Mine sort of does . . .

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We are totally out of stock, so we had none to bring. Playfields were delivered this week, so should be back on one of the lines in the not too distant future.

Not sure where the rumor of a wide body Houdini is coming from, regardless, while we had no plans to do wide body games when we first set up the factory, we fell it would be wise to keep our options open, so the lines, rotisseries and cabinet carts, were all designed to handle both standard and wide body machines. If you have been on a factory tour we usually point this out and if you look at photos of our factory, you will see how the rotisseries and carts are adjustable for width.

Houdini was designed as a premium game, so I know there is talk of trimming out some of the 'bling' that adds a lot the expense to do a 'standard' version that can remain more affordable, given where pin prices are going. If this happens, I expect things like the fancy sculpts would be replaced with plastics, the fancy spot lights with generic ones, the lollypop rails would be replaced with standard rails, stuff like that.

Tight shots open up the more you play it. The big challenge when you first step up to Houdini is the shots, notably the ramp, are in different places on the flipper than most modern Sterns, so takes a bit to adjust to find the shots. It certainly is a more challenging layout, but, the more you play it, the easier it becomes and certainly will help improve your overall skills.

Except there are almost no posts in Houdini, as they are typically targets. And when you can’t find those shots,, those standup get you to a cool multiball, of course once in multiball when you need to hit the targets, you will instead be making the shots. No doubt it is challenging to shoot and with plenty of depth and breadth to keep it challenging and interesting for a long time in a home environment, which is eventually we’re most games end up.

Houdinis used both mirco and Bader playfields, mirco dimple less but can chip. For a variety of reasons, Bader became the sole provider part way through Houdini. I preferred the Bader from the start, as I like the white inserts which I think show the colors better.

From the start Joe Balcer, wanted to be sure AP games were high quality premium games. He, Jim Thornton and I fought many a battle with ownership to make that happen. There were many attempts to cheapen things that we fought against and won. At the end of the day, I credit Balcer for the high quality build of AP games.

With the change in management and new factory move, a number of mirco playfields were used in a Houdini run a couple of years ago. I spotted it when I was asked to trouble shoot some games coming off the line. They then removed the mirco from inventory.

I spent over a year working on the next game, with Dennis, Jack Haeger, Zofia Ryan, ferret, Chris franchi, and many others, and it is definitely going to give you guys a lot to talk about. I’m looking forward to see the final product. Today, I was looking for a photo and while scrolling saw a bunch of behind the scenes stuff that I shot, that i’ll share someday.

No corners were cut on this game, and it’s an interesting layout, that is unique and different from most recent games. I do think Dennis’ layout following this one is one of his best ever, and bummed I won’t get to do rules and code on it.

The games concept was Dennis and Paul Reno, but Jack Hager and I expanded it quite a bit and in a direction that was, well, a bit more satirical, and while not every one loved it at first, I suspect most are pleased with how it all came together. Regardless, sounds like you will see it soon and can decide for yourselves, as I said, it is going to give y’all A LOT to talk about.

jJP used Bader at one time, but then burned that bridge. I think spooky and AP are now using all of Bader’s capacity. Btw I hear the name pronounced wrong all the time, it is bod-er.

Been gone from AP for almost a year, but when I was there, the plan was GTF, Dennis game 2, and then Barry O's last design. Whether that is still the plan, your guess is as good as mine.

End of last March, we parted ways, the only thing I was told was that due to a change in direction I was no longer needed. Not sure why I was not needed, considering on GTF I created the rules with ferret, developed the story with Dennis and Jack, wrote more than half the script, co-directed the actors, designed new light boards and had the rules and mechs coded. The game was totally playable at that point and we were waiting on assets to replace all the placeholders we had put in, most of which were storyboard images created by either Jack or myself during story/rules development.

Ferret is an independent contractor, and is still doing work for AP and I'll miss working with him, he was a great partner.

The only significant change to service mode since Houdini was a new improved pricing screen, that was first introduced for hot wheels and I was porting back to okto and houdini. I don’t recall if/when those were released. Dave was testing them when I left.

There was release made available with the audit bug fix and some pricing changes, within a few weeks of it being reported. It was not an announced release, but one service could provide to those who were having an issue. There have been few releases of that kind typically when new currencies were required.

I prefer an auxiliary button where I don't have to take my fingers off the flippers to use it, and that preference had some influence on where APs third buttons have been.

Joe strives for each layout to be different from his last. His goal from the start of that layout was for it to play fast and while the theme of the game was changed from what he originally wanted he was totally on board with the change. He was never forced to design a flowy game, and anyone who says that clearly does not know Joe.

cow-a-bongo -- it is accompanied by bongo music, the track, and bongo playing, by Matt Kern was inspired by Preston Epps' Bongo Rock. This was high on Dennis's list of things he wanted in the game and it got a lot of buy-in, as it was right on target with the tone/humor of the game.

Interesting they would say that as Oktoberfest does have a manual and it does have a brief overview of the rules towards the back. There is a second PDF of assembly diagrams, that is pretty complete and many of the assemblies are used in other AP games . . .

http://s4.american-pinball.com/img/support/2021-10/Okto-english-manual-10-5-21.pdf
http://s4.american-pinball.com/img/support/2019-7/Assembly.pdf

Houdini also has a complete Manual with assembly diagrams.

Hot Wheels has a decent manual, but no assembly diagrams.

Thanks for the nice comments. I’m still on pinside on occasion helping out owners on AP games. I will always support those who bought games I helped develop, regardless of my feeling regarding AP.

Sherlock had a lot of potential as an unlicensed theme that is very recognizable. We had made some progress on it before the plug was pulled to do GTF. That is a long story and some day some podcaster will send me a good bottle of tequila and after a few shots get me to talk about it.

I am not done with pinball, I guess I never will be since I've been flipping for over 50 years, but more on point, not done as a developer, and pretty soon you will know what I have been working on.