Yeah, there really isn't any scenario where I'd consider Rick and Morty an 80s rehash.

Have you ever watched the show? There isn't time travel at all, which I believe was a major part of BTTF. Also, the space ship looks nothing like a Delorean. But yes, there was an animated short that parodied BTTF that ultimately served as inspiration for the creation of the show.

Have you even seen BTTF? That is, point for point, the exact plot of that movie!

Have any pictures been floating around? or are you just talking about the fact that its known to be coming?

Seeing as how St and Sst dont work, how about STPbSPI (stranger things pinball by stern pinball inc)

tell them what? I don't get it?

What does he said about it? Or at what time does he mention it?

Yeah, I definitely agree with you there, it kind of seems like the interesting things he DOES try to add tend to get priced out of the pro models. It would be so nice to see him knock one out of the park though.

I hear that, I feel like BKSOR does this quite well. My comment was really more about Ritchie's playfield layouts. The way the rules are implemented make each of his games different and unique. But if you look at the GOT and BKSOR playfields, they look remarkably similar. For the record, I would like to own either of those 2 games (especially BKSOR) as well as SW, ST, ACDC and Spiderman. haha

When it comes down to it, I just want to see Ritchie offer something with a touch of uniqueness to set it apart from his and other designer's games.

With every single theme idea people always have to say this theme is great for over 50 or under 27 or between 32 and 39 and from 46 to 53.

Lots of themes can appeal to people of all ages, especially bands that have been around for 50 years or classic movies and tv shows. Young people listen to and watch old stuff, old people listen to and watch new stuff. Just because YOU don't like a theme, doesn't mean the theme is garbage.

As well, alot of people can appreciate a theme for what it is as long as the game itself is good.

As a GB owner, I second that! IMDN, JP, DP, BM66 all came after GB.

what would be amazing is having the main MB involve a shark popping up to eat/drain balls. Im not quite sure how the rules would work but that would sure be unique.

Maybe even do like 2 or more mechs like a combo of the trolls in MM and TOMs trap door.

Games dont typically include "dont shoot the shot" type mechanics.

That was a rumour but if it's true, which I dont doubt, I think they would use that as a stop gap to keep the line moving. right now they're struggling to build tmnt fast enough so I feel like it's anyones guess when a vault drops.

It would be nice to see Lyman on any new cornerstone title.

This would actually be a great way to do a space theme again. I'm not sure how you'd approach the rules of the game but Im sure you could make a fun machine out of it.

The problem is, it wouldnt be a theme that gets people to buy without playing it and that seems to be the main thing to consider.

What exactly does Kapow do? It seems like they just get the licensing maybe?

An Elwin Marvel themed game definitely has my attention, I guess we'll have to wait and see!

Well, Elwin was designing Archer, he's now designing a new game, I wouldn't mind it being James Bond. I don't even need much for assets, as long as it FEELS like Bond. But I guess we'll see...

I think the Premium is the best overall art package. Pro looks good though.

If Jurassic Park was codenamed "Jaws," wouldnt making a codename Jaws machine and an actual Jaws machine so close together cause some kind of internal confusion?

I guess I don't really know how or why they use a machine's codename.

I feel like it would be strange for them to push out the next game right now when they're so backlogged on their 2 newest games. I understand that they run more than just the newest games at any given time but even releasing Avengers when they did got in the way of selling TMNTs. Yeah, they can sell either of those for the next few years but that initial hype has got to do some serious heavy lifting on total sales. I feel like their best bet would be to satisfy the bulk of the demand for TMNT and AIQ before moving onto the next one. But, of course, Stern would know exactly what initial sales vs. long-term sales would be and will act accordingly.

When it comes down to it, this current manufacturing bottleneck could really set them up in the long-term on the design/development side of things. Perhaps with a number of different games nearing completion and ready for the factory ahead of the typical schedule or at the same time.

Though I'm pretty sure the design of Elvira was sitting more-or-less complete for a while before they released it and that didn't seem to help with the code development side of things.

There's gotta be some video assets they could re-purpose in the same way as Hot Wheels. The biggest problem is that there is so much licensed Lego stuff that could be cool to utilize but I imagine would be impossible to license/use.

Either way, make the game focus on building things, maybe just on the screen but it would be cool with some kind of state-changing playfield mechs. Things like "building" a ramp to lock balls and start MB. Or maybe "breaking" down a wall.

Seems like Ritchie and Sexton will be teaming up again for Ritchie's next one.

Throw in a couple call backs to Skateball, the outside inlane for example. I'd just want it be called Tony Hawk's Pro Pinball, that way we could have a Tony Hawk's Pro Pinball (Pro), Tony Hawk's Pro Pinball (Premium), and a Tony Hawks Pro Pinball (Limited Edition).

I really doubt they'd make a Led Zeppelin machine IF the license was super expensive. It just doesn't strike me as the kind of license you'd overspend just to get.

I could see it working well as a Steve Ritchie upper flipper game with a big focus on combos and hurry ups and lots of on the fly playing.

Yeah, it will be just like how difficult it is to sell games like the Shadow, Demo Man, Johnny Mnemonic, Congo, etc. Those themes just dont have the widespread appeal that pinball machines need.

All this talk about how Led Zeppelin is just an old man theme is kind of ridiculous. Zeppelin was old when I was in high school, yet people loved them. Why cant young people be exposed to and enjoy these kinds of themes?

Iron maiden songs aren't playing on the disney channel, yet my toddler now requests Fear of the Dark and Hallowed be thy name when we're driving in the car.

Music pins keep getting made because they do well, they are timeless and have widespread appeal. Taking a chance on the potential next big theme failed many times for WMS so it makes sense that stern would typically focus on properties that have withstood the test of time.

I think this perfectly sums up how people were blown away by the GNR reveal and seem to be underwhelmed by LZ. The big difference between what I look for in a pinball machine and what other people look for is pretty apparent. Gameplay seems to be an afterthought in both cases. Yes, I think the Prem/LE artwork is especially un-inspiring but I need to know how the game PLAYS because as it stands I think the layout has potential as long as the code/rules can make it shine. From my initial impressions, the layout looks superior to most of Ritchie's recent designs (BKSOR, SW, GOT for sure).

The pro is missing that upper flipper flip ramp. But the 3 ramps make for a solid layout on the pro.

To validate the playfield I'd assume, to prevent short plunging without starting the ball save timer.

Good point, all metal ramps! That's a serious plus in my mind.

Seems like after all his time away from pinball he might have some fresh ideas? Though Id prefer he rehashed Shadow instead of AFM for the 4th time.

Absolutely. I should have been more clear, I was ONLY speaking about the layout. But you make a great point.

I feel like there is room for a proper original theme but only if there is internal passion for it. Stern employs a lot of creative folks that I'm sure could excel if not limited by a license and pre-existing characters/ideas. For example, the team that did the animations for BKSOR nailed it, in my opinion and you could definitely build up more of a story with what's there. And for a pinball machine, the actual "story" really doesn't need to be overly deep and it could be catered directly to pinball much better than a pre-existing story.

But ultimately, the reason we see so many licensed themes is that a lot of people are just more willing to buy a machine with a theme they already love, sometimes sight unseen. Additionally, it's much easier to overlook gameplay, layout or artwork deficiencies when you are attached to the theme itself. So the question is, how the hell do you make sure you sell an original themed game? Since no theme, licensed or otherwise, appeals to every pinball player or buyer, I'd suggest that making a good game is the first step. Or maybe the real solution is to have someone like Elwin or Lyman attached to an original theme.

But then again, why would Stern take the risk when their current strategy seems to be working just fine.

Also, can we get Iron Maiden re-themed as Archer? I really like Maiden but damn would it be cool to see that machine return to it's roots.

Yeah, but not because of original themes.

They did plenty of licensed themes, including their biggest seller. However, they were operating in a much different environment than we are in right now. The home/collector market, unfortunately, responds much better to themes they already love.

Ultimately, I don't see why Stern cant take a chance every now and again though.

