Really? That's a great assessment... except it was never in Allentown. Not once, not ever, so I'm not sure what you think you played. Wow... nice.

Again, we're not asking for a dime up front. You want your name on the list? Do so now... they will be OFFERED (not sold) as received. This will ONLY happen after we've shown a completed package. Then it's $1,000 down to reserve your spot, and NOTHING until your game is done. You will at least see it before you buy it. I'm not "pre-order" money taking, or expecting anything sight unseen.

I see David (our new programmer) popped in on PS. Yep, he's doing code with Ben and I directing. We've got to get some of the work load off Ben Heck... period. We love Ben and don't want to see his brain explode. Ben works harder than any human I've ever met. Our dots guy is floating around PS somewhere all the time... if he wants to say hello he can. I'm not gonna call him out unless he wants to be.

We seriously can't handle more than 300 units in our facility in any kind of respectable time frame. We know we could sell more, we just aren't capable of making more... we will get there. We hope to be in our own facility (we're so out of room in our current shop it's silly) by spring. If we're lucky, maybe this winter. Turns out, making a lot of pinball machines is really hard. At least that's what I hear on the internet.

The 50 LE's are strictly a THANK YOU to AMH customers... before we announced this title, many of them were asking and telling us they wanted game #2... no game title revealed, nothing shown, no hints, and we were a little shocked to say the least. That kind of faith, or possibly insanity?!... is something I couldn't ignore. So we ponied up for the artist to do a 2nd glass, and figured out what we could do to make it different and cool WITHOUT it being a different game. No way I'm taking out a feature for 1 version over the other... I hate that stuff. Without the AMH customers who took a chance on us, we aren't even having this conversation right now. People forget how hard a sell AMH was. I'm glad it did sell out, and yes, we are turning down sales every day by not making more. We said 150 units, and we stick to our word. That means something to us. Seems we've done everything the hard way here, but I'm glad we did... we need to make lots of improvements, and that's never going to stop being the case. I want the build quality better, and we need to get more professional as a company. All this will happen. If 1 out of every 3 AMH customers buys an LE, I'd be shocked... but judging from the emails so far, it might happen.

The Rob Zombie layout is not going to be yet another fan layout.. I don't believe they all need to be. People wanted more flow, more toys, more everything from what it started life as, and we did that. It's going to be fast & wild. Make your shots (it has 5 nice flow shots) and you'll be rewarded. Miss and yep, it's going to make you pay and bring chaos. You want pure flow? Go buy the newest Star Trek... I think that's the best flow game Steve's ever done, and that's saying something. Brilliant shots from the best flow guy ever. Guess that's my way of saying I'm no Steve Ritchie, so why would I try to be?

It will be a dark, bad ass metal and horror game. Pretty sure the only comic relief will come from our favorite killer clown, Captain Spaulding. We're thrilled that Sid Haig agreed to do the custom speech for that character! Having both Sid & Rob doing dialogue is more than we ever could have hoped for. We have been asked, and yes... we will have a "family mode" in the game (no nudity or "large scale" curse words in family mode), but it's still a decidedly adult theme, so we leave that to your judgement. Again, this isn't for everyone and we get that.

Thanks for the patience everyone... been running on little sleep since last Monday. Sorry we haven't responded much to all the emails, texts, and messages... worked the show in Denver all weekend and drove straight through to Benton in the most god awful freakin' storms. Seriously, how does it rain that hard for 900 miles out and back?! Got home at 5:00 a.m., up at 7:30... pinball is hard.

Thanks for the patience, and carry on with the speculation. Gonna lock ourselves in the shop and bust our asses to finish AMH (half way through the 150 now) and get Rob Zombie's Spookshow International ready to ship in January! Because saying that NEVER comes back to bite anyone right?!

Can't tell you that an AMH did make it to Germany, but it did. Man that sounds like Ben Heck huh?! We (again, per contract we are licensed in the USA, Canada, and Australia on this game) can't sell directly to you, but there are those who provide services like this to help. Do some research.

Build numbers are always an issue in a small capacity company, and you have to understand... by the time we start shipping this early in 2016 some of the contract time (3 years) has slipped already. We do have it in place should the need arise that we can extend the contract to complete the build, but we can't extend the contract for number of games sold. 300 is double what AMH was, so this is a BIG jump for our facility and team.

And NO, I don't want to make anyone wait 2 damn years to get a game. We've got to hire more, get more production capability, and get faster. Every dime we make goes right back into making this happen and we're prepping for this while we finish AMH. Could we have said "give us a deposit now" and gotten enough to put up a new shop by summers end? Yep. Would I sleep well at night taking blind pre-orders to accomplish that? Oh HELL no.

All LE's are already claimed by the AMH crowd... wow, I did not see that coming. Maybe some will back out, maybe not, but either way... we're absolutely thrilled. Again, all on the list will get to see before they send any payment. Probably was 10 better ways to handle all this, but here we are regardless.

People wonder why we made a "next title" announcement? Meet Ben Heck ladies and gentlemen... Apple would shoot this guy.

Ben, you're like the crazy kid brother or younger than me uncle from some weird remarriage deal I always wanted.

