I know there's so much more code to come, but any details on what the match sequence might be? I love match sequences for a laugh and can only imagine that they have a ton of options!

Okay, I’m gonna make a complaint on principal.

First off: Im a fan of Spooky and love what they’re trying in regards to innovation. I’m very happy with our ACNC and HW, and we’re looking forward to receiving our Scooby. I also agree with most of the strategic directions they’ve evidently taken with the company (of course I can only comment on what I’ve observed; sure there’s much more going on that is not-so-evident).

BUT…minor complaint…I’m “irked” by the new approach to invoice for full payment before they start building your game. It’s not so much about giving up the remaining $9k 30 days early. I really don’t care about that. …I’m going to argue that it’s a matter of principal. You pay balance upon delivery; not at start of manufacture. We’ve already paid a deposit as a down payment. That should be enough until delivery. I buy and sell in industry where equipment is “build to order”. No way either as a buyer or seller would we agree (or get away with) full payment before the equipment is built. I can’t think of any other consumer goods where this is the case (I’m sure there are some…but it’s not common).

Anyway…rant over. I hope Spooky reconsiders this policy before their next release. This is the first strategic decision I’ve seen from them that has been a disappointment to me.

On positive note…Scooby is looking incredible….and HW code update is also looking good. Anxiously awaiting both. Keep up the good work!!!

Received notice from Morgan that Scooby will go on the truck tomorrow! They had an ice storm so truck canceled. Hopefully arrives before my daughters brain surgery on the 1st.

I’m not paying until my game is ready to ship. I bought through Flip n Out.

Understandable, but as far as I knew, final payment is requested the week prior to your game going on the line, not 30 days early.

I don’t see a problem. Spooky production runs like a Swiss watch. Send final payment in, they maneuver your game on the line and ship it, usually in three weeks total time and it arrives within a month. Companies who take final payment and take 2+ years to deliver are full of horse sh@t and I’m looking at Haggis Pinball.

No, he wants to pay after it's built but before it's loaded on the truck.

Some distributors do ask for payment in full before a game is ready to immediately ship.
Prefer not to work with those distributors.

It really has nothing to do with money for us it's simply space. When we send an invoice we don't know if the customer is going to pay it in a day or a month or 2 months. We try to have enough billed in advance so that as soon as the game is in a box it can be put directly on a truck and sent out. Even doing this we almost always have 100 games sitting around during full production. If we don't send an invoice until the game is boxed up then it could sit there for a month or 2 or who knows. Overseas shipments go in a container this means we have to store and load the entire containers at once. 36 per container. During the peak of Halloween ultraman we would almost always have 200+ games backed up in the shop waiting for shipping. Waiting for payment, waiting for a distro to organize shipping, waiting for customers to pay there distro, waiting for a container to europe, a container to Australia etc. I'm not sure if you are familiar with how much space 200 games takes up but it's more than we physically have currently. We even rent some extra space from a nieghbor to make room for an extra 50. Much of our square footage is also used in inventory of parts and materials. We have to stock absurd amounts of inventory to make sure we don't run out with the way supply chain is these days. Often certain things like PCs we keep over a year worth in stock to be safe. Hundreds of pinball cabinets and literally 20 ft tall stacks of amps, speakers, power supplies, coin doors etc. Anyway I'm rambling but I hope this offers some view into the fact that these policy exist so that we can do a good job for everybody.

Says who?

Maybe your business does that, it's hardly some kind of standard in boutique industries.

Frankly given how flakey people can be it seems eminently reasonable to request the money ahead of time so when the games are built they're already paid for and ready to go out the door right away, no delays clogging up space as you wait for someone to get back from their trip or whatever their excuse for not paying immediately is.

Edit: Was typing before this post went up!

Also want to say that I appreciate your support over the years and I hope you love your Scooby!

.

I was invoiced (and paid) in full for a GZ Prem in early January for the Feb run for which I still have yet to receive a shipping notice on... This is from a highly regarded distro... Spooky's policy isn't that unreasonable...

Yes…like previous purchases from spooky.

Sorry, I meant ‘ready for delivery’.

I actually like this explanation a lot. Since I don’t really care that much about the extra ?30? Days or whatever, I’ll support with this reason.

