Agreed! I have #19 sitting in my game room and it feels like a Williams quality build, I have noticed no flexing or other issues with lock bar fit or flipper issues. My game seems very well built and certainly less flimsy than many Sterns I have owned. I wonder if he was playing and old proto type or an actual production machine?

It would be nice if DP demonstrated how they do things different from Stern and revealed their roadmap for the software. What is there that is yet to be completed. That would be helpful for all of us instead of guessing/hoping.

There are some general quotes out there that say code is being worked on and much more is planned. No time lines were given though.

Agreed. That would certainly provide some peace of mind.

Maybe he cant find a spot to buy one now...looking for someone to jump ship off of his opinion

For those who missed the other announcement: Pinball Magazine No. 4 is out and has a 17-page interview with Barry and Jaap of Dutch Pinball about the making of The Big Lebowski. On top of that LCD animator Jean-Paul de Win is also featured with a similar sized interview of which 5 pages are dedecated to his work on The Big Lebowski. That's 23 pages of behind the scenes info on The Big Lebowski, illustrated with some early renders to show development. If you haven't already done so, order your copy on www.pinball-magazine.com/shop/

PM04 The Big Lebowski articles (resized).jpg

Just curious, is the TBL limited to a certain number of games or is DP planning to make them until sales slow?

It wasn't planned as limited, but from what it sounds like - they're going to make 300 and then they have to renew some contracts to make more.

My impression was the absolute opposite. They were clearly of considerable expense, were well finished and shots felt really smooth - like 90s BW games rather than rattly, air & hang up prone recent non-JJP games.

This was what I wrote, fresh from the factory tour and an evening with the game, 3 weeks ago:

"The product's finish, fit, feel and construction screams high quality. Stern, Heighway and Spooky aren't in the same universe. JJP are a bit different but definitely on the same planet, however I don't think they have anything like such stringent quality control and production procedure, and from what I've observed there will be a lot more variance and simple assembly errors & issues, or damage incurred in build or transit."

Their contract with their production partner ARA is for 300, so they need to extend that or negotiate a new one in order to produce more. At the moment they're focusing on ironing out all final kinks and building the games. My feeling was that it depends on when game #2 will be ready.

That makes sense. Might as well work out the details for Game #2, and also offer Lebowski again as well.

Did I read this right that quality control isn't as high and games have issues and are sent out anyway? If I misinterpreted please correct me. To guys that have the game, how is the code and rules? Are they at least Medieval decent and deep?

I've had mine for two weeks or so and have put a couple dozen games on it. I'm wondering, what specific PF components did you observe flexing? If you could point out a few specifically, then I will watch for the next few days and update the thread with my observations.

As far as the feel of the flippers, I can't fault them. They're just another brand. My TBL is sandwiched between TZ and STLE. The flippers on all three feel and sound different. No surprise really, the Capcoms downstairs feel different as well. The next time I have the PF lifted up I'll take a picture to compare the DP flipper mechs with other brands - which won't help anyone reading this appreciate their feel but perhaps those more educated than I can weigh in on what similarities and differences they can observe.

Overall, my impression of TBL is very, very favorable. It shoots great, with a lot of flow. Bashing the rug is silly but satisfying, much like any other bash toy. It has that 'just one more game' draw. Regardless of the theme, I think most folks would enjoy shooting this thing - there are no awkward shots and it's fun to play.

I also can't say enough about the sound package, both in terms of the music tracks as well as the caliber of the speakers and amplifiers. It's a joy to play and yes for the first week I had those songs stuck in my head all day which is annoying but a testament to the soundtrack. The audio reproduction on THLE is still the king of the hill in this house, but TBL is currently in second place.

Read again.

Their QC is far, far better than JJP's from what I saw at ARA, and from what I see that frequently slips through the cracks at JJP.

Not hating on JJP ... WOZ is my favourite game and a masterpiece, and they're easily the 'best of the rest', but production methods generally and QC could do with being better. On the other hand, JJP's commitment to code is absolutely second to none.

My write up was on page 7 ... one of the things I was most impressed by was that DP & ARA were prepared to de-package 20+ boxed and finished games to perform specific (re)testing, because a minor fault with one of the boards in a new batch had been detected. Most of the competition 1) wouldn't detect the issue and 2) almost certainly wouldn't de-package to test.

Ok. For some reason I read you were commenting on Dutch being bad. My bad. Thanks for instilling some much needed convidence

I've had mine on route for a bit, up to about 700 plays. It's been holding up fine as far as the mechanics etc. and I haven't really done too much to the machine. A friend who's a real Operator is helping me to operate it. The code is only 0.45 so theoretically less than half way to 1.0. But it is a bit Medieval-ish as someone asked.

