Based on what? A thread where there isn't anything to talk about? Hype is fleeting and stupid, good games speak for themselves. If it's fun and looks great people will buy it, no one cares about 3 months ago.

I like the title: Tragic Girl, very fitting.

Can't wait to see and play TnA again, that game kicks ass!

played this machine yesterday at SFGE, was good fun i like it

TnA is at the top of my "to buy" list, but I don't honestly feel it will be a significant commercial success. I'll definitely buy at typical Spooky price range, but not sure what my top end might be. For others, especially those that expect $5K, there is disappointment coming. The less people know, the easier it is for them to uncommittedly say they're in. The game is AWESOME, no doubt. But once price reality hits, I think many will be out. There was also the deal with the art. I was fine with the art direction, but so many people filled their heads with what they wanted and bitched when they saw the art. I think a lot more will drop out when the vision doesn't match their vision. And in the end, this game will face the same challenges that all non-licensed games face. I think Spooky may sell a couple hundred, but even that may be optimistic. As much as people talk, they just don't buy non-licensed games in bulk. The evidence repeats itself over and over again.

I am curious where/why people seem to keep fixating on this 5k idea?

No spooky game has previously been 5k. This has so much more that a Stern pro if you are looking for comparisons on the perceived entry model and SWpro is now quoting at 53-5400.

((TnA is not a pro entry model and should be more closely compared with a SternPrem if you are looking for a comparison; add up the mechs, color changing lights, real BG, etc...)

This sounds realistic and awesome if they can hit that pricepoint without cutting anything from the vision (esp the displays and the LCD combo on a real backbox board.

I played TNA more than any other pin at SFGE this weekend. By far my favorite. Not even a close second. I put my name on the Spooky list after just one game.

One thing I didn't realize before which is VERY different a that the ball locks are per game and not per player. For instance player 1 locks 2 balls and drains. Player 2 steps up and hits the lock and presto! Multi-ball! Game sound and light show is amazing. And did someone say it is fast? I'm not even sure fast accurately describes the experience.

I will say this, if you get a chance to play it, do so!

From what I've seen, I love the gameplay, sound, and lighting of this game. However, I am a little disappointed if the artwork goes in the direction of what I've seen thus far. I know it is up to the designer, but I envision something more sci-fi nuclear meltdown themed with serious deep color graphics as opposed to girl themed anime-ish looking stuff. I can only speak for myself, but I know there is a large percentage of pinheads who will purposefully stay away from certain titles just because of the theme no matter how great the pin is otherwise. Perfect example for me is Wizard of Oz. I played this pin at TPF, and it is incredible. However, there is a zero chance that I will every own this machine (assuming I was willing to spend the cash). Outside of my wife, there are no other girls in the household, and I just can't see owning and having buddies over to play a pin with red slipper flippers.

Regardless, I believe that this pin will have a market, and I love that there are people and companies such as Spooky producing and actually delivering on creative titles. As in most arenas, competition for our pinball dollars is a good thing, and keeping the big boys on their toes benefits everyone.

1) There's thousands of post bitching abaout the Star Wars design... and still buying one.

2) The colorful and slightly Anime-ish style stands totally out (and a character is a way better Focal point then a city alone, something easyliy compareable if you hold the old and the new style Houdini backglass side-by-side).

For me TNA went from 'interested' to 'must buy' (if the import price is not totally off the charts) with the art reveal.

Like I said, I know there will be appeal to many. Designers can't please everyone all the time, and quite frankly I would prefer that the creatives stay true to their vision as opposed to appeasing the masses. Also, just to clarify, I'm not saying that the artwork is not well done because it is. However, I think that it's appeal is more limited than it potentially could be. Funny, I just noticed your avatar - makes sense that the artwork would be to your liking given that you obviously enjoy the genre.

While I like the Star Wars from what I've seen, I also believe there is definitely a difference in design approach and potential market success when producing a licensed title to an original one. Often times the licensed versions already have countless devoted followers that will overlook design/artwork elements because of their emotional investment into the franchise. An original theme does not have such benefit. Then again, the builder's intent may not be to sell thousands of them. Rather, they may wish to appeal to an exclusive limited group.

This is currently the only title on my buy list -- I'm excited to see the final original artwork. Congrats to Scott and Spooky on collaborating on this project. I hope they ignore the noise and make something that's original and true to their own design desires.

