So will the next title announcement be at expo or before?

I sure hope so. I hope that American and Stern say what they are going to release. Need to know who will take my money. Plus they announce right now they should have them ready in time for the holiday season.

Interesting news from AP

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Wow, didn’t see that one coming.

Would they even bother if they didn’t plan on manufacturing it? I’d say this is definitely their next release, followed by Ouslers last game. Perhaps in the same year. That would be definitely good for them, and us pinheads.

Magic Girl?! Awesome! Beautiful game. Hope to check it out soon.

Interesting.
Theme wise it kinda scratches the same itch as ToM/CV/TOTAN, which are all strong contenders for next CCG
Also, features purple hair waifu ala TNA... which is going to get rerun by Spooky soon.

Gonna hopefully be some tough decisions these next few years

ZIDWARE PINBALL USA
MAGIC GIRL
John spent more than 6 years and over a million dollars of pre-order money developing a working prototype. This included rent on a giant studio, capital equipment, playfield parts, cabinets, salary for himself and contracted employees. At the same time, he worked on 2 other "official" pinball projects (retro zombie adventure and alice in wonderland) which he also took pre-order money on. In May of 2015 he finally announced he was out of funding, and not only couldn't finish the magic girl prototype, he had no way of funding the manufacturing of them. One of his buyers (Bill Brandes) tried to make a deal where he would license the theme and find a way to manufacture them. Between various volunteers, they took one of the prototypes as far as they could in a few short weeks (which included getting the vacuum formed ramps completed) so it could be shown at the northwest pinball show. Not only did the shots not work so great (the mylared art was bubbling), but there was no ball search turned on, and many of the features were turned off since they weren't complete. On June 10th, Bill announced that after analyzing the status the prototype was in, and the immense amount of custom parts and mechs, that he could not move this project forward.

On February 14th, 2017 Both John and Scott sent out emails that the games would be ready for shipment. Reports are saying it plays exactly as it did at the northwest pinball show (which is to say most of the features don't work).

Is there better information out there than pinside? Because i have to say the above text is not exciting.

Well the above text is also from five years ago before AP got involved. Sounds like they have the game finished and ready for production now. I’m pretty confident that AP can get this title fully functional and into people’s homes while zidware was an obvious shit show. Hopefully AP will be able to honor deposits made to zidware like pinball brothers did with Heighway’s Alien.

I'll admit that I didn't really follow the MG saga through the shit-show that was Zidware and their involvement in it but I think this is just AP showing it in their booth with all the work the people in Europe did on it. I doubt they have any license to make the game even they wanted to touch this stinking pile of shit again, it almost ruined the company before they got started after all.

Here is an article from 2017 about Magic Girl. AP made the games for Jpop back in the day. https://www.popsci.com/curious-story-magic-girl-would-be-greatest-pinball-machine-all-time/

Im an AP fan but it seems like its been all downhill since houdini.

Well, they manufactured LOV but didn’t design it. I would agree that Houdini thus far is the best by a mile, and wasn’t that a Balcer design that existed before AP got ahold of it? Hot Wheels was ok and it did get me hyped that they may get more licensed themes in the future. I’m personally hoping for an AP title I can get amped about and I think it will happen sooner than later.

If the Houdini design existed before AP it was just in Balcer's mind, he's done multiple interviews on how they had the JPOP Houdini design and whitewood but that he quickly determined it was too far from complete, scrapped it and started from scratch. The story of how Houdini was designed and in production (albeit limited to begin with) in just about one year is still incredibly impresssive IMO.

Houdini has only recently started to get more appreciation and there are still people who dog on it (the latter is true of most games, I guess), Oktoberfest is much better than most people seem to think and is a game I'd like to own some day. Hot Wheels is a lot of fun but really was a departure in order to lower BOM / price and try to appeal to a different set of buyers. LOV is a great shooter and another fantastic pinball story for enthusiasts especially. Now it's time to get that first Nordman game to be produced in a LONG time out the door and into our hands!!

They are definitely improving with each game.

Improving in what way though? Build quality? Programming? Theme choice? If I had to pick two AP’s to bring home right now it would hands down be Houdini and Ocktoberfest which I believe to be the companies best offerings to date.

I always thought AP got a bum rap at times with Magic Girl. They tried to help the MG community by making the pin for the people that got burned, and in the end getting dinged by some because of working with John P.

Personally, I'd like to see a working MG and glad AP is helping bring it to the show - but I say that in context that working code might finally mean some closure for the MG owners. I haven't followed MG recently, but knew a group was working on code.

So are the guys working on the code going to release the code (free or for sale) for the other owners?

I'm sure there's a full thread dedicated to MG so let's not completely derail this one talking about it too much more, all the details are well documented here:https://www.pinballnews.com/site/2022/08/25/finishing-magic-girl/

An interesting quote from that about the MGs that AP manufactured (manufactured being the key word there!) is this section:

"With little or no further development work possible before construction began, the game was built according to the incomplete design as it then stood, using whichever parts were available.

