Then it’s 100% a setup issue. My aim isn’t that bad. Haha

I think with proper lights, sound, shaker motor, projector, and movement, they can make this more of an event when you hit it in it's mouth on the prem/le

It sounds like the alignment between the demogorgon's mouth and the ramp in the down position varies from pin to pin. Hopefully this relationship is adjustable. On pins where the shot is extremely hard to make, is the ball consistently hitting too high (or too low) when missing the mouth?

On the one I have the ball hits to high. When I do make it it’s not quite as high, pushes the head back enough that the ball falls in.

If that was the case on all games i would agree. Not sure why one like yours is a guarantee and others are impossible. I think somewhere in between would be good. Make the player think twice about shooting it, but not completely avoid it either.

If you shoot too high from a cradled position then you have 2 options: raise the toy - you mentioned rubber washers. Maybe you can stack a few more in there -or lower the ramp angle - I don't remember if the screen sits on the field or hovers. If the latter you may be able to move it down.

We went to play it at My Parents Basement today but it was already down for the count. Something broke off of it so I guess we will have to wait a bit longer to form an opinion.

Stranger Things have happened!

So .64 seems to be what they streamed. Hits register on the demogorgon and I’m seeing all the animations that were shown in the stream.

I’m sure tips to adjust the demogorgon head will come out soon enough, just didn’t want to take apart a game that didn’t belong to me. I’ll let our OP deal with it. Haha

Thats good to hear, thanks for letting everyone know. Curious to watch this game unfold with future updates.

Hey Chuck, i watched the stream too. Asked the question on code status. I can't believe that was only .64. There was a LOT of modes in there already along with a few MB's.

Maybe your pro's that got delivered didn't have the code these guys were playing?

Maybe i'm comparing to BM66 but the stream i saw had a whole lot more in it.

Believe it bro. This is the same code they streamed. This game has a lot in it already.

From the stream the shot looked easy and they made it a lot. Strange, maybe a setup issue?

Its too bad they just didn't make the Demegorgan head pop out of a wall, then you have to hit it X amount of times to spell something to start multiball... A'la TWD. That to me is a super satisfying way to start a multiball - feels good everytime you get Prison MB going and it never seemed to be too easy to too hard to get it going, but just right.

If they could have a mode where the ramp comes down and you have to hit it X amount of times to start a MB, or even lock a ball in its mouth during MB to save one/kick another out like Metallica, that would be a good use for the toy.

Imo, so much can be improved on with code.. lots of potential

Honestly, I watched Deadflip's stream a couple of times and nobody has ANY ISSUES putting it into his mouth. They would miss once in a while but overall it was pretty easy, I thought. In fact, I thought they might have made it too easy from what they were doing. Maybe it's a matter of dialing in your machine.

Agree. Haha. Just have to wait until someone else figures out the fix. Right now I don’t see how to do it without taking a bunch of shit apart.

Yea I like this - I assume this isn't already coded then? Using it as a lock for MB would be a good implementation.

Pf Level or angle off? Too shallow/steep? Guessing that jump ramp is very sensitive to angle/level.

Level. I tried at least half a dozen pitches. All the same. Pretty sure the head itself needs adjustment. Just not sure how and it’s not easy to get to the mech to try and make adjustments.

I haven’t watched the Deadflip stream yet but on Xmas eve morning one of the arcades had a 1-2hr video up on YouTube from the night prior. I watched for 40 minutes a ton of 4-player games where no one could hit it. It became a mission for some. They'd get the ramp down and have miss after miss until drain. Then one guy hit it and it was like they won the lottery. I’m wondering how hard that shot is now.

Wow. Bueno.

Did you try some left/right slight adjustment? That's what cured my TWD pop bumper drains. Just a tiny bit off left/right level.

Not sure how that’s going to fix my issue. When I’m dead nuts on the mouth it’s always too high. Having the game lean one way or the other isn’t going to help. But yeah at one point I had the game leaning to the right a bit to help with the trajectory of the saucer kick out so it would make the right inner orbit.

Tough to get to on making an adjustment to the mech? If possible? No way to bend it forward to lower the mouth angle?

Sounds nasty!

