Beetlejuice seems like it'd be a good fit for Spooky, but there are a lot of neglected properties that they'd do well with...

You would absolutely be disappointed, but worth the watch (the the movies, too).

You mean like Whodunnit?

Been done, didn't sell.

It sounds like Spooky may have learned a thing or two with the massive amount of money they left on the table by limiting R&M to only 750. I wouldn't be surprised if they went the Stern/JJP route and had 3 levels of pin. An actual limited edition, a middle one that is the same as the LE but with less bling, and a standard that is missing some toys. That way they could make the middle one (Stern Prem or JJP LE equivalent) pretty much until they got tired of making it.

So we're getting Food Truck after all, but from Spooky instead. Interesting.

Can't do rick and morty retrofit without running new wiring - it needs an additional wire per flipper to go from single to dual wound coils.

And looking at Spike 2 won't tell them much about changing their implementation. The system is different than the P-ROC that Spooky has cast their lot in with. Maybe that's why they're going with Ben Heck's board next? He also keeps saying his new pinball board design is DIRT CHEAP, so maybe those cost savings will allow them to splurge on dual wound coils again.

Stern wandered through the Whitestar and SAM wilderness for almost 20 years before they got single wound flipper coil management more under control on Spike. It's not easy. I expect Spooky has more time to iterate before they get it right, but hoping for some Ben Heck flipper coil management magic on the cheap (have you heard? His new board design is DIRT CHEAP to license).

Where's America's Most Haunted?

Well now, that doesn't sound like much of a Spooky fan.

Pandemic road trip!

Or, just put a wanted ad in the Pinside marketplace.

Well then, in that case, a marketplace "wanted" ad might bring you the prospect you want.

(The Chicago, IL one in the market is only a hair under 10hrs away, if they can meet you in Ekhart and do a truck to truck or van to van move, that's almost exactly 8 hrs.)

Almost exactly 8 hours. But with a non-pinsider, I'd be more wary.

Look at all these solutions to too much money we're coming up with!

Dunno. It has a STACKED cast that now have pretty huge fan bases individually that could drive demand. And it's a great movie. I personally would love to see a Scott Pilgrim pin.

The Scott Pilgrim movie has the best chance of pulling in the attention to make it a success. The game was really cool, too, but the appeal is much more niche than even the movie, so it's a slice of a slice - reducing success upside before you start.

Next month.

I'd take a Spooky Goonies over a Beetlejuice any day.
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No idea if they still have it. If we're lucky there was a time limit and they lost it.

Well...okay.

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It's aged better than all of them. Infinitely re-watchable.

Adult Swim's mainstream. They just bleep it. Uncensored once it hits HBOMAX later. R&M literally collapsed a national fast food chain's condiment distribution and had people fighting over chicken nugget sauces. THAT is the definition of mainstream.

The pin lets you omit the profanity, no?

The terrible last season and ending destroyed any chances of people wanting it. Very much like the last two seasons and ending of Game of Thrones sucking hard soured fans on more Game of Thrones spinoffs. It'll be interesting to see how the shows perform when they debut.

And the general Spooky resale trajectory over time in the used aftermarket is down. Rick and Morty is the first one that seems to have broken that mold. I'm sure they learned from this and their next title choice will be building on the experience with R&M. So no Leatherface, Reanimator, etc.

Licensing nightmare. Could be fun, though.

The original matrix is timeless. They're still making pins for 40-year-old and older properties, so there's still time for a Matrix pin.

But only if it's done right. Don't Led Zeppelin it.

Let's just skip to the spiritual successor to the Rick and Morty pin - Letterkenny.

Tons of great scenarios and callouts. Adult Spelling Bee, Softest Birthday Party, Fartbook, Skid dance, Ginger Sick Ostrich Bang, Glen's sermons, there's massive content available that's potentially pintastic.

Speaking of which, are you going to that live Nightmare Before Christmas performance with Danny Elfman that tickets just went up for? If only I were in LA...