Since there are about... zeroish Designs that would resemble TNA I think that has nothing to do with mass appeal. But of course I don't have the slightes clue to what extend Scott Danesi had influence in the art design. - What can be stated is that "it stands out", wich is a good thing. The pin on the first sight seems empty but I think the other kind of design could attract people to at least have look and try a game. (If it would look just normal and empty as it is as well, I think most people wouldn't even bother.) Like the mentioned WOZ maybe did with the gigantic LCD sreen for the first time.

And yes you're totally right with the other thing. I of course like the art (in most regards, not all) and couldn't name many other games that'd come closer to my personal preference. Since pinball is an USA centric thing the art & themes are kinda restricted (and themes that noone outside the US seem to care about - like WWE or Mustang - hurt sales as well). - I'd propably buy a Star Gazer or a Magic Girl 'designwise'.

Point is: F' the art. I like it of course since it's my personal taste for about the first time in history BUT I'm right now sitting next to a JM wich I thing is kinda ugly (at least the cabinet), have an Operation Thunder where cab & playfield mostly look like shit and ordered a Star Wars altough I don't like the playfield art (and I don't even like Star Wars) but that doesn't matter in the long run. I'll propably love SW to death like any other Steve Ritchie game and I love the flow of JM and the strategies involving the Hand & Matrix.

I would be interested in a wood version with limited graphics on the playfield. A special edition or Limited edition if you will.

I don't know why I like the look of wood grain for the playfield, but I do. Pinball Circus playfield to me looks great. I just think if the playfield had a wood background the RGB inserts would pop.

That's just me though and this is Scott's vision not mine. I am excited to see the finished game.

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How many reactors did Roger Sharpe blow up?

Whether anyone likes the art direction or not, I still don't understand why it's being likened to anime!

Because it features a woman, and she has purple hair, and that's what people who aren't actually into anime think of when they see it. Personally I think of Jubilee from the 90s X-Men cartoon. Not because they actually look anything alike, it's just the goggles and something about the style. Funny how those first impressions look.

The full package will be cohesive and own it's own style, and that will all fade. And no game is for everyone, impossible to please the masses.

I won't lie, Scott and I are friends and I've been helping some behind the scenes and I've seen sekrit stuff, and I personally think the final game's look is going to be amazing. Bright, colorful, well thought out, and combined with the bumping music and RGB light show I think it's going to really stand out in any collection or location. I know I want one.

I get the people who want Centaur III: The Reckoning or want it more Fallout-like or whatever. I dig the dark stuff too, if I was doing my fantasy "modern solid state" it would have witches and skulls. Just let go of that for this game, and remember that the whole point was colorful, 80's neon, chromed out, not gritty and dark and evil.

My two cents, take it or leave it.

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Does there have to be a reason other than one of 'em liking it that way?

We need more pinballs reaching out to widr audiences imho, the first "animeish" backglass is a beginning.
(And it really is not really anime despite the vast amount of hair that girl has. )

That's too much wood for my personal tastes, but I do love how in the EM era they incorporated the bare wood into the design, and used it like a flat color for areas. Like you I've thought about how it's a shame that we don't really do that much anymore, but you'd have to find the right game theme and design for it to feel right.

I love how the flames are done with the wood at the bottom of Abra Ca Dabra for instance.

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It looks like an unofficial Overwatch pin, which would definitely be a draw for a lot of people I know.

Thinking of that: Id' be totally in on a splatoon pin. Just think of the possibilitys "painting" the table thabnks to rgb leds. :O

I definitely think we're due for a new Mario pin, especially considering the two we have are disasters.

My word was "anime-ish". Like the previous poster stated, I'm not a consumer of anime, so to the non-follower of the genre this is the closest thing I could relate the backglass to. The reason I said it is because of the pseudo cartoonish style, young woman action character with colorful hair, etc. Again, I am not criticizing the quality of the work or the designer's style, I just don't find it as appealing as it could be for me. I am a sci-fi genre fan and just thought a compelling alternate take would be a more "realistic" approach to the artwork while integrating the futuristic, hi-tech, and nuclear themes. Regardless, I think that this pin will have success given its overall package (sound, lighting, gameplay, story, rule set, originality, etc.), and can't wait to see it once the completed concept is released.

Yeah, you didn't understand my point. I was saying this is not anime and I don't get why it keeps getting described that way.

I'm personally not into anime at all and I don't follow it what-so-ever, but I at least know what it looks like. A purple-haired woman doesn't mean it's anime (or frankly even anime-ish). The art styles have very little in common.

I think that makes perfect sense. I also get why Cheeks thinks it doesn't, just look at my Jubilee comparison. Once you see them together they don't look alike at all, but you can also see why in my head I made the connection. Early impressions are about feelings more than clinical comparisons.

another show winner, great job scott!

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Congrats Scott, enjoy the limelight. TNA is quite an achievement.

Played 40 games of TNA at SFGE and liked it a lot. Great fun and I agree with those suggesting price has got to be kept low. My concern is with the art package and the backglass design doesn't work for me. I'd select any alternative in this thread over the current direction. I am interested in an unpainted white wood style playfield with alternative backglass over the current design (whatever it looks like).

If it is great fun, why does the price have to be kept low? What does kept low to you mean? There is a lot that goes into this game that costs a lot. Serious question not a jab.

Game looks awesome.

My comment. The play field or somewhere there needs to be an Easter Egg of Lionman!!

Lionman.

Otherwise completely digging this so far.

Already on the backglass

On pricing, you would agree they wouldn't sell many at current $8k+ rate for high-end pins, right? Spooky's current range of about $6.2k exceeds what many people are willing to pay on any new pin, especially a non licensed theme. People have bills to pay that compete with purchasing a pinball machine. If Spooky found a way to keep this in the mid 5k's, they won't have any trouble selling 500. Not saying the game doesn't feel worth $6.2k, but when your product competes with Stern pro's (some terrific themes and rules), you can't be charging more for lesss, it doesn't pass the sniff test.

Yeah I can't see it at 8k selling many. If they can keep it at 6.2-6.5 I could see it selling quite a few copies. How is the fun factor compared to AMH or RZ? I can't imagine they will even consider it near the price point of a Stern pro.

It's the ramp bias. No one talks about keeping prices low if there are ramps. Take them off and suddenly it's all about how the BOM must be super low.

I don't mean that to pick on anyone, it's just the funny way we seem to view pins.

Spooky isn't the kind of shop that ships thousands of games, maybe they never will be I dunno, but hopefully this can at least do RZ numbers. I'm hoping for better, it would be amazing to see a real old school design taken to a modern extreme do well in 2017.

The reason I'm so hype about this game isn't just that I'm friends with Scott, or that I think it's fun, or that the final package will look amazing. All true. But honestly this is my dream, if I built a pin from scratch myself it's what I'd do, a modern interpretation of an early 80s Bally, fast and mean, simple with with modern twists. I badly want this to succeed just to feed my own personal wish fulfillment.

Id say it was more like early RZ in terms of depth, and less than the final AMH. It is all about selecting nine reactors (3 bank target x 3 times), locking 2 balls + 1 hit to start 3 ball multiball and then starting reactor mode at scoop during 3 ball MB. From there shoot blinking outlanes to light "core" rollovers. Use upper playfield flipper to also light "core" rollovers. Rinse and repeat 9 times and maybe there is a wizard mode coming. I don't think there will be many alternate approaches to playing this pin unless some other physical elements can be added (and I hope some are).

Disclaimer - I beat a total of one reactor in all of my games. (Also beat Roger Sharpe in three way game A few small adjustments could make this game shine further. Simple things like - being able to qualify multiple reactors before staring the reactor mode, and qualifying reactors in additional ways before starting the reactor mode. Game is very addictive - it's practically crack on four legs. My comments on art have already been expressed.

I'm sure you're right, but these kind of games aren't about depth, they're about kicking your ass, but in a way that makes you want to try again. Like Donkey Kong, it's not a modern Zelda, it's not an open world game you can approach a ton of ways, it's just simple and hard, with a tease that makes you want to fire it up one more time, get a little further.

That's why I love my Flash Gordon. It's not deep at all, but there's just something magic about firing it up, going for broke, and getting your ass handed to you. When you have a good game and get a little deeper than usual it's amazing, you live for those rare games where you're owning it, and hitting those dope lit spinner sounds, getting the multiplier racked up to 5x.

