Dwight said he tried to make Munsters a simpler game and was told by Gomez to do so. This was stated at TPF Munster seminar. Franchi talked about the hidden Easter eggs in the art. Borg did mention that he went through ever Munster episode to find material for Dwight.

I have to agree with Rarehero on this. The Munsters isn't very good (to me), though I think TMNT isn't too shabby.

GB's problems are well documented.
Munsters has Zizzle code.
GOTG is uninspired at best.
TMNT is fantastic IMO. Code depth matches the gameplay perfectly. Aside from Maiden, I can't get enough of it.

And everyone does... new game not even seen yet can't by LEs already... sure there are lots of orders for the pro and premium as well

Am I the only one that wants to see the next title be a blatant rip off of a hot theme they can’t afford or won’t pay the license for? Ala F-14, Goldwings, Raven, etc. Make it classically cheesey, bad call outs and horrific art! Maybe “Should Text Paul” rather than Better Call Saul or “Giant Mutant Lizard Attack” rather than Godzilla? I guess I just worry that there’s too much thought and worry about theme and integration put before what pinball nowadays not back in the day (back in the day was all about collection box amounts) is all about. The focus today should be all about fun, happiness and memories.

No one absolutely no one wants to pay $10k for a “simpler game”. Anyone can find plenty of those old type games for a couple grand, not $10 grand. And simpler game does not mean less code. Less complex maybe what is referred to as simpler, but in no way does simpler mean shallow or lacking. For example: Munster Madness 1 being a repeat on Munster madness 2 and 3. That is completely and utter nonsensical laziness on Dwight’s part.

Batman is loaded with show material and could even be considered quit simple code wise. It is very simple to understand. Collect four main villains and 3 minor villains. That’s it and yet it has great depth and with tons of Batman show material in it to keep people interested in it for the long haul.

This is what Munsters is lacking in spades. Dwight can still keep his goal of simple, but include lots of material and modes to keep HUO crowd happy that they spent $10k, not so little attention to code everyone becomes irate over being duped by Stern and Dwight on Munsters. It is almost criminal Stern took our money all the while we were expecting them to do what they’ve always done before and give us our monies worth code wise. Xaqery needs to revisit and give us our monies worth at some point. Of course it took him 3 years on GB.

What an absolute waste of John’s time going through all the episodes. Dwight only used material mainly from the very first episode. How comical! Almost none of John’s research was used.
There is a lot of unknowns about this title that Stern is not telling us and a gross misuse of a stellar license. Munsters to this day has millions and millions of fans and is still in syndication around the world. Butch Patrick has said the fan base just keeps growing. Why Stern somewhat wasted their effort on such a great shooting layout as Munsters with a stellar art package is beyond understanding. It should have been a title sold for long time to come, not just 2 years. They are still making and selling Bat66, soon to be coming up on 6 years old.

Since I was obsessed with TMNT as a kid, the horrible fake voices & N64-level LCD animation ruined it for me. Games are to expensive for inaccurate theme representation...even if the code is good, I’m cringing too much to get into it. When my dream themes aren’t done right, the dream is crushed and that $$$ stays in the bank.

So do you think we will see a Disney game a year going forward for a while?

Have you seen the 1989 cartoon code hack? It’s awesome. Tons of well integrated clips, total game changer. Don’t sleep on TMNT, it’s awesome.

I played it....it made me sleep.

I saw one hack with the show footage, but it still had fake voices.

For me, a pinball machine is special when it’s done right from the factory. JK Simmons in Spidey, Justin Roiland in Rick & Morty, etc. JK with lines like “Headline: Terrible pinball player terrorizes arcade!!!” - you don’t get that from a hack, you get that because it was done right from the start.

Cool, sucker born every minute as well. Glad you can outlast the minutes.

I love the show so much also. B&W premium is stunning. I did not like the lower playfield. Total lack of video clips from the show was a big letdown. I am so glad I played it first. I would have been disappointed if I bought NIB. But I do play a few games on a pro when I go to Tilt Studios. May get a pro down the line if I can find a good deal, but if I don’t that’s fine. Just want Godzilla.

Like I said. I have zero value for your opinion. My family, friends and I will happily enjoy all our games. I cannot see any suckrrs at our arcade.

I'm glad people complain so much. I love my transformers combo le and xmen magneto. Please keep it up.

I get that. I wasn't more than a casual TMNT fan growing up as it really exploded while I entered High School, so the voices don't bother me at all.

Thanks mate .
I found a local company that does displays for shops and department stores .
I showed them a picture of what I wanted , and they said they had never done one on the ceiling but said they would give it a go .
It looks like wallpaper but it's actually fabric and feels like a T-shirt .
You can pull it off and on hundreds of times without it losing it's stickiness ( apparently ) .

IMG_20210506_205542 (resized).jpg

They have to fill out their arcade somehow, if it's all with Disney themed games that does make sense....

Why does everyone assume it’s a specific guy’s (like Dwight) fault? From my experience, 99% of the time it’s an executive’s fault for rushing a product that’s not ready or reassigning people to different projects. Gary had zero incentive to improve GB, so my guess is Dwight did it in his down time. Sounds like a good guy to me. I have no doubt he wants to make everything he touches awesome if he had the time. That’s the mentality of any creative professional.

If you compare it to a movie, the coder of a Stern game is essentially the “writer” & “director”. They’re creating the ruleset & programming it. It’s a huge role, and the tone, style and execution of the game is on their shoulders. Gary is merely a “producer”. He doesn’t care as long as it’s finished and sold. In the case of Dwight’s games, it’s his specific choices that have been divisive. The complexity of Star Wars, the linear ladders on GB, the style of simplicity on Munsters. Some people like all this stuff - and it does all function as intended. People make it too personal, which is unfortunate, as Dwight is a great person and a hard worker...but like any artist, the art is subjective...and when people don’t like it, who else can they single out besides the artist? Like - I HATE Roland Emmerich movies. They all suck in similar ways...ID4, Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow etc...his creative instincts taint them all. Yet, they’ve made a ton of money, so they’re entertaining people...and I’m sure he’s a nice person...I just have a negative opinion on his artistic choices.

What a load of crap!
It doesn't take 3 years to finish GB - Dwight only went back to it because of the pressure of owners at each pinball expo bringing it up with Gomez.
They had to revisit the code to make the situation go away.

Llyman is the only one who does coding in his own time when he is not happy with something he did or can see adding a new feature to make the game better!

Munsters is just plain and simply lazy. No excuse, in the end its going to hurt not only Stern but Dwights sales also!
I for one will not buy another Dwight game sight unseen! Tho I'm more than happy for a Llyman coded game because i know its going to get the 100% polish it deserves.

And lets face facts, Munsters ( i think from memory) has been the only Stern released game called Munsters. worst code ever?
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/munsters-worse-code-ever

Stern knew way back then that we the customers were not happy with the code!
If you say Dwight cared, he would have made the fix.

Such a shame

Unless you have personal knowledge of how Dwight (or Lyman for that matter) works, this is all just speculation.

Maybe he was given a short amount of time to implement Munsters, maybe he was told to work on something else, maybe he needed a vacation, maybe one of his parents died.

My point is that it is NOT necessarily his fault.

I know that on virtually every one of the games I worked on, I wish that I had more time to do stuff. Eventually, management will say "ship it, and move on to the next project".

Because Gary is an accountant - not a rules designer. He doesn't meddle in the factors people are talking about here. This has been discussed time and time again in interviews over time. Gary is like an Executive Producer - he doesn't get into the weeds. And Dwight's patterns have played out over multiple titles, with patterns more unique to his projects than others.

I know that art too well from the thousands of games of Star Wars Battlefront (2015) I've played.

star_wars_battlefront (resized).jpg

You’re confirming my statement that he’s an executive with authority to ship products without them being finished. Dwight has a boss. If it’s not Gary, it’s someone else. Blame the boss. It’s silly to think Dwight is just haphazardly doing whatever he feels like.

