Everyone looks to be a critic on the internet… Given their last three games have been instant sell throughs, I do not believe they should even consider a rebrand. The goodwill Spooky has in this hobby is off the charts.

Spooky is a lot more than just some brand anyway, it’s a full blown development studio and a manufacturer rolled into one. They have their stuff together exceedingly well right now.

Spooky branded themselves as a "boo"tique manufacturer that takes care of their customers with quality products and fun games, in a way that (arguably) only a small company can do. They show 100% customer service and are there to back up their product. They've admitted to faults and show that by improving game after game after game. They listen to their customers. What would there be to "re-brand"? Small scale or not, they can still carry these ideals as they grow. Spooky and Stern are the sure-fire pinball companies right now that put out fun, dependable and quality games.

Nothing to re-brand. As a matter of fact, I hope they continue with their current brand.

EDIT: after re-reading the initial comment, the find it funny how I saw the "brand" as something completely different than the surface brand of "spooky" games as in horror, not what I wrote above.

Regarding Bug saying they aren't sure if they are going to keep that feature where a locked ball behind the headstone/SSSP pin target will release if you drain your main ball: I hope this stays, otherwise, another player could release a ball locked by the player before them. My vote is to keep that feature to prevent lock stealing. Or if the feature is not kept, still release the ball at the end of each ball, so it can't be used by an opponent. That would be my suggestion.

It should stay, but...

At the very least they should disable it being an unlimited lock in any tournament mode settings. Let people use it maybe once, twice with a LOT more hits (like 15) max. I don't mind it being there at all for solo play, obviously, but I'd put it in tournament mode to cut play times down when I take the game to TPF or whatever.

Agreed. Maybe tourney mode could enable the "clearing it at the end of a ball" option. Like if you didn't use it before you drained, you lost it.

I think also that the ability to do this on every single ball may be too much. I’d spam that during ball save, get it locked and before you know it you’ve got a six ball game. How about a risk / reward situation where you can only grave lock on the third ball and shots made to qualify during ball save don’t count. Like...you want to extend this game? Do this, or die. It’s a super cool feature but I think there should be some other rules in place to make it less exploitable.

Good point. Maybe have options for the user to decide. Another thing I'm not a huge fan of is the option to restart multiball. I could see it as a throwback IF you haven't collected any jackpots yet, but the way it is presented on the stream, you can just restart Hedge/Baltan any time you drain out of it. Unless I missed something, that is.

I’m not sure I noticed the easy multi restart but I would agree that having a few qualifying shots to relight makes sense. Maybe they could integrate the grave lock for the purpose of easily relighting multi. Say you drain all balls during hedge...you have the ball locked at the grave stone, the ball releases and you have a 15 second chance to hit one shot to restart multi. Like a bit of a nod to CFTBL. If you miss...back to regular gameplay and qualifying the shots to light hedge if that’s the direction you want to take.

I've been rewatching the stream, so things are coming to me as I go. Another thing I hope is adjustable, is that they have a new ball saver come on at the beginning of every mode. That can prolong ball times and I'd wanna turn that off, if possible.

If I remember right, it does. Bug was saved a few times by this.

*Reread, don't know if you can turn it off

Yup ball save timer at every mode start is lame....that’s gotta go. Unless it’s there because the kickout drains the ball it’s nonsense.

Rick and Morty has the same feature and nobody complains about it.

The issue is whether this pin will be as hard as R&M to keep the ball in play.

I personally find that I have waaaaay longer ball times on HWN/UM than R&M. Probably due to greater number of shots that return the ball to the flippers in a controlled manner. Granted, I've played HWN/UM a lot more than R&M. YMMV.

Well I obviously haven't played it, but I don't think it would be a surprise to anybody to learn that ball times will be longer on HWN/UM!

Same feature (ball save on any mode start) is also on ACNC

Is it adjustable in the menu?

I enjoy spooky/scary/ghost themes...but not every single pin they put out "has" to be ghoulish. Variety is the spice if life, right?

As a company, Spooky has absolutely been KNOCKING IT OUT OF THE PARK. I don't think they should change a thing. As pinball hobbyists, we are lucky to have them.

Of course it is.

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I wish Spooky was close to me. Would love to work for them. I just watched their documentary on Amazon. Pretty awesome stuff. Love this company.

Charlies’s passion that drove him to give up on a regular job to take a leap of faith and start his business…man…so inspiring. I’m super passionate about pinball too. My girlfriend and most of my family and friends don’t get it. They just know I love it. I dream of one day working with a company such as spooky or anything involving pinball as a full time job.

I would love to work for them…then again, not sure I could hack it. The hours and dedication they do is nothing short of crazy!

Soon....

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Now the big question is it Spooky or Ben Heck who has the license for Pulp Fiction, since both are doing something with CGC?

Well now looks like the cats outa the bag

Maybe I’m just an XF fanboy, but ever since I heard of Spooky Pinball, my first thought was always Spooky Mulder.

I thought that’s what they named themselves after, so I’ve been patiently waiting for an off the hook X Files machine made by the Spooky Mulder pinball company.

That old Sega one was ok. I loved how they had all the actors likenesses in their assets, but it was a bit too much plastic for my taste.

I can’t imagine Pulp Fiction having the actors. That will be a licensing nightmare I would imagine. Seems hard enough to get Fox and Lloyd for BTTF.

Buy a license? With my own money? Screw that!

Last I knew the first licensed non remake CGC game is not Pulp Fiction. Kind of a strange theme IMO, if a Tarantino movie HAD to become a pin I'd go with Kill Bill.

I’d buy a Pulp Fiction pin in a nanosecond.

I agree. Kill Bill's story would be much a better translation to a pinball ruleset.

I was getting all kinds of gassed at the idea of pulp fiction i completely forgot about kill bill, good call! kill bill pin>

I rather have Pulp Fiction

I choose both.
And throw in Reservoir Dogs while at it.

Heck, Dusk till Dawn would make for a cool pin. Not really any vampire themes since BSD that I can think of. Time for a cool one.

My vote goes to ‘The Lost Boys’ or even better ‘Near Dark’ for a vampire pin.

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"I hate it when they ain't shaved!"

How old are you. I was in the civil war. My side lost.

LTG : )

Near Dark is sooooooo good.

Let me get this straight. They did a limited run sell off of games at a specific time and didn't even think to market the idea of Halloween 3?
The countdown each day to place your order with music?
Tune in at a certain time?
The big giveaway?
Missed creative marketing there. Could have been so epic!

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I love Halloween 3, but I would not buy a Halloween 3 pin simply because they would 100% over use "three more days 'til halloween, halloween..." to the point that it would go from mildly annoying jingle that works in the context of the movie to ear cancer throughout my time playing it.

Halloween 3 is a very underrated film. When taken in proper context, as a stand alone horror movie, it is pretty awesome.

I love how they establish the separate universes by showing the clip of Halloween on the TV screen with Michael Myers.

It’s my favorite of them all. H3 is truly what the Halloween franchise was supposed to be, an anthology series without a reoccurring villain. But…the market, the fans and the studio dictated otherwise and we got a long drawn out Michael Meyers fest for the next 40 years. It is what it is BUT could you imagine all of the other Carpenter ideas that could have come into fruition if the studio allowed for it to remain an anthology series? That being said I AM pumped that H1 was chosen and executed well by Spooky. It’s an early classic American slasher and set the bar for everything that came after. If Spooky had opted for H3 I would have lost my mind but most potential buyers would have been scratching their heads wondering “WTF? Why? That movie sucks, no MM!??” They’d be WRONG but…most people are haha

Halloween III is a terrific guilty pleasure horror flick from the early 80s. It’s actually pretty amazing that a film with a plot to mass murder children on Halloween doesn’t come off as tasteless trash, but it really doesn’t. Only the one annoying kid, Buddy Cupfur’s (or whatever his name is) kid gets the “final processing” onscreen, and he had it comin’. Great atmosphere, music by John Carpenter and villain played perfectly by Dan O’Herlihy (channeling Mr. Burns). And who doesn’t like Tom Atkins? 9 more weeks till Halloween…Halloween…Halloween.

Fantastic movie with an unfortunate name. Obviously it seemed like a good idea at the time to do the anthology thing with Halloween, but they already shot themselves in the foot by having 2 be about Michael (not complaining....that was a great movie too). Had H3 been named Silver Shamrock or heck even Death Mask, I think it would be looked at differently today. Instead both the main title of Halloween and the subtitle of Season of the Witch make people scratch their heads.

Yeah, Season of the Witch comes from Cochran, the evil toy maker who gives a monologue about some ancient Celtic ritual involving witchcraft. If that’s not weird enough, the plot involves chipping off pieces of…Stonehenge?…to make the killer masks. Might have been smart to make it unrelated to the Myers series, but name recognition and all. A totally new story for Halloween 2 would have been better. I love the original, and I usually watch the sequel every fall, but it’s a pretty lazy step down and simply ramps up the violence and kills.

That was the plan. Halloween movies not directly involving Michael. But fans or Hollywood weren't happy so back to Michael Halloween movies.

LTG : )

Here comes season 3. This show and spooky are like peanut butter and jelly. Im guessing I wont see a pin till season 5, but updog never knows.

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I'd still like to see Spooky take on Scooby Doo, Universal Monsters, or Lovecraft. Those seem like they would be great fits for the company.

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This would make for a hell of a fun pin and a perfect theme for Spooky to consider imo

Supertroopers