"Ben Heck's Adventures in Hardware Hacking" is the next theme. It is like the movie weird science, only not at all. Instead of building Kelly LeBrock, your mission is to collect all the pieces and code to build a toaster that can burn fractal images onto bread with a laser, and it actually works as it is attached to the machine. Not quite as exciting as building a hot chick, but nerds will find a way to mod it to create a hot chick. Bill Paxton can make a cameo for call-outs.
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This is the next theme:
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So Cat with gun riding an evil Unicorn?

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We've come for your daughter, chuck.

Beetlejuice would have been an awesome theme. Too bad it missed the boat.

Handbook for the recently deseased

A pinball machine that also brews beer would be a winner.

Spooky has made great choices so far, the bar is set higher this time around. Licensed theme is the better option for them now than potentially having an original that doesn't do as well. One bad game could sink them. This is a smart move.

Could have a LE Zappa themed pin - "Titties 'n Beer"

Frank was funny as hell. He had no filter (in his music), but was also insanely intelligent and well spoken, which was what made him so fun to watch when he went up against Tipper the witch on censorship.

5.9 stars!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092711/

How about a Kraftwerk pin? It would be huge in Germany and in my basement.

Robots and dinosaurs with boobs?

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So a robot dinosaur with boobs. That could be added to the cat with a gat on the evil unicorn theme and not stick out like a sore thumb.

HA! That would have flown without questions in the 80's. I'm surprised there wasn't an ALF pin or spuds mackenzie. Triva fact: Spuds was actually a bitch.

Whatever they end up doing, it will be great I'm sure. Current most popular theme idea on their website is retro sci-fi. Can't go wrong there, unless it is a blatant rip-off of AFM, which these guys would never do.

I also like how they give the option of "these ideas all suck". Spooky is doing a great job putting the fun back into pinball. Good work guys!

I know this has been done: http://home.comcast.net/~special_when_lit/pwpimages/Futurama%20Pinball.html

But if Spooky wanted to go sci-fi license theme, no better licensed theme than Futurama.

You can make an homage to Pin-Bot by putting all the planets in the middle, but make sure Uranus is renamed "Urectum" per the change made by astronomers in 2620. Also avoid a conflict with PPS at the same time.
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Bite my shiny metal ass

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The problem with Futurama is that there is so much good content, how do you choose what to include and not include?

-Robot hell and robot devil subways
-Slurm and slurm factory
-The brains as a wizard mode (and escape on scooty puff Jr. or sr. depending on what your accomplished)
-Defending Earth from the Omicronians (built in space invaders video game mode in DMD)
-Paradox box toy (could invert/flip rules on things, or just have alt. Dots).
-Collect Fry's lucky clover
-Have clear pipe tunnels for ball transportion
-Suicide booth (an area that just straight up drains your ball that you want to avoid)
-Something with Zapp Branigan and Kif
-Amazon women
-Scruffy cameos
-bender stealing spree ( I can get in touch with John Dimaggio granted fox lets him for additional voice work possibly, my mom-in-law grew up knowing his fam in N. Plainfield ).

Not necessarily.

This would be a cool game to do justice to and I'm sure it would sell well. I'd love to see it redone right, but I think the reason it did so well back then was the initial explosive success of south park. They sold tons of merch during the first few years of the show. That honeymoon period is over, operators can still route the original game and I'm sure they still do well on location. Die-hard fans can own the original as well if they love the theme. I'd like to see Futurama (honeymoon period is over on this show too, but the sporadic nature of the production made it have more of a cult following) moreso because it has never been done commercially and therefore not available to anyone, even in a sub-par version.

Ben, I asked my son what the theme of next pin should be, and he said "poopy pinball". He'll be 3 in July. He may be on to something. Think about how well South Park did on route with toilet humor?

Now that is has finally happened, the echo chamber will collapse.

I'd buy it, and I don't even like Iron Maiden. I'd be down with Muppet versions of a few games. LotR : ME
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I made you a virtual in MS Paint. You have to use you imagination to play it. Flipperless in 2015! (there may be a mode where you eat Flipper the dolphin though). It is the new cool.
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The code is more complete than Stern releases. The cat in my avatar is a welter weight tabby boxer. He repeatedly kicks the asses of my other two cats daily.

I heard the next Spooky game is Roadhouse. Or Muppet Roadhouse. Ben? Rumors flying all over here on Pinside.
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The Kerminator?
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I watched and enjoyed these shows growing up on Nick at Night along with Dick Van Dyke, Green Acres, Mr. Ed, Get Smart, Dennis the Menace, Doby Gillis, Patty Duke, etc. Hated Donna Reed show. My parents watched them, and it gave me an excuse to stay up later, so I watched with them. I think my favs were Mr. Ed and Get Smart. I liked the fact that Alan Young was also the voice of Scrooge, and I was watching Duck Tales at the time, so it had parallels.

It means smoother, essentially
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This is Ben's workstation:
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Fun dork trivial info: Dana Carvey's brother is responsible for the video toaster. Talented family.

I dunno, I'm 34, I'm familiar with it, but I'm also at the beginning of the demographic there for Gen Y, also I'm a programmer and I'm interested in all sorts of hardware.

I didn't know anyone with an Amiga. I did have a C64 as my first computer though, then Mac Plus hand-me-down came (Dark Castle, Shadowgate, Hypercard!), Quadra 610 Hand-me-down (Marathon!), Then Pentium 133 with a Voodoo 2 card... Holy crap Turok looked sick on that thing, as did Jedi Knight and some other games in that time period, despite the weak CPU. I remember I brought it to college and kids with Pentium 3 500+'s were jealous it had a better frame rate in Unreal Tournament. Nothing but "HEEEEEEAD SHOT" followed by "F*K YOU CHUCK!" heard in the hall. Yeah, I was the D-bag sniper and still am. Got a lot of mileage out of that machine.

Back on topic. Ben, new theme hints?

Interesting approach. And less work to draw. I never understood the layering drawing approach. The fact that it is still done in 3d blows my mind, such a waste of processor cycles. I like the Voxel approach and I'd love to see some blooms from fractals to draw stuff instead of the current methods. Lots of things could benefit from that, all organic stuff obviously. But patterns and textures as well. In 3d obviously it is a hell of a lot more work figure out with ray tracing or whatever method an engine draws with.

I love and miss ray casting: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=61298

Right. Just reading and writing and not overlapping bytes, which you try to avoid anyway if you're writing in ASM, unless you're updating a memory address with a change. Keep in mind my ASM knowledge is extremely limited (to 8-bit and NES hacking mostly, briefly into sys11 rom hacking). This makes sense now, thanks for the explanation.

Hiiisssssssssssssssssss

Gotta start somewhere. The first of anything isn't the best, but it is still the first.

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Gorgar's reference art is Boris Vallejo's "In the Underworld". Vallejo also has a Cerebus painting, he likes Greek & Roman Mythology for subject matter. So it is a religious reference technically, just not one that is actively practiced anymore.

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Kung Fury is hilarious.

So you're making a Troll 2 Pin?
That, or arguably Peter Jackson's greatest film, Bad Taste.

Still dunno how you go from that to LotR, then to Hobbit. Maybe there is some cycle to producing movies when you have to make a few terrible ones for good ones to come out.