No distributors for AMH, RZ or Domino's anywhere AFAIK.

If summer was the target, I'd have thought they'd have revealed it at TPF.

Surely if the machine was ready to be shown, they'd definitely have done so at TPF .. if it's not ready to be shown, and I doubt they have complex back and forth on licensing approvals with Alice, then surely summer is very unlikely.

Given that they're flat out with TNA, I'd guess they'll now wait until TPF to fully reveal Alice Cooper.

If demand doesn't taper for TNA, they might need to increase the size of the facility a bit too.

Surely it'd be 192x64?

128x64 would be a pretty thick aspect ratio - 2. Standard DMD is 4. 192x64 is 3.

If they have 192x64 LED DMD, I'd be pretty happy with that if the dots were good. The industry should have moved over once SEGA (Stern) pioneered the 192x64 displays 2 decades ago. You can pack so much more detail and information than 128x32. Three times as many pixels. For dots, I'd consider that "HD".

Given that pinballsp has recently cut his 192x64 RGB LED DMD from €399 to €265, apparently due to huge supplier price cuts, it might be a pretty economical option.

Stern's budget Spiderman - the only machine so far with an RGB LED DMD from the factory - looks pretty good.

What kind of audio out are you using on the Pi3? USB?

Will it be possible to get a dedicated USB audio out - if for example we wanted to use a high quality DAC & amp and feed them via USB?

Would it potentially be possible, if enabled as an option in software, to do a USB audio out if there's an unused USB port?

I wouldn't necessarily agree with the latter, but no disaster .. PCM5122 is still good.

Thanks for the info.

Freedom to do what they want. Entirely in charge of this part of their supply chain, and now that it is pretty well developed (most development costs over), no margin to a third party.

If it works and it's not over-complicated, it's probably a good decision.

Are the CGC remakes interupt based? I know they claim otherwise, but there was considerable latency on an AFMr I played the other day.

Maybe not OLEDs, but microLED almost certainly. Unlike OLED, the Chinese will be all over that relatively quickly.

I think they were. Now? Dull isn't a word I'd use.

Highly doubt that Spooky can afford to pay as much as others might.

But I suspect that no-one else would be able to offer him as much freedom and potential to impact the end product.

Bowen's been around a while, probably doesn't have much to prove, and will likely keep other sources of income, so I can see why Spooky would be a good fit for him.

But who knows. They're a growing company. Maybe he got offered share options.

I'm already the 5th owner of my RZ. That includes trips from corner to corner of the US, then a slow boat to Europe.

Not only does it still look absolutely pristine, but it's much more solidly built than recent Sterns (not that that is hard).

Could you be more specific about build quality? If you mean stuff like the plastic apron .. yeah. I hope that changes.

Regarding value. RZs haven't gone down more than should be expected from the price Spooky sold them at. People just had unrealistic expectations when those who didn't want to wait bought ones which were early off the production line for ~$8k. The same phenomenon will likely happen with Alice - some early ones will be sold at silly mark ups, before the used price settles below the original NIB price. This is hardly unique to Spooky. You should expect to lose money on the sale of any game you bought NIB.

Did Spooky address production capacity in the seminar?

Every day TNA picks up more orders. Without more space / hires, presumably the build for ACNC will take a while.

That's why it's a good decision for Spooky to only open orders one week later on the 26th.

If they opened them immediately after the reveal, there would've been a stampede and then inevitable buyer's remorse, which doesn't help either them or punters.

Spooky do a lot of little things very sensibly.

There's no way it will go up in value long term. However good it is.

There are way too many machines coming onto the market. There will always be something new and interesting just around the corner.

Hopefully Spooky might ask DeadFlip to come and stream it in the week before orders go live.

If not, I can see a lot of people holding off. Not that that is a bad thing necessarily. They have a load of TNAs to make.

There's no chance whatsoever of price not dropping at least modestly from launch price, once the scalpers / impatient people have satisfied themselves.

Let's say optimistically they start building at the end of May and finish in May '19. Between now and May '19 we will have seen another 4-5 new Stern 'cornerstone' titles, JJP will likely have 5 titles shipping by then, CGC may have 4 titles shipping by then, AP should have their second title shipping ... and there may be other launches, if the rest survive.

That's not a market that will see price inflation on NIB for any title or any manufacturer.

