May 18, 2015 - The Big Lebowski™ Pinball - Pinside FAQ edition
Dear Achiever,
We at Dutch Pinball love Pinball and one of the things we do is read Pinside. We’ve seen the list of questions gathered by ‘Pinballslave’ and we thought you would appreciate the answers to these questions so here we go!
Q: How many layers of clear with the playfield get?
The playfields for TBL will be produced by a well respected playfield builder in the industry: High Class Pinballs, Germany (Mirco). The first five playfields for the prototypes were also made by Mirco and we are very satisfied with overall quality. The playfield will be produced with extra hard wood and will be provided with three layers of clear coat for super durability.
Q: Is everything now fully approved, e.g. all intended original actors call-outs and music?
The artwork for the cabinet, playfield and translite are fully approved. We are still waiting on approval of all the audio clips and movie clips. Since the actors themselves are involved in this process this takes some time. We hope to receive approval as soon as possible.
There seem to be several questions about the license in general. We want you to know that the license was secured even before the Dude Pinball campaign at Expo 2013. The flyer campaign with the 'Pin Me Girls' on Expo 2013 was with permission from Universal. Also, here's the link to the press release we published in collaboration with Universal on December 27, 2013.
Q: Any updates on the code?
Since we've shown the prototypes the code has been in development in tandem with BoP2.0. Please understand that not much time has been invested in developing code for the first prototypes since the hardware is quite different from the production games that we are now developing for, plus the ingame assets have not been approved yet. The games at the shows are/were early prototypes and were always going to just have limited code.
Q: Will there be a flyer produced of the final approved game with a feature-gram?
Yes!
Q: What breakdowns have the prototype games experienced at shows and have they been addressed?
Making five prototypes was probably the best thing we ever did. Every single prototype had some different issues and we documented all 'breakdowns', ball hang ups and other bugs. With these lists of issues we've completely redesigned some parts and tweaked the design to be as perfect as possible. At this point we're testing all the changes in our pre-production prototype. To give an example of some issues, here's a short list of some of the changes:
Redesign of the Rug Toy. We experienced some breakdowns with the prototypes so we redesigned the toy and the new and improved toy survived 100.000+ beatings, so we are confident the new rug toy is perfect now!
Most of the ball guides were too short, or didn't have enough points to keep it in the right place. So all ball guides have been redesigned and tested on the pre-pro prototype, they are spot on now.
The car toys has also been upgraded with better 'end of stroke' detection, so it opens and closes perfectly now.
Numerous 'non visual' changes for easier production.
The mini playfield was very hard to assemble and to align - we've completely rebuild the mini playfield including an easier way to assemble, or disassemble it.
And many, many more...
Q: Is the design of the bowling alley now complete, or is more testing and development needed to make it reliable?
Yes, it is complete now. We've made a lot of changes to the main toy of our game: the bowling alley. We've fixed the issue with the ball kick back which sometimes didn't make it to get the ball back in the turning ball release. We've also redesigned the 'end of stroke' switches of the ball release to make it more reliable. The playfield for the bowling alley will also be a printed and coated playfield instead of the wood with sticker playfield we use in the prototypes.
Q: Is the design frozen? Are parts being ordered?
99% of the design is frozen. There are still some minor things we're testing right now on the preproduction prototype, but this will not influence the bill of material, so yes: parts are ordered.
Q: When will all pre-order "true serial numbers" be released by?
Since we decided to give out the numbers based on the time you ordered we had to wait until we had a final list of pre-orders and the accompanying true serial numbers. We will dedicate another NSN specially for this - soon!
Q: What % complete (with 100% meaning all bugs addressed and anticipated refinements made) can the code expected to be at the time of delivery?
The game will be fully playable on delivery, meaning that all the rules indicated by playfield inserts will be there to play. The main goal of the game is to get to the Wizard Mode "The Dude Abides" and this will be included on delivery. We might be fixing bugs in future versions, or improve various things down the road, but our goal is to ship the game with complete code including all features of the game. To give a percentage it will probably be 85% of what it will be in the end.
Q: Do you plan on having location testing for a while?
Yes. Some of the machines will go on several locations for testing.
Q: Is there any warranty on the machine? What are the limitations on it?
Yes, the game will have warranty. We are working on the details, but it will be similar to what you see from other manufacturers.
Q: Is there any network/wifi capabilities or similar tech to BOP2.0 with online scores, etc.?
