Move over Raven and Hard Bodies, there's a new contender!!

No one said this. Good lord. Reading comprehension.

Love the cabinet artwork.
Like the translite a lot, minus Adam and Jamie.
Not crazy about playfield.

To be fair, most of the startups seem to be doing 1, 2 AND 3 before moving on... which is kind of the problem.

Are Jamie and/or Adam involved in designing the mechanical 'toys' for the game? If so, then that would be exciting to see what they can design.

That's the word.

Is that before or after Torpedo Alley?

I like it. PLEASE - don't ask us to pay anything for this one until we get Predator in our hands. I'll buy one then if it plays well. But if y'all start taking money for this one while we are still waiting on Predator...the mood here will change fast.

Some of you guys are pretty tough on the art, and you haven't even seen what a populated playfield looks like.

Do you think they will make a Predator LE, allow preordering of this before Predator is shipping or have a kickstarter for this title?

In my factory, those guys would be out in the factory making shit.

Because that's the way it's gotta be. When I had a sofa factory, and we got behind on orders, I was down in the wood shop making up 100 sofa arms. All hands to the pump when there's work to be done.

In this case, I may be wrong, but aren't the two SB guys doing everything?

rd.

We can only respond to what we're shown. Now if we don't like it was can be silent. But that's not really serving Skit-B. If they're smart they'll respond to the feedback and adjust and try and win more customers. If we hate it and just keep our mouths shut to be polite and it gets built and bombs because no one wanted to admit they hated it, then what?

Doesn't matter. Bad art is bad art. The more I look at it, the more terrible amateurish stuff I find. Populating it won't make the poor art look good.

-The poses are terrible. The big Dummyzombie...is he supposed to look menacing? It looks like he's trying to poop in the city. Why is the smoke from Beret-man's gun going down? Smoke rises! Or is it a hat-gun? Did he just shoot that hat onto Leatherjacket-man's head? Look at the characters' hands. AMATEUR HANDS!
-The color is terrible
-The shading/rendering is terrible. Cross-hatches everywhere and colored-pencil style shading
-The fire looks terrible...it looks like soft-serve ice cream ghosts.
-Bad composition and tangents everywhere...look at that arm Beret-man is holding...right on the Dummyzombie's back. Professional artists should know not to do things like that!

I know Pinside is supposed to be rainbows and puppies and I'm gonna be called "negative"....but I feel like the Skit-B crew is in a bubble where there's no one to give them honest constructive criticism. How did that logo get through!? They need someone around to say "um hey...the font for "Skit" makes it look like the word "Shit"...you should change that font". They need someone around to say "This playfield art looks like a Jr. High sketchbook drawing...why don't we give it another pass". They need someone around to say "Hey, um..."Experts of Dangerous" doesn't even sound like proper English...yeah, I don't care that it's on a shirt...it still sounds stupid".

Anyway, this is quite possibly the worst pinball art package I've ever seen...and I've seen WPT and 24!!!! Oooph!

Okay, I hear you, but let's try and interject the reality of the differences here. You're making sofas, but they're really complicated custom sleeper sofas, that take a lot of design time and planning. And your first run of sofas is limited to 250, and then you can't make any more of those.

So if you put everyone on that build, and you finish all 250, then what? You have nothing to build because you didn't design the next sofa yet. So you gotta halt everything, design the whole thing, source the parts etc, and then you announce it and hope to get orders to build it? Meanwhile your factory is idle and no money is coming in.

If we want to see people break this pre-order and wait forever game we've got to allow them to multitask and keep things moving. There are limits, Jpop taking pre-orders for game 3 when he hasn't even revealed game 1, let alone called it done? That's too much for me to defend. But this makes sense to me.

There are currently 4 or 5 on the team I believe. That is how many I met at MGC that were official members.

I think the designer for game #2 is Joey???

This. We complain because we care, we want them to succeed and do rad things and make great games, and make money and keep living this crazy pinball passion. It's not about dragging anyone down.

Look, the art looks like it was drawn by a middle schooler, and if you were 11 and showed that to me I'd high five you, because nice job dude! For an 11 year old. And I say that because it's full of mistakes you make when you're young and don't know better yet. I don't say that to shit on the designer (whoever he is) and I respect anyone who tries and puts themselves on public display for criticism.

But at the end of the day we're talking about spending over five thousand dollars for these large things that take up precious space in our homes. And the reality is if the game looks like ass people aren't gonna do it. They just won't.

So much love to Kevin, and I'm sorry to the artist that we're getting kinda blunt here, it's not personal. But if you don't take this feedback to heart and really go back to the drawing board here this is going to suffer and all the hard work you put in on top of this is going to be hurt. This is amateur hour stuff when you need to be professional, it's too much money for this.

