Think Spooky should just focus on Gameplay at the moment and address Look and Feel down the road
on UX.

As a developer for many interactive consumer products, medical gear, web applications and games. I
always felt it was a PITA when my Project Manager would start going thru Consumer data and request
UI/UX stuff when critical components were still under development. I've also done UI/UX work and
often found design by committee made me a sad panda.

Keep up the good work. Get the game code done. I wish I could help out but feel I'd be more of hinderance
than help.

Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. Deadpool wasn't the first nor the last.

Just paid my invoice. - Guess it should be any week now.

I wonder with the new Tech Stack ( Heck Board ) . If that has had some impact on the code development?
Just wondering if that had a impact on team. Wonder if the new Tech stack has brought with it new capabilities?

Hopefully we hear some praise come out of PinCincinnati.

Mines paid for just waiting on shipping confirmation. Might have to some people over for a tourney.
(Got keep #s down due to my super shitty neighbors though)

Inlaws are coming as well as bunch of my fam. Should get some couple hundred play before
the holiday weekends over.

I figured there was a delay in the builds. I'm #94 and appreciate that someone called them up and asked. They can take the time they need to make sure its right. My experience has only been positive with Ultraman even with the early code. I don't expect the game to be perfect just yet.

I do expect the code to be solid in 2022 as more games get to homes. Spooky has a lot riding on these two releases so you can bet they will do what it takes to keep trucking in 2022-23.

If I get it before Christmas - it goes next to tree!

Got the email that #94 shipped today. Fingers crossed!

Still excited despite the critics and think this game is going to be great.

I cannot believe how fast R&L contacted me.. They say today.... Fingers crossed that is a heckuva a turn around.

Look what arrived! #94 - don't think I can wait out the Christmas Countdown though!

IMG_2403 (resized).jpg

It's resting to get acclimated to the temperature of my basement which is 75. Had to wait a little while to get a break to move it.
Fortunately no stairs to navigate. Can't wait to play the new code!

Set mine up and played a few games. I love the gameplay, artwork and game. Artwork is just amazing.
The artwork really honors the franchise. Callouts, video clips and music all very satisfying.

I'm still tweaking the pitch of my game a bit to see if perhaps that will help with ball search time. That is
really the only pain point I have ATM.

Minor thing I would change is the contrast of the Score screen. The faux metal just seems a smidge to
bright/low contrast. Perhaps there is a manual setting to decrease the brightness that I have yet to discover.

Honestly I find this game very fun and approachable and not disappointed in the slightest.

Issue #1 am having with game is the Right Scoop seems to be a bit slow to trigger ball search when switch doesn't activate. I find myself waiting for the ball search to trigger and that is annoying.

Not sure if this is something I can easily fix yet or not.. Or mod to work better. Is this opto or switch?

Issue #2. During multi-ball on Level 2. The drop hole glitched during multi-ball. The ball search didn't find it after reset. I had to take glass off and use my magnet tool to retrieve ball from area.

That is it. I haven't spent any time looking for a fix or tinkering with switches or optos? Haven't looked at it.

So seems like if we can solve the ball search or latent switch issue that will improve the gameFlow. As far as rules. It is to soon to say. From what I've accomplished so far great. As I'm fairly busy may take some time for me to have a real opinion on those.

It hasn't stopped me from playing and enjoying the game. I don't plan on selling the game either. I believe firmly with a little more polish it will become a very desirable title. The "FLIPPERS" are the only ones that seem to be disappointed as many bought to make a quick buck. Others just might not understand that being the first kids to the party isn't always best. In my other hobby synthesizers many are released with glitches that only the most dedicated end users can find. It's documenting those glitches that make the game better. Happens with Stern,JJP and everyone else.

Ultraman #94 has been playing pretty solid for last couple days. Haven't had many more glitches.

Still haven't beat game and its gettin more plays than Godzilla right now.

Some of the people that bought in were not aware of how Spooky's game lifecycle works. I knew from talking to Barcade owners who had American Most Haunted , Rob Zombie, and ACNC. Code takes a little while to mature and tweaks often had to be made.

The game is good. Just needs a bit more polish.. No reason for negative reviews or anything. What this game did more than anything is show who the Pinball speculators / flippers are. That said some people are merely selling for life changes an events that are happening outside of their control.. 2022 is going be tough. Pinball never meant to be a flippers market. Pun intended but wrong.

Yep.. I corrected . It's early

Your right.. Lets see how many games I've gotten sold to get rid of.. Tons!
Sold many a grail game at a fraction of what they are worth today.

Sold Iron Maiden Pro ( Far below MSRVP years ago 2 months in) regretted that one. Sold Aerosmith ( 4 months in regret that one ) Sold Circus Voltaire - Semi regret. Oh and Wonka - ugh who knew there were still code updates when I sold that.

I've sold a lot of games that are high on peoples wishlist. For all sorts of reasons.

FOMO is a double edged sword sometimes. Sometimes you win.. sometimes you loose. Sometimes patience is key.

As far as future telling. My comment about 2022 wasn't about this game at all and apologize for confusion. I know many folks that
have been in situation where they need to sell things due to fiscal issues. That is what I was talking about.

Spooky

Wondered if there is an official bug report list?

As I'm logging more hours in the game I'm starting to log bugs I observe:

1. When preparing to plunge your skill shot. If you accidentally hit flipper button you loose your skill shot all together.

2. Ball search time - seems a bit long. Ball tends to get stuck in right scoop or second tier drop behind scoop.

3. Ball search doesn't always seem to detect ball that is stuck behind right scoop after a multi-ball, when dropping from second tier.
This went on after I reset game. Had to remove ball with the bendy magnetic tool I got from PinballLife on 2 occasions. I have about 50 games on it so far.
Only happened after the multi-ball.

Love to hear what others are saying or get a link to the list of glitches.

Curious how the Heck board stands up to the P3 board. Wonder if Heck board is sticking proprietary to Spooky or going open source?

Had this happen today on upper playfield.
Seems there needs to be more space. Wonder if a small spacer would be enough to sort this out..

Any idesa?

IMG_2474 (resized).jpg

On an earlier post - I said I had an issue with a ball search not working.

Multi-ball - stucky ball on second tier issue - probably not code. but more of a pitch / adjustment angle.

The subway doesn't seem to be angled enough to force ball to flow into switch area. The reason I think I began noticing this
on multi-ball was a bit of a pileup of balls that happened to fall in hole.

I also had a single ball that didn't have much inertia on it get stuck in the right scoop after dropping from second playfield. It just didn't roll down to the switch / ball detection / opto area? Not sure which option is correct yet.

Ball search - since the ball is technically stuck in the subway it can't find it and nothing is going to kick it out of place. Short of a extreme tilting nudge/shake from upper left cabinet.

Any thoughts. I've thought about adjustments to the pitch, adding a washer to increase pitch of subway or tweaking opto or switch position. Hoping its an opto in subway that just needs tweaking.

How do you do the update?

I stuck the USB drive into the USB extender in coin cabinet, turned game on... Saw UP for one second..

Nothing happened. Formatted on thumb drive for PC FAT 32. Same one I use for all my system updates on games prior to Connected era.

Any ideas ? Going try Customer support.. - No instructions like previous updates on the web-site or readme. Just a list
of Don't do this but no real instructions..

This is lame.... I don't understand how this happened..

I finely got to an screen that said it was updated. Turned off game and Got this.

How do you fix this? - Jeezus .. Hope my Stern connected installs go smoother.

Aggravating. It's also Jan 3rd

Bad Monday - trying to stay calm... ugh..
IMG_2489 (resized).jpg

There are no instructions there.. Nor have I seen any instructions anywhere. You can't assume anything.. Apparently bricked my game following instructions.

Screen Shot 2022-01-03 at 7.43.16 PM (resized).png

So - why is my game bricked? Following these instructions? These are not instructions .
Instructions.
1. Insert - USB into the USB extender inside the coin door.. ( I have no idea - if I put this in the right place ) .. Just assuming that where it goes.. Nothing telling me specifically what the F.. What you do When you get to this bricked state? - Fracking frustrated.. Gamed updates shouldn't result in this state. I used a 32 Gigbyte / Sandisk / Formated using Windows 11. Fresh downloaded package .... It did update. Turned off game.. Bricked..

How do you recover from this? So much for relaxing on Monday night. ugh

Yeah no details on where to put it.. For this specific title. Usually it works out.. fine.

Seems like I would take the time to add the details for each game. Sorry trying to remain positive but hell.

Obviously the USB extender thing is not for updates..... What is it for then?

No - I am a seasoned software developer and write software for medical industry where things can't fail or heads roll. The file name and everything was good. No idea what happened.

I was able to restore Ultraman with relative ease with customer support. I would suggest bypassing the USB extension when installing updates.
Pretty sure the world of USB thumb-drive tech is hit or miss even with name brands. I was having a really
bad day. Anyhow new code is installed and hopefully get a chance to check it out in more detail.

I don't get many airballs on my game.

Not like Godzilla ( holy hell airball city - though it's cool launching the airball from right flipper backhand onto the mechzilla ramp to habitrail I'v done it 3x in a row - airball life - )

FOMO marketing really works on the Pinball crowd and sometimes it backfires. Someone should podcast or stream about the history of FOMO and pinball. Probably some things to learn from it. but it works. I recall when "Munsters" came out I was hot to trot on that and bam took awhile to get anywhere with that. Wonder if Rob Zombie flick has anything to do with renewed interest in the code? Anyhow point is.. people love to ride the hype wagon ( positive or negative ), Top pinball players, video streaming issue and Pinside. Honestly Pinside just like "The Sun" or "National Inquirer" from time to time. All the negativity adds up.. How do you combat it? Oh and almost forgot... people buying up the spots are the true winners in this. Negative rumors - price drop - pick em up cheap and ride the wave..

I think the best way Spooky can move forward on both titles is bring in some big guns and do something Epic that will just Crush the hearts of those folks that sold out early. A clandestine black ops overhaul that the like has never been seen before. Drop it midway into production so the clods that sold early and were negative miss out entirely. Idea - get some hardcore Moders involved.. Make a contest.. Do something that we did not see coming.

From an Owners perspective that does not have a location ATM I can wait.. There is nothing coming down the road that is worth forking out ridiculous sums of money for ATM. It's time to kick back and enjoy the games I have and thank the stars that we are lucky to be in our current situation.

I do think Spooky is going to have to do something Epic and get some MAJOR POSITIVE hype back in their corner. (It's on them)

Moders... What can be done from a Mod perspective to really make this game pop? Any ideas that would be game changing?

The I'm out Stuff needs to stop, but guess there is no way to Moderate anything on Pinside.

Agree on the subway shot.. Speed that up significantly. Keep it playing fast as possible

I heard there was an Ultraman movie in the works from a buddy of mine. Not sure if it's live action or animated though.

The Netflix Anime was interesting ( though rough ) kids hope it comes back.

What I've found with the ball sticking in the subway..

After a bit more play it seems to have "Broken In" and has not been the issue it once had been.
I also adjusted the pitch to be a bit more higher than default. 6.25% or so.

I also found a small piece of FoamCore that must of worked its way into tunnel when it was installed or
shipped.

I need to send Spooky the logs from my game at some point so they can troubleshoot one of the bug issues
I found.

Question: Is the Topper supposed to spin? If so when is it supposed to spin?

I haven't tested mine but wondered when is it supposed to spin. Is this part of a mode?

Does it really matter what # your pinball is? I mean really while a run of 500 games seems limited. I've had 3-4x of some rare titles like Warlock an Time Fantasy in the past. Not once did anyone care what # those games were.

I've had same problem.. I need to dump my log files but time has a means of running away.

Installed the 1.06 update. Ran into issues was able to self-remedy. Spooky games very picky on the Thumbdrive format. Just use PC and avoid headaches.

After everything was installed. I actually had alot of fun playing Ultraman 1.06 and had to be coerced to leave the game and go to sleep.

Pinball hobby seems to be unnecessarily harsh last five years. People getting into hobby expect a game to be 'finished' right out of the gate. Hell I've fallen victim to this a couple times. The negative vibe that is rampant in Console gaming flowed into this domain a bit. When I first got into this hobby it was expected that you might take a 20-30% loss on a NIB title and you'd wait awhile for the code to settle and imperfections to get worked out. ACDC, TWD, and many others.

That was the before times and they were good. Back then you would remove the "mods" from the game because no one would pay up for them. Not everyone here is a "Flipper" though and I think as we experience the Inflation will want to go back to playing games on location vs home. I think people are frustrated also from not being able to "Rotate" the collection at the pace they once did.

I stopped playing my Ultraman for awhile and waited out the 1.06 code update.

Started playing it again at 1.06 and much happier now. My hopes is next 2 updates knocks this out of park.

What I think would improve User experience:
#1. Over the last couple months I've come to agree with the community. The UI/UX for the Scoring is just not working. Reiterate
a. You've kinda made your own little box. Making things fit in that box and no one likes that box. Go for Full screen clips.
b. Modularize your scoring system..Stop doing one off UI/UXs your making more work than you need to for yourself. Simple is better

#2. "There are no more clones" - Can we get some diversity with some of the callouts - This one just wears thin.

#3. Sound Mix - Play with the Right and Left Channels.. Pan the samples

#4. Modes - Play with the timer a bit more. Maybe make a Mini Wizard mode out of each of the Jirah modes

#5. Middle playfield. Put a Hurry up on that center shot

#6.. Do something with the 3 drop targets other than blocking the upper playfield. Use them in a Mode.

Thats all I got think others been saying alot of this to.

"The drop targets in the center are pretty pointless. The second playfield has four shots and only one is fun which drops to the shooter."

Agreed.
Spooky could do some "SharpShooting" with the Drop Targets" or anything.

Make a mode where you gotta keep shooting them down like "Aliens" in AFM

Make them Pop up like a hurry-up. So when your trying to get the ball to top PF there is
an added level of annoyance.

Second Playfield - do something more with it.

Game has good bones.. I'm waiting out another 6months and see what happens.

What mode is that? I thought I have gone thru all the modes in 1.06. I'll give that a look.

Hopefully something planned for TPF? Wish I knew what the future had in store for this game.

Spooky can't wait. I got enough pins to hold out for awhile. Eventually this will end up at a location I'm working on.

Anyone go to TPF? Wonder if anything of interest happened there in regards to this game?

I had absolutely no quality issues with my game from a quality issue aside from a piece of foam core that seemed to
come off of something and cause a minor play obstruction.

At this point Code is my only pet peeve. Hopefully that gets sorted out by the Summer and people will be clamoring to
get onboard again.

Wonder what the word is on the new Code? - Any progress?

So at Spooky are you guys releasing bug fixes incrementally with testing?

So you make Fix #1 . Add Unit Testing for it. Ensure that it passes testing.
Commit it to your Repo's branch.

You could branch all the Immediate need Fixes - and release those quickly.

Master Branch: Current Stable release
Upcoming Review Branch: Next upcoming releases - could be just code fixes.
Branch A: code fixes for existing framework <-- Example merged into master
Branch B: UI/UX improvements, potentially large impact on game, new features. ( Branch A gets Merged into the Skunkworks branch after fixes)

Then have an Alternate feature branch. Where your making big changes.. That way you can
make people happy with small feature changes and still work on your Major release independently.

Just curious how you guys work on your changes. Where I work on Phone Apps my small team
releases small changes every 3 weeks. And large changes every 2-3 months. Mobile app dev is
a bit unforgiving and we have Apple to appease.

Just curious I've been trying to get an understanding how the various groups of developers in the Pinball
Industry tackle issues. Do you guys leverage modern development workflows ?

Quickwood, Toothpick - try Bamboo Skewer to Level up.

Cut to size a bamboo skewer.. Bamboo is more fiber rich than a toothpick and cheaper than quickwood.
The bamboo skewer typically has the right width and creates good compression. Just cut to size dip in
some elmers and push it in. You can also make it slightly larger and clip it with some wire cutters.

Use this trick on several games where the components would not tighten.

If I had a Halloween I'd quickly Mod out the Pumpkin head to the Mask.

Updates went well with no issues this time around for me.

Hopefully I will get a chance to check out the upcoming releases for Ultraman day.
I'm selling a couple games to fund a possible new location. Unfortunately Ultraman and ACNC may
have to go along with a few others.

I currently have that combo..

Pop bumpers is one area where we haven't seen much innovation in years. I bet there is a way to do them without loosing all that real estate.

Personally I like the subway feed into the flippers adds a bit more flow to game once you get used to it.
I like the A-typical layout.

For me the biggest gripe I have is the Scoreboard / UI . It doesn't do much for me and would rather see
full screen with some standardized placement for score.

Second gripe, music.. Wish there was something more.

Last callouts - This is kind of big for me honestly. Almost more so than the other aspects..

Callouts - while this game is very respectful to the franchise . I wish there was a bit more humor or action.

Honestly I think Spooky has a very unique opportunity to turn this around and dominate the Boutique pinball
space in a way that Multimorphic has.. Open up the game to "Tinkering".. Nothing official. Just let us mod
sounds, and other assets a bit. You guys have the power to disrupt things a bit. Do it.

Granted - if I had my way.. I'd turn the game into a Mystery Science Theater Remix. Make wisecracks thru the game.
Or... Make it so METAL over the top strange... Maybe some of the new Ultraman movies will get us there.

Get a Pro Wrestler - to do commentary on the Kaiju battles... IN THIS CORNER --- BEMULARRRRRRRRR "fights"
ULTRAMANNNNN... Make it so fricking over the top that anyone 5 feet away can't help but LTAO..

Still have my Ultraman

When was Ultraman day? Can't wait..

I had speculated the switch to a new OS would be problematic. Though based on the Code Sniffing I did it appears to
be a bit of Unity and this and that. So I can only assume that the switch wasn't that disrupting.
They got a game out and it worked just not up to Top Pinball Player in the worlds standards.. Considering covid,
supply chain and al that they shipped stuff. Think they made some progress on a few things and learned
a few valuable lessons about rolling a new game out in today's market.

Still there had to of been some challenges, setbacks and 'multiple hat wearing for entire team'
can't be easy working on 2 machines simultaneously, onboarding people and this and that.
Hat's off to spooky crew for all that. The pressure to knock these titles out of the park has gotta
be huge. Everyone there knows they need to turn this around and make a comeback.
Still think they can turn it around with a few tweaks here and there.. Decided to hold onto mine
for at least another 6month to a year and see what happens.

I have an Alice Copper ButterCab and it is a thing of beauty.
The process they use is totally different than radicals.

I opted out for ButterCab for my Ultraman machine to spend
money on other stuff. Cash flow ain't what it was .

If I could of done it over. I would of just bought out someones spot and
got the ButtterCab.

I passed on the Fathom for Ultraman. Probably still be waiting on Fathom. Got my Ultraman in December.

Ultraman day is just a week away. Can't wait to see what is in store.

My game is still doing great, no issues to speak of ATM.. Last code update seem to fix my 'never ending' multi-ball bug.

Fingers crossed. This game has some real potential.. Honestly think it could be better than The Shadow down the road. It shoots pretty good in my opinion. Its just small details that will ultimately determine its place in history.

Liked the direction I am seeing. Like new display and the Spacium Animation were awesome.

Did notice that the Right Top Flipper seems to lag a bit.. Maybe it just needed warming up .
IDK just seemed a bit sluggish after update.. No idea if that is what others are talking about..
That could just be a 'Pinball issue' as I've noticed this on Williams games in the past that haven't
gotten played in awhile. So...

Had a good game.. and can't wait to see the next batch of updates.

Had a couple people over this weekend to play some games and they got to check out the new Code.
I'd say much more positive experience for everyone involved.

While I do have my game up for sale to cover some recent purchases of grail themes. It is not a priority.
Will continue to hold onto for awhile. I value it over the current asking prices so may be awhile. Might be
a couple years before I let it go. Meanwhile it's getting 10x games a day.

Ultraman Skate Deck - Shwack

294534196_583807983311840_1677187250506059231_n (resized).jpg

Noticed my Plunger is a bit lacking lately..

Anyone have recommendation for proper color of spring. Going to rebuild it have a few colors in my parts bin.

Think I just have hit the 'To many toys' mark with my collection.

Still feel some new callouts and music would do a lot in certain parts of game.

Or how about some random callouts. Instead of " No more clones" something else to liven up the rinse
and repeat .

Any news on next code update and what we can expect to see?
Haven't sold my game just yet, if someone offered me a fair price I'll have to let it go but not
giving it away and loosing $ on a game that LOOKS awesome.

We all have lot of $ wrapped up in this game and it while it's just about there there are a few things
that could transform it to next level. If you guys move on alot of us are going be stuck with this game in this state.
Can you open up the Source code so Pinball Community can take a crack at the rules.. and sound effects / music.
Maybe like a Pinball browser.. or just anything... Please I think that would make you the best boutique company ever.

I'm out of the club and seriously doubt I'll be purchasing another pinball machine from Spooky.
It's nothing personal but I'm not a fan of how these games are sold and being locked into purchasing
them. 10k is a lot of money to drop on a pin without gameplay videos featuring callouts and music.

I wasn't a fan of the Music or callouts. HORRID . I feel that a owner of a any pinball machine should have some future recourse for
modifying code, fix bugs or change sounds in some fashion. I have a Pinsound on many of my bally/william machines and
have modified sounds on them from time to time. Or using sound and asset utilities on my Stern machines.

Spooky never promised this functionality but this would have gone along way for me. I may of just liked my 10k machine.

I grew to resent the purchase quite a bit. This has happened to me only on one other game in my 10+ years in collecting.
"Munsters Premium" is the only other machine I felt this way about. Second time I've lost a sizable chunk of value on a machine
and hope to have learned a lesson. Try before you buy. FOMO is wrong.

That said I had NO problems with build quality, friendly and fast customer service, and the artwork was straight up phenomenal.
Code and sound just didn't resonate with me no matter how hard I tried to like it. Loosing a sizable chunk of money on a NIB game is never fun.
I had hoped to buy a "TNA" but got priced out. Spooky isn't the only company jacking prices though. Thanks China.
No hate here just real life and expensive toys. Family wins over toys. I just hope to get a FAST board or P-Roc and do my own thing from here out.

Hell I'd pay a premium to have a No Lemon guarantee from a distributor or manufacturer. Happy or we'll take it back.. Not lock you in...