As a result, many of the mechanisms on the playfield either didn’t work or were completely missing since they hadn’t been designed yet, while below the surface there were numerous cable connectors left hanging with nothing to plug into. The game was essentially unplayable – simply a box of lights, albeit a beautiful one."

Technically I don't count this as an AP designed game. They manufactured it and made refinements so it could be mass produced. Riot pinball deserves the credit. I started out playing the Prototype before it was in production so thats where I'm coming from.
Hotwheels was the last game designed and developed solely by AP.

Layout theme rules animations. Build quality was always there. Except maybe the flipper issue on early Houdinis

Hot wheels is their best shooter and best animations by far. Rules I can’t really say as all games are different and have their merits. Everyone has different tastes for rules too. I got into hot wheels rules quicker than the other games for sure.

Right on, Hot Wheels is a great package but you can’t really credit AP for the animations because they came from a tv show. I prefer tighter shooting games with deeper rules so it’s only natural that I’d gravitate towards Houdini and Okt. I do hope to see more packages like HW but the theme and the layout aren’t really for me. It is fun though!

I'd be curious how it would perform on route for you. It's super accessible for new players and has a decent amount of eye candy.

I definitely thought about grabbing it for my location. Still might actually. But truth be told my location is full of games I like personally haha. ACNC does not earn well, but it’s partially due to the fact that I’m playing it all the time.

They get some credit for choosing a theme where they'd get some footage. And they did a good job slicing it up for modes. The original animations in it are fine. Better than some of the animations in their older games for sure...

Anyhow Hot Wheels is a blast. My only complaint is they use the air wrench noise way too much. It's got a solid set of rules and a few fun moments.

LOV...really don't care for the LCD screen use and some of the rules. But that game was mostly done out of house, so maybe not a great example of AP game dev

Oktoberfest...still never played one. I just don't see them. Seems like good rules.

Houdini...hated playing it. Neat ideas in the rules though.

Sure you can. It’s a disservice to the team to claim those are copy and paste. They had to organize everything. It worked well. I hope it continues.

Alice isn’t deep at all, surprised you like that so much.

It’s not “deep” but try getting to the end of it haha. It’s the theme layout modes and difficulty for me. And yes, The animations in HW are very well arranged and programmed they just didn’t DO them. So I’ll give them credit on programming but not animations. I think that’s fair.

Houdini, you need to play that like 25 times in a row to get the shots down. It’s a difficult shooter but time played really plays off in dividends on this title. It really is a great game but a better home game than location. I know most who have paid coin drop to play it get frustrated but home owners rave about it.

Took me a few months but got the billion point shot. Fun challenge for sure.

He was always talking to the wrong guy there...Try getting to the end

I’m actually pretty shitty at getting to wizard modes. Just all came together that one game.

I got wizard on TZ once. i think that's when i lost interest in the game.

I felt like a cheat, there's no way a hack like me should be playing a wizard mode.

I like getting to the mini wiz modes like Sea of Simulation though.

My rule is I cannot sell a game until I
accomplish everything in the code…so I still have JP and ACNC haha. Makes things tough when I need to liquefy haha. Lotttts of pinball playing when I need the money.

It is funny how the seemly impossible dream of reaching a wizard mode makes it a keeper. Like, you’ll never see it, and it makes you want the game more. Haha

Hot Wheels actually has a considerable number of animations done by American Pinball, in addition to the Hot Wheels City assets we received from Mattel. I suppose if you don't realize which is which -- mission accomplished.

Just catching up, looking forward to seeing what AP have soon.

I played LOV this weekend and of course Hot Wheels again, both really fun games, good to see AP getting games on route showing their durability.

Really excited to see what Dennis Nordman is working on. His layouts are always unique.
And let's hope Franchi is on Art.
Can't have anymore art fails.

We do know that Franchi is working on SOMETHING for A.P. and has been for awhile but of course he won't say what it is or if it's the next game.

I was talking pinball to some friends the other day and someone in the crowd said that AP's next pinball game is going to be a space cowboy theme. I didn't get a chance to talk to them about where they heard that from but has anyone heard that?

Please no

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According to the flyer, there will be a sneak peek at APs new game at the cointaker super awesome tailgate party on 9/24. Looking forward to it!

Finishing Oursler's last game.

Ooooh, that's exciting...and coming up quickly! Wish I were going.

The official events list for Pinball Expo is out and American Pinball's update delivered by David Fix is scheduled for 7:15PM Central on 10/20, if we don't know what the next game is by then I have to believe it will be announced during this seminar.

I think they are only showing the "completed" Magic Girl in their booth because the guys from Europe that actually finished it are doing a seminar about it during the show and wanted somewhere safe to keep it / show it off. I really do not think AP has any intention of dipping their toes back into that mess and almost certainly don't have the license to do it if they wanted to. I'm also pretty sure that Fix has stated it will not be Barry's game but rather a Nordman game that they release next, gonna find out pretty soon now either at the Pinball Life party or at Expo, can't wait!