click in the first partial watchings. However since then, I've re-watched them all and am now on board. Same thing happened with Archer. Maybe I need to pay more attention to cartoons.

My favorite quotable from the trailer!

Strange then to hear the R&M intro in Spooky Pinball's podcast outro.

I'm sure there's a belly button joke there but I won't make it.

A production R&M game by any legit operating manufacturer would be great IMO.

This show is so rich, i've been wondering how anyone would distill it down to a playfield and it got me thinking, so thought it might be fun to share what I came up with.

It will be interesting to see how you guys take that on.

I would think that you need to distill it down into basic themes and repeating plot points as launching points, for example

A portal could be the launching point into any 'adventure line' Characters on the play field could be advance activators to the 'adventure'. The ship, could be the default 'escape' path, with the house as the launching point for most subplot modes either standalone or within the adventure story line.

Things like the citadel IMO seems like the capstone as the hard to hit jackpot.

Other interesting components
The flask, it might be a good repeat and build point on the playfield. Hit repeatedly to fill and drain, as a build up to key Rick actions.
The garage, might be something of a subway or lock, a place to change play, since its here a lot of plots either find their change point and its the repository of most of the devices, which are key in story lines (modes)

There are probably a million ways to eat this elephant but that seems like one structure for a layout that could allow inserting the great plot and character points in all of the episodes and modes.

Its an fun thought exercise.

I was thinking about some different ways to create a portal, this might be too complicated but like it enough to share:

Maybe have one spinner that is on 'pop-up' mechanism with a scoop directly behind.

The spinner allows you to get a flip book animation to make that wiggly visual effect and the scoop catches the ball making is disappear. It can pop back up after some set of actions spitting back out the portal. then back down and flush with the playfield, entirely out of sight, as if it went into the portal and into another dimension.

Getting this into a mech that pops up and drops could be a lot of fun. The portals in the show are 'timed' so there's a lot of fun play that could come into this. Maybe even trigger it using opto's in the playfield that make it possible to pop up 'just in time' on path to a common ramp or target. Adding some imposed random nature. Plus it would be neat to hear the sound and get portaled while on your way to some other target.

Along these lines you could have other Vuks with portal spinners in front, maybe in clear so they can be roughly invisible in the dark then lit with the sound effect to just before launch for a similar effect ala Tx Sector.

I think you'd have to test it, but imagine it's probably more likely to look like a cylinder when spinning making it hard to register the image to the eye.

I think 2 blade can be enough. Its an action game, so you'll never glance at it more than a split second. Seeing a little 'wiggle' is probably more than enough to feel right.

I considered two spinners rotated 90 degrees (imagine the open end at the top facing each other over the play field, like saloon doors or two rotating doors side by side) you could do a little more with the animation but not sure its worth the effort.

Here's a quick sketch of mech I imagine to pop up a spinner, not that complicated. Two solenoids and a couple of guides to keep it aligned.

Popup spinner mech simple (resized).jpg

Edit: Wondering if that vuk needs to connect to the top of the spinner to direct the ball coming up. Plenty to refine but that's the basic idea. Wondering too if the cap over the spinner would interfear with the read since your only seeing one flat plan of the spinning vs in the round at any angle on a normal spinner. I guess that could be tested first to see it interferes

I think you can do some visual trickery here with two. I'll have to test a bit later but here's my thinking, presuming its a limitation

Make the space between the outside elements 90% apart... it moves 30min on the clock, but near the center move the detail only 45% and have it index more offten. This way there's, or vice versa..I can't get my head around it without testing it but agree 3 steps looks nicer but its also a factor of speed so you might have to test it to see how it registers at speed and as it slows down. Fun stuff to think about.

portal 3 (resized).pngportal 2 (resized).png

these loop ok. I can't get a animated GIF to upload but it doesn't look bad at about 8 -10 frames each. Maybe mock up a 3 spinner and see how it reads. I'd be interested to see how it works.

This is rotated 45degrees more was too wierd and less wasn't enough. I might tinker more later and try to spin the inside another 1/4 turn and see if it changes how it reads.

Great testing! That's the fun part trying out theories ideas!

I'd suggest maybe testing a delta/flag style arrangement to see if that might help, however I think the catch would be that the reduced distance between flag sections could 'catch a ball' as it rolls under.

I'm sure none of this is new to the big manufacturers. There's more than cost to much of the mech design that we on our own haven't had to see first hand.

I just listened to this. I had no idea I am Dan Harmon. I just have no idea how we ended up in the same multiverse. I only know now I'm going to have to be be on the look out for human shaped hole in my back yard and a shadowy figure in the bushes trying put balance back into this world.

Agree. I'm not exactly in tune with Duncan the host but can appreciate the discussion. I grabbed those this weekend and listened. Its actually interesting stuff. A great find.

Agree, lots of fun ways to make that happen. That's probably the most reasonable. I'm sure they guys have plenty of ideas as well. Can't wait to see what they come up with!

This feels corporate creepy. It doesn't officially tie in to Rick and Morty or Adult Swim. It reeks of them trying carefully to reference the show but not actually attribute, which I find sleazy. I will say, since McDonalds is a kid friendly place for the most part, they really can't reference a cartoon of this type without problems, so guess its reasonable to some degree.

I'm not driving 60 miles to get wait in a mile long drive through to find out its out of stock.

Most of this will end up on ebay. I hope in season 4 we see Rick totally blow off the sauce as if it never mattered, tie it to crononberging.

Szechuan-sauce is the new pogs.

I give it a thumbs up but the braver choice would be King Tommy's breakfast birthing love beast.
Second brave choice, the 'Mybodyischrome' guy who gets through the portal and is crushed in Ricks Garage.#speedoandaleatherfacemask

I always wanted to create my own fat storm trooper costume. This was before the Family Guy reference. The backstory, I'd be the stormtrooper on endor who bounces off the tree after getting knocked off the speeder and survives by eating ewoks. So many ewoks, delicious ewoks.

IMO McD's planned the scarcity to get coverage. They have fallen to the bottom of the FF market and struggle to get attention. Their last best idea was a french fry fork which speaks volumes about consumer disconnect and their idea of novelty.

Glad they are making it available. I'll get what I can and pass them out in future years to R&M trick-or-treater's or as gifts for show fans.

I hope this table will allow you to trade won credits for a few pumps of sauce from a side mounted dispenser.

"!Extraball..plorp...."

This makes me think of a funny gag maybe with a magnet on the playfield that slows or stops the ball in a pool of Sticky Szechuan sauce.

I agree that the man-child in that video is bad. I can't imagine how well that will reflect next time that guy applies for a job and this shows up in the social media search.

However IMO we can't put everyone into buckets. Not only are wolfmarsh a superfan but he's one of both pinball and the show. So they aren't all bad.

I avoided the show for way too long for the same reason but glad I cam around. I'd argue its as influential in our time and to what a cartoon can depict as the simpson's or southpark did in their time. If Star Trek is a realization of a utopian future, R&M is almost counterpoint to that and a dystopian future, and at a time of some dark and conflicting realities. Thankfully it does it with interesting characters, great writing, and best of all buckets of humor.