The more that people expect this, the more people will pay way over the odds for some of the first 50 or so off the line ... then half of those people will scream blue murder that they lost their shirt (and probably blame Spooky) when prices settle. It's stupid.

There's no way Spooky will do anything for the display on RZ.

It's something Fawzma has hinted that he could look at in future, but that would be a mod / passion project, and he doesn't seem to have yet found the time to support and update his apron mod as he said he would.

Doing the hardware and then redrawing the RZ graphics would take a hell of a lot longer.

Feel like the blue powder option would look better with a hammered finish, even if it cost more.

Where is the video?

Everything I've seen all you can hear is TNA, or just background noise.

It's extremely hard to make a decision without any real idea how audio sounds, and virtually no gameplay.

Kind of feel like if Spooky are confident in their product, they should have held off the orders another week or so to get some footage out there.

That's not much better. Think I'll be holding off until there's some better video.

I think TNA will sell forever, basically. Bit like WOZ, Metallica, and perhaps DI.

Build run of Alice is apparently estimated to be ~18 months according to Spooky, from when it commences.

Never heard that. What was the relationship / involvement, or Charlie's business at the time? Love the WOZ ECLE cab.

Since quite a few people (me included) have postponed their decision on the game until more footage is available - among them prior customers - I suspect Spooky may wait to issue build numbers until after they've shown more.

Nothing from MGC?

80% of the media in the thread has nothing to do with the game, and are just empty / spam photos of AC. Please stop.

1) Bricks / posts.

I think you have a point regarding the posts. The basic layout looks good, but the preponderance of posts and lack of stand-up targets makes it very bricky, and you get absolutely nothing for not making the shots.

If it's not too late, I think Spooky should seriously consider the addition of some stand-ups, or other avenues to mitigate this. Besides, they could be integrated into the rules and give more options there.

More toys would certainly be nice, but I suspect we may have to look to the mod scene for those. But given how early the code and media seem to be, and that TNA orders continue to flood in, maybe Spooky have time for some minor rethinks or additions.

2) Call outs

Regarding the Alice Cooper call outs. The little we've heard are AWFUL. There's only so much you can do in post processing. He's reading in a normal speaking voice, as if head buried in his lines, with no intonation, stress, punctuation, change in speed or emotion at all. Even if Cooper is getting on a bit, he's still a singer and performer, and should both understand the necessity and be capable of it ... so I'm slightly at a loss as to why he's so totally flat. Was there not a producer or sound engineer (and instructions from Spooky) present at the recording to direct ... or did Cooper just sit down alone at home with hundreds of lines to record? They need to be either re-recorded, or the community needs to think about their own effort IMO.

3) Art / display.

They look absolutely outstanding, though hopefully the display will be livened up a bit with animation, and selective focus / zoom (which works well with comic strip style stuff) to make it come more alive. It looks very static at the moment. Obviously quite early though.

4) Sound effects and music.

They sound good so far. Again, obviously early.

5) Light show.

Looks fairly non-existent at the moment, though I think it's full RGB, as with TNA. Maybe Scott can lend a hand on that front? Light show on TNA is great.

Re: lit speaker grille ... will it be interactive, like the new option on TNA?

Hopefully a low one.

His mods for RZ are pretty transformative.

Presumably what ever TNA uses.

Not sure what P3-ROC based systems usually use.

Coils on Spooky games are usually nuclear - too strong. Doubt the flippers will be too weak. So the voltage explanation sounds about right.

As to the rest, hopefully they continue to tune and make minor changes up to production.

Maybe Spooky / Pingraffix / ACNC's artist should work together and offer one with matching ACNC art as a factory option ...

Unless they're not making any money on TNA, it would seem foolish to try to curtail sales. That seems unlikely from what I've heard, both on the money side and the intention to run it as long as there is demand. That and they're obviously keen to have Scott do a second title.

Space looks very crowded at their facility, now. Maybe they can rejig it a little, but it's only going to get tighter with more line hires this summer.

If they are indeed making a decent margin on TNA, it makes sense to try and sell and ship as many as possible. Unfortunately, that would be their entire production capacity at current levels, for at least a year or two, if they were to build it exclusively. Sales on some titles do taper, but TNA is so different to the other new stuff out there that I don't see that happening. Plus, it appears to be reaching critical mass in the US, whereby enough are out there now that more people are having the opportunity to play it, and ordering based on their experience.

As you say, there are then 500 ACNCs to build, and potentially both Kosmic Khaos & Danesi #2. Presumably neither Mark Ritchie and co, nor Scott will want to wait forever.