He's not wrong. It's BAD ASS... I know, I've seen it. Can't wait to see it all finalized and show you all.

Really... we never dreamed that 1 out of 3 AMH customers would jump on a Rob Zombie game. But they did... and then some. Lesson learned.

The July 4th was the date we'd release any remaining LE's to non AMH customers... it's a non issue because there are far more than 50 AMH customers who'd like an LE. You can jump on the standard list now, and I suggest you email [email protected] quickly.

Let's face it, at 300 units the entire run is an LE. Again, the playfield and features are NO different. No extra toys, modes, etc... just a little extra bling.

Once we show the playfield and art, deposit of $1,000 confirms your game, NOTHING more until your game is done. You've got a couple months at my best estimate. Games we hope to start shipping right after the 1st of the year. As in 2016... not 2017, 2018, or 2025.

Doing our best. We aren't perfect but we are honest.

Way to go David! We'll make that part of the LE package.

David's a great guy, has designed games before, but he's new to pinball. Ben and I guide, but David gets his 2 cents on everything as well. I have no desire to micromanage anyone that works here. We sent him home with a RZ and an AMH, and let the file / script / dots / etc etc etc sharing commence!

A big part of Spooky's original objective was to give new talented people a shot in pinball. I interviewed about a half dozen people for the programming gig, but none could pass the Ben Heck test... until David came along. Hopefully Ben's brain is recovering from the AMH damage done... he needs a break. Of course he "takes a break from pinball" and designs a mini game and writes new code for future Zombie goodness we haven't even told you about, but at least David keeps him from jumping off the roof!

So yep, welcome to team Spooky, David!

You really think every single AMH customer would be a repeat customer? We had a lot of people upset AMH didn't have a "family mode"... and it is very mild in the adult humor department with cute kooky ghosts as the villains. I had one guy cancel his AMH order because of this, and he told me to take him off our sales list because we "obviously don't care about people with children". Offering half the games as LE's isn't limited... it's half the run.

Look, we underestimated the demand... sorry. Our intent was not to create drama, it was to offer something special to those who supported us when we really needed it.

We had taken AMH to shows, waited until it was close to production ready... had over 100 people on the "I want it" list. When we sent that initial email out for sales, in the first 2 weeks we sold 1 game... Think about that... 1 GAME. After we poured our entire life savings and 2 years of insane amounts of work into this, with no plan B if Spooky failed. Know who bought that game? Joe Newhart. Then he took it to shows, and started to help sell them to help us. Not a "show game"... HIS OWN PERSONAL GAME.

We could be avoiding this by having no distributors and no LE's. We talked about just selling direct on this because we have sooo many distributors asking us all the time to give them games, and realistically at this level you can't afford to give up that much. At the end of the day, we couldn't do that to a guy like Joe. He busts his ass, he donates tons to charity, he puts games in children's hospitals... he cares... a LOT about pinball in general.

I'm glad we did this the hard way. Just makes me appreciate even more where we're at now. Really, it's all going to be the same playing game... our intent was not to cause drama. Trust me, I freakin' hate drama like you can't imagine.

Let the first world problems go... please. Buy it because you like the game, the theme, the art... whatever it is you enjoy about this game. Don't buy it because it's "limited". The 250 regulars are going to look bad ass, play just as fast and crazy, and be missing NOTHING where it matters... IN THE GAME.

Whew! Now I feel better. Go play some damn pinball!

In the grand scheme of things of late... I think that speaks volumes. We'll have half the AMH's out the door in the next few weeks, and that feels pretty awesome.

Ok, now I'm on board with Ben on this one...

ABSOLUTELY...

I'm not... that's for sure!

Again, when Rob requested Alex, I thought... "oh crap, there goes the license. We'll never be able to get that guy". We did, and I'm still shocked and amazed.

Please for the love of Jebus, forget the LE thing. We did 50, they went faster than we could ever have anticipated, end of story. Both games are going to be identical in every way... One will just have a different bad ass art package, while the other will have an equally as bad ass art package, but more of them.

We're not holding back on this... Some of you are going to have to lock it in "family mode" and leave it there. It's all about the horror, metal, art, and crazy world that Zombie has created. I freakin' love it!

It's just a dream to be working on this game at all.

Said it before, I'll say it again... It has more flow than the previous layout. More toys, more coils than AMH, more everything than what it had before. It's still wild and punishing as I intended. There are tons of pure fan flow whatever you wanna call it layout games out there, and I have no desire to make pure fan layout game #127. Others can and will do them better than I, so why try to be an immitator?

If it fails then I'm wrong and at least we took a chance on something different. If I believed that was the case I'd never even try.

We're making toys here... Really, I'm still surprised by that fact. I was writing script for a killer clown at midnight last night as part of my "job".

Debating if a toy you've never played is more or less fun than another toy seems kinda weird to me. And I know weird... Been weird my whole life!

Happy fathers day!

Alex is working on final glass now. All in due time. Toy Story 2 taught us, "you can't rush art".

We made a title announcement before it completely leaked anyway. We took a no obligation, no money down, interested parties sales list. Don't like it once you see it? It cost you an email and nothing else. If that upsets you, we're really sorry, we did our best. At least we aren't on page 400 discussing how to get your email back via attorney.

