I was a huge Sonic fan as a kid -- lost count of how many times I played through Sonic 3 / S&K (and enjoyed the idea of, but got quickly bored with, Sonic Spinball) ... so now that I have young kids of my own, I've turned them into Sonic fans also.

The other day, while working on one of our pins together, my 9-year-old daughter asked me, "Is there a Sonic pinball machine out there, and if not, WHY NOT?!" (It never made sense to me either why Sega never made one.) We chatted about fun ideas for what a Sonic pinball would look like -- including a vertical loop, a bash toy (like AfM) for Robotnik, colored balls for "characters" (Sonic, Tails, Knuckles) and a multiball mode with all three of them out there at once.

On a whim, I decided to search out here on Pinside today to see if there were any rumors / plans for a Sonic machine. And I found your thread.

I called my daughter in here and we walked through your development and videos together; WE ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS. We love that you had some of the same ideas we had, and we love your integration of even more of the original games' features -- the spin dash, the end of stage gate, the music from S3/S&K. She said "I totally want to buy this game" at least 20 times (and I had to explain that it likely wouldn't be for sale, nor could we afford it if it were, lol).

(Per my daughter's request: she would like you consider colored balls for each character, though you may be too far along and/or don't want to complicate it further. I don't know the mechanics of those games that utilize different balls, e.g., TZ, Avatar. In our fantasy version, the game can either sort the ball(s) and/or tell which ball is in play next and updates your on-screen character.)

We are SO following this thread and are looking forward to seeing further progression. VERY WELL DONE, we applaud your hard work. From these Sonic fans to you, thanks for bringing to life what we were only dreaming about!

Bravo!! Well done on the addition of Hydrocity; very clever method for incorporating the drowning/breathing. Nicely done -- can't wait to show my daughter your latest update.

By the way, you'd asked if we had other suggestions -- she said the Mecha/Metal Sonic is a pretty common thread throughout the games/shows/comics/etc., so she suggested a metal-sonic multiball / battle or something like that. ...not to give you more work to do.....just an idea.

My only other thoughts were bringing in Flying Battery and/or Ice Cap zones, since they have the best music.

Hey I got my daughter up to speed (pun intended), she's super excited as always. While showing her your level list, I noticed for S&K, you have Sandopolis and Flying Battery mixed up -- in the game, Flying Battery is stage two and Sandopolis is stage three. Also, for Sonic 3, Marble Garden is stage 3 and Carnival Night is stage 4. (Yes, we play S3/S&K too much.) lol)

Woot! Just curious -- did they contact you first or did they just go and write this?

Interesting. Without contacting you, that just seems like lazy reporting / "we're writing about something random we found on the internet so we'll have something to generate clicks / ad revenue".

Great job on this, as I know this was a ton of work to implement, and it's another good example of your excellent efforts to bring in the themes from the game. Constructive criticism ahead though ... which I'm sure isn't what you'd want to hear after putting all the effort into this part. But thinking about it did spawn another idea. Read on...

Personally, I always found the slot machines to be the absolute most boring part of the Sonic games -- it just takes too darn long. I don't want to stop and wait around for slots to spin and rings awarded. Any time I'm playing through S3 or S&K, whenever the slot machine bonus level appears at the lampposts, I skip it every time. I'd much rather play the Gumball Machine or the Spheres -- and I do stop to play those. They're short, and they're more fun because at least you have control. I imagine this will be a problem here in the pinball too -- having to hit the shots will be fun, but sitting around waiting for the slots and rings will get boring.

Come to think of it, the Gumball Machine would actually serve as great bonus game / Video Mode, since you can have control (only need to move left and right via flipper buttons). Plus it's a much shorter mode and wouldn't bog the game down.

Some more thoughts on the topic...
- I think the only time I ever enter the Slot Machine bonus level is when I have all the emeralds and I'm looking for some quick rings to activate Super Sonic. lol
- Agreed, a drop or two into the Slot Machines in Casino night is usually in order (or sometimes happens by accident). Fits better in that particular zone than as a standalone bonus level.
- Spheres is definitely the best! I look forward to how you're going to implement it -- I'd imagine that'll be a challenge since you'd need controls for left, right, and jump. (I don't recall, does your game have an 'action' button?)
- I lol'd at your assessment (and alternative proposal) for Gumball. Sounds like you just came up with another mini-bonus mode -- pick a shield and get 10 rings.

Keep up the great work!