Williams bought Bally but the games Bally made prior to that time (1987?) weren't made my Williams in any way. It's kind of like saying that Scientific Games made great pinball machines in the 90s, it's simply not true.

Oh man, this could be great! Especially with custom call outs from Jack Black and Kyle Gass and more of an Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle style approach instead of the typical "band" pin/jukebox approach.

Literally 2 decades ago though... And it's not like they weren't releasing plenty of other duds at the time as well.

Is it?

Would the BOM for LOTR really be any different from the current Stern line up? Especially if sold as a Premium/LE only pricing model, which is what I would anticipate.

I suggest they include a Quidditch video mode which is basically just a high definition re-make of the Johnny Mnemonic video mode. The ridiculousness of that video mode would capture the essence of Quidditch perfectly!

I'm really not sure why people routinely talk about Elwin and Lyman teaming up. A huge part of what makes Elwin's games great is his rules design complimenting his playfield design.

This already exists. Not sure how many were actually made though.

I don't think its a social justice crusade, just Hollywood trying to make money as easily as possible.

With that being said, how does "Social Justice Crusaders from Stern Pinball" sound?

Same here.

Thanks for the math, that's actually really cool to have a rough idea of what is entering the global market every year.

You may not be interested in this kind of speculation but some people are. Is it accurate? No idea. We're in a thread entirely devoted to speculation relating to stern though, so it seems appropriate to me.

Well it actually seems to be more about speculating about what would make a good theme, or what people would like to see, not necessarily just what Stern is actually doing.

Either way, if someone shares analysis or perspective that you have no interest in, just skip over it and move on to the next post.

I feel like there probably isn't enough widespread appeal to sell an NHL pin. But I could see it being cool if they did. I picture it as a Steve Ritchie game.

Batman89 would be an awesome re-theme/vault style release of Batman66.

complete battle/mode, then a 3 shot kombo like 123 foot in tmnt to do a fatality. and have a secret Kombo to do a different fatality.

I feel like Ritchie is the right guy to do it to. fast, flowy and lots of combos.

Zeppelin?

or perhaps theyre gonna start selling puzzles using their existing backglass/translite artwork?

haha, who would have thought that a picture of a puzzle with "coming soon" would mean that a puzzle was coming soon.

Does Stern ever do drawn out teaser things for game releases? Seems more up JJP's alley to me.

I don't think they were trolling. They teased a new product and a bunch of people started reading way too much into it. If they showed a picture of a pinball machine and said "coming soon," I'd expect a pinball machine to be revealed soon. But they showed a picture of a puzzle and that's what we got. However, considering the fact that they aren't a puzzle company and are, in fact, a pinball company, they really didn't need to hype up puzzles in that way.

A half- or full-size puzzle of certain playfields could be cool. If puzzles are your thing, the artwork of any zombieyeti game would be pretty cool. There's lots of small details that you don't necessarily focus on but you definitely would when assembling a puzzle.

He designs the rules or at least the overall framework and then has a coder implement it. Lyman designs rules AND implements it. Though all lead software guys delegate stuff to others.

I like the Elwin approach, as far as I understand it.

Theme integration definitely doesnt seem to necessarily be a huge concern of stern, which seems strange considering their reliance on theme to sell machines. I do think that Deadpool and TMNT are done well and I, personally, like the way JP makes me feel like I'm in Jurassic Park rather than playing Jurassic Park but I understand people's concerns with it.

Pretty easy to understand, tough to master, kind of like Iron Man. At least that's how I view it. It probably doesn't hurt that it had such a bad reception upon release only to be revived by later updates.

Maybe I'm the only one but I think the playfield art on Walking Dead is perfect, it suits the game and the theme well. Plus, I'm super glad it doesn't revolve around the TV show characters especially because the code doesn't involve them at all.

But yes, ugly game + great gameplay is always going to win for me as well.

I think, more than anything, it would be a waste of each of their talents considering they both seem to excel at creating deep, balanced rule sets. To me, it's kind of like saying, "I sure wish Ritchie and Borg could design a fast, flowy layout together."