In my view, Spooky are in slight danger of becoming victims of their own success. I'm sure they had a carefully considered plan to increase capacity, and how to pay for it, and intended to do everything gradually, to walk before they could run, and not overstretch themselves. However, TNA came out of the blue. It's great, and great for them as long as they're making money, but without a ramp towards 75-100 machines a month in the fairly near future, I don't see how they're not going to end up being more and more backlogged. They would then run the risk of losing out on potential hits like KK, and more importantly end up with frustrated customers and cancellations.

I don't think a small delay in the start of production of ACNC will bother m/any on the list - and certainly not me. The concern is just that with current cadence, or publicly announced plans re: production capacity, there could be increasingly long wait times from start to finish.

I can't see how they would not be cognisant of this, and they must be planning to deal with it. So I'm not really concerned for the time being. It's a good 'problem' to have, so not really a problem. Money for now remains cheap, so the sooner it's dealt with the better. That, and obviously buying in greater bulk can only help their bottom line.

Good to see more space is available, and imminently.

Presumably they asked for it not to be recorded, since it was neither streamed nor recorded here, unlike the others:

https://www.twitch.tv/geekgamertv/videos/all

I got it for RZ, but I'd really rather not have to go that route again ... it's a massive pain every time you want to lift the pf. I'd prefer they add a few spots if necessary.

If the blue can be done in a hammered finish I'd definitely be in for that.

Bonus points for coin door as an additional cost option.

Think one of the early ones is going to Tilt Pinball Bar in Minneapolis.

When that arrives, it's likely to be streamed.

Direct feed on audio's more important IMO.

I think the lit speaker panels are now offered on TNA. So it would make sense to do them for ACNC too.

IMO the better IPS screen should be offered as an option too. Silly for customers to have to do the change over themselves when a lot will do it immediately.

Wasn't it confirmed as being the same one as TNA (and I think RZ too)? Also, I think Stern use a TN panel. Just one with better viewing angles than TNA.

You could clear over the normal cab for the same sheen. What you're paying for though is direct (presumably screen?) print vs a decal.

Not really. Decals vs. direct screen to primed wood is totally different vs. painting / print. Unless a painting is finished with a gloss glaze (few are), there is absolutely no reason why you would do the same to the print. The reason remains the same for clearing either decals or a direct print cab, to protect it and make it look glossier.

Was it really deleted, or just hidden? If deleted that's a real shame. Could at least have released the good Bowen and Jack games as highlights or on Youtube.

I understand why they wouldn't want the whole video out there, given that hardware is obviously still being tuned, and software and media under heavy development - hence the unreliability, missing stuff and bricking spinner. Especially given increasing competition for licenses. Plus the internet issues, lack of direct capture as originally intended, and wonky internet.

But all of it taken down or deleted?

Wanted to show an artist friend of mine who's thinking about buying his first machine. He'd love the art and animation.

Sounds like knee jerk reaction was to delete it.

FeelsBadMan

The orbit behaved the same way as the one streamed from Spooky HQ.

Bowen kept saying that the spinner was being prototyped and would be fixed so that there weren't all the rejects. Hopefully that is the case. If this is final, that's going to get old quick.

Other thing that's notable is that good shots to the secret passage come dribbling back out 2-4 seconds later pretty often. Surely this is not intended behaviour? It's difficult to see what's happening as the whole area is hidden by the upper pf.

Both badly need tuning IMO.

Still slightly unsure about the upper pf. It's got plenty to do but good players are obviously struggling to get any control of the ball. Could be coil strength though. My feeling is that lowering upper flipper strength and perhaps a tiny bit more angle on the upper pf would make it less mad flailing and more controlled. Reducing ball popper and upper flipper strength from default made RZ's upper pf go from totally unplayable to good on mine.

Art and screen graphics continue to look awesome, what code there is so far seems interesting, though I hope there will be plenty of peripheral stuff to do, that's not central to the dungeon crawl, or will add to it.

No fan of Alice's music, but it suits the machine really well. His call outs still sound pretty bad ... But they're so anodyne and monosyllabic you can pretty much ignore them. Better than having irritating ones.

Tbh I'd remain in on the strength of Zornow's outstanding work alone. Just hope the other stuff gets fixed so that it can live up to its potential (which is high). Happy to be ~400.

Not really bothered about trick bits or interactive toys. Yes Frankenstein is underwhelming, but I suspect after market mods will more than take care of that. Just look at RZ. .... some awesome stuff available.

People have mostly been complaining about how he looks, and limited visibility, not the function.

But either way, I'm not bothered. To me the display artwork and animation and no doubt coming further integration look better than any toy could. So the budget went in the right direction IMO. Also an area where Stern (who have a very similar display setup) have been fairly lazy or lacking - so a good target competitively.

It's just differences in colour temperature, exposure, gamma, and the camera's sensor they're using.

The left one is fairly poorly exposed using warm light. The right (Dead Flip) is well exposed using neutral light. Think it may also be webcam vs camcorder.

All have been different. ACNC is Zornow Must Die.

Thanks for the correction.

Was supposed to be 2 weeks from last one. That would be ~Monday. But he has the Deadpool stream from Stern on Wednesday ... so not sure about that.

Well BM'66 and GotG weren't worth plunging the ball into for months even after they were available ... particularly the former. It's not like Stern have covered themselves in glory either.

I think GotG is awful, still .. I understand others like it, however. At least it has rules, sound and video assets now.

BM'66 I think that's a bit unfair ... the layout is still uninspired, but the rules are pretty interesting, and should be a lot more so once finished ... just taking an eternity to get done. It's coming up to its second anniversary.

I like finished or nearly finished games.

Maiden / DI / PotC / TNA are probably the only machines I'd consider finished enough shortly after launch to think about owning.

~400 for me. Happy to wait another year.

Though I'm sure it'll be a lot more complete by ~200.

I'd also like the door done, and a 'hammered' blue most of all.

The blue would suit it, as would the hammered. Some of the more out there colours look ridiculous ... the reason it looks worse on the coin door is that it's a big vertical slab, so from the front it sticks out like a sore thumb if the powder choice is already questionable.

It's perfectly possible, at a cost. The problem is mainly that someone has to do a lot of work on new art and animations. Hardware would be easy.

It was said to be 2 weeks from the last one. 4 weeks will be this Monday.

I suspect they'd like to have considerable progress to show (fixed spinner and some other shot issues), and more to the point code that's a lot further along.

Bonus would probably be having Bowen there to coincide.

Given those things, I doubt 2 weeks made sense when they actually thought about it. Plus they have to liaise with DF.

I understand TILT in Minneapolis are getting one soon. I'd be surprised if Rudy Soup doesn't stream that on the Buffalo Pinball channel.

But what would the uptake be? Who would do it, other than Fawzma? He's already run off his feet coding ACNC, then he has RZ to finish off ... then presumably his spare time will be taken up with finishing his RZ apron display mod's code and assets.

I think you can forget it for the time being at least, unless someone (or several people) within the community decides they want to do it and have the relevant skills and time.

There's no way they'll do it officially. Think that has already been stated in fact.

It would be absolutely mad to devote official resources to it when they'd lose money and more importantly man hours.

If it ever gets done, it'll be a community / passion project.

I say that as someone who has an RZ and would like to see it happen some day, but expect nothing. If it does, I'd expect years down the road and completely unofficial.

Code's more important to RZ anyway.

Curious to see what they'll come up with. Might give the rest of us some customisation ideas.

From what I heard, they have quite a few built or in the stages of being built, but they're being held for fixes before they go out.

Hopefully the spinner and other things are done by now, so I assume it's probably software they're waiting on.

If Scott doesn't run with this theme idea for game 2, it's going to be a massive disappointment.

Still don't think m/any non-location games have gone out. At least, haven't heard about any.

At least one of the more recently shipped location games has been held off being put on location, because the operators feel some things need to be rectified first.

I would imagine they'll announce when they start shipping en masse to normal customers.

No idea. But from what I'm hearing they still need to make revisions to the test games. Upper pf and a custom gate are apparently still causing issues.

The game simply isn't (or wasn't) ready to ship to home customers ... or none that didn't want a frustrating experience, or who weren't willing to fix stuff and submit a load of feedback. That's pretty obvious. Spooky should probably have been more open about that, but for anyone who's actually followed the thread, they're hardly hiding it either.

I don't see why people are trying to find a new answer every week, when it's been the same for a while.

Hopefully most of the physical issues are put to bed on games coming off the line, and it appears software updates have now gone out, even if there's a load of stuff to add and fix still.

Sending out home games with major software and frustrating hardware issues would be really foolish, so they appear to have made the right decision, even if it is taking a while.

He means C$.

Though that is still nearly $10k.

Edit. Didn't read TNA. Thought you were talking about ACNC.

Not sure of the number, but I think he got it a month or so ago.

Almost entirely, yes. Per the one being sold. Was intended to go on route, but decided to sell it instead.

When there's so much to fix and so much to implement with code (still by the looks of it), I doubt the light show has been a big priority.

I think it has full RGB GI as well as inserts though ... so it would be a bit pointless to spend the money on that if they intended to never do anything with it. I assume they'll get to it later.

I'm not particularly concerned yet, as I'm a much later number, but it would be nice to see some progress. The next Dead Flip stream was supposed to be 2 weeks after the first one. It's now over 3 months. When they do feel that it's finally progressed enough to show off, hopefully a stream will be forthcoming.

17 full time employees is a pretty large number. I'd imagine production (and perhaps building and refining of prototypes) will indeed be getting a lot quicker.

Next couple of titles will be so important for them now that overheads are getting bigger.

I think it'll be a bit later than that once you factor in the ~150 TNAs they have left to do, plus Xmas / New Year holidays.

I'd imagine it'll take a while to switch over completely to Alice and then work at full speed, once the TNAs are done.

Do you have a working link for the code updates, or rather, the patch notes? Link is dead on Spooky's homepage.

I'd be interested to see the direction it's going.

Edit: Working now, but only contains the update file. No notes.

Think it'll be a long way past that unless they built a lot of them up as far as they could before final parts / better code came in.

I think ~10 have gone to locations and ~5 to homes. At least, it looks that way.

20ish shipped, I think.

Wat. They're not equivalent, and the C$ was last pegged to the US$ 40-50 years ago.

I'd guess they get 10 butters done at a time. I'd imagine that there'll be 50-60 butters, total.

Request again that when you put out the next publicly available code update for ACNC, include patch notes, so we can see how it's developing.

In the footage from SDTM it still looks very early to me, though I suppose that should not be surprising if they're still working heavily on system code (or were until recently) as Charlie seemed to imply.

A lot of lit shots still don't result in any response from the game's display, audio or lights, or do but don't link up very well - it's pretty disjointed. Alice is now very talkative (that is a change), but I'm not sure that's a great thing given the at best mixed feedback on his voice work. Especially as some of the callouts are needlessly long winded - "You hit the skillshot" instead of "Skillshot!" - and therefore often tend to run in to each other. Timing or staging of audio effects, which do sound good, seem like they need a lot of work still.

What is there on the display looks great, but it doesn't seem like that much progress has been made.

Also seemed like a lot of good hits to lit shots during modes weren't getting any response from the game at times. So quite buggy.

First signs of the RGB GI and inserts are now in, but quite limited. They should completely change the look of the game once properly implemented - imagine TNA without all that.

Still seems like there's not really much outside of the main dungeon crawl (modes) and two multiballs.

All the players are still struggling to control the ball on the upper pf by the look of it. However the spinner issues and balls dribbling out of the secret passage seem to mostly be a thing of the past, which is a relief.

From what I'm seeing, it's quite similar to early BM'66 at the moment, in that it's going to take a while before we see where the game is headed. BM'66 was a clunkfest with mostly absent game code and media. BM'66 is still a bit clunky now, but does have excellent game code and media integration. It just took considerable time to get there. Hopefully that'll eventually be the case for Alice. If they're over the bulk of system code work now, I'd guess it'll still be another 3-6 months before we really get an idea of how good the game is likely to be.

I remain unworried as my spot is one of the latter machines, and this is somewhat expected, but it probably is a bit disappointing for the people with early spots who may have had different expectations.

But for people who haven't received their game yet, how would they know? Spooky aren't releasing patch notes, and I doubt all the patches are being published publicly anyway as the last one on their site is 6 weeks old.

It's very difficult to gauge direction or improvement without any patch notes ... but they only rarely seem to have added them to their site in the past. Scott did for TNA, of course, but house and contract games, not so much. Virtually all developers keep patch notes, as a quick reference guide so they can see how things have changed and where they're headed, and so they can publish them and customers and potential customers can do the same. If they aren't being kept, then that's a hole in the development process and should be amended.

Stern, JJP and American Pinball always publish full patch notes, and with good reason.

Yay. Patch notes released with latest code release on the website. So my requests for them to be published didn't fall on deaf ears.

1.0.6.9 18/12/2018

All modes, light colors updated for combos, modes, etc
All modes, main BG music could start when monster mode started
All modes, mode total animation process cleaned up.. should be faster
All modes, modes can only be played once
All modes, monsters reset in prep for wizard mode
All Modes, shaker support added'

Combos, mode select targets kill any progress
Combos, scoring updated
Combos, system updated

EOB, can break out of EOB bonus info early hitting both flippers
EOB, sfx added

Frenzy, frenzy light was overriding multiplier ready light
Frenzy, keeps its own score collected.. used for mode total

General, cleaned up count down timer routines. Could cause a crash if not handled properly
General, coils only fire once in attract and if start it pressed
General, collecting special award free game when not in free play
General, extra safety added to upper playfield drop target to reset on no activity
General, gameover will only pick from quotes that fit within the animation frame time
General, highscore/match order in which they are display was reversed
General, increased save ball grace to 4 seconds
General, left scoop light animation cleanup
General, left scoop scream was missing while out of monster mode
General, light priorities changed for combo/mode/frenzy
General, lightshow in attract no longer responds to flippers
General, loading screen has some variety
General, lower drop targets cleaned up logic so they reset only if they aren't in the correct position already
General, monster select lights are now off when in Frank mode
General, player 3 score moved to the left a bit
General, relabeled some switch names in switch test
General, remove old media not being used
General, removed "super" from special in menu system
General, removed GI from some lightshow sequences
General, removed GI from the left scoop in/out animations
General, room control forces lock servo to center position on magnet hold
General, room travel was prevented after an initial ball save
General, upper drop target safety reset timer was using a hard coded 1 second timer.. changed to 5 seconds
General, upper lanes were over riding the frenzy light and killing it
General, flippers were still enabled through end of ball
General, lane save switching now disabled during end of ball

Highscore, bug when replay played on ball 3 and ball ended. highscore screen needs to refresh
Highscore, launch button could cause game to "end"
Highscore, some internal changes to how it starts
Highscore, timeout was in debug mode

Hurryup, changed multisave to single save on ball save
Hurryup, crash fix, chance that text would update when it shouldn't
Hurryup, mode not totally disabled when mode total shows up
Hurryup, removed a redundant update display.. contributed to video slowdown
Hurryup, sfx changed from heart beat to Shepard tone

Mag-neato-o, removed the magnet save while in frank or crypt mode

Mystery award, award sfx now duck the music

Replay, now plays sfx immediately, used to be on a delay
Replay, video/sfx added

Secret passage, new music starts when ready

Servos, will now disengage after 1.5 seconds of last being used

Skillshot, while ball 3 gimme active, skillshot would respond when it shouldn't
Skillshot, false skillshot activation due to slow ball launch

Special, awards 25 million in free play
Special, menu setting updated with the 4 settings (Audit, Off, Points, Normal)

Systemstatus, disabled response to flipper holds for now since this isn't fleshed out yet. can cause a quick animation to clear off leaving a blank screen

Tilt, could cause crash when match animation started
Tilt, not handled properly when in crypt mode

Alice, frenzy shots added
Alice, mode lights were not updated properly after mode total
Alice, monster multiplier is now applied to scores

Crypt, animation lag reduced
Crypt, first lock starts new music
Crypt, removed lock swap
Crypt, removed multi save feature
Crypt, SFX volumes increased

Ethyl, frenzy shots are in. clearing all frenzy shots puts ethyl into the last stage for a super/triple jackpot.. rinse/repeat
Ethyl, hurryup added for end of mode
Ethyl, mode lights now ending properly
Ethyl, mode total added
Ethyl, now uses frenzy amount for hurryup value
Ethyl, removed lock swap
Ethyl, score animations and scoring added
Ethyl, when dropping in from balcony, you get a 5 second runoff to collect a double/triple/super jackpot instead of a normal jackpot

Frank, cleaned up internal lock count routine
Frank, lab lock should be blinking instead of the arrow
Frank, mode start has more "flash"
Frank, quick skip was still causing an extra ball to be ejected
Frank, removed multi save feature

Igor, left scoop light cleanup
Igor, while in hurryup mode switches/lights no longer respond

Insect, animation lag fix
Insect, frenzy shots open after big bug defeated
Insect, upper pf can be used to squash bugs

