This gameplay was an awesome display of the level of effort Spooky has put into a super awesome theme. I had no regrets pulling the trigger on this order (even as expensive as it is) and now it feels like I'm being part of something greater.

Great job Spooky!
Great job Jack!

Y'all rocked this theme!

Same. Didn’t see much action happening on the 2nd playfield. Just letting the ball drop into mode. Maybe this was because of code or was pretty fast going in there.
Pretty sure they
We’re having to hit 5x right ramp shots before being able to enter 3rd playfield headquarters area.
Game, lighting and footage
Looks amazing. Integration seem spot on and fantastic.
Can’t wait to play it and for full coding to be completed with what they were talking about.

Dead Flip stream of Halloween and Ultraman from Saturday.

Thanks to Spooky and DeadFlip for the stream.

One thing that's better on Halloween is the OSD text overlay. It's nice and clean (easy to see) on Halloween, but the red text on Ultraman tends to blend into the background too much, especially when the text is layered over certain video content.
Scores and ball count are much easier to see on Halloween, even in Attract Mode.
The text for "Missed Skill Shot" on Ultraman looks great, so perhaps they can get all red text closer to that.
Of course, I understand that you hardly look up while playing, but Stern's BM66 is a good example of tasteful, well-executed text overlay on top of video content.

Watched the stream. Game looks great. But if I could have one wish that Spooky listens to, it's this:

Please, please Spooky, I beg of you - change the typeface of the main text. Revue is hideous. On par with Comic Sans and Impact. The typeface in Rick and Morty is so good, I hate to see you go backwards like this.

I did a quick search and Ultraman seems to use this font a lot:

Ultraman

I did some quick searches and found some similar ones:

https://www.fontspring.com/fonts/insigne/le-havre-layers
https://www.fontspring.com/fonts/letterhead-fonts/lhf-gloria

But honestly, anything other than Revue would be a massive improvement.

On a side note, your text spacing also needs to be adjusted. Notice how much space there is between the two lines yet it's almost touching the score text:

Spacing

I imagine it's a work in progress, and that you don't really stare at the screen when playing, but I just thought I would mention it.

Give me the campy crappy font all day...

Great job Spooky! Was a fun hang. No regrets on my UMBSE. Now I just need to work some overtime

Yes, so glad I chose UM because it was down to a coin flip for me on the day they went up for sale.

One thing I noticed that seemed a bit off was the second upper pf. Almost looked like they had to nudge it as it was rolling down the guide, otherwise it would go in the hole without hitting the flipper.

Just curious if this was something that could be an issue.

Otherwise, games looked fun!

If I recall, Bug said to nudge it as it is expected to do that.

Finally watched the stream This morning and I think ultraman was the right choice for us over Halloween. It had a better light show, brighter with art and I liked the video.

The play I wasnt super impressed. A lot of bricks and half up the ramp shots so assuming it might be hard for us. Also the upper playfields seemed tough. The top one they had to shake to get to the flipper. Kind of like BKSOR before they provided the kit. There were some fun shots too. We did like acnc and that one had a lot of bricked shots for us. I’ll just have to wait and see how this one does

Also....thats true of most upper playfields. Its especially bad on BKSOR....only you can't really nudge it at all. At least they put what looks like a post with a rubber there to let a nudge actually do something.

*edit* dude above this post says there's a kit for BK...no clue if the one I played this last week had it or not so....disclaimer. =)

Yeah just found it.
On Halloween stream at 7:35.

So far I'm digging UM much more than Halloween, but I'm pretty disappointed with the UM display. The cheesy old clips from the show look AMAZING! I just hate that they're always so small inside of the "retro" monitor thing.

The scores were so small I couldn't read them, unlike HWN where all the text was easy to see and read. While I wasn't in love with the HWN illustrated asset approach, they were high quality images and looked great taking up the full monitor. I REALLY wish UM showed a lot more of the footage on the full monitor and not just a tiny postage stamp size display inside that retro interface.

I’m at my uncles house for the weekend in New Braunfels Texas, My uncle is good friends with Charles Duke and shows me the Sunday San Antonio Paper...

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SpookyLuke Great looking game. Excited to get it. I wondered if there was a mystery award shot? I noticed the right scoop says Mystery on the round insert and says Quick Battle just below it. I know that starts the monster battles, so I'm wondering if that shot will also handle mystery awards that maybe aren't coded yet? One other thing I wanted to ask was regarding Baltan, Bemular and Jirahs. Each of these monsters has a 1 and 2 and 3 insert. I assumed that would mean there were 3 separate battles with each, but it seemed like maybe those numbers indicate stages within the battle? Or is that also not fleshed out yet? Was in the middle of a tournament last night and could not jump on stream to ask these live, so I apologize.