I think this is the key, not every pin should be a zombieyeti art package. I love every game he's done but I also like Jurassic Park and Black Knight. And when you hear how rushed he was to get Avengers completed, you realise they are leaning a little too heavy on him and I definitely don't want him to burn out or anything.

Also, I believe Marvel specifically requested ZombieYeti for Avengers (after rejecting some other artists) because of his work on Deadpool. So it kind of makes sense that you'd get a similar layout/style, especially when you add in a time crunch.

Like a typical JJP fanboy!

If this is true, I am interested to see just how empty the main playfield is on the Pro and/or how poorly integrated the upper playfield is for overall gameplay.

Really, the guy does one pinball machine and you already write him off? Guys like him are exactly what stern needs. Like you said ZombieYeti cant do every machine.

I happen to really like the overall art package of Jurassic Park myself.

"Grogu" was introduced far to late to really feel right. For the entire series, you're calling him "The Child" or "Baby Yoda." By the time "Grogu" comes into it, it's kinda like, meh.

Exactly this. To make a game good overall, it needs to have both. "Deep code" without having accessible things up front feels like chopping wood every game and is terrible for the less skilled/beginner players who will essentially never see those things. Lots of stuff up front with no code depth ends up being fun at first but leads to a very shallow and repetitive experience, much like Munsters.

Avengers, in my opinion, does a very good job of balancing this up front kind of gameplay and longer term depth. Up front, Thor MB is like 3 shots away from the plunge, your 1st Gem Quest is like 2 or 3 shots away.

Walk up to the game, you plunge and BOOM! you're right into it. Complete the 1st Gem Quest? Great! Now place the Gem and maybe see some benefits. Lost the Gem? No worries, start another one or maybe start Thor MB. For a beginner, they might have just played and lost a Gem Quest and played a MB. That's a pretty decent gameplay experience. Now you can jump into another game and beat that damn Gem Quest! For a more intermediate player, maybe you're pushing to get to Thanos Attacks and starting your Iron Man MB. An even better player, maybe you're pushing to place some Gems and take advantage and pushing to get to Battle Royale (edit: I mean Black Order MB). And this can escalate all the way to winning all 6 Gems and starting Battle Thanos for a 1 billion point payout! And this doesnt even involve any of the Computer Grid Award aspects or any of the really specific Gem placement-type strategies.

THAT is what code depth actually looks like from a gameplay stand point, in my personal opinion.

Great example. It really does show that there are different types of depth. I'd almost call BSD solely "execution-based depth": easy to understand, tough to master. Where as something like Avengers is a lot more "rules AND execution-based": more complex to understand, tough to master.

A lot of the Williams "classics" definitely lean to the execution-based depth idea: Fish Tales, BSD, Shadow, Medieval Madness, etc.

A lot of the Stern "modern-classics" lean to the rules and execution-based depth: TSPP, LOTR and lots of the most recent games.

Obviously it's not black and white, but that's kind of my personal view of things.

Id also take Dwight over Lonnie. But I do think TMNT is still missing something to tie it all together, sure hope Dwight takes one more crack at it to round it all out. My sense of Dwight is that he kind of has his plan for the rules and is just content to get that built rather than seeing how it comes together and readjusting and rebalancing. Could be wrong but that's sort of my impression.

There is no universal "good layout."

Pff.. Typical trustfund kid.

Hell, it barely even aged before the video was posted. haha

He still usually is.

This is why I believed it as well.

Has this been confirmed anywhere or is it just speculation based on those 2 titles? Based on what was said around EHOH's release, Lyman had wanted to work on a haunted mansion/house type game for a while so it was a good fit. Im not saying that he isnt assigned to the Premium+ games they release, just curious if there is more to this than his involvement with the first 2 Prem+ games.

I think you're confusing "depth" with "complexity" here. Deep games can definitely be as approachable for beginners as any other game. I think in the case of something like Munsters, depth would provide more things to do further into the game without affecting the approachable structure of the game.

