I think most of those are now available at new sources

I think we argued about this before and how nobody would comment on the parts that were not available to buy.

There is plenty of incentive to NOT tell people like you.

The current owners know what is hard to come by and most have likely located spares at this stage as they have come available from sources. I would never tell people as there is no upside to doing so and not real reason it should matter to them. It makes me question WHY you have always been so obsessed with trying to find out???

Ah, the old time machine problem. I might need 3 spares of a part that I probably wont install.. but I need the market to myself incase of reasons.

I wouldn't say obsessed, I just feel like its just a bullshit detector going off. Can't make more than 6 machines because of random part that is secret.

Hopefully Homepin can fill the gap

Ehr,still offended Aurich,your post is right under mine,send me the bill to pre order..see if i mean business.
My name is "pinballrockstar".... says 'nuff can't speak for pinside,but defending me...

Every time I see this thread updated I am saddened and happy at the same time. It is a great game and would have ordered one in a minute but with all the JPOOP and Shit-B stuff and JJP delays I like many others just couldn't quite pull the trigger.

Times are different now as others pointed out - if someone was to commit to making this I think it would sell 150 units. Once they got out in the wild it would start to sell itself.

Interestingly, anyone know if a WOOLY is gonna make an appearance at a show in 2017? Would love to play one..!

yes, but that's because they were buying existing inventory vs a manufacturing run where you'd be sourcing things differently.

I saw this thread on fire and thought there was an update about the game going into production.

I think spooky's proven track record along with the general increase in price of games since last attempt would lead to a more successful pre-order model for WOOLY a second time around, but who knows. Its cool to see what they have made and I'm glad they shared it a few times with the public.

It'll never happen, but I think it should be the first pinball "build your own" kit.

LMK when you will be in the area.

I hear you, but the window they gave people to think it over was pretty small and there was not a lot of information at the time for people to think over (and it came out right at the beginning of JPop melting down and Predator collapsing, not the best time to ask anyone for a deposit).

This was said over and over for years and years about MM.

I see.

I just thought they weren't gonna make any more of those parts is, but I do understand they would make more if you wanted 150 or so.

The situation has changed and the original plan of setting up manufacturing to build this pin was flawed. There are five manufacturers who would likely bid to build the game on a contract basis. Stern, JJP, Spooky, Highway and Dutch Pinball have navigated the waters and shown they can deliver. This will be the cheapest and less risky way to proceed. Maybe one day WOOLY will be made, but it will be one of the above who builds it. All they would need to bid on is a final version of game.

I was on the fence about WOOLY because of price. Having lived through ups and downs of pinball startups the past three year, I can see why the price for this pin needs to be 7.5k and am now willing to pay it.Someone build me a WOOLY for Christmas

Saving my money for when this game gets built. Hope Spooky builds it as I'm in on their next game too!

I'd jump on this. I don't know the exact timing but I either wasn't around or at least wasn't aware when the first attempt happened.

Yes ! June 17-18 2017. Rencontres de Montanceix, in Dordogne, France. I brought it last June (see picture below). Great food as well.
Now at last a reason to visit Europe!

And you are welcome to visit my home if you can't make it in June

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ahahah the best meeting in the world ! with its charming location by the river.
really wish i could be in the wooly adventure too
if i am around bdx someday i will definitely phone you JM , need to play wooly and nemo ^^

maybe you can come to the belgian open pinball 2017 and bring your WOOLY with you

It looks like I need to go to France.

or come to Madison.

Sure but, you know, I just need to go to France in general.

Next time I'm there visiting my daughter in school, I'll give you a heads up and see if I can come by to play.

On Wisconsin!! Beat Penn!!

Spooky are the only real choice there. DP and JJP aren't going to be interested in contract manufacture with their own plates more than full, and DP don't have their own production facilities so they won't do it anyway. HW have enough problems getting Alien out of the door. Stern are obviously an option, but I expect you'd get a poor deal on 150-300 games, and given their increasingly appalling reputation for general quality, and QC ... I think people would be more pleased about giving their money to Spooky.

Only other option is Homepin, but obviously not going to happen before they get their first game out.

I have no doubt from the kind of dude Whysnow is that his hospitality would be second to none. I owe him beers.

Agreed. And nothing but props to Spooky for being in a situation where they could handle such a project. It's a testament to the company that Charlie has built.

And it's who Scott was going to use if enough people had committed. It's always been the obvious choice. They shipped 150 AMH. It didn't take Rob Zombie to prove Spooky could make a game. Who the hell else has done that? You can make a long list of people who haven't.

Making pinballs isn't easy. I speak from direct experience. And the more I've learned about making games from the inside the more respect for Spooky I have.

No one would love to see Scott and Frank have their game built by Spooky more than me. And not because I'd even necessarily be a buyer, I'm honestly not in the NIB pin market these days, but because I'd love to see their success.

Scott's a smart dude. I see him at Expo every year and we talk, and if he makes a call one way or the other I'd back it being because it was the smart play. Maybe a color LCD screen could attract enough people, who knows, it's a solid upgrade IMHO, but if it doesn't happen it's because he knows the numbers better than you do, that I believe.

Regardless of the future, I tip my hat to the Riot boys for building a complete game, from scratch. It's an awesome accomplishment.

I personally think Heighway is the ONLY logical choice (after they get Aliens rolling).

WOOLY would be a perfect kit only machine for the wide body platform heighway is rolling with and Heighway has shown they have the skill to assemble a high quality machine that is jammed full of stuff. I personally would also love to see it with the induction based switches to further speed up the game (it is already super fast, but would be cool to be even faster )

Spooky has their hand full for the next many years with RZ at the 50% delivered mark, Dominoes will be the year after that, the next theme which everyone knows about and probably the worse kept secret in pinball, and then Ben's next game/ Spooky official #3.

If Spooky even decided to take it on, then we are probably talking 3 years out at best. Keep in mind no matter what, the game would need to reprogrammed on a new system. I sure hope Scott and Frank can find a way to make it feasible and also are able to make a truck load of money for the additional efforts it would take on top of what they have already done!

You don't think spooky will expand?

It would be a disaster. Andrew said in January that Barry Oursler had finished designing games 3 & 4, and 5 is supposedly now done ... what room does that leave for contract manufacture? None for years - the aim of HW releasing 2-3 games excluding Alien next year is completely impossible. Also, given the boards and switches HW use, the whole game would need to be completely re-engineered ... and if it wasn't, then they'd need to totally retrain all their assembly staff to put together a much more complex machine - which would likely lead to problems for both companies. Even if they were willing, you can't appoint a contