These are fair points. The game on show at Expo was still a prototype, and not a finished version. The cabinet, in particular, was an early prototype version.

The game is 85% there with programming and playability, but we will be the first to admit that there are tweeks needed before production.

In particular, we didn't get the standup targets right. They are being re-designed now. They are angled to high and are too 'springy'. The standups were responsible for most of the airballs and during Expo, the left lock target shattered and made the switch even more springy. The targets are being re-designed to absorb more impact and will be angled down.

Valentino was present at Expo, just not attached. The mounting bracket and PCB were delivered in time, but we had no time to install them and test them.

I always write off a few glitches on prototypes. That aside this was the most fun game I played there, period!
Disclaimer, buying it and TBL.
Since HSII is not coming back in my collection I have been in that miss it funk mode. But after playing this that urge is gone. This game lives up to its theme. Its a thrill ride. Super fast, great flow and great shots.
While I am patiently waiting for two other show purchases this one is the game I am jonesing to be playing as soon as possible.

How wide is the playfield? The overhead shots make it look like a standard-ish width playfield in a widebody cabinet

It's a 23" widebody playfield, in a widebody cabinet

The final cabinet, which is about to be manufactured for games 3 & 4, should be narrower by around an inch

It wasn't even that the corners were sharp IMO just uncomfortable to play for an extended period of time ... glad to hear they intend to address it.

double post

I played it at Expo and really liked it. The idea of using the same cabinet and swapping playfiends in and out is very nice. The lower cabinet also looked great...though the head and translite were pretty bland looking in my opinion.

As for being a "solid" game....I would say that's not a good word to describe it...or the cabinet anyway. Not that it bothered me, but a friend had a ball stuck and gave the side of the cabinet a slap...it seemed to move the cabinet (maybe just rattled the plastic sides) and the playfiend when he did that. That's not anything that put me off, but if you love tanks like WOZ....this cabinet might put you off.

As for the playfield and layout, I really loved a lot of the shots. There is a shot to the right of the left ramp that is really fun as well as a shot on the right that sends the ball tracking to the left side of the playfield. The shots were fast and seemed lined up great.

The only clunker was the right ramp. I don't think it's an issue of tightness as much as an issue with the slope of the ramp going up too fast. Balls would hit it hard and dead on and they would just bounce out. In all my time of watching people play, I never saw 1 ball make it up that ramp. Even looking at the pictures it looks like it angels sharply at the opening and then the slope tapers off.

The screen in the playfiels would take some getting used to, but after that I think it will actually be an improvement. I'm not one to pick up on rules quickly so I won't even comment on them.

All and all, it seemed like a really fast and fun game. I can't wait to see what else Heighway has coming in the future.

Why are the glass panels on the side black? I thought they were meant to be clear? That is one of the things I like from the beginning to be able to see into the playfield from the side.

Another good point. We believe the reason is a flaw in the ramp making process on the prototypes. We have polished aluminium tooling, but the right ramps seem to have a small lip on entry which launches the ball and ricochets on the underside of the above ramp. We are addressing it. Bizarrely, it is far easier to make the right ramp from backflipping off the right flipper, than making it with a clean shot from the left.

As with the lock switches, we are currently addressing this

Alas, to keep costs down, we have removed these panels from the cabinet.

Our cabinet is already very expensive in order to be able to illuminate the side panels

Pros:
- cabinet : seems high quality, love the lightning from behind
- light show
- ramps
- great flow (you would forget it's a wide body!)
- it fits the theme nicely - starting with an original skill shot
- Great to have a chat with Andrew and Romain. The Heighway folks are really nice.
- Love how you remove the PF glass.
- The lock with a strong magnet is cool to witness.

Neutral:
- Overall art package. (still clearly improved since the initial version)
- some shots are tight, such as the right ramp. Not a problem for a good player, but could be frustrating.

Cons:
- Hardware: stand up targets were not working properly - some issues with the left flipper.
- Software: code is not complete - for some reason only one player could play at a time.

Overall I was positively impressed but, to be completely honest, some of my friends were not.

Yes...it rocks!

There is a lot to do, the scoop can be hit from only one flipper.
The ramps have drops to the top, and short shot frustration and reward.
Not a game that feels like work...just damn fun like your favorite Bally Williams updated
and on Steroids!

It makes you want more and the shot layout is brilliant, especially for me the center right loop.

It may be hard to explain, as we all want new toys and features.
This game brought enough of everything to be enjoyed by everyone.....this appealed to me.

As I watched others playing, kids, teens, ladies and men, whether you had a short game or long,
you didn't need to know the rules, one was happy with their first play,and left wanting more.

This, not fully explained,but i hope might be understood, is the mark of a great game with entertainment
and challenges for everyone.

For me it was a standout at the show.

Art

I was far more impressed by it than I expected to be. The theme doesn't do anything for me, but I have every reason now to believe that I'll get some other pin made by them in the future. They're the real deal, and the price is right.

I played this Thursday night with a buddy, first one out of the box, hammered it for 45 minutes, the pin is just awesome, great shots good flow, and that skill shot is just to cool, plunging the ball at the right revs gets you the points. We actually asked the guys not to take the 2nd one out of the box and just load it up in out trailer, but it was a no go My only downside was it was hard to see the scores with multiplayers. For the first effort it was an all around great pin, thinking of selling my TZ to make a spot for one. The guys from Heighway pinball were great, It sure was one of the many highlights of the show for me

I was there with 80spit and got the first game on it after the guys from Heighway got it setup. The glass wasn't even on the game yet but I had to get my hands on this pin. This may be my first NIB if I can get the purchase order approved by the wife. This thing played fast and furious and I just wanted to keep hitting the start button after every game was over. The guys from Heighway were great and were very interested in what we thought about it and any suggestions we had.
Joe

I like the overall design--the backlit side art (which appears swappable), the monitor in the playfield (although I did look up for a DMD a few times out of habit), the redesigned backbox, plus all the modularity under the hood.

As for the game itself, it played pretty well. Not exactly a theme I'm particularly interested in, but I imagine it will do well.

Nice job

Ok so I played this at Pintastic also. I have to agree with ForceFlow that the game design is innovative with backlit side art, playfield swapability and tech design.

All that said, I was not crazy about the gameplay - maybe its the theme? In any case - I didnt find the gameplay as fun as other titles - and it's difficult to put my finger on why.

Videos below:

Is the "lockbar" as uncomfortable as it looks?

The gameplay is fast and furious; I actually think it is a very unique game and offers us a different layout and a wide body playfield that doesn't even feel that way; all the players there seemed to love it

I loved this game. @Pintastic on Friday it played flawlessly. It flows like crazy. It plays fast. The little monitor in the playfield is a real cool feature. I like the light up cabinet, although in a line-up might be tough to appreciate. The other rider is talking smack the whole time so it makes you want to defeat him. I really enjoyed this game. I can't wait for the next title.

I loved the layout! Different and had a lot of flow. For a first game or even any game, it is impressive.

Honestly, I didn't even notice anything about the lockbar when I was playing.

And the lockbar isn't actually a lockbar. The playfield glass is in a frame, and the whole frame comes off the game (along with the glass). That's how you can drop in new side art without having plastic glass channels in the way.

20150711174812735.jpg

Could you elaborate on that? You know, if you had a chance to talk with a designer for their next game who was curious how the interface could be improved?

Since the display was in the playfield, it was hard for observers to see it.

However, there were two models of the game there--one had no display in the backbox, the other one did.

When I played it at Expo, I found that corners of the frame were jamming into my palms. It would be nice if some rounded cover could be added over it.

Otherwise the game was fun.

I agree also , I played it at Pintastic also and just wasn't sold on the theme , I am waiting to see what Alien looks like, for me I'm not an operator and I'm not looking to swap play fields or store them at the matter...