You complete character shots like "madnesses" in MM and once you light a character you can start multiball. The more you have lit, the more jackpot shots there are and the higher the jackpots are. The modes are decent and then there's the Nihilist Showdown multiball which I have found to be fun although I personally haven't got past level two yet. The bowling has worked although at times it doesn't register the exact hits right but then it's pinball bowling and not actual bowling. I like that you can make a shot worth 2x by lighting the White Russian and then like SM and KISS, all shots are lit to be doubled so you can pick which one you want.

I don't know/think that the mini or full wizard modes are yet coded but haven't got that far anyhow. Music and callouts and animations are on point and the random folks walking by are always drawn in to the machine.

I have had some reset issues which I think may be a software bug but DP has been really responsive and I'm trying to feed them a lot of data so they can keep evolving the code.

As of yesterday:
Total games played: 671
Average game length: 03:39

Couldn't be further from the truth. What a load of bs.

I'm glad others are happy with it, I want to like it badly but was not impressed enough to buy one.

Right ball guide and the left ramp were two components I noticed were not as solid as I expected and flexed or moved when in contact with the ball. Maybe this particular machine just needs to be tightened up.

Likely just require tightening. Ramps and guides felt very solid to me (to touch and play).

Do we have to pay import fee's on top of shipping from cointaker?

No just shipping.

I got to play Gene's TBL last night.
bug report1: After a plunge, the ball went through the middle 1-2-3 lane, then hit a pop and went BACK up into the 1-2-3 lane, and then I got a "PROC cannot be found" error. I rebooted the machine and no dice.

bug report2: I'm pretty sure my bonus was 6900 after every ball. That can't be right...

Having said that, I got in 6 games, and I think DP has set the bar higher than where JJP had left it, for what's possible with theme integration. It has a very nice art package -- the blues and oranges on white feel really good. The implementation of the rug toy is great. Unlike, AFM very few of the shots go SDTM.

I would instantly rank it a top-5 modern with MET, TH, ST, and GB.
Some day I'd like to play TBL and TH side by side and compare theme integrations... so I can better explain why I *think* I like DP's approach better.

1. I prefer the small display to JJP's huge display
2. I prefer short scene sequences to longer ones
3. I prefer funny callouts... I'm not sure Woz and JJP have a lot of humor? (perhaps in places, but I need more time on all 3 titles)

I was instantly laughing on the floor playing this game, I was almost embarrassed by how much I was laughing...

Laughter is good for pinball...
-mof

Just posted rating #15 -- so we should see it in the top-20 this weekend!
https://pinside.com/pinball/archive/big-lebowski/ratings

I also got some time in on this game last night and I was impressed. The ramps seem hard to get shots up them sometimes. The ball lock was not registering the divertor to go up to lock balls consistently. Car modes must not be programmed because hitting the car did nothing that I could see. It was a very neat game and I look forward to its progression. The only thing that worries me is being able to work on the electronics.

Your bonus will always be 6900 as long as you don´t finish any character mode, go bowling, play a car mode or get a white russian.
I hope DP makes the bonus a little more interesting over time.......

ok ty... hope they upgrade that -- "counting the bonus" is one of my favorite aspects of 80's games -- I sure hope they make that more meaningful and interesting in the future.

-mof

Anyone had any plastics break on their TBL? My bunny sling plastic cracked - wanting to get a protector for the slings but not sure where to get something like that?

Any tips? Thanks!

genex Contact pinbits in fremont and see where they are at with making a plastic protector set for it
https://pinbits.com
mof

I also worry about the ramp entrances as far as breakage. If things on the game break I would hope repair parts will be somewhat easy to obtain

The sling plastic has been changed. Shape was rather vulnerable initially. It's been made more robust. One of the guys that had a machine already that was at the Dutch Pinball Party at the beginning of last month came away from the factory tour with a new plastic.

Send DP an e-mail, I'm sure they'll replace it for you with the new one.

Gene....little Shop of games has them in stock....they made mine

Anyone heard word regarding the timing of TBL shipment #3? Rubberducks report was the last update on the packed up TBLs that were being reinspected for a bad board?

WTF -- I put up the 15th review, and it says it still needs one more review. Anyone care to be the real #15 -- guess we have to wait another week to see TBL up on the top-100

https://pinside.com/pinball/archive/big-lebowski/ratings

-mof

https://pinside.com/pinball/archive/big-lebowski

Look here^. I think you gave it #15. I expect it to start very high (#1?) and then drop some over time. I am looking forward to receiving mine in about 5-6 months...