OHHHHH ok now I see, apparently I was confused here -- by "Spheres," all along I was referring to what you just called the Glowing Orbs ... but I finally realized you were actually talking about the '3D' chaos emerald levels (inside the giant ring) where you collect the blue spheres and they turn red (or into rings). (At one point it did strike me funny how you kept referring to them as blue ... since I was thinking of the Orbs, I always felt they were more white-ish... so yeah, I was thinking of the wrong thing.) My bad, sorry for the confusion!

So, to set things straight, Glowing Orbs is my favorite! lol

Yeah not unless it was a standard "video mode" where the ball is held and you play it all on the screen. Left/right/jump.

Yeah man keep up the good work! My daughter asks me about once a week if you've made any updates, so we're always checking in.

Awesome! Guess we'll "see" each other there, since I've got a video to be played there too. They tell me I'll be in the 4pm (central) Friday slot, but they haven't updated the schedule to reflect this yet, lol. I'll watch yours if you watch mine!

Can't wait to show my daughter the signpost, she's going to love that! Keep it up man!

Indeed, this was immediately recognizable and absolutely perfect.

We love the spinning sign, so glad to see that worked in there. Looking forward to listening to the interview, been busy with the holidays and stuff. As usual, keepnup the great work!

I love this animation so much

This is what the ball should see coming down those habitrails...

RL8YS (resized).png

Amazing job on the pop bumper caps, man, they look perfect!

WooooOoOoOOoo

Oh that's awesome, I love that it shows the active shield/ball save on the animation!

I'm not sure I'm following this 3-4-12 either, especially because:
1) you just said Sonic has 3 groups of 5 targets, which per your description would be a 5-3-15
2) High Speed has 5 groups of 3 targets (though two of these groups aren't "collectible", they're just hit-whichever-one-is-lit), which per your description is a 3-5-15.

I'm confused here.

What happened to the bottom of the right flipper decal?

More incredible stuff ... the clear coat, the topper ... man this gets more amazing every time I check in.

LOVE the spinner, I'm all for it!

The topper is amazing!!! I can hear the Lava Reef Act 2 / Hidden Palace music just looking at it!

Haha, whoops, sorry...

Best. Spinner. Animation. Ever.

I can't wait to show my daughter -- we were just looking over some of your recent updates and I realized she hadn't seen the spinner, so I showed her your earlier video with the speed meter ... but in that video, you spin it backwards so it didn't have the right effect. This video is AWESOME and I'll show her tomorrow.

The button looks amazing on the game!!! Can't wait to see it lit up, it'll look even better! Wow... So thrilled to help out this amazing project, Mallory and I are huge fans!

Speaking of which, Mallory says she is blown away how Evergreen turned out. She says thank you so much (seriously, she was beside herself when she saw it), and that her dad is still lame.

(I hope to bring her next year!)

Ryan -- I was talking it over with Mallory and something came up I forgot to ask you about:

When you choose the game and then go to level select, why aren't the levels in the order that they are in the game? I was seeking out specific levels and they weren't where I'd expected.

Congrats again, it was great to finally meet you and play this absolutely amazing machine! Mallory is super duper jealous.

Even so, the levels it does have are not in the correct order.

Ah, ok. Thanks for taking the time to explain this!

Woohoo, I was the only stuck ball, what do I win? lol

Oh bummer, I thought it was mine, where I snuck it in under Robotnik immediately after defeating him, but before the target bank could rise back up. Ball got trapped in there until ball search pulled the bank back down, allowing it to roll out.

Fixed the issue with the ball repeatedly going up through the rollover so often, and adds some more action up there. Pop seems more exciting now, more mystery lights, more erratic exits/feeds from that area. Still goes up through, but not as often. Definitely an improvement

Splendid! I got stalled up there a few times with that issue.

Drat I was going to link to your the twitch feed, since the Pinball Expo 2021 videos were still up for a while, but they don't appear to be there anymore

Wait what?? What did I miss?? Ryan, did you get picked up by one of the pinball companies?!

OH HELL YES!!!!!!!!!!! Frickin CONGRATS Ryan, well deserved!!! So excited for you!

This this and more this. Even if Sonic doesn't get made (which would make me a saaaaad panda), clearly they've made a great hire. I have no insight into the Sonic licensing speculation going on but just from a business standpoint, they've hired an awesome guy with spectacular experience who will certainly be contributing in a hugely positive way -- no matter his assignments.

Nicely done! Can't wait to play it again. See you there!