Thanks,
RC

Looked like it rolled down the guide really slowly, with no chance of getting to the flipper unless you nudged. Not sure people are going to enjoy that if that upper pf is used during MBs.

Hard to tell until we play it, but that's just something that stood out as awkward to me when watching.

Lights shows looking great though!

Game looks great. Can’t wait to play it!!! More code will make this even better!!!

Rewind it a little bit. You'll see the ball is initially delivered to the flipper. Hard to ask for more than that.

Great stream. I didn’t want to watch too much Ultraman so I don’t spoil it when I take delivery in a year. LOVED what I watched though. Great job Spooky pinball team.

Any dist that still have these? What do they run $$$ ?

Nitro for sure. Kingpin mentioned on stream he had a couple.
https://nitropinball.com/collections/spooky-pinball

I kinda like that font. Probably because its the same one used in MK3 arcade game. Maybe if they make the letters white with a red border instead of the red with white boarder. And yeah, there are some alignment issues for sure.

Great looking game and loved the effort to recreate the world of Ultraman by Spooky. 3 questions:
1. Can you easily adjust downward those bright flashing lights, so they are not blinding to look at?
2. Will you make the Ultraman show material much larger on the LCD? Way too small at the moment.
3. Is there a way to almost turn off the flashers that are flashing extreme white light in rapid almost seizure inducing motion?

Those are concerns of some of the people I’ve spoken with and mine as well. When in a dark room, seizure flashing bright lights are very annoying at best. Some people just can’t endure them. So I assume Spooky is making provision for those of us that don’t want that type of blinding lights flashing?

Otherwise, enjoyed the look of the game. With the only other concern of what some have already expressed about the upper playfield needing a way for the ball to contact the upper flipper so it doesn’t just hit the drain without even getting near the flipper, like it did on BKSOR until Stern added the post kit to fix it?

Enlarging the original video is essential, I’m sure that they will arrive at the consensus soon enough. Both of these game just look so sick, I’m so amped for this company.

The original video source may be so low res that they found keeping it small may be the only way to make it look reasonably sharp. Just a thought.

If anybody here has ever tried to take a picture of their game with new leds in it you know how they bloom and dominate the pic and your game now looks clown puke purple from top to bottom... but only in the pic. I bet the led strips are like that and won't be as overpowering in real life.

Even if you expected Spooky to say this your host of this stream also said that at some point... so it probably isn't an issue in person.

It's like people don't read ANYTHING Spooky says.

The LEDS are not as bright in real life.

They will be adjustable.

Pretty sure that has been mentioned many times.

Sorry for the harshness, but that was discussed just after the trailer came out.

The plan was to have mystery awards and incidentals alternate! I think they needed some time to work on randomizing it! Something will be there.

At the end of the day what I think isn't what matters its what you guys enjoy! I will say though I really dont find the LEDs to be overpowering. I am glad after 7 years of spooky games being to dark that atleast we may be able to claim the title of to bright lol. Should be able to add a brightness percentage adjustment to the menu. No stress guys if ya don't like them I'll find a way to turn them down for ya.

Definitely part of it. Also, the original aspect ratio is 1:33 for television, so making it fill the entire widescreen format also presents issues.

This was always going to be something that they were going to have to address. I thought the filler images that they had on each side of the 1:33 aspect ratio was pretty good.

Yeah, I like it as is, but would like the scores larger. I don't see them abandoning the layout, as they had Matt Frank do special art surrounds for the battles. It all looks really nice to me.

I'm confident that we (most of us anyway) will enjoy the LEDs as well as the game. If UM is as fun and unique playing as my ACNC, I'll be a happy pinhead indeed!

Looking very cool so far - thanks for all the creative game ideas coming out of Spooky!

In Spooky we trust.

I ain’t too proud to admit I wish I had ordered um instead of hwn…but at the time I was like “wtf is an ultraman?”

Yeah people do crazy crap all the time!

Ultraman got a very nice Blu-Ray release recently, and looks really good. Those old shows from back then used actual film-stock, not video tape, so properly cleaned up and transferred, they can look surprisingly detailed. Which thankfully, Ultraman does. Even the DVD-rips you can find on Youtube actually look pretty decent too.