Having a forum where people can give you feedback like this is precious. I tried it with the Hobbit, because that playfield was super disappointing too, and all I got back was "sorry dude, license, talk to the big corporate hand". Well that's not what's going down here, you've got the freedom to make it rock. Unless Jamie and Adam insist on this, and in that case, well, they're not the pros I thought they were.

And WPT is a great pin! I couldn't agree more with you Rare….WPT was comprised of Keefer, Sheets, Ritchie and Grannar, regardless of the artwork….

As for Jpop, that's just a risk worth taking for me, not this one…..

Skit B gets a pass, for now…..for some reason

I would make Predators until I could make no more.

After 200 of the first 250 are made, then I would be looking for a holiday! You're talking probably at least a years work for these guys. Probably two years work, let's be realistic.

After the first 250 are made, then I'd look at the next thing. That's TWO YEARS down the track!

By this stage, you have systems in place, you know what works, you know what mechanisms are reliable and what isn't. This will alter your design process.

Hey, in two years you'd probably have had a guts full of pinball machines and you're done with them! Who knows!

If I was these guys, I'd be jumping in my car and heading to Chicago and having a chat to Gary Stern and Spooky and discuss manufacturing options. THEN they can have a look at a new design.

rd

Ice, have you decided which beers you're sending me at Christmas time?

Boy, I can taste them now .... Yummmm mmmmm

rd.

Right - but in the case of a licensed game...at least you can say "eh, I guess that's what the licensor wanted - their hands were tied to some extent". With an original game, if the art sucks...that's TOTALLY on the people making the game.

You care, the reality is they will never be able to make Pinheads happy, Stern, JJP, PPS, Skit B, Jpop, etc…..

And its because these things cost an arm and a leg and as consumers you ought to demand quality, communication and less BS. I don't think these guys, any of them, appreciate our $$$ and what we do to support pinball.

Everybody has to bow down and blow these guys, "oh thank you, thank you for making these pins and keeping pinball alive", blah, blah, blah…….."please talk to me, tell me what's going on"……..BS

The truth is, pinheads aren't totally stupid, the musical chairs will stop playing at some point and the fact is that not all of these guys are going to survive. Too much supply coming, not enough demand.

I didn't stay in Predator because I didn't get a simple answer to my question of how they are going the handle the FCC and other lack of communication issues. You guys that stayed in, I hope it works out for you and Skit B is a tremendous success….show me…..

Hey RD, its just beer which I love! So if I have to send you some, its ok, I'll be happy with it because I know you love it too!

But don't count your chickens yet…..

You are taking what I said to an unfair extreme. I'm not one of the sunny, always beaming WoZ crazies.

I also never said it was in response to you. I was mostly talking about stuff like this:

The toughest focus group in the universe?

Hell hath no fury like a pinthusiast with a keyboard.

Only thing i dont understand is if you are gonne integrate these two guys into a pinball, why did you not pick Mythbusters as a theme then?

Its like signing messi and ronaldo to put them into a basketball themed pin.

It makes no sense. Besides that, Mythbusters is a well known theme. These guys are not well known. What you get is a pinball with an original theme with 2 very expensive 'strangers' as main characters.

I really lost the clue how some pinball companies pick their themes. Sometimes i wonder do they want to earn as much as they can, or do they want to build and sell a pin which they themselves like?

There is no wrong in this, only... As a professional company my opinion is that you should focus on the first option; pick a theme the masses are probable gonne like the most, if available/affordable.

Exactly, just terrible on their part, and even if the artwork sucks, hopefully the game play is great, like WPT, we have no clue here because of no track record, like the above mentioned all stars.

With Jpop, the artwork will be some of the best out there, ever done, of any pin based on what I've seen, gameplay, who knows or as you like to say, "if it ever gets done". But I'll go with Jpop…..

And maybe I'm an idiot but I have no clue who these guys are or what the heck "Mythbusters" is...

They didn't pick it so they didn't have to buy Mythbuster licensing from Discovery Channel or whoever

Bud, the chickens are already queuing up outside the chicken coop and waiting to come in

rd

image-470.jpg

Nice that they where able to do that and Discovery did not tie down Jamie and Adam with non-compete clauses makeing saying that you can't do Mythbusters like stuff with out the Mythbusters name on it.

Uhhh yeah, the easy part is done, now getting the 250 out is gonna be interesting. Maybe they can do it better than PPS, Stern and JJP?

There sure aren't as many unhappy people in the Lebowski thread though.
If you look at all the classic A titles, I would say most of them have awesome art packages (MM, WW, BBB, TZ, etc.). Of course individual tastes may vary, but I would say this is the consensus on those titles.

Really looking forward to getting Predator but I'm not holding my breath for a quick delivery!

Wait until $$$ starts changing hands on Lebowski and production demands go into full swing and people start throwing a gasket over promises not delivered on. Plenty of past examples.