I know the pain of customers not picking up their equipment. We sell often with FCA point of manufacture incoterms. That means our customers are responsible for arranging pickup. Many international customers (especially when their projects are behind schedule and they’re not ready) will delay, delay, delay as much as possible for ‘free storage’. I did assume that in this hobby, buyers were extremely anxious to get their games and you didn’t have this problem. Guess that’s not always the case.

Definitely a SHITLOAD of flakes in the hobby. Tire kickers, window shoppers, wafflers, whatever you choose to call them. They're out there for sure. Spookys policy and ordering system is pretty awesome. At least you have a number and based on production times, you know roughly where you stand. Don't sweat it man, you're in good hands.

SpookyLuke SpookyBug I am bursting with excitement for my new Scooby to be built and and ready to ship. Until then.....when's then next time I'll get my streaming fix for Scooby Doo? I'm jonesing for that DeadFlip stream. By all means though, don't slow production down for it because I'm also dying to play it in person.

Best Regards

Not to mention with Spooky your price gets locked in when you order and you don't have to pay for multiple price increases when your game is delayed. Spooky does it right!

True dat!

Totally understand and honestly I would question the same exact thing. Just figured I would give an explanation for everyone. Maybe someday we can get enough floor space for all this pinball stuff lol.

“Floor space” something a whole lot of us need.

I recently watched the spooky pinball documentary(on Amazon). Towards the end of the video you see the building that houses their current operations. I recall thinking, that's not a lot of space, it's amazing what they have done with it. What Luke is saying makes perfect sense. I think it also explains why they have succeeded in a business where so many have failed.

SpookyLuke - any chance we'll get full uploads of Scott Innes and Count D's new songs for the game at some point like the Captain Cutler multiball song? I'm cracking up listening to on videos so far. Props to the lyrics for "trying not to misbehave while we're dancing on their grave." - tremendous!!

You know there are a lot of people, especially later in line, that will order, pay deposit and then end up buying something else because it came up for sale and they couldn't miss out. Then they get the notice their SD is ready to go and they're like "oh shit!, I don't have the money (or the space or both)". I think this will especially happen as other games get released while waiting on SD to get built. I can see this being a nightmare for a small company as Luke described.

What action are you hoping to drive with this insight? This team is super transparent on the production levels and exceeding other manufacturer level communication.

I got a chance to play Scooby Doo for the first time tonight with Mike Nogle at Great American Pinball in West Chicago, IL. Holy smokes... It looks incredible and is really, really fun to play.

I played a couple of full games and watched Mike and one of his other shop guys play too. Every game played pretty long and decent scores, no issues to note. One game Mike played almost all of the modes, one Captain Cutler and two Mystery Machine MB so we got to experience a good amount of the gameplay. I played just about all of the modes and multiballs each at least once with a good set of high score initials.

The modes are all really neat and awesome light effects. Some modes are fairly simple and others are difficult but not too hard (one or two might be pretty hard), the ball plays super nice and controls well from the targets/misses so you have plenty of opportunity to learn the modes on the fly and still progress through them.

Spinner rips are sooo satisfying. Backhand shots all day to just about every shot. The middle ramp to the upper playfield is great and dials in nicely from both flippers. It's hard to compare the speed and float of the ball to anything in particular, it kinda feels like the perfect medium and it's own thing.

The theme is fantastic, I think Spooky nailed it. I felt some real childhood come back to me seeing the cutscenes, hearing the music and callouts. It's a freaking Scooby Doo pinball machine.

The bookcase flipper is a game-changer. It's surprisingly intuitive while adding a serious whole 'nother dynamic to flipper skills. It just does, different. Typical flipper skills are absolutely still in play and altogether the upper playfield is like another world when you're up there. Until you start Captain Cutler MB....

The drop target ball save is sweet. Works awesome and adds to your skill and ball reads in a different way than a post with much less, but certainly possible, drains from raising your flippers like a doink. The double drop target banks on the left are cool too and feed to the left inlane quite serendipitously.

The apron ball locks are a smooth feature and feed to the flippers under control with a pleasing kickout. In a way it gives you an easy cradle/tilt cooldown by hitting a shot rather than by catching the ball or doing a skilled flipper maneuver or nudge.

My opinion, go find one to see and play ASAP and see for yourself. Mike should have his on the floor at Great American by the weekend. I already put my $ on one.

I've received confirmation that this is open to US and Canada.

"Hi Darrell,

Yes, starting tomorrow at 10 AM EST anyone from the U.S or Canada are eligible to win the Scooby Doo Collectors Edition!