Just want to add the game needs the display in the backbox which is an option, I felt lost looking up and not seeing it!

Tigger64/caylegeorge as pictured below they have rounded the corners since Expo . Pointy corners would have been a big no no for me too

Fair play to them taking comments onboard

image.jpg

Ah, I thought it was about seeing the other player scores. Yeah, the backbox LCD upgrade is probably the solution for that if you want that option.

I was playing my Tron last night, and one thing that really annoys me is every time you hit the spinning disc to try and start multiball it plays an animation of someone jumping with an identity disc before it displays how many more hits you need. Well Tron isn't exactly a game you can safely sit there staring at the display for seconds.

Be really nice if the playfield could indicate that for you. And with a high rez display you can show an animation and the count at the same time too, so much faster data, in view, while still looking cool.

It may have been me, but we were playing with 4 players, actually for Dollars, and it seemed hard to me to see all 4 players scores at once It still would be nice if they were on the Head, In all reality the Head could be totally eliminated the one we played did not have the 2nd LED in it. I still think it's a really cool pin, hope to get a couple more plays on it at replayfx

Heighway had a poll up a while back for backbox ideas. No backbox just would have looked weird. I think what they ended up with was good. Similar enough to older designs to look familar, but still modern enough to not look outdated.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/heighway-pinball-backbox-poll

So just to be clear, is this about the position of the LCD in the playfield, or the actual interface for showing scores on the screen itself?

It was mainly not being able to see the scores easily on the playfield LCD I hope to buy one of these , but I would not opt for the 2nd screen in the head, unless it displayed scores during gameplay, and I agree, It just would'nt feel like pinball without a head, but to see it opened up, all thats in there is a couple LED strips! I really like the use of modern technology on this pin. Just one other observation I noticed, the spinners really had very little or no effect on ball flow, I kind of forgot they were there!

That is great news!

Great feedback!

Well the backbox LCD screen is just mirroring the playfield one, at least as far as I know. But if the scores were clearly shown on the playfield one they'd also be easily available on the backbox one.

Definitely useful stuff to keep in mind.

Yep, that's how the one at the show was operating.

If the screen is not showing multiplayer scores clearly, I am sure that this is an easy thing to fix with a code update later. Plenty of
time to fix stuff like that and Andrew has said that they would welcome any suggestions to make the code even better.

The most important thing for me at the moment is that the basic code looks to be almost complete, even before the game has shipped out to the first customers. This gives them plenty of time to fix and fine tune the display stuff, after customer feedback

Sure. Just to be clear I was asking for impressions to keep in mind for Alien. I haven't been able to spend time on Full Throttle myself yet, just saw the prototype at Expo last year. So first hand reports on how the LCD experience works for people is really helpful.

Well sadly I haven't had the chance to play FullT either, but I have watched a lot of videos & I like what they've done with the playfield LCD.

If I only had one suggestion to make, perhaps on Alien they could incorporate the LCD into art design a little better, giving it a more seamless look. Similar to what they did on Captain Nemo. I really like that effect, as the LCD almost completely blends into the artwork. Cool effect, but I'm sure Aurich has plenty ideas up his sleeve

CNEMO.jpg

Hmm, I'd have to see that in action, but it doesn't really make much sense to me. The screen is for displaying game info, not trying to show the playfield art.

FYI the game has evolved (for the better IMHO) since that blueprint. Definitely not a current representation of the game.

The idea is that you can display any pertinent information on the screen without having to have an obvious big rectangle in the middle that breaks up the art. Effectively "hiding" the screen in the art while still presenting the information. with the final effect being the information looking like it is being displayed right on the playfield.

Hell, one could take this a step further, by using a projector to shoot the info wherever you want it on the playfield, like a HUD. That's something I've never seen done before. (Please kick me over a few bucks for the idea if you decide to make this. )

Even the CAD drawing I have printed out is already out of date.

https://twitter.com/aurich/status/620814373653606400