I personally wouldn't buy any game sight unseen, unless it was a dream title that I was completely enthralled with. I can think of maybe 3 things total... Rob Zombie is one of those for me.

I did the bulk of design, Ben of course has his fingerprints in the game, and Dennis Nordman helped us with the upper playfield. Basically Dennis makes sure we don't screw it up royally.

Ben was the one who convinced me to add some more flow (with an assist to Aurich, who did have valid points). I can be stubborn, but Ben knows how to get through to me and get me to admit when I'm wrong. I like games that take chances and are different. I also understand you can't be TOO different, or the masses will shun the game play.

If 300 people like this game, then perfect! That's what we needed to make this successful.

Valid point... but I hope those that are buying are fans of Rob, Spooky, the art, different layouts... whatever the case may be. You will be able to see it (at least) before you make a deposit. I wish everyone could play it first, but really no way to logistically make that happen. It's no different with a Stern LE or what some of the other pinball companies have done (or tried to do). Usually the Stern LE's sell out long before anyone could actually play the game. People buy them because they like the theme, want something different, want all the toys, or whatever the case may be.

Someday we'll just make and sell games. Seems simple, but soooo hard to accomplish.

Yep. Single, double, or triple if you're good.

And thanks Aurich! Ben and I never agree on everything either. We just know how to fight for what we believe in, and compromise when it matters.

No, it's not. It's getting closer to 300 every day but we aren't there yet. When it comes time to show the game and take deposits, some are going to pass and spots will open. I guarantee it. The same thing happened in a big way on AMH. I expect the attrition to be less on this game, but it will still happen.

If you are interested in a game, email [email protected] and put your name in. No risk, no money, no obligation, no drama. Deposit of $1,000 when we show the FULL GAME. Nothing more until the game is done and ready to go to you. Don't like the game? Then it cost you an email, and we'll thank you for the consideration and hope you like the next game we do.

Did you send it to: [email protected] or [email protected] ? We've answered all emails and checked our spam filters. You should do the same. She replied to a Kevin in NC on the 22nd if that's you. We have no way of knowing from a Pinside nickname.

That was just a notice date for AMH customers to "commit" (put their names in for) the 50 LE's... remaining LE's would then be open to the public. We're WAAAAAAYYYY past that.

Rob Zombie put it on his FB & website today, Dread Central & Bloody Disgusting put it out there... even hit some of the music news sites. We're getting hit faster than KT can answer today with Zombie fans who didn't even know it was coming.

Crazy... absolutely crazy... I knew we'd do well with this, but yeah, I was WAY under estimating.

On the bright side, we just got job security for 2 years... and we WILL be putting it all back into the company to make even better games.

Yep... this is for real and gonna be a blast!

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You shouldn't buy this game Aurich... the only way you're going to get your vision of what a Rob Zombie game should be is to build yourself a custom.

Yes we added more flow, toys, mechs, and some great other surprises, but... it's still a wild non "fan layout" type of game. If it fails horribly, then so be it... we can make a fan layout game on #3, and at least we took the chance and stuck to my vision for 1 game. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Not the first time, won't be the last.

At this time there are more than 600 people on the "I want it" list. We know some will pass when they see it, and that's fine. I'd prefer that people who actually want the game for what it is end up with the 300 units, than 300 people expecting it to play like Tron or Star Trek and being disappointed.

The game is dark, gory, R rated, vulgar, PG-13 even in family mode, and not for everyone. It will be brutal to play and something unique. We've made a ton of improvements across the board (no pun intended)... and hoping everyone likes what we do isn't realistic, so I hope a solid 300 of you do.

You are a gentlemen and a scholar sir.. totally respect your opinions, and can't wait to see Alien! Just me being honest and up front... I'd much rather make people happy with their games than sell them something they don't want for the sake of a sale.

Lot's to do before Expo time... still keeping our fingers crossed and doing all we can on our end.

I know stuff is gonna leak once in a while... but when stuff gets out that I haven't even seen yet, sorry... not gonna be happy about it.

I didn't know anything about this until after it was mad scramble "recalled" by the vendor who had the issue. Kinda glad, because I would have been seriously stressed, and I'm already that enough.

Soon people... soon!

Happy Monday!

If it is 100% ready (minus code) it will be at Expo... if not, it will be a few weeks later for the complete reveal. Doing the best we can, but showing unfinished product is something I don't ever want to do again.

Just glad you're liking the glass art! Alex is insanely talented, and I hope we get to do lots more games with him.

Busy as hell guys, but just to be clear... this game isn't going to make it to Expo. Little more art to go, and until it's 100% complete we can't show anything more.

Won't be long... wish we would have made it to Expo with the game, but we'd rather have it right than rushed. Production is still looking pretty good for January, and that's what really matters! (keeps us in business and Minions working... kind of REALLY important).

Rob's an awesome guy to work with... Every detail of the game matters to him. I was hoping to just meet the guy when we delivered his game. Lol!!! Far beyond that... he cares a ton about this and is all over every aspect.

Thanks! See you guys at Pinball Life all day Friday for the AMH #150 charity auction with Svengoolie, and we'll be at Expo all day Saturday walking around & speaking at noon.