It's not an easy formula, for every great simple game there are 100 that are just okay or a little boring. But I feel like Scott has nailed it, and the light show and sounds (and the final art) I think bring it to that next level.

Sorry for gushing, this is my bias zone here.

This is why I think Scott has created that fun factor that I am willing to pay for. It's not like the BOM on this game is cheap.

More like Robotron than Donkey Kong, I would say.

Robotron is the shit, so no argument here. I don't even like Donkey Kong that much!

ma-ma-ma-MASK

Now give him something to eat, will ya

Very Fun.
Entertaining.
Intense.
Unique.
Challenging.
P.s..
Hyped about seeing the compete art package

Im so intrigued by this pin......i dont know why, but this pin reminds me of the cover "Flashback"......the old Sega Genesis game

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Not until the pin is finished!

Shit, I loved that game! Still have the cartridge somewhere.

I forgot about that game. I don't think I ever finished it back in the day. I'm pretty sure I have it on my MAME machine, I should bust back into that one of these days.

The graphics are so bad now, but Flashack was addictive shit back in the day!

So glad the SFGE crowd enjoyed the game! I've had the pleasure of watching this game get built from the ground up when Scott started on it early last year. To think that he's done the music, sounds, code, cad and assembly is quite a feat for any seasoned designer. To think that this is his first design out the gate is simply amazing, and I can't see what else he has in store. It reminds me of the Brian Eddy story where he just comes out of the programming world into game design and starts just crushing numbers for the current time.

I wouldn't speculate on BoM costs until they finish building the prototypes. Though, as alluded to in this thread, a ramp really only adds about $80-100 to the cost of a game, and that includes the high upfront cost of having the molds made (the pulls themselves are fairly cheap). For those thinking this is a "simple" game, please take a look at the hardware underneath the playfield. It has more coils than most games. The entire playfield is a huge RGB LED matrix. The game has one of the best sound systems (and soundtracks) in all of pinball. The game has segment displays in addition to a full LCD display (and segment displays for pinball are crazy expensive).

However, at the end of the day, I'm happy to see a FUN throwback pinball machine get made. Even better, I'm happy to see Spooky get a new designer. And even better, I'm happy that its Scott Danesi. He's a great guy, and a true asset to the industry.

Congrats Scott!

TNA have a lot of similarities to the 1982 prototype Critical Mass by Gottlieb. It'll be fun to see this in production.

I mean, they both use pinballs and have flippers....

TA is really nothing like that game in the video. I even heard people at SFGE refer to it as an EM which couldn't be further from the truth. Just because it's a single level playfield close to the glass, doesn't make it simple or an EM. It's a very complex modern machine.

The ruleset has all these intricate layers with very simple to understand concepts, yet is still deep and gives a lot of room for people of varying skill levels.

Let me give you an example, the inlanes and outlanes have your typical inserts that get lit when you roll through the lane, and the typical mechanic where you can move which ones are lit and unlit using the flipper buttons. Where Scott took it to another level was to tie that into a ball save mechanism that you can also store ball saves with, keeping more than one available.

As you stack up ball saves, those inserts progress through the colors of the rainbow, so red is 1 ball save, orange is 2 ball saves, etc..

To use a ball save, you move the flashing insert to the outlane the ball is about to go out and you get your ball back. If you aren't quick enough to move the flashing insert to the outlane, the ball drains with no ball save. It's a fantastic mechanic that adds in a bit of "OH SHIT ACT QUICK!!!" and gives you some exciting moments.

Pinball fans owe it to themselves to actually play this game in person and check it out. You won't be disappointed.

I watched the Deadflip Stream, part 1 again and I'm STILL stoked that Spooky is working out the logistics to put this into production. I still regret not playing it more at MGC this year. I would love to have this pin in my basement. I still don't get the comments about "I envisioned this artwork, or that artwork, or this layout, or these rules." If you envisioned something that you didn't expect this pin to be, go build your own pin! If you open up your expectations a bit, you will not be disappointed. If you get a chance to play this game, you most certainly will not be disappointed!

For the record, I really enjoy the art. It's an original theme to boot, just like how pinball was back in the hayday. This only thing I'm disappointed with is the wait time to play this again!

That right there. That's some good stuff.

I can't wait to get in on TnA, and I'm super stoked that Scott said he's going to design a P3 game in the future!