Yes! We're excited about the posibilities and so far the Live functionality has been a very positive experience for BoP2.0 users and ourselves. We'll be developing it further in the future, one of the new features will allow you to adjust the most common settings of the machine through the live page. For instance, you can easily switch to Tournament Mode, change the number of balls, or switch Parental Mode...
Q: Will there be easter eggs like an In-n-Out Burger reference?
There will be Easter eggs ... We don't know about IAOB, we have to see if we get permission for that.
Q: Will there be a Tournament Mode?
Yes.
Q: Family mode - care to elaborate. Are you using the TV edits (that are funny), bleeping it out, etc. Available on delivery or going to come later?
We will not be using the TV-Edits in Parental, or Family mode. We know they are hilarious (This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps), but they are not part of the license and we will just be muting all the cuss words and remove anything related to drugs, sexuality, smoking as much as possible. All machines will be defaulted with Family Mode ON, but it's an easy setting in the menu to switch it to Normal .
Q: Will spare parts be made available for sale? I could see things like the rug and the bowling pins taking a beating?
We will make extra spare parts for TBL specific parts. So yes, parts for the rug toy, the bowling pins etc. will be available as spare parts in case they break.
Q: The bowling mech seems like a complicated part of the game. If it breaks, will the game be programmed to bypass that feature during the repair period?
Yes, there will be a setting to bypass the bowling alley mech. Although we are pretty sure with all the adjustments we made it will be a pretty sturdy mech.
Q: Any chance we could see a rulesheet/ mode diagram?
Sure, here is a high level rules logic diagram we made early on as a conversation piece for internal use. It doesn't include the possibilities of stacking, or combining modes and multiballs, nor does it detail the differences of all the rug modes, car modes, character modes and multiballs.
TBL Rules Logic Diagram.png
Q: Whatever happened to the custom pinballs that Geert designed?
Geert made those pinballs to test them for the bowling alley. Unfortunately they didn't last for a long time, so we decided to use a standard pinball instead.
Q: Will it be possible to leave a 7/10 split after the first bowl AND then to get a spare from that split?
This is a difficult question. We're not sure yet if we're going to implement these kind of splits, because with the mechanics of the bowling alley it's - of course - impossible to really score a spare from a 7/10 split. The only way we can do that is to emulate it, but we're not sure this will be implemented. We will - however - implement other mini games in the bowling alley. So when you go bowling, there will be different challenges to hit the pins. One challenge for instance will be a single pin, that has to be hit with just one ball. Or another challenge where you have to hit a 'moving' pin. We think challenges like that will make the bowling alley more fun and diverse.
Q: What is more important to DP: Getting a game made on schedule or making sure the game is reliable and with complete code?
The most important thing for DP is to ship a game which is reliable hardware wise. We will not ship games if we are not confident they will last for a long time without major hardware issues. Of course this is really hard to guarantee, because - although we tested the games a lot - it's always possible to have some unforeseen bug, or ball hang-up we've never experienced before. Our goal is also to ship a game with complete code and all features working in the game. There will be software updates after we ship, but that will mostly be bug fixes, or adding extra depth and polish to the game (i.e. stackable modes, multiballs).
Q: What is the current schedule for the production of the first game?
We started the production according to planning in April 2015. Unfortunately we encountered delays in delivery time of certain parts. We still were confident that we could ship our first machines in Q2 2015, but we now realize that we won’t make this since we also are waiting for approvals of audio and video clips. Both take more time than expected. We will try to keep the delay at an absolute minimum and we focus on delivering the first machines in Q3 2015.
Q: What is the predicted date which DP will have the last of the pre-order games completed and ready to ship? & Q: When can all pre-orders residing within the 48 continental US states, expect to receive their game by?
We expect all pre-ordered games to be ready and shipped by the end of 2015.
Q: Shipping for North America, what's the plan there? I.e., fill a container, send it over , then shipped out by either Scott or Cointaker?
Yes. As soon as we have ~30 machines ready for the US they will be put in a container and shipped to our local distribution point in the US.
Q: With bop2.0 you shipped to European customers first presumably to try to flesh out problems while can still (resolve?) locally, can we expect that again here?
No, this will not be like BoP 2.0 shipment. We will ship on a first come first serve base. The EU/other countries orders will probably shipped one-by-one when they're ready, as for the US we will wait until we have a container full of games ready and ship then in one go to our local US distribution point.
We would like to thank all of you on Pinside who have supported us throughout some difficult times and for your clear enthusiasm for this game… which we hope and believe will not disappoint you when you see it in your homes, local arcades, shows, bars, friends homes and not to forget bowling alleys around the globe!
Best wishes,
Team Dutch Pinball