Well after getting the first good nights sleep I've had in 2 weeks and walking around like a zombie at Expo trying to keep myself together yesterday, it sure is fun to wake up to a bunch of people freaking out over something that isn't gonna happen.

There will be 300 Rob Zombie games. Period. Do I hate thinking we could have sold more and grown our little company a little further? Yep... a little. But my word is my word, the contract is for 300, and that's double the number of games we made / sold on the first game. Once we figure out how to build 300, we'll build bigger numbers if the demand exists on whatever game #3 is.

Until we show it, take the deposit, and ship the games... nothing is officially "sold out". We'll go down the customer list in order. Some of you will hate it, start a thread in here about why it sucks and how it could have been so much better, and not buy the game. Others will see it, like it, buy it, and be happy they did. Personally I'd rather see people who like the theme & game play buy it so I don't have to hear about how something I've killed myself to make and care a lot about, is the worst thing ever put together by man.

We don't do everything right... we never will. I'm not going to screw you out of your money. You buy a game from us, you'll get it... and I don't want to make you wait years to do so. We're making lots of improvements in build quality on this, and putting up a new shop to get production moving quicker. These are all huge risks for my family, and we're not going to pre-sell kickstart crowd fund a damn dime of it. We do it by building games and working hard or we don't do it at all.

I'm going over to the Greg Freres appreciation thread... that's MUCH more interesting to me.

OMG.... really Joe?! Lol!!!

Not even slightly the case. NOTHING gets priority over RZ getting done.

I appreciate everyone's patience... it's all down to the playfield art. I saw it yesterday again, and we're almost there. Once that's done, you'll see it... full game, production ready. Crazy concept I know.

Wow... way to let the cat out of the bag Heck!

Just down to physically cutting / printing / installing the playfield, and part of that is happening right now. All art files are set up and ready. Cutting the plastics today, and all the custom / final metal walked in the door 2 hours ago.

All shall be revealed soon.

What KT said... Mr. Danger will be over as soon as we have the new shop set up to have some fun. Right now, the old shop is a gigantic overflowing chaotic messy mess, and that's its good points! It's like worse than my kids rooms or the back of Ben's old guy Ford station wagon.

And you um, might wanna check the Spooky Pinball Facebook page each day this week. Showtime.gif

What did Ben hear? Sooner than January? A lot sooner? Well how soon could "a lot sooner" be? Why... that could mean December 31st or the day after tomorrow for all we know... come on Heck, WHEN?!

About a minute and a half...

There will be other inf... oh wait, can't talk about it all yet! Lol...

The demand is going to pass the supply quick... and I wish we could magically grow to keep everyone happy, but we'd rather do this right than overreach as a company and have issues later. Plus, I don't want anyone waiting years to get their game!

Doing our best... and clearly some people are going to pass and we'll move down the list to the next person. Not a thing wrong with that... I'd much rather see it in the hands of those who will enjoy the game for the quirky piece of fun it is, than hear about how it's not another fan layout and people regretting their purchase.

All good... excited, nervous, and getting back to work. TONS TO DO!!! And the floor of our new shop is officially poured and I think I can set my desk on it now. Woo hoo!!!

Door is open!

Goal is all 300 in 18 months... or less. Tall order, but we'll try hard.

Yes, and yes. Official details to come tomorrow... if KT survives the onslaught.

Before this goes ape s**t, and yes... I'm a nervous wreck today, I'm going to give my one and only PS gameplay explanation. Jack Danger will be in our shop on Jan. 15th and we'll explain it fully then and along the way on our podcast.

Yes, this is at first glance VERY similar to what the original game was intended to be... it starts with 3 fast flow / control shots and opens quickly (if you don't suck) to 5 flow shots. THIS IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM THE ORIGINAL GAME!!! It's still chaotic and random if you lose control of the ball, as I intended. There is now an auto-launch, up to 7 ball multi, with the physical ball lock gone so we can feed fast multiball action, and a hell of a lot of insanity in this configuration. Can't talk about all of what we changed / added yet... but it's far more than it appears.

I'm tired of fan layouts... it came out better than I hoped, is super hard to beat, has way more coils than AMH, and the build quality is more reliable and better all around. She's loud, vulgar (out of family mode), and bad ass fast & evil.

If this is getting ripped to shreds in 3 hours, then that's on me. Either people DO want something different game play wise, or they think they do and really don't. Time will tell. Again, if you are on the list and it doesn't look like it appeals to you... please, pass it to someone who will enjoy what it is and let it go down the list... which is VERY long.

Either way, we did our best to make this something really cool. It was an absolute dream theme for me, and I hope we did it justice.

Peace, love, and pinball people... it's only pinball.

Charlie

Yes, and TODAY!!!

I'm breathing again... be patient on the emails guys, Kayte is here and FREAKING OUT TRYING TO KEEP UP!!!

Thanks for the kind words... I don't expect everyone to love it, but I think enough of you will.

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KT has had a few emails bounce back as undelivered... don't panic, we'll hold those spots until we find you. I'll update that later.

And we appreciate the PayPal friends & family / gift thing, but DON'T do that! Heather the hot accountant will kick our ass... if you want to help in that regard, just tell KT and mail a check.