It could be made fun/funny if you make the player Jason and he has to collect the weapons he'll use to kill the campers. Ineffective weapons are a failure of that "mission."

But I'm not a fan of horror, so I would take Scooby Doo or Letterkenny or Beetlejuice all day long before a straight up horror theme.

Announced in June. Shipping soon thereafter.

Yeah.

Once you've been around the general public trying to pinball it's an eye-opener. We had security cams on the pins for the route I helped with and there were a LOT of very confused first-timers over the years. I saved some of them.

This teen girl manages to get the game started, pulls the plunger, then calls for help when the action button isn't operating the flippers (which she calls "flapper things"). Her older, more experienced helper shows her the flipper buttons. She's good to go from there. But yeah, this is not an isolated case.
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Back to Beetlejuice with this snap. No way this is Halloween.

Yeah, I'm thinking it's a closeup on one of the beaky-faced creatures or a snake.

Ah HA!

Betelgeuse confirmed!

There's another Knights of the Round table-based movie coming out soon, but I seriously doubt it's involved.

Wouldn't be surprised if it was his pin that's after this next one. The one he's working on with CGC/Spooky.

The rheumatoid arthritis dictated the title. It just wasn't talked about a lot back then. She suffered in agonizing silence every time she raised that sword.

I think it could make a fun pin, but I was not feeling the series AT ALL. The robot chicken production valued disjointed skits and vignettes over much more cohesive story threads. Also, it just wasn't laugh out loud or even smile funny. The new Rick and Morty Season 5 trailer 3 had a BUNCH of laugh out louds for me, and it was 2 minutes long. The writing on MODOK just isn't that strong. I also feel like Robot Chicken is played out. That influence didn't help.

Everine sounds like a very southern name.

If you're going with Everine, it better be the deep south. Sounds very Kentucky or Alabama/Mississippi.

Scooby Doo would be an enormous seller. Inter-generational appeal worldwide up the wazoo. 1,000 would not be nearly enough.

Of course this is assuming it's like Rick and Morty plus and not their contract Jetsons sad-sack effort.

Upper porch on the house.

Pro level - Ruh-roh
Prem - Jeepers
LE equivalent - Zoinks!

Next time you head out in the time machine, hit me up. I'll ride shotgun!

Dunno. Bible Adventures presented like God of War could be amazing, but if you're going that route, why not just stick with the mythology angle which is much less divisive/controversial?

Ooohhh. Zipper flippers! YESSSSSS.

Hogbog - get on it! Guaranteed it won't end up in an Elwin pin like the jjGnR/AIQ disc because Stern would never approve that BOM.

You're far ahead of the pack. Some of the stuff I post is never understood.

Occasionally even by me.

He said babies, not little people. And I heard about those dwarves. They were a pain in the ass. Deserved everything they got. Their concubines are only upset because their meal ticket is dead.

Edgar.

Whelp, they couldn't do any worse than the Gottleib one...

But it wouldn't move the needle for me.

Mmm...I just don't see a pin where the main character is a pedophile serial killer as being on the sales level of a Rick and Morty, which, let's be honest, is the new bar Spooky has set.

It sold 2,800 when Addams was selling 20,000 and it was not uncommon to have pins selling more than 7,500 each. That's a flop. Gottlieb's Freddy was super-crappy, but I just don't think it's a Rick and Morty-level theme sales-wise.

Yeah, the remake made it explicit, but it was always implied he was a pedophile.

Ben said it's not Scooby Doo, but he's not above misdirection, so...maybe?

Scooby Doo would sell > Rick and Morty numbers with ease. It has multi-generational appeal from never being off the air since the 1960s, no bad language, implied drug humor for comedy, great characters with well-established personalities, and a MOUNTAIN of video assets. Easily the broadest appeal of all the titles floated in this thread. The perfect pin theme if you want sales.

Nah. If you're skinning Elvira, Scooby Doo is the natural fit.