Early review 2.0

The mouth of the demogorgan is almost impossible to hit. I would say myself and others are having a 10% success rate(after reading some comments I will mess with the pitch a bit) I could be wrong but I don’t think the bash toy has any actual impact switches. This is one thing I wish was added as it is so difficult to hit the effing mouth. Would have been cool if 1 mouth opto shot =instant demo death or 3 switch activated bashes =demo death

Otherwise. It’s awesome! First day I played it I was going at the demogorgan a ton and not focusing on the other objectives. Today I spent a lot of time on the latter. This game absolutely feels like AFM 2.0 but is dark(in the creepy way)! The lighting is awesome! The limited sound effects are so far so good. And even though the modes don’t have a ton of call outs yet, hey are surprisingly fun for being an early version of code.

I think when all is said in done, this will be a damn good game. Still too early to actually rate the game on pinside but I’d say it’s a solid B right now with a ton of upside as code progresses.

Quick note, one of the gates fell off to the left of the demogorgan. Curious to see if this happens with others. The gate is there to keep the ball from going in to the demogorgan on a weird bank shot. Worried the impact of the ball strinking the gate will cause this to happen a lot. At first I thought the gate was broken, but the ball impact hitting essentially the side of the gate has caused it to fall off 3 times. Will update everyone when I have a reliable fix.

Thx. Sounds like fixing the demo shot should be a priority.

hoping to buy one local when someone sells to buy a premium

Was really looking forward to this one but the stream was just ok -- nothing interesting thus far. If I wanted AFM, I'd play AFM.

Was really hoping Upside-Down would be some new, revolutionary feature but so far it seems like a load of nothing.

They will save it with modes/coding, Stern always does, but one day even that will get old.

I think a few people are being a little too judgmental on this title. Just from the stream it was the pro, which it seems is missing the main innovation in the game.

The game has 4 ramps (left orbit ramp to right ramp complete, left ramp, right ramp, jump ramp. 4 bank targets up posts and bash toy that is interactive on all models. Prem has dedicated projected images for shots etc plus real magnetic ball lock for 3 balls.

Ok here's where I get downvoted no end. This pro has more on paper than the pro JP... think about what the pro JP has... up posts 4 ramps and a Newton ball toy.... That's it. Even the premium doesn't really add much aside from the t rex ball capture. There is no real 2 or 3 ball multiball lock, no drops, just the one target gate on the prem. It has a shit load of stand ups over stranger things and an extra flipper to do loop shots or hit the half pipe ramp... which by the way has been done to death by stern.... 3rd.flipper for loop shots... only the warp shot on ST is way more fun.

You can subjectively argue for either layout being better but there seems to be a majority consensus that there is night and day between these 2 releases which just isn't the case.... oh and dinosaurs suck compared to the stranger things cool horror eighties theme.

On color palette, sounds, and art package alone stranger things takes it hands down. And it's beta code and then some for this game.

is it based "Lonnie typical rules" ?

Dude this is nothing like AFM. Just picture replacing this thing with AFM music and sound effects. It would feel nothing like the machine. Just like you could play the theme song for Wheel of Fortune over a Terminator 2 action scene and it would make it feel like a completely different movie. That's not even getting into essentially every part of the machine (besides some layout similarity) that's different.

What type of revolutionary feature were you expecting? Where legs pop out of the bottom of the cabinet, and flips the machine Upside-Down and a fuckin Demegorgan pops out and high fives you?

Its a pinball machine. It has a Stranger Things theme, with sounds, video, modes related to the show and shit lol... have some fun, that's what this hobby is all about

Personally I hope they are saving this technology for the next time they do a playboy pin.

What you guys don’t seem to get ... it doesn’t matter how much shit is crammed in the pin.

It’s the overall package!

AFM is pretty bare bones ... but it’s one of the best pinball machines ever. Code matches layout and it’s awesome.

Ironman ... it was ridiculed when it came out back in 2010 for shitty recycled layout and cheap BOM - it’s turned out to be an awesome pinball machine.

There are some pins that have been made over the last few years that have a massive amount of “toys” crammed into them - but they are not fun to play and I would never buy them.

From what I’ve seen so far ... JP looks fun to play. This one ... maybe not so much.

rd

I think you’re missing the point John1210 . What JP has you can’t put on paper. Especially at the Pro level.

Who knows what STh will be like at PreLe level and once code is complete, but JP at all levels is something special.

I actually prefer STh as a theme but just from the layout pics and gameplay videos I can see there is nothing in this game that gives me an experience I haven’t already had. Hopefully the projection and ball lock on Sth PreLe will transform the game. The unique DNA combos alone on JP make me smile just thinking about them. I just can’t see where that’s going to come from on STh.

amazing how pretty much every person that plays will come to this same conclusion, but yet they somehow did not design this into the game.