It's on there 3 times, and we didn't wanna cover it up... too awesome!!!

Update when she can breathe.... hang tight!

DO NOT BUY IN IF YOU ARE JUST TRYING TO HOLD A SPOT... buy it because you want it. Period. If you aren't sure, skip it and let the next guy on the list in.

We're trying... just flat ran out of time getting approvals and everything else together.

Trust me, I'd love to show the madness in my mind putting this together. We'll work it in asap.

I'd say your odds are fantastic... Our new shop address is 184 Ridge Ave. in Benton, WI. We aren't hiding in a basement or a closed shop with a phone book sized NDA you have to sign to get in.

This is no different than many Stern LE's that sell out fast... it's all taking a chance. Really, if you have any hesitations... pass. My guess is in 10 days or less, it's probably all gonna be a mute point anyway.

We aren't perfect, we're doing our best to be up front and honest with everything we do.

Backglass, armor, side rails, & powdercoat are different... here's flat honesty, we didn't show the rails because they aren't done yet!

LE's are gone. KT has spoken.

Kevin... you're on the list!!! Hang in there man, and don't stress... got ya' covered. Poor gal is still trying to eat the lunch that's been sitting on her desk for 2 hours.

I will work on a quick and not very polished game play video on Monday... post it either Monday night or Tuesday. Right now, trying to pack up some AMH's for customers.

Some emails did bounce back... if anyone has a reply from KT from whenever confirming a spot, and didn't get the info this morning, forward what you have to me and I'll help. She's doing all she can.

TO BE CLEAR... if you emailed her a month ago, you aren't getting the sales info until about 402 other people pass on the game.

[email protected]

Bryan Kelly is on his way to your house with a dead carp and a sharp stick. Don't even ask what the dead carp is for...

She's 9 emails away from you... Lol! Hang on... patience... doing what we can.

I had to file a dispute with YouTube... the video was blocked in different areas because of the music. It's an automatic thing I guess.

Should be resolved quickly (we hope). I mean, do they really think a pinball company would try to get away with copyrighted... oh never mind.

It comes in 2 flavors (not tutti f**king frutti) the real version, and the kitty version... and both are included in the goodie bag. Actual shot is the right orbit.

Working on that!!! Would love to get him to MGC so he can cross over with the gaming (Magic the Gathering / World of Warcraft) and now... pinball crowds.

Just an old Kodak digital camera I got about 10 years ago... what's an iPhone?!

Marty Roberts makes them... so, yup!

It's odd... we tried that area in a whole lot of configurations. Lane guides just kept feeding the flipper and it was way too damn easy. Posts here and there made it to hard to complete the lanes and open the Spaulding gate shot.

So out of frustration, I stripped it completely off... put 1 post like you see now with zero intent of leaving it that way. Played it for giggles, and suddenly, it was fun. Feed to the flipper is consistent if you hit solid shots, but you can also backhand those lanes which is good for you, AND can be bad. Nudging became important up there for the 1st time.

I beat myself up over it 100 times and left it knowing full well it was gonna get pointed out today. But, the more ya' play it, it just feels right.

I suppose with code, all things of this nature are possible. I'll leave that to Mr. Fawzma.

Got a customer picking up an AMH at 8:30... pinball is hard.

You know, I think I've offered you a job as our QC inspector. If you lived here, we could be drinking beer right now and playing this game!

I absolutely hate installing them... real pain to get consistent in production.

Please email and let her know... I don't know real names vs Pinside names / emails / etc.

And thanks for letting others have a chance!

It's the left UPPER sling, to the right UPPER sling, to any of the pops... lights extra ball immediately if you pull it off, and it's harder than hell to hit. Still there... no way I was taking that out.

Plus it destroys the Robot!

There's a bunch in final testing now, and ALL AMH's will be out the door by the end of January... then we switch to RZ.

Right returns to the left flipper, left goes to upper playfield... or does it?!

Morning ya'll... and Chris, be careful getting AMH down the steps today! I got home after 11 last night, don't envy the drive home you had... glad you enjoyed playing RZ! Had a blast, and sorry I came back and got ya' on that last game.

KT is still getting caught up. She had emails fairly up to speed by the time she crashed late last night, but she's sorting through like 50 more right now.

Check those spam filters and any odd email addresses if you know you should have heard from us!!!

Go listen to Nate's podcast... I might have answered a lot of gameplay questions there. We'll shot a not very edited gameplay video first chance we get on Monday and hopefully post Monday night / Tuesday morning to help those on the fence.

Thanks, gotta fly!

You have no idea how depressed I am and heartbroken... that a pinball machine is capable of leaving you heartbroken, and depressed.

I get it man... you're not thrilled. Don't buy it, it's only a toy you play in your free time. It it's not for you, that's perfectly fine... stop thinking about how sad you are, close the Pinside window, and do something productive that makes you happy.

Ok... after a day fairly out of email / Pinside range, just getting caught up. No idea how 1 Sunday off costs me like 2 days worth of work, but it does!