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Crazy part is, if Stern hasn't thought of it already and Spooky really isn't doing SD next, reskinning Elvira as Scooby Doo is an easy fit and would sell way better than Elvira. The work is already mostly done. Nordman's design is solid and sir_tankalot delivered a great game, as usual. Throw on 3 art packages, reskin the code and viola! new, very in-demand game.

Could be one of Stern's top sellers.

Scrappy Doo? Say it ain't so, Ben! Scrappy and Scooby Dum are the Jar Jar of the Scooby Doo universe.

Scooby Doo. Scooby Doo. Scooby Doo. Scooby Doo. Scooby Doo. Scooby Doo. Scooby Doo.

It's a dead smexy moneymaker.
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If that's the case, announce it, run it for 6 months, then release Scooby Doo to pay for the mistake in like an hour.

So the next Spooky is using your Pinotaur?

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Microwave multiball.

If it was a LaserActive, you'd really have a Goodwill story for the ages.

With Kiefer Sutherland doing his Peter Lorre-inspired weird callouts?

Only because I became a LaserActive snob during that pre-DVD era. Have the Megadrive module, but my eternal regret is not getting the PC-Engine module for it.

The story of how Logan's Run was made and how it changed radically in stop and start production is pretty interesting.

I've imagined the pin for years. I would want to see the wizard mode as a Warriors/Dreamscape crossover that starts with Luther rolling up and doing the "come out and play-ay" thing at the end of Warriors which becomes hypnotic until the setting morphs into Dreamscape where you have to battle Luther/Tommy as he morphs repeatedly as you advance the mode and defeat his various fantastical forms while collecting insane weapons you'll need to ultimately finish the job. The fantasy setting of Dreamscape would be unexpected and would provide fertile soil for an unprecedented wizard mode.

Can't mention Happy Days without its popular spinoffs - Mork and Mindy/Laverne and Shirley

Three Stooges would be eye-opening until Moe shut that down.

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It's not like being there unless the balls are also on fire.

There were like 7 spinoffs from Happy Days, but I only noted the two that were a success.

"An" American Style?

I had no idea because I distinctly remember really hating that show the few times I saw it as a kid. A VERY 70s show.

When I did it at different angles, Google thought it was probably a stain.

He came back about 4 months ago and explained that he finished the table as a virtual pinball machine and sold the one-off he made here on pinside.

Seems like a tough theme for a pin, but...okay.

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Fifth Element is infinitely rewatchable.

Ruby Rhod callouts? It would be hilarious, and Chris Tucker is probably cheap these days.

A Die Hard pin could be great.

175 posts since the other day and I was SURE that meant the new pin was revealed.

Nope.

You mean like the weird boy's face in the center of Indy's hatband?

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Honestly, I was expecting to hate it, but it's definitely received an upgrade from the original series. Wouldn't be mad at a He Man pin based on this.

People would be lining up to play or buy a scooby doo pin. Tons of great art, callouts, and scenario material (with guest stars!) to choose from.

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BTTF - absolutely

Nightmare on Elm Street has good potential, but Gottlieb just threw it away. SUCH a boring pin.

Nintendo seems ripe for any number of great pins or a Nintendo World pin incorporating a number of properties. But this is true of a lot of video game properties, not just Nintendo. Licensing must be hard for them. It's really the only explanation I can come up with for why we don't have more.

Led Zeppelin...what a waste of that IP.

The Beatles really deserve a proper pin, but it will probably never happen now.

Meh. Finished it the first week I had it. Very repetitive game couldn't wait to get rid of. Low resale values pretty much reflect Pin2k accurately.

Would SO buy a Pee Wee's Big Adventure pin.
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Playfield's guaranteed to have a toilet.

Going way back, but I keep hoping they bring back the Bellbeefer, although it's probably not the same now that their "beef" is stretched to oblivion and that was just beef/sauce/bun so it would be very obvious if you were eating mostly beef extenders now.

Or just turn on the Necronomicon episode of Flipping Vegas.