Pitcreature, left subway was not responding properly
Pitcreature, mode takes priority over crypt mode now
Pitcreature, needed to make pit create mode lights higher priority than crypt mode
Pitcreature, right scoop was incrementing the collect count if it was a valid shot or not
Pitcreature, won't show the not here animation if location already visited

Vampire, animation lag removed
Vampire, case typo in get to upper playfield text
Vampire, frenzy shots added
Vampire, GI wasn't being updating properly
Vampire, mode music could initiate twice
Vampire, removed "extra" jackpot animation after 3rd stake
Vampire, timer/stake count GUI cleaned up

Zombie, conflict with ball save would trigger a zombie shot

It's beginning to look a bit better, but remains pretty early IMO.

Tons of lit shots still don't result in anything at all, or are only partially hooked up (shot collects and no score, shot collects and score but no audio or video, tons of sound effects missing etc), and there seem to be entire dead modes.

Unlit shots, unless they progress a multiball, literally do nothing. They don't progress or work towards anything.

Both of the above I think contribute to the machine appearing more 'bricky' than it really is.

Frankenstein lock doesn't release when multiball starts (which is weird as it works when ball search starts).

Rather unclear what's happening with the magnet ball save. It only triggered twice in a nearly 3 hour stream. Once it failed, once it succeeded (just about). Centre (or outlane) drains with ball save running (either earned or at beginning of ball) almost always result in drain, ball kicked into shooterlane, then autoplunge. Maybe it is working 'as intended', but if it's barely ever used, why bother having it at all?

Hopefully there is some kind of adjustment that can be made to the left inner orbit. That shot is an absolute bastard. Hard, true shots straight up it frequently rattle around and then dribble out after a couple of seconds. Successful shots you can hear rattling around, and by the time they exit the orbit on the right side are usually moving pretty slowly. The other machines seemed to have issues with it. This example was worst yet.

Dunno if the target itself had issues, or posts around it were the problem, but that centre target really didn't seem to like registering.

This machine, in contrast to the others, did seem to have a controllable and fully functioning upper pf (I gather the operator made several fixes here). Which is good.

RGB still isn't really in almost at all. But the operator did a decent job with both the extra spots and coloured lighting - looked good.

One of the mystery awards is instantly going to Battle Alice - the wizard mode. Seriously??? And in a dungeon crawl / pure wizard mode progression machine (as it currently stands)? That seems bizarre.

Stand by what I said before about it being another 3-6 months until we get an indication of how good it's really likely to be. Though I suppose it's possible that the bulk of underlying work has been done, and rules and assets will speedily get implemented now.

Probably from first one shipping. Think that was in June. So they have until the end of 2019 .. which lines up.

No shit. I was clearly talking about the stream. Very few people have played one, let alone on latest code.

Rudy said that it was the wizard mode, so I stand corrected on that.

Frankenstein worked once out of about 15+ times. It didn't seem to be a hardware issue as ball search always popped it out.

Modes started fine. Some of the modes were entirely dead - nothing worked. Some were partially dead.

Like I said ... the magnetic ball save happened twice in 3 hours. Once it just about worked (barely). Once it failed and dropped it down the middle.

Your having a machine already does not mean that you have a monopoly on the truth. The machine (on latest code) on the stream still had clear problems and deficiencies in many areas. If you want to pretend to yourself that it's all fine, go ahead. Trying to discredit any (constructive) criticism and identification of clear problems to others, is not cool at all. The worst thing that can happen is that people believe it's all working, then get to play it, and end up being very disappointed.

Bowen isn't an experienced coder, though. Perhaps he'll be great on rules, but however quickly he picks up coding (he only started to learn around the time of being hired), it'll be a steep learning curve, and I can't imagine he will speed anything up coding wise for quite some while.

Scott specifically said he wasn't doing code on HHP, at Expo, actually. He also said it was undecided if he'd do music, audio, lighting etc.

In a recent stream chat (about a week or 10 days ago), I asked him about that ... he said that he'd probably end up doing music, audio and lighting himself.

So unless something's changed, he's not doing code on HHP, though I'm sure pretty much everyone would like him to. His support of TNA has been absolutely stellar.

I don't blame Scott, or you for that matter. He has a full time job at Pinball Life, as well as developing a new title from scratch, as he did with TNA (where the only major thing he didn't do was art - but he still directed it). Coding on top of everything else almost necessarily means having no time for anything else, a lot of the time.