In my opinion, for a title to be an "A", it should be good to excellent in every category, ie. art, gameplay, rules, sound and display.

About the art. I dont think bad art exists.

Only thing you can tell if you like art or not. But bad art? Art does not have rules.

In fact, if you are saying art is bad cause smoke is going down, then i think you never ever should talk about art anymore. Cause by saying that you have shown you dont know shit about art.

Just keep it with the, i dont like it routine.

That's why WPT will never be considered an "A" title, but you can get a great playing pin for very cheap because if you don't value the artwork category as much, or theme kills it as well, you win!

I agree. But at this point, on the art they're both at the same stage so clearly people think DP did a better job on the art.

It is in the eye of the beholder to a certain extent, but technically it does have rules. A good carpenter can tell if someone built something right or not, and a technically good illustrator can tell if somebody did a good technical job or not. After that, if the artist decided he wanted to paint a big black circle on a 10 sq ft white canvas, well that's another story.

A good carpenter can tell what is good carpenting. But he cant judge a carpented piece of art where the artist decided to give a chair only 1 foot on a corner. which of the result is that you cant sit on it.

Carpenting has nothing to do with art.

I'll tell you one thing Aurich is going to make a killing from selling alternate translite for this thing....

Ok well forget about the carpenting then.
If I decide that I'll take a 4h piano class after having never played it and then I'm going to pour all my heart in recording a 4 minute piano composition and people in general or other pianists say I'm technically bad at it, they'll probably be right.
If I practice another 4h and another 4h and so on at some point i will probably be technically good, and will become debatable and at some point it won't even be debatable at all.
I like the Ramones better than I like Joe Satriani but there's no denying the latter is better technically and knows music theory better. IMO, the Ramones are better artists.

People here I think are saying mostly the technical aspect of this art is not as great as it could be.

Wrong.

If your composition is beautifull. It can be played by a fine musician instantly. And later when you have improved technically, you are be able to play it too.

If your composition is horrible, it will always stay that way no mather your technical skills you have gained.

And still then, even your shitty composition (if it is shitty) can be liked by others.

Joe Satriani better guitar player than Johnny Ramone -> fact.
Ramones better than Satriani -> my opinion.
SkitB artist as technically gifted as Greg Freres -> no, fact.
EoD art no very good -> a little bit of opinion, a little bit of fact.

...or whatever, I understand your point, but I don't think it's as clear cut as you say.

Thats just what it is, art is never clear. Thats why its art. You cant judge it. Its like judging someones taste for food.

It cant be done, haha .

Just want to say again that I LIKE the overall art package on number 2. Focus is still on number 1. but lots of armchair critics so may as well share my armchair support.

Just wanted to post this again for Kevin as he reads this thread. We all care and want kick ass games. that's all.

Interesting, but as an op I can't see anyone paying attention to crash test dummies on location. An attention getting theme, great gameplay, a ton of humor, and a few pretty girls will keep people coming back. Addams Family sold the most machines for a reason.

We're not talking about art here, this isn't a debate over Duchamp or Kruger or Cristerna or Koons etc etc and whether or not what they did is art, is it good, blah blah.

This is commercial design. And there are rules for commercial design and you violate them when you're good enough to do so otherwise you flail. It's like being a musician, you only get away with playing offbeat when you're really good at it. You'll hear people with some classical design training say things like "tangents" and they mean certain things about the composition that are visually distracting, and not in a good way.

( http://emptyeasel.com/2008/11/18/avoiding-tangents-9-visual-blunders-every-artist-should-watch-out-for/ )

Again, if you've got some experience and skill you could purposefully use those in ways to create tension, but it's tricky. Very easy to look awkward.

When you do things that violate the perspective of a drawing (see the roundel on the dummy's chest above Jamie, it's facing dead towards the viewer in the round when the chest it's on is sloped away from the viewer) it looks bad. When you combine cross hatching with pillow shading and indeterminate light sources it looks bad.

This design is a mismatch of styles, it's overly busy, difficult to read, and full of mistakes in composition. Could it be saved? Sure. If this was a rough sketch for a final design you could take the problems and solve them. See Rarehero's sketch a page or two back. He took the same figures and took them out of their stiff, static poses and set them up to be more dynamic. There's motion, action, tension. He's an animator, he intuitively grasps that stuff I suspect, the kind of drawing he does moves.

Really it's irrelevant. You can argue that art is subjective, and fine, but people don't have to like it, they're clearly speaking up here that they don't, and the game isn't going to sell. You can be stubborn, or you can be like Ben Heck, keep your vision, but respond to the feedback and adjust your art.

This isn't "everyone is a special snowflake" kindergarten art class, where just participating makes you good. This is business, and there's a lot of money at stake, and you succeed or fail by doing it well, not just showing up and trying your best.

Because of all the hot chicks?

Lots of negative feedback about the artwork but at-least we know the soundtrack will be cool: