SO much potential with They Live! There’s a lot they could do with hidden messaging. Fingers crossed it happens one day.

Each pin could come with a pair of shades? Or a wrist watch that somehow has a haptic connection to the gameplay (this would never happen but the idea is fun).

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Exactly! Haha

I cracked the Meatloaf Easter Egg.. Meatballs with Bill F'n Murray HA-HA!

Meat Loaf in Tales From the Crypt was also a great episode.. but I like this little guy

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I'm betting the next theme is The Human Centipede. Three balls magnetized together. Endless fun possibilities...endless fun.

Perhaps a new pinball machine too?

https://www.fangoria.com/original/sharpen-the-machete-a-new-friday-the-13th-game-is-coming/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

We're in an EXTREMELY CONSERVATIVE area and they had one of the kid theatre groups doing a production of the Time Warp that was advertised all over town for about a month. This was like 8 year old kids in full Rocky Horror costuming. The musical number is literally Sweet Transvestite-adjacent. Time Warp segues into Sweet Transvestite in the movie. If kiddie groups are doing Rocky Horror numbers HERE with zero protest, the material has been accepted enough.

<blockquote cite
Spooky has sold out of every game within a week of launch. Every game following AMH, through and including SD. Of course capacity at Spooky continues to be ramped up, regularly. One day soon, Spooky will have the capacity to run 2k models of a title. So their picks better be stellar. I’m a buyer of all three past dues above, but more importantly, these are strong enough themes to sell the quantity of machines you want. In five years, new titles may only be capable of selling 1k pins. Spooky has the ideal window for developing and selling their biggest possible licenses and those remain: Batman Animated, Futurama and Beetlejuice. Get as many as possible and then get the rest. Go 3 for 3 and pass on going after HP (post below).

So Spooky Sold out of UM, HW and SD?

I did not think they did.

UM and Halloween did, SD is not sold out. Neither did the rerelease of TNA sell out

They Live would be my dream theme from spooky!

Honorable mention goes to Beetlejuice and Gremlins.

Would love any of these. Let’s hope it’s already in the works. Several people have mentioned these, so easy sales

Anything John Carpenter has my vote.....but I bet it will be Evil Dead

The world's longest alley fight multi-ball? I'd be down for that.

I’m hoping for Texas Chainsaw Massacre

I'll say it again... Killer Klowns.

It probably won't be evil dead. Ben Heck pitched evil dead many times and chuck always shot it down. I think Ben's game from CGC will be evil dead even though he says it isn't.

KKFOS would be a great theme! Although it might not do very well on location…SO many people out there with Coulrophobia. Weirdos.

Kaneda knows what it is so it will be revealed soon.
Apparently the license holder let it out.

Most recent Halloween code video he was wearing day of the dead shirt ?

A George A. Romero pin would rule the free world!

Since night of the living dead is public domain isn’t it free of any licensing restrictions?

Because it's public domain, I doubt they would do it, but perhaps a trilogy pin is possible?

Also NOTLD was covered in Elvira HOH

Ben should be finished programming his game later this year.
Can't wait to see it.

I can't tell if that post is sarcasm or serious. It is Ben afterall

I hate to speak on his behalf, but I'm sure hes 100% serious

Believe it was 18 month production window on Scooby planned, similar to UM/HW

I think we will hear about the next game this late fall (maybe Pinball Expo) with a winter production start.

I think Spooky will be done with Scooby before June 2024 (they got a lot more games to sell too), but they can also build multiple games at once. They finished up HWN/UM on the side and have built some more TNAs during Scooby's production run

Without LCDs you could run a pinball machine on your toaster. It's a HUGE time and hardware sink for something the player probably isn't even looking at.

Not wrong, for sure. Feels crazy the amount of work/time it takes to introduce LCD assets, only to have them basically watched 1 time, and skipped thereafter.

and some people don't get why pins are so much more expensive these days vs the DMD era...

the LCD is the best and worst thing to happen to modern pinball

In my ideal "I don't give a damn" pinball, I'd use 192x64 of those HUB75 panels. A cool retro look vs LCD plus the whole "run it on a toaster" aspect.

It just drives me nuts how much horsepower an LCD takes vs the rest of the machine. Even audio is easier than a dead dogs nuts.

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Yet so far games that drop the LCD for retro style, are not cheaper....

It's the 'Pandoras Box' that can't be undone, now. Everyone expects to see 8000 minutes of film footage and audio, full soundtrack moments from movies, etc. I'm hoping maybe PF brings folks back to the perspective that...hey...you don't NEED an LCD screen to have a good game.

Yeah, that is the X Factor, isn't it? If there isn't the time/money spent on the content/implementation of the LCD, why are we still paying $8,000 for Pulp Fiction? But alas.....

Good point. I'd counter that if the game had movie clips and live action actor licenses it would have cost CGC even more, how much of that is passed down or saved to the customer is beyond us knowing.

The only one has been Pulp Fiction, which would have undoubtedly cost more if they had to license real film assets and actor likenesses (vs cartoony depictions)

the CGC DMD remakes are great value even though they're redrawing all those dots for a LCD screen

or they might have spent the money on film assets but then licensed less music...who knows for sure

but the LCD would have made the game more expensive to develop and license. That's without doubt

The depictions still have to be approved by actor/estate but yes. Some licenses you don't get actor likenesses even in the context of the movie. Which has no doubt held up some of your dream themes like Jaws or BTTF.

Listening to Roger Sharpe talk about actor rights, it seems like a lot of actors didn't even care about DMD animations because the resolution was too low to even tell who was what. Even on games like GOT that used footage from the show processed through the "dot" post effect no one cared about the likenesses. But with LCDs it's clear who's who, which means $$$

The real elephant in the room here is if you are serious is, are you saying the next spooky won't have LCD? Or you are annoyed that it will and the burden of having to include it?

Or it's neat how companies like Funko Pop and Lego use their distinct visual style to license a ton of properties, and then not have to worry about actor likenesses and similar. They're just dressing up the generic figures in the character's iconic clothing.

I think a really nice, interactive, electronic and/or mechanical backglass could make up for lack of an LCD, if the theme didn't absolutely depend on video clips. Scared stiff and catacomb come to mind. Black hole looks neat, but isn't interactive. I think it'd be neat to have something like the instrumentation panel in ultraman, but an actual, real instrumentation panel with LEDs, 7 segment displays, dial meters, etc.

No no. I'm just saying if I ever did my own homebrew for lols, I'd probably use someone like a HUB75 DMD

I love what AP did on the GTF speaker panel. The little green LEDs really make it pop. Even if it's just flat artwork, it looks like a control panel

The backbox is basically empty these days, but no one is doing backbox toys or animations anymore. I enjoy stuff like Scared Stiff, NBA Fast Break, and T3. They're gimmicks, but they have mostly stayed fun.

I was talking to someone who wanted to do a Price Is Right homebrew, and the backbox would be begging for something like this as a stand in for Plinko pasted_image (resized).png