But all the programmers have the same boss. Do you think the boss is giving Dwight and Lonnie different resources, including time and support, than someone like Keith? Or that Munsters was afforded less resources for whatever reason? Or are you just saying that the boss is ultimately accountable for the end product, so Dwight is off the hook because the boss accepted the final product?

Yeh it’s pretty sweet. Can you share the manufacturer or name of material etc? I would even know what type of shop to go ask.

You're arguing a point no one is making.

The beef with Dwight code is not day 1 vs day 100. The beef is with his choices for the code.

All of the above could be true. It’s my opinion that Dwight has made some great games. It’s possible he had less time for certain games, or he works slower, or some other reason. But yes, at the end of the day, accountability falls on the boss. That’s why they’re the boss.

That his boss must approve. Curious what line of work you do if you’re failing to understand that concept.

There is precedent for Dwight making good games. So it’s more plausible that some other factor is involved with Munsters than Dwight just being a shitty programmer.

Finished/unfinished is beyond the programmers control. The ship date is the ship date. However, the rules, concepts and execution is the programmer's choice. Those choices are what's been divisive with Dwight's games.

I think we here on Pinside are an echo chamber and a vocal minority. Stern can make poop and it’ll sell. Likely the code doesn’t matter to most people who play. I can’t tell you the number of games I’ve bought that had original code. Many people (not here on Pinside) play games without ever knowing GB was too linear or Munsters is too shallow.

I know it’s not scientific but Munsters has more Pinside owners than Stranger Things. I understand that maybe production delays and also Stranger Things has not been around as long but to me they’re close to the same level of success.

In other words Gary Stern, George Gomez, John Borg all want to sell a good number of pins and likely a lot of people will buy a good theme even an LE not knowing where it’s going to end up in 2 years of code updates. Also a lot of locations will buy *****anything******* new. In other words they can’t have the same lineup for years on end. I will not go to a location unless there is a new pin that I want to see.

Anyway, it seems like we can grade code like A-D meaning TWD (A) down to Munsters (D) but at the end of the day more sales are delivered in the first few months when who knows what the code is? Also imo newness and theme (and art) probably are responsible for more sales than great code. Heck even SW comic was responsible for a medium bump of sales nothing but new art.

I know great code can give a game legs so they can sell it longer like BM66 or EHOH but new art like Munsters did with premium or Luci ACDC are probably just as or more important than code.

stranger things got a year of updates, polish, and significant code and scoring changes based off user feedback. It also gained 3 wizard modes and the wizard challenge mini game. Munsters got some scoring changes, dumbing down of munster madness for round 1, and some topper code.

New code for Stranger Things really was a huge improvement for the game, even the recent updates from when I bought it for the family for Christmas 2020. Munsters art definitely beautiful, under the hood an ugly duckling.

Repetitive video and very little video used at all from all the episodes available. Elvira is a masterpiece compared to munsters in this category. Munsters was going to be my first NIB purchase, would have been my first regret.

They may not be able to articulate it, but a lot of casual location players KNOW. Munsters was the worst-performing new pin put out on the route I helped with. The regulars HATED IT, but they were spoiled with WoZ, Iron Maiden, AfMr, etc, so they could "feel" when something was missing. It was the worst-performing pin on the route - brand new.

Munsters was also the fastest pin from the time it came in until it was sold. It was around a month in to out. Earnings were THAT BAD.

Munsters was doing poorly at my friend’s arcade until we enabled the ball save, which inexplicably defaulted to off. But it’s one of the few games he’s sold, so I assume it didn’t do much better after that change. Personally, I liked it better than BKSOR.

So, when's the Mado reveal?

Mid Month more than likely

pudealee it will be on 5/11

My take on Munsters:

Wasn’t a fan of the show. I’d watch it occasionally if it was the only thing on TV and I was bored out of my mind. Wasn’t the least bit interested in the pin.