This is why any and every company needs some actual beta testers (besides the Stern employees of top 25 IFPA dudes that always think tough = good; they loose sight of reality for the majority of player it often seems)

You are absolutely correct about 25 year old games being very very shallow code wise. After all, they were meant to be only quarter munchers with relatively quick play involved on location. I know, some people cherish AFM, MM, MB and the like, but a friend and I played all three and lit everything up in one game a piece 3 times. After a few times doing that; boring to say the least and the call out jokes become tedious hearing them over and over.

Cannot figure out why, other than nostalgia, that these games are so cherished by some. They are simple and even the creator Brian Eddy says that, so why do people think these are above reproach and continue to rate them so high compared to modern day games??? Stern, JJP, Spooky modern day technology coding does circles around these old outdated games (remember windows 95 simple super simple operating system had just begun, during those games creations). To be fair they are still fun to play, but in a HUO environment they grow old very quick.

It’s like saying the old 8 bit Pacman, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong etc. (they are fun still, but technology didn’t allow them to be as good as today’s machines) games are better or as good as the current day mega large game marvels being created in current day video games.

That’s one of the main caveats of ST, almost 50 modes! AFM, MM, MB have very few modes and only are revered because nostalgia has a way of keeping some people thinking they’re so great. If they were produced today for the first time, everyone would be complaining at how shallow the coding is and would refuse to spend $9k on any one of them.

You’re wrong. Haha. Update the code.

I expect the projector to help make the upside down feature even better.

Right now the multiballs feel like Lonnie. The modes are varied and don’t all feel the same. It will have some aspects that Lonnie has in other games some new stuff. Expected due to the fact that it’s a group effort between Lonnie mike and Brian.

Hopefully there are around 50 modes at the end of the road, but right now I’m counting around half that. The more modes the better with a huge theme like this.

Over 40 plus modes (actually closer to 50 modes) was reported by Jeff in This Week In Pinball. So Jeff is the reliable source where everyone is getting that number and no they are not counting simple hurry ups.

Listen to the stream where Brian Eddy explains what a deep coded game ST is with tons of modes to last a long time in the home environment. It is not just 20, but almost 2 and a half times that number. Remember this is early code at the moment.

25 ish in the Stern material.
5B3BB857-BB9E-4624-AE01-35EC59BE4F7D (resized).jpeg

Edit: which is still a lot of modes.

I keep hearing about 40 plus modes but I only see 12 main modes, 5 multiballs and 3 hurryups (looks like the mbs might be in one or 2 main modes) love to see a list of 40 + modes. Maybe there are levels of the main modes?

This doesn’t show the 3 mini wizards or the demodog modes. So could be more than that even. We shall see.

Wouldn’t think Jeff would be that far off? But we will all see when the game code reaches 1.0. It is a far way off of that now.

That’s what I’m thinking. Definitely not clear on the surface how they plan to pack 40 plus modes in the game. Doesn’t seem like that was a Lonnie idea if true.

Please show me the switch on your game.

Ours has none. There is an opto in front of the bash toy that the ball call fall in front of. Nothing to register a bash.

It mentions 5 demidog modes and 3 wizard modes, which actually sound like mini wizards since they’re for each of the 6 chapters. But you’re right, won’t know until later.

It looks like the actual number of modes is closer to 20 between the 12 chapter modes, multiballs, and wizard modes. Stern may be increasing that count with hurry ups, and super modes (pops, ramps, orbits) which are not as substantial as main modes.

At least a few of the modes in Sterns feature matrix are being counted twice. 20 main modes will still make for a very deep game, especially with a wizard mode being awarded for completing sets of the chapter modes.

You’re guessing again as usual. Here is the actual posting in “This Week In Pinball” by none other than Jeff the editor:

“Rules
They have not finalized how many MB will be in the game, at least 5, maybe 6. There are over 40 modes – close to 50 – as they are trying to keep it interesting for a long time for those that purchase for their home. The wizard modes are “very deep” into it, and there are lots of goals along the way.”

So quit guessing and read, “close to 50 modes”.

The mini wizards are the total isolation modes. Hey those after completing 4 modes. There are three of them. The season complete modes are wizard modes. There are two of them. Final showdown is the 3rd and final wizard mode.

I don’t see total isolation modes in the matrix anywhere. Could be more that aren’t there. 20 more? Not sure.