The Spooky crew has all ready stated that the lights will be down-adjustable. I honestly wouldn't stress about it until you've played it in person. LEDs on camera ALWAYS look blinding--it's just how most cameras pick them up. Do you really think that Spooky would release a game that's blinding and uncomfortable to play?

Yeah, bigger footage sure isn't bad. But it seems pretty common to show movie/show clips in a smaller size on these LCD games. Like most recently on Stern's BM66 and EHOH.

Again, one would hope that Spooky would notice such an issue themselves. Either way, it's pretty common for owners to cover-up annoying flashers themselves, or switch out lighter-colored flasher domes for darker ones.

It doesn't hurt to ask about these issues, since it lets the Spooky crew know what we're concerned about. But I'd expect them to playtest these games a lot, and in different environments with different players, so that hopefully the player being blinded or dazzled won't be an issue.

The difference is that the footage in EHOH is secondary to the theme. Ideally, I'd prefer that was larger as well, but those movies are just there to support the campy B-movie theme, where-as these UM clips are supporting the main theme of the game.

I couldn't upvote this enough! I thought UM looked amazing, except for the display. @SpookyLuke, PLEASE reconsider the "retro" interface with the postage-stamp sized video clips.

I want to embrace the camp of the UM show, and I want to be able to see/read the scores. The current interface makes the show clips tiny and I cannot even read the scores (based on the stream). I think cutting to a retro interface occasionally could be cool, but the way you handle the HWN on -screen scores is much more legible. Plus, the UM clips would be so much better if they took up more of the LCD screen.

Seriously, everything else about UM looked amazing, just fix the display. Pretty please?!?

Ultraman looks super cool, well done guys

Thanks for your response. It is much appreciated, as young people don’t mind bright flashing lights, but we older people do. Just wait till you’re older and you’ll quickly know what I’m talking about. Flashing over powering lights are not good, for most all of us over 50. White flashing epileptic type white and blue lights flashing are real bad for some of us. We definitely need control to turn those off and or way down. Looking very forward to Ultraman, as our first Spooky title and many more from there. You guys have done a great job! In the control area, can you make it percentage turn down and also even able to turn off the rapid white flashing noticed down on either corner of the PF?

Being a huge Ultraman fan (I saw many of the series when they originally aired in Japan, while living there), I’ve purchased the Tsuburaya Steel Book series that are all remastered in Blu-ray, which Spooky surely has access to and the ratio looks very good in a 4:3 aspect ratio. It fills my 65” OLED but does have black bars running down left and right side, since its not 16x9. Aspect ratio of 1.33:one means the image's width is 1.33 times the size of its height. To eliminate decimals in this ratio, you can write it as 4:3 instead. Ultraman was done in this ratio and will fill the spooky LCD if they wanted it to be filled. So it can easily be larger, while making the cool looking controls much smaller.

Since I speak fluent Japanese, sure looking forward to switching it to Japanese instead of English or hearing both at the same time. So cool!

Any chance you guys end up changing the term "incidentals". Minor gripe I know but it sounds more like a term I'd use on an expense report than a pinball machine. The only other criticism would be the font design/layout of footage. Wish it had a bit more polish in regard to type layout, font style, readability etc. It really is the only knock I have on this game though. Played it at Pinfest and it was super smooth and had so many shots. You guys keep upping your game with every release. Congrats!

I posted that in the next spooky pins thread too. Perhaps use battles for Ultraman instead of incidentals.

Please go back and watch the vid, were the LEDs flashing so brightly, that it was reflected the players faces? No. Spooky has said over and over and over that in real life, they are nothing like the vid. Why are you ignoring those facts?

You just made a contradictory statement.

The Blu-ray most certainly does *not* "fill your 65" OLED" because it is 4:3 aspect ratio, while your OLED display is 16:9.

That's why you have the black bars running down the left and right side, to "fill" your screen. Where those black bars are is pretty much where Spooky has added the other images.

Thats not correct either. The current display of the movies in the window on UM pinball is about 2/3 the size of the actual frame, so it could certainly be bigger but the artist and spooky chose the inlay size so thats what they want. if the 4:3 frame was expanded to fill the whole space you'd have nothing but image filling the center including the top and bottom and bars about 2 inches on the left and right vertical.

I'm kind of digging these mini dioramas as potential mods. The scale seems similar to the Baltan figures already in the game.

Zetton will be a wizard mode in the game.
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I think this is Bemular. Can anyone confirm the ID of this Kaiju?
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