Snagged one via Pinball Star at 9:03am, would have been sooner but the order link email went to spam DOH.

Agreed. I'm seeing pretty basic after effects animations with looping wiggler effectors on the rotation of arms etc... and maybe some puppet tool treatments of the pre-existing artwork from the cabinet art from somebody who is clearly passionate about horror but doesn't necessarily have the chops to incorporate traditional cel animation principles nor illustrate new artwork. I'm a motion designer by trade and neither of these skills are in my wheelhouse, so I work with a team when these asks come up and just art direct the 2D/3D animators/illustrators for quality control. In 20 years of doing this I've had no complaints. If I were tasked to do everything on my own there would be a much different outcome LOL.

For Rick and Morty, all Spooky had to do was create a polished user interface to overlay on top of clips from a (beyond massive) team of seasoned broadcast traditional animators. This is why Goodbye Moonmen is super short, that's all they had to work with... the song is much longer, but the episode they pulled scenes from only animated the first 45 seconds. GNR also had the advantage of being able to use a bazillion clips from the Not in This Lifetime tour backdrops, coupled with an AMAZING world-class motion graphics artist who handled all of their previous titles with a super professional flair.

Halloween doesn't have this luxury.

It's certainly a bummer that Spooky is not able to lean into clips from the film more to balance this.

I'm still in and excited, but after seeing like 30 people dump their orders this weekend I think it would serve Spooky's interests to bring in an additional motion designer and illustrator or else nudge the licensor to let them have cart blanche access to the film library. Now that we are seeing 9k pricing the general public expects more, hence the massive sell-off we just saw.

I have zero concerns that Spooky will figure out best steps moving forward, and I can't wait to flip mine when it arrives next year!

One more preliminary nitpick is the general cohesiveness of the playfield/cab art and what's displayed on the screen.

Take a look at the art style of these 2 frames.

One clearly exhibits the design characteristics of the cabinet/playfield. The other is stylistically disconnected. Both have their merits, but my vote would be to pick one look and stick with it for illustration.

Avengers may have had a bit of an animatic vibe to it, but generally worked because the overall look was consistent.

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Agreed, the animation was lacking in AIQ. But the overall look came off like it was one artist's vision vs. a mashup of different styles, hence the comparison.

Also agree that the comic vibe is out of place for Halloween. I hope the license holder can be persuaded to rethink the decision to minimize clips to drive the narrative. This is basically the Citizen Kane of horror films! What made the Big Lebowski pinball so hot? You guessed it: copious amounts of clips from a much-loved cult-classic movie.

Yup, if each mode was treated like a film it would have a beginning, middle, and ending. A clip for intro and outro with interactive animation that evolves as you progress through the mode would be ideal. If the clips were bookended with mode start and mode end the player would have time to digest and appreciate them. Flashing a brief clip in the middle of the mode doesn't really tell the story as the player won't see it.