Need a hero to post review #15 !
-mof

Hey Mof. I think it has 16 reviews but it says it will be shown next week

Can I just offer a little advice on these reviews. All of us likely love the game but don't rank it 9.5 or 10/10 immediately. All it will do is put it #1 and then every ass bag will start rating it low to bring it down to protect their precious games they feel are higher. So annoying but always happens with new games.

Big Lebowski is an awesome game, I love it and I will rate it accordingly but at the same time it has a long ways to go for code and completeness so will rank it accordingly until those items come along so as to try and keep it where it probably belongs right now, high but not in top 5 all time of pinballs..........................YET!

Speaking of which, any news on updated code? Would have assumed that the code updates would be more frequent once they started shipping.

Have any car bash modes been implemented yet? I played a friends game and hitting the car didn't do anything. Also ramp entrance protectors look like they could be useful. I'm very impressed so far with the build of the game. The code has a way to go yet, but it's a very cool game.

Speaking of which, has anyone had a tiny screw roll out of the car garage area? I pulled the screw off the mini playfield, but I haven't dug in yet to see where it came from.

I'm thinking of ordeking one up, is Coin taker the best route ? How do you guys like your games, pm me if you want to keep off pinside, Happy to giv

whitey Park at your nearest Bart and hop up to 24th street exit -- two block walk to Alamo theatre...
Go check out Gene's game!
Top of the stairs in the back - quiet area kinda above the bar.
-mof

Yeah me too
Please lmk if you find out where it should go.

IMG_0009 (resized).JPG

You sure his car didn't have a switch issue? I remember the car bashing working on the Protos in '14.

maybe the small screw is from the bottom of the car?

I don't know. We went into audits and it shows the car has registered hits, but in gameplay there is no call out for a mode it just pops out of the wall you bash and it does nothing

the car modes aren´t implemented yet. It does register car hits, though, accompanied by sounds of shattering glass. If you don´t hear that sound when you hit the car, then your switches aren´t registering.

yeah the smashed glass sound is quite satisfying when bashing the car

Another New Shit newsletter has dropped. Hopefully, it's okay to share (note, this paste didn't include the graphics, such as the screenshot of the new car bash choices):

"Production Update
With the holidays coming up we would like to give you an update about The Big Lebowski™ pinball production. Unfortunately we are experiencing a delay in the current batch as we encountered a production error of the Middle Main Board (MMB). The MMBs are produced in-house by our manufacturing partner ARA. We noticed during tests that there were several electrical breakdowns on the second batch of MMBs. ARA is investigating what went wrong and this has proven trickier than we all hoped for. The good news is that the first production batch works fine so there are no suspicious MMBs in the delivered games. Once ARA finds the mistake we will unpack the games that are ready and replace the MMBs before shipping them. We really want to be sure that the games we deliver have a 100% working MMB!

Software Update
We are working on a new software update which will soon enter the testing phase. The new update will feature all new car modes, numerous rule improvements and of course bug fixes. More details will be provided when the update is ready.

Pinball Magazine
In issue number 4 of Pinball Magazine, you can read a 17 pages interview with Dutch Pinball. It covers the development of our game in great detail. There is also an interview with Jean-Paul de Win with 5 pages about the artwork of our game. Great stuff to read!

You can order a copy of Pinball Magazine at http://pinball-magazine.com/shop/

Click on the pages below for an sneak preview of the Jean-Paul de Win article and the Dutch Pinball interview:

We wish you great holidays and a happy 2017 with lots of pinball!

Please follow us on Facebook too. We also post news at:
https://www.facebook.com/dutchpinball

We'll send out more updates as soon as we have more 'new shit' to show you guys!

Until then, stay tuned.

Best regards,
Team Dutch Pinball"

I just put a deposit down yesterday when I found out that Cointaker had a couple of spots open. I'm drawn to the theme it playing like a Williams pin as opposed to Stern. The one thing I just read which is giving me pause is a comment on another thread about the lack of a "family" mode.

We're not prudes and my eleven and fourteen year old have heard it all, but I'm not crazy about having them or their friends barraged with profanity. I played the game at Pintastic NE this year but couldn't really hear much because it was loud.

I'd appreciate if someone could share how colorful and frequent the language is and whether you're aware of any ability to turn it off. Thanks in advance!

TBL has a family mode, I have never used it but it's there.