"SALES OPEN JULY 7th AT 9 AM CST"

Google's telling me this is 4 pm July 7, your time.

It would be cool if pinball took off in Japan, but with only 500 units I predict that not many of these are going to end up there. I hope Mr. Silver Ball Planet (Yuske Namba) manages to get his hands on one at least; I'm reasonably sure he's interested.

My only question for Wednesday is, how quickly will this sell out?!

Considering there will also be blocks going to distros….. probably pretty quick.

Who?

Who are your distributors?
USA
Pinball Star Amusements https://pinballstar.com/
Nitro Pinball https://nitropinball.com/ (Also Canada)
Pinball Classics http://www.lockwhenlit.com/
King Pin Games https://www.kingpingames.net/
UK
Pinball Heaven https://www.pinball.co.uk/
Europe
RS Pinball https://www.rs-pinball.at/

No I meant who the hell is Ultraman.

I think it looks corny fun and could get into this.

Awesome Japanese cheese super hero from the late 60’s (akin to rubber suit Godzilla) to current.

I can’t believe there are so many people that haven’t at least heard of Ultraman. Must have to be of a certain age? Next you’ll tell me that you’ve never heard of Johnny Sokko and his flying robot? Please say it ain’t so. Lol

My question is about gameplay.

I’ve played every Spooky release and there’s a certain something off on the in-house designs that makes them play weird. Not bad, just weird. Charlie seems to like upper play fields and I haven’t found any of them particularly fun or interesting. They tend to be empty (RZ) and short (ACHC).

So here, we have two of them. One bitten twice shy, I’m hesitant to drop so much cash on doubling down the weakest design choices on previous games.

I really enjoy TNA and R&M but those are Scott designs, and if I’m being honest neither is polished to the level of a JJP or Stern release. The themes are awesome but they still have a boutique feel.

So I’m torn. I like the theme but will gameplay be there?

Very nice.

It be so kind sir.

Same, but its for a certain pinhead, that's why they are still making small numbers.

That’s a fair assessment - it took me MONTHS to get my R&M shooting really nicely and I did way more things to it than I should have to get it there. I almost gave up on it but I love it now.

Charlie mentioned in one of their recent videos how they’ve improved their manufacturing and QC. I’m willing to give them another shot. Worst case I lose a few hundred on the resale.

There's something to that but for me there's GST (7%) plus shipping plus conversion to CAD from US, so that could add up to low thousands down the drain if it's not something I like. This thing is like $12K by the time it touches my driveway.

I do have my R&M playing fairly nicely now, but this is a different designer (or multiple designers?) who say they "like flow" but then put a bunch of stop and go stuff in the game and say that "flow" is just returning a ball to the flippers. That's not my definition of flow.

Unfortunately there's no "wait and see" on this - you have to pony up now and hope they've changed. Wish I could play a few games on it first.

Sure there is. Spooky builds fairly slowly and for most people, you will be able to pick-up a resale within 6-12 months after they start shipping. That's how I got my R&M...resale. I knew I liked the gameplay and also knew it was going to be a PITA to dial-in. In fact, the collector that sold me his NIB let it go after seeing all the issues on Pinside. He just didn't have the skills or time to futz with it.

Oh man, decision time today for me. What’s the feel from everyone on the differences between the CE and BS editions? Worth the extra $500? Getting the game earlier is nice. Does the CE come with the butter cabinet or is that extra?

I made good headway on the Mrs. last night. I figure if I get the breakthrough today i can re-join the fang club tonight. This is going to sell out faster than R&M…

That's how I got mine as well - for $2K more than sticker. I'd take less of a hit going NIB.

"There are more fans out there, and maybe we'll make a few more (FANS)". 500 is locked. No more. I was only referring to people gaining interest in Ultraman in general. If we helped that here in pinball, then GREAT!

Yes, you join today you can buy tomorrow. You can join tomorrow and buy tomorrow.

For all we know at this point, they're staging balls in the inlane lifts/poppers like STTNG does. That could make the scoops feel way more responsive than we would normally think.

500? It's only an extra 500 deposit. It's a 1k more.

Butter cabs are 1k more on both BSE and CE.

You're going to be pleasantly surprised here. We took all that to heart and busted our a**es to make everything more balanced, polished, and out of the box ready.

As for flow vs "stop and go"... wait till you play it. Even the upper playfield with double spinners is a complete flow blast. Rip the right spinner and hold that flipper up! Orbit, left ramp, center ramp, right ramp (be ready on that 2nd level... that ball is coming in hot!). It flows nicely. I thinks its the perfect blend of both those things... much flow, also lots of interaction (or stop & go if you like to call it that).

It just feels right. That I know.

Direct print is an additional $1k

Pleeeeease, Charlie, show us. Even a quick crummy video so we can get some idea how these play before committing.

how did i miss this series?

Original Ultraman series is available to stream for free on Pluto TV and Tubi. Awesome 60's cheese.