Best of luck and thank you so much for supporting our charity!

Best wishes,

Sierra &
The Project Pinball Team "

I'm not sure what you were reading there, but I don't think he was trying to drive any particular action. He simply was describing a situation that happens quite regularly in the pinball world. A game is announced, people line up and pay deposits. 6 to 12 months later, some people still don't have their game in hand. A new machine is announced or a deal on a used machine comes up. A certain number of people will without a doubt cancel their old deposit and move along to the new opportunity that has arisen. It's a fact. Happens all the time. That's all he was saying. There was no negative criticism towards Spooky in his statement.

Look at what I happened to find walking thru the toy aisle at Walmart!

kScooby Van (resized).jpg

Haha I have one too and some Scooby-Doo Funco bobble heads!

It's funny, we got the Funko's a long time ago too not knowing someday we'd have a Pinball Machine to go with them. Doubt I'll be able to fit the Funko's with the topper but the Van definitely will work. Cheers!

Yeah, I was really just defending the current Spooky business model, or at least their reasons for collecting full payment before putting the game on the line. I thought maybe my comment was poorly written but I've re-read it a few times and am not sure how anyone could read something negative into it unless they just don't like having to pay before production of the their game starts.

This... a particular game comes to my mind... but it's been way longer than 12 months for the majority of those who have been waiting...

#17 spent its first day at TILT yesterday.

Running into some issues with the left servo not releasing balls, or forgetting there are balls up there. 2.21 code update made this better but it still happens and requires pulling glass to free it (almost like the servo forgets where it is in space and loses track of its rotation).

We had a coil stop fall out from the upper playfield but we got notified about this on pickup.

Other than that it's been a big hit. we had people drive through a blizzard to come play it.

As a long time Scooby fan myself, the video clips, callouts, and audio is a big dose of nostalgia and it's a fun game to play.

(But move or remove the outline posts. Before we did that it was almost impossible to get a ball to drain and after multiple 10+ minute balls we finally caved and moved them)

The default from the factory should really be the middle position on this game. (Spooky if you're listening)

Yup, sorry. Misread; too late and one too many drinks.

Lol, been there, done that

We are doing that now! Default is set to the lower center position. Also the code is pretty heavy on ball saves right now we will be implementing a "hard" difficulty level to alleviate that. As for the coil stop bolts we were able to find the issue 19 games in (that's why we do an early 50 list so we can locate and correct these things before they reach homes as much as possible). Overall super happy with how things are going!

Sunday 2/26 11am
Bartari - Scranton, PA

Featuring :
* Electric City IFPA Pinball Tournament (optional)
Free Scooby Doo / PinballSTAR tshirts for all tournament players !
Pre-register for the tournament at www.electricitypinball.com
* 2 Scooby Doo games ! One in tournament / one for attendees not in the tournament !
* Great venue - Bartari - great unique food / drink options AND a featured Scooby Doo drink menu !
* Door prize drawing for a Halloween playfield ! Anyone attending gets an entry !
* For those who can’t attend the event will be streaming on Twitch on Electric City Pinball’s channel AND some special guests from Spooky Pinball will be joining in !
* All ages welcome
* PinballSTAR will be answering Scooby Doo questions and taking orders !

Interested in ordering a Scooby Doo or want more info on the event ? Email Joe at [email protected].

TY
Joe Newhart
PinballSTAR Amusements

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Hey Luke - I think it may have been you that gave our guy a heads up when he did the pickup on Tuesday. We did check ours, and from what we could access the stop felt solid, but we kinda figured it might happen as we fit into that early run. At least it took a good 5 hours before the coil stop said hello

Got any tips on removing the upper playfield in an efficient manner?

And a heads up, both of the posts are located behind LED light boards, so either get yourself a skinny wrench to hold the lock nut and a magnet to chase the washer when it falls out or be prepared to loosen and move the boards.

Maybe took 5 minutes longer than usual, not a big deal.

Upper playfield images in case y'all are interested:

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Sorry if I missed something specific earlier, but lets say we are in those first 19 games, what is it we are looking for or fixing?

@bemmett, scroll up and look at the second picture above your post. One of the coil stops on the upper PF came loose.

Some of the coil stop bolts weren't tightened down with enough torque. One of those things that never happens then a few come up all the sudden. Caught it fairly quick and corrected.