For example, look at Deadpool, that game is not complex but it is deep, there are lots of things to "get to" and parallel objectives to do but there are also pretty straightforward objectives for anyone that steps up to the machine: Lil Deadpool MB/Modes, Battles, even just the Katanarama Time combos. Approachable and deep.

But that video fighting scene isn't "depth". I do understand how that screen might not be intuitive, that's when a pinball sherpa needs to be guiding the newbies to "shoot the lit shots." Don't you want to be a pinball sherpa?

I'm glad you asked, really a sherpa is only 1 part of becoming truly enlightened in the ways of the silverball. A guru tends to educate in the spiritual ways of pinball, a wizard teaches you the sorcery of ball control, nudging and shot accuracy, and the sherpa focuses on all things rules based.

Together all 3 are required for a pinball student to become a Silverball Master! There is no other way.

Oh, how convenient! The product you designed to fix the issue, helps to fix the issue! Seems pretty suspect to me!

Haha just joking, in fact, I just put a set in my AIQ last weekend and they should be mandatory for TMNT.

I think it was Dwight himself that said that he tried to make a simpler game like T2. Possibly with a suggestion from Gomez. I wish I couls find the podcast but it would take too much time to dig through them all.

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?

"Stern never does 3d sculpts!"
"This 3d sculpt doesn't dance and catch the ball in it's tiny hand"

Complainers gonna complain, I suppose.

I like this idea, though I think I'd prefer a whole new game with a much different gameplay style than TSPP.

It just feeds back to the left orbit, coming toward the flippers. But it has a ball stopper to allow animations to play.

Finally! I've been trying to get him deported for years!

Personally I'd rather they didn't put 2 guys who design the game rules framework on one machine, but maybe that's just me. Elwin and Lyman seem to come up with good rulesets separately, no reason to team up on a game.

Part of what I love about Elwin games is the way the layout and rules framework are designed by the same guy.

You wouldn't call Beatles a Seawitch vault. BM66 may be inspired by Dark Knight but its a completely unique package overall.

The thing is, the layout, rules and overall gameplay are vastly different. On Spiderman they changed the art, callouts and animations but they retained the core gameplay and geometry. Iron Man was almost a 1 re-release with LEDs and updated magnets. Technically they did a Star Trek "Vault Edition" though in that case, it seems like it was really just a re-run of the game, not sure why they called it "vault."

If they were to re-skin Walking Dead, the comics are the obvious choice. I'd be happy with Black and White or colourized but I'd really rather not see a lighthearted cartoon-style. In that case, I think a whole different theme would be a better option.

Wouldn't you just be able to remove the SD card, burn the proper game file to it, and re-insert it to fix any attempt by hackers to modify your game to lock you out?

And then you could set the playfield incline to 5 degrees so it's like playing in slow motion, just like a quarter of the entire movie. Man, I was so disappointed with it. Just my personal opinion though, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Though a comic-style Justice League, like the way Avengers Infinity Quest was done, would be cool (to me).

I definitely agree that more modern music (20 to 30 years old, haha) could be a viable theme but the trick (I think) is to find something that has endured. Limp Bizkit, Korn, and Nu Metal in general was just a major fad as far as I can tell. You need a band that was huge in its time AND has stuck around. Look at the music pins we've seen so far: Elvis, The Rolling Stones, ACDC, Metallica, Kiss, etc. They were huge in they're time but have had a lasting legacy in pop culture. In my opinion, Nirvana would fit that bill BUT they don't embody the same Rock N Roll attitude of the other bands I've mentioned. There's something about a Nirvana pinball machine that feels disingenuous to their whole identity, maybe if Cobain didn't die and they kept touring since 94 but I don't know, something feels off. Even Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper feel like they don't fit the mold but I think Spooky makes it work because they're a "boo-tique" company.

At this point, I feel like a music festival type approach with a semi-modern soundtrack might be a good way to go to capture the "spirit" of the era without relying on one single band.

I highly doubt they'll switch back to metal aprons because this QR reader. Why wouldn't they keep doing Plastic Aprons?