Im 51 years old, never heard of Ultraman.
Vaguely remember watching flying robot with my Grandmother, but I enjoyed it.
This looks like a fun theme and I hope its great for those who own it.

Same...51. Managed to watch Ultraman after school I think. Same with flying robot. I wasn't the most active kid growing up. Maybe I spent more time in front of the TV then I should have.

Also 51..........we should start a club....jk............I remember watching Ultraman regularly..........we were active kids but it would be like 105-114 degrees outside sometimes....at least it was a dry heat...anyway.....TV was a nice thing to have for those days..........even if it was just a shitty B&W TV with a tuner for UHF channels.

I don't know anything about Ultraman but love all the Japanese robot stuff. Love the idea of callouts in Japanese. Love to see more of this in pinball.

I really need to see more. It's one thing if Bowen and Danesi are on the game but it sounds like the main brain here is a kid straight out of high school. Now, the kid sounds very smart for his age and I am always open to new faces doing games- it could turn out to be even better... but It's hard to buy a 7k machine off faith without the big proven names behind the title. Now, I'm sure this won't be a concern for many so it ultimately is irrelevant to Spooky if I buy or not, but it's where I am at the moment.

I see it as new fresh ideas. Collaboration has been the theme of this release so I doubt it would end. The Passion is what give me hope this will be an amazing game.
Take a trip up to NH if you want to play UM when I get it.

I have hope too, and I am totally open to new ideas from anyone. It's just about committing to a big purchase with more unknowns. Though its likely that the resale value of the game will stay or increase so its mostly moot.

Anyone wishing to order Halloween or Ultraman from PinballSTAR (Spooky distributor) we ask that you send us an email today to [email protected] to get on our email blast list so at 9am CST tomorrow you get the 'ORDER NOW' email.. In that email you'll have a one click Paypal button to use to pay and get in quick and easy... I'm getting a ton of emails asking about our process to order and wanted to put this out there for folks as we are not doing phone, text, or website ordering - just via our email link. Looking forward to a glorious Spooky day tomorrow ! They killed it !

We made up this pic for our FB page too - pretty cool to have them both side by side ! lol

Email us today to get on our list for tomorrow's email blast...

Joe Newhart
[email protected]

michaelmeyersultramanpic (resized).jpg

I’m 62, maybe I’m too old for your club!
I plan to commit to a CE UM with butter cab.

No ID required to join club. You could just lie about your age. All that is needed is just a love for pinball and respect for Ultraman.

Tin snip cut

20210706_102107 (resized).jpg

Ultraman gives me hope that we might see Voltron or Gundam eventually. A Voltron pin would be awesome.

The market for Volton is hot. Those collectibles are insanely pricey.

I've never watched Ultraman but I'm aware of the show and it's popularity. This might be sad... but my introduction to "Kaiju" (other than Godzilla who everybody knows) was with Pacific Rim, they kept talking about Kaiju monsters and I didn't know that term was around long before Pacific Rim. Very cool to see an Ultraman pin, and Spooky is DEFINITELY the best and most passionate about that genre to put their heart and soul into it to make an awesome game!

I was born in 1970, and as a kid in the 70's living around the Detroit area, I used to watch lots of Japanese shows on TV at the time. There was the classic Godzilla movies with guys in monster suits stomping on model towns and fighting with each other, there was Ultraman, and also Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot. All my friends and I used to watch these. We're all in our late 40's to mid 50's now. I assumed all kids from my era saw these shows, but maybe these shows were more area specific and not everyone saw these all over the U.S. and world. I also seem to remember these shows kinda disappearing from TV somewhere between '76 and '80, so I can understand younger folks not being familiar with these franchises.

I do dig the Ultraman theme, as it brings back some warm and fuzzy nostalgia. If I was in the market for one of these pins I'd try to grab the Ultraman from nostalgia alone. I also like the Halloween too though, although that brings back a different kind of nostalgia which is not quite as warm an fuzzy, but a little more psychotic and murderous, LOL.

This is awesome! Growing up as a kid in the 70's in St. Louis, you have the great divide of: Who is your favorite - Ultraman or Giant Robot/Johnny Sokko. You couldn't have two favorites either!!

It was a highly debated (in fun) topic for us grade schoolers. Channel 30 (at the time) had both on. Personally, I was Giant Robot/Johnny Sokko. We always wanted Ultraman and Giant Robot to square off but that never happened. Good luck with this and maybe some day Giant Robot/Johnny Sokko will follow!!

Based on the "Topic Poll" for this thread, the odds of getting one of these machines is looking possible?

48 voted in 123 voted out at this moment

Well if I ever get off my butt and nobody else comes out with any more themes like THIS that lure me back into the NIB market after 6 years out...

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/whenever-its-done-voltron-a-wpt-retheme

I poke around with stuff related to the project now and again, but life's had other priorities...and that's still mostly the case, but I still have that whitewood and want to do it.

@spookycharlie, will this game be shipped with black rubbers?

Uff

+1 oof