Reading some of this... is making me dizzy, so I'm just going to stop. ART: Rob said what he wanted, where he wanted it, and Alex did a beautiful job. This was Alex's first ever pinball machine, and I think that makes what he did even more impressive! It's all done & approved, end of story. Personally I don't think you need to cover every square inch with something just to say you did. I like the clean classic look, but that's just my opinion which means and is worth absolutely nothing. All art is subjective. It's like debating if 1 song is better than another, or if NY or Chicago has the best pizza. We all like what we like.

Trying hard to answer all emails, keep AMH moving, and unloading trucks full of building materials this morning. The parking lot looks like a war zone and we need to get it going on the slab so trucks can still get in & out.

I'll shoot the gameplay video asap but it will be either late tonight or early tomorrow before I get it uploaded... still got a few jobs I HAVE to get done.

Peace, love, and pinball men. Carry on.

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Clearly Dan is buttering me up to get us back to MGC and sponsor stuff (like we'd ever miss it anyway!)

Video is almost done... not great, but I think it gets the point across. Try playing a game of pinball 3 feet back with a camera between you and the game some time. It suuuuuccckkkkssss!!!!!

Post a link asap. Argue happily among yourselves in the meantime.

Here you be fine pinball people... more fuel for discussion. I kept the vast majority of "adult" stuff out of this one, but there is one video clip you may or may not have heard about I'm sure will stir things up. It's bound to be considered the best or worst in the history of pinball!

Really... it's gross, and if you are offended (or cringe a lot), I don't blame you.

Doesn't show a ton of the gameplay, but a few of the cool features / modes. We'll leave the professional set up & video to Jack Danger on Dead Flip, Jan. 15th live from the new Spooky Pinball LLC world HQ!

6 main modes, 4 sub modes, killer cards to collect, video mode, Hell Bound wizard mode that I'm not going to talk about until someone FULLY beats it, and several other surprises in the mode / subs category.

All modes are in but a couple aren't fully coded yet. It will be a damn hard game to beat. Closest I've come is 3 of 6 mains, and 2 subs.

We can turn off steals / extra balls / random awards for tourney. Ben did the same thing in AMH.

Let's see... Living Dead Girl & What? are 2 ball multi. Superbeast is 5. American Witch I haven't beat in forever.. Lol! House of 1,000 Corpses is 7. Hellbound is... Hellbound. Etc Etc...

Not everything is instant multi, but most are hard to beat and we do reward you... plus it's damn fun in this configuration throwing them out there!

I just made the upper playfield look easy. And I was showing the easiest thing to do up there as well.

One thing I learned is yeah... upper playfields are cool, but it's hard to make them real entertaining. I think with the code & configuration / sweeping gate shot... it's better than most.

Glad you guys are digging it anyway! Yep... she's a different animal. Said it before, I'm not Steve Ritchie, and there's no way I can match what he does in a game for flow, so ya' go your own way and hope people like it.

Got home very late last night, long day today... up early tomorrow. I think we've done what we can to show you how the game is, and I hope you like it. Totally understand it's not for everyone, nor was it meant to be.

We'll open up a few spots as people pass (less than 10 of 300 so far have verbally said they are) and more on Friday afternoon. We've already had a pile of them spoken for... time will tell when it's officially "sold out". We could have just opened it all in one day and had them gone fast... glad we didn't. We know it's a big investment, and do our best to "get it out there".

Been a wild ride the last few years... I know it gets tense in here, but I get it... ya'll love this stuff like we do. And I swear... spinners will be coming to Spooky Pinball!

Thanks everyone! I'll dip in every once in a while but got a crazy week ahead. Be nice to each other... it's only pinball.

NOBODY is following it the way YOU are.

Fist bump dude... I know you get how hard this s**t is to do.

Well glad to see people thinking rules and not ripping each other anyway! Spinners will be coming in future games... just not an option right now. Trust me, we tried. Someone mentioned drop targets on the upper playfield.. there are 3 lanes under the upper playfield, no where for the mechs to go. It's more fun and tougher than it looks. Is what it is, and I hope you like it.

Someone else mentioned "even Rob says there's nothing in this game"... ummm sorry, but he was referring to the blank whitewood he was looking at, and nothing else.

Corpses will have a few options... stealing them from other players, instant multipliers in single player games, or bonus multipliers to help get to 1,000 quicker. Bonus jackpot will by X the number of balls left when you hit 1,000... we'll mess with it, and get it right. On a single good ball, I can rack up 400 or more pretty quick as it is. It needs to be a hard event to gather, but yeah... certainly don't want it to be impossible.

And yes, spotlights will be added to the game. It needs them!

Back to work... cleaning out the 8 billion things piled up in the hall so we can roll out 11 more AMH's this week, and get a clear path to move the whole shop across the parking lot in a few more weeks.

Last info before tomorrow... haven't read any of this, so hope it helps.

Mr. Fawzma was in the shop all day working on code, and we're adding 3 more inserts for 2X, 5X, and 10X above the tombstone... won't happen until production.

We've had a few more pass tonight, which is fantastic (sounds weird to say). But hey, we'd rather hear a "no thanks" than nothing at all, and it opens up a few more guaranteed spots for those past the 300 mark tomorrow.

Well over 2/3rds of the games are spoken for at this time... and we're VERY surprised by that, and incredibly grateful.

Thank you all so much for the faith in us. Off to bed, lots to do tomorrow.

75 - Chris, 76 - Kurt, 77 - John, 78 - Tom, 79 - Joe, 80 - John

We like Tom.... we don't like him THAT much! Even if KT did try to swap Bug's braces for Tom's game.

By the way, that offer still stands!!!

Lol... eh, we do request an actual dentist / orthodontist. We have 300 games but only 1 son.

10 Rob Zombie games left... KT is being very careful as we near the end, making sure we don't have a mix up when she sends out emails.

#300 we haven't decided on yet. We'll do something charity based again to make a happy finish to an awesome time for us!

Go have a fantastic holiday season everyone... what a great year it's been!

Was a lot of fun having a group of guys (and gal) play the game today... and everyone smiling, laughing, and enjoying what we've worked so hard to make as good as we can sure makes me feel better!

You never know what people will think until it's out there. I'm just glad people are giving a non fan layout a fair shake and enjoying it for what it was intended to be.

New shop is coming along fairly well considering the weather, and I just can't wait to get in there and get set up. With a little luck, January will be our last month in the ol' rental space. Onward and upward in 2016!!!

Check your spam filter, and if you have any questions, [email protected] will get you taken care of. Emails regarding this change went out last week.

We will no longer be using PayPal to process any game sales... everything will go via our own merchant account. Sorry for the confusion and inconvenience!

Greetings Pinside.

Ya'll have been so nice and receptive to Mr. Fawzma... that as of today, he is now the FULL TIME PROGRAMMER AT SPOOKY PINBALL LLC!!! Like he gave notice to his day job, and took a career in pinball. Who does that?! Clearly he's crazy.

Can't even begin to describe what a HUGE step this is for our company (and hopefully David too).

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We're calling this... the Tommy Skinner Texas evaluation super air ball fix included free with every game mod. We also added a clear plastic on the other side of the robot to eliminate the one and only crazy air ball trap we saw in Texas.

We could dial the flippers back, but hell... who doesn't like snappy flippers? Fawzma will tweak code for MGC, we'll give it another trial by fire up there, and as soon as we get back and feel the code is peachy stable, off they go that week!

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Ooops... glitch and double post.

Thanks for the patience everyone! We're building as fast as we can... first and foremost, we wanted to get our build quality up. Try that while making AMH, building a new shop, hiring, training, moving, designing, setting up RZ production, and letting the dog out once in a while. It gets to be a bit of a handful.

See ya'll at MGC!!!

As long as boards are in house, games WILL ship in April. We've got them piling up right now in the new Spooky world HQ.

Hey guys... just to be clear, the games will all ship with LED's, which are the standard frosted white & red Ablaze lighting in the GI, and white Ablaze in the inserts. The upgrade kit is full Ghost Buster Premiums in the inserts (color matched), and the "f'n brights" in the GI. There are 4 individual chains of GI in the Rob Zombie game, so that's a whole lot of lights & wires.

We did a lot to improve the lighting from AMH to RZ. Let's be honest... we needed to! We improved a ton of stuff in this game, and soon you'll all see that.

Thanks for the patience and understanding! I should have been a bit more clear on this before KT sent out the emails... my bad.

Wow... ok, here's the deal. The light up toys Matt has a ton of time & effort into. They require a completely different mold / assembly / wiring... the odds of anyone adding LED's to the standard sculpt toys without destroying them is slim, depending on your skill level of course. It's not as simple as "adding an LED" by any means.

You can always buy and add the light up toys later at your own discretion and have both sets of toys. Flat out, the Robot will be tricky to install. There's a lot going on in that pop bumper assembly to put it in place correctly, but I'm sure most of you can handle it.

At $200... you're saving a few bucks on the aftermarket price, and getting the officially licensed mods installed by us with no risk to you. We damage something on install, it gets fixed / replaced by us before you ever see it. The standard toys are not included.

If this isn't something you want or seems like a bad deal to you, then please... just skip it. We understand. Your game will ship as advertised with the standard toys.

Morning pinball dudes.

Yeah... somehow someway Trevor's Robot got spun the wrong direction in shipping, so he was 180 degrees off. We're going to add more packing to games so he can't spin in shipping. Just one of those things you don't learn until you do. We've hauled RZ thousands of miles and had no issues. Then again, we're not tossing the show game in the back of a big ol' semi. We'll shoot a video ASAP on how to install the Robot. Yes, it is a pain to install.

As for "just drilling and adding LED's"... not even remotely the case when you see what Matt has done to make this all work. It's far more complex than it appears, but hey... we all have different skill levels, so do whatever you think is best at your own toy risk.

Display and volume are always under the mercy of show lighting and volume. Short of setting up a giant P.A. system, audio is never good at shows.

The ball can occasionally get caught behind the drop target... small nudge always clears it. We did 500 games at MGC and never once had to take the glass off (which is a minor miracle).

CHOP save is only good for a few seconds... so use it wisely! You'll see what I mean when more games get out there and people spend time on it. I've still personally never beat more than 3 modes.

Yep... that Doug guy does some damn fine work! High five.... and LIONMAN!!!!

Here's a clear case of never going to make everyone happy.

ALL games will have a real backglass. You can't buy an LE translite and have your game suddenly be an LE. We spent thousands on getting that extra art made... the custom cut / powder coated metal side rails and printed backglass will NEVER be sold. Period. To use a translite in your game, you'll have to go out, buy custom thinner glass, buy the plastic side trim, cut it down... and you STILL won't have an LE.

If this isn't to your liking... sorry. We did our best.

We can't do that.

Is there any chance at all that you might be over thinking something like this? I've hit the skill shot half a dozen times. I can hit the first goal (upper left sling) about 1 in 10. It's a skill shot... with a little luck.

Let's look at it this way... the odds of that one sperm in millions hitting the egg, and ending up as Hilton (or any of us) is PURE LUCK. That doesn't mean that we can't enjoy life right? That doesn't make living and playing pinball any less fun does it?.

Oh, I'm about to walk over and final test your game Hilton. Feel free to come pick it up whenever!

Because we can't get hi-def images on our display... so Ben Heck made the video mode look like a retro NES game. David & David put the effects and Dragula (8-bit version) music together... personally, when I saw it (I had no idea how it was going to be) I freakin' loved the Dragula NES sound! Ben did an awesome job on that mode, because Ben is awesome like that.

Game #36 is done and in the box for those keeping score. 5 more games from #24 to #31 are on the dock waiting for today's truck. The rest of the 50 LE's are on stands in final testing.

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Lol... no. But I do hope to see my son put that thing back together so we can play it again someday!!! Where's Bryan Kelly?! Get yer a** down here and help Bug out old dude!

Nothing like physically and mentally killing yourself to see false info and speculation on Pinside... makes a guy feel GREAT!

If you TELL us the game is going on location and you'd like a bill acceptor door... we can help do that. It makes zero sense for a company our size to spend major amounts of money on coin doors and mechs when 90% of them are never going to be used in that way. We even changed the shape of the playfields to accommodate this on RZ.

You CAN fit a coin box in our games... all of them. It will slide under the amp, or worst case if your coin box is super tall, just slide the amp over... it's 2 screws. We have 2 location Spooky games... they both have coin boxes in them.

The Spaulding toy needs a callout in the test menu to save confusion... but it's working EXACTLY as it should. Play "What" mode and you'll see what I mean... he's not making constant noises... but Fawzma will add some snarky Spaulding comments for just casual bashes soon. Remember... in most modes that upper playfield is there to increase jackpot values, not battle Spaulding over and over.

Mr. M. ... what "ball hanging up at the bend in ramp" are you referring to? Do you mean the VUK tube? Please contact me directly so I can HELP you figure it out... I don't come to Pinside on a daily basis to see what Hilton's opinion on everything is or who's having an issue. Need help? ASK me...

Hilton... it's REALLY short sighted of you to think you know everything... the loudest voice in the room is rarely the smartest. Come work here for a few months and see how hard this all is. Then I'll hop on the internet and tell everyone how bad a job you did and expect you to be my friend after... maybe even ask you for discounts and ask if I can avoid paying you sales tax. We appreciate the support you've given us, but come on man... talk to us like humans on and off line, and try taking your personality down a notch or two now instead of waiting until you're older and mellowing with age like we all do.

Our build quality has been increased across the board from AMH to RZ. Yes, we have more improvements to make and we know this... and we will get there. If you guys seriously want to keep the open communication lines between Spooky and Pinside going, try not bashing us like a pinata... we WANT constructive advice and welcome it openly. Alternative is we just work hard and never come here like all the other companies do.

Yeah... I know I need thicker skin.

Hilton... you are a genuinely nice guy in person. And yes, we WANT feedback. Talk to us on Pinside like you do when I'm standing in front of you is all I'm asking. Constantly spewing opinions of every minor detail on every game ever made just becomes a wall of noise... be it good or bad input. You have a lot of good ideas. Nobody is perfect, no game is perfect, no company is perfect. We're busting our collective asses every single day to get better at this. It's a game to the rest of the world, but to us... it's my families entire future. I'm going to take things personally.

We're here for the long haul... might as well be civil to each other.

Grab a photo if you can next time it happens and email so I know for sure what it is... we kept the rails at 15 degrees (thanks Dennis!) and really just haven't seen that.

Had a couple hang ups in the "secret passage" that comes out to the right of the right most pop at the show in Atlanta... but it was a switch sitting just a tick high. Little hip check knocked it out.

[email protected]

Hey... no worries Hilton. You are a genuinely good guy off here in person, and you do a lot of good in the community. I don't mind that you post on line about what you like or don't. I can take a "hey... maybe Spooky could make this better" every day of the week. We do listen... maybe we can't get every request, but we do our best to be user friendly. Take your lovely wife out to dinner and forget about pinball for a few hours. A wise man from up north (clearly NOT Bryan Kelly) tells me these things are important, and he's RIGHT.

And Banger Jay... you are one sexy bitch. Love you too you throbbing hunk of man love! Was that too far?!

What happened to Aurich?! Lol... he's the total voice of reason now. Much respect sir! You're in this soup now... and I KNOW you understand how tough this is.