And then it got released. And it was beautiful! I got to play the Premium a couple times at Allentown and it seemed like rollicking good fun. I enjoyed the camp, and the video and the callouts. Lower playfield was cool.

Game felt a little “cheap”. I mean in terms of titan weight and the way the ball kinda “pinged” around the playfield. Seemed insubstantial. But I could have been ok with that. I thought, hmmm, maybe I could own this. Time passed.

Then I heard all about the shallow code. Then I played a bunch of games on the pro, and it seemed really light in the loafers. The shots didn’t feel all that great, and the code seemed very points conscious. No story being told, no immersion. And those big targets. Yuck.

And I was out. I need more game for my money. Too bad too, because the look of the game got my attention and roped me in. But it wasn’t enough. If there was mode based code, that integrated well with the theme, I’d probably go for it.

We have personal knowledge from Dwight’s own mouth. He did an interview last year and stated he can work on and improve any games code anytime in between other games. He was not just given a short amount of time, he plain and simply decided it was done, even though the only 2 updates he did after it was released was to take Munster madness 1 special code items, make it simpler and move them to Munster Madness 2. That’s all he did, pure laziness.

Most everyone had already purchased way before that. Demand was so high that at release Stern changed LEs from 500 to 600. A friend of mine in the mod business said Munster sales were in the blockbuster category. It is completely Dwight’s fault the code has not been revisited and at least polished. Dwight has severely let us down, plain and simple, I do like him as a coder, but his lack of giving us our monies worth has severely hurt his reputation. He can fix and polish needed areas. It is irresponsible that he has not done so at this point. Munsters is in all other aspects a top 10 game, only lack of code takes it to the basement at number 73. Xaqery need to step up to the plate and hit a home run. Everyone else on the Munsters team did except for him. We are not speculating on these things. They are facts.

Read above because it came out of Dwight’s own mouth. He can work on whatever he wants that he feels needs more development. He has chosen to this point to abandon Munsters. He has patterns of doing this on other games. His so called Boss didn’t tell him to make it so lackluster code wise, that is assured. No other programmer at Stern has this reputation except Dwight.

What the total shame is, he is a very good senior coder and does want to make some of his games great. Look no further than TMNT. Munsters has shown us, he could care less about. Actions speak louder than words.

You can bet it wasn’t his boss that said to give TMNT so much code love that he took it to 1.41. That was Dwight’s decision. I know for a fact John thinks the code and call outs in “Munsters needs more love”. That also is not speculation. Munsters is a beloved title that deserves the code treatment all other Sterns to date have received. I’ve purchased many Sterns and have never asked for code improvements on all the others, except Munsters. Xaqery has let us down again, just like he’s done on GB and GoT and TMNT still has needed polish. FB has missing dialogue for example. I don’t see this lack of code love on anything Keith does in comparison.

:applause:On Tuesday 11 mayo MANDALORIAN Will be presented!

Munsters is the reason I won’t buy Stern again. I’m stuck with a 10k machine that has No code!

hoping someone does a Munsters 2.0

This issue with Munsters is not a vocal minority, nor is it not something others that are not on Pinside disagree with. They too think it needs more code love. Munsters has numerous threads about this issue with many supporting voices wishing for more code love for a great game in all other categories except code.

As a coder and designer, I would be gutted to release my games unfinished. So I can understand the frustrations of the creatives working at Stern, who probably value the pride of their work higher than any cash value. I know I do. But Gary Stern runs the company, and I'm pretty sure he loves money....lots of money. And you guys are buying what he's selling by the bucket load, so why fanny about for years perfecting the code? Just get them out the door and move on to the next one.

Stern LEs are not really $10k delivered now are they?

People are always buying before trying. Look at all those with deposits on Mandalorian LE. Game hasn’t been seen and people have locked up most of the product. This is a prime condition for disappointment. What will game look like, what will it shoot like, what are the toys? Nobody knows but a lot of people are already betting on it. I hope it is good, but I need to play it first. Also have the playfield issues been fixed? Can’t gamble and buy a game if I don’t know it is solid.