Quoted from Betelgeuse:I wouldn't entirely agree with this. I'm sure build quality improved, but many of their games were made by entirely different teams and were often developed concurrently. AMH was a prototype made by Ben Heck before Spooky even formed as a company, while RZ was being developed by Charlie. Dominos and Jetsons were contract games and Jetsons was designed outside Spooky by The Pinball Company. Then TnA was designed by Scott Danesi outside of Spooky, but was spruced up and produced by Spooky like AMH was. Meanwhile, ACNC was developed in-house by Charlie like RZ was.
AMH actually seems like a more complicated build than what has been attempted since, with the motorized target bank, motorized cell door, the rotating ghost that tracks the ball, and the Hellevator lock, which is the only time I have seen a lowering scoop shot in the middle of a ramp!
Having torn apart amh and rz, build quality is, poor. Spooky seems to have learned from AMH to RZ. They used good quality materials and then cut massive corners.
If I had to sum up RZ and AMH, double sided tape. The rails are secured by a bolt in the front, and double sided tape. They did not use the bolt in the rear near the head. This is after tearing apart 1 amh, 1 rz, 1 rz le. All the same. RZ the rear ball guide has screw holes, but is held in place with double sided tape. The rear ramp to the vuk has double sided tape, but it looks like later ones have a screw holding it on as well.
AMH is a pain to work on. The game doesn't use posts. It uses screws with sleeves, for everything. This makes taking anything apart a pain because you have multiple levels of sleeves and plastics to get into place. RZ if memory serves got this right. Both have terrible aprons. AMH's is too thin and bends when you lift the playfield. the corners on it dig into the playfield scratching it up. Neither block the ball from falling back into the cabinet or apron. RZ's is just too easy to damage.
Now as for rz being more complicated, they just used servos. Ben heck even stated if he had a do over they would have moved away from it. They are fragile and prone to failure (I have only had to replace one so far on amh). AMH also required a lot more fixes by the community than RZ. S