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I would totally buy a twisted metal black pin. Lots of intersecting storylines for theme and mode possibilities.

Pancake multiball, superbowl solo mode, and heel hoops hurryups? Sign me up.

Yeah, I finished the game as every character in Twisted Metal Black specifically because of the intertwined storylines for each character. Some GREAT memories of that game. It actually delayed the release of a game we were working on at the time because the whole office was addicted to it. SSX Tricky and Goldeneye are the only other two that did that.

Coincidentally, the name of Spooky's new horror pin.

"Fellas"? Ah-HA! Another Scooby Doo clue.

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PLUS: About time Spooky settled on 3 set editions without the a'la carte nonsense that was just too logistically demanding.

PLUS: Thermal switches on the power supply fans moving forward is a major positive. One request (again) though - PLEASE have just two molex connectors (one for front and one for back of the power supply) so it can be disconnected easily. The current way of having to blindly unscrew stuff in the back is extremely irritating and prone to mistakes.

UNCERTAIN: Ben Heck board is likely a PLUS, but it would be interesting to know what the resolution is on the duty cycle for the coils. Can this new board match what Stern does with their machine gun microsecond duty cycles that the current P-Roc3 can't seem to match? Time will tell, but I hope so. Will go a long way toward Spooky getting coil temps better under control.

MINUS: Sticking with the thinner playfields and new shorter bushings that requires. Boo. Why? Standard parts are better.

I enjoyed it, but some of the shots feel janky and it has the issue where sometimes the ball misses triggering a switch (lane(s) too wide?). So if you replaced those ones with the magnetic switches so that frustration wasn't there, it's a fun game.

He means rec.games.pinball group was the (unmoderated, sometimes explosive) hang pre-Pinside.

The hold result is great, but the thing I'm concerned with is heat. It seems like pulsing the high and low will increase the residual heat, especially for trap players.

You can't argue with success, though, and Stern's Spike sub-1ms duty cycle machine gunning in holds is EXTREMELY effective at keeping coil heat in check. Your bottom limit of 1ms (same as Proc3, I think?) is not great news. You've let me down, Ben. I'm sad.

Love all of this. Will it allow you to troubleshoot the exact bulb socket that has a short or is out, like P2k did 20 years ago but no one seems interested in doing now?

I prefer when you proclaim how cheap it is. "Cost effective" is so...corporate.

Looking forward to more features being revealed. Hopefully you revisit the duty cycle resolution of the new board. The answer for real-world coil hold heat management is out there now (from Stern, of all companies), and 1ms minimum resolution isn't going to cut it.

PWM = Pulse Width Modulation - it's controlling the length of the power pulses to the coils (in this case). 1Khz frequency is is 1ms, which is the smallest pulse Ben's new board can deliver and that limitation is essentially the same as the Proc3 Spooky is using now. Stern Spike is doing microsecond pulses (1000 microseconds = 1 millisecond) that are fractions of 1ms so they have much finer control over the length of the pulses, and by extension, residual heat building in the coils when held. The Stern/Spike results achieved with this finer microsecond PWM granularity are impressive, to say the least. Blew me away when I left a coil held for a half hour and it only went up a degree or so. On SAM or Whitestar that would have likely blown a transistor and maybe torched the coil.

Ben can smack me if I'm wrong, but I believe he's saying that he's exploring using external timers to turn on and off the power because maybe that timing circuit offers finer granularity and it would be a simulated way to get to pulses below 1ms with his existing Pinotaur board without changing it.

Not if you're talking about LED boards when the conversation is about coil drivers. "Yeah, you're right" is fine.

Hopefully you're working on a next-gen board already that has microsecond granularity for the coil control. Something like the diverter coil on GnR that gets over 200F from all the holding it does shows there's a need for this (even though JJP isn't using your system, just an example).

Well, I would love to agree, but I seem to be at a disadvantage at present. Hopefully that changes soon. Juneteenth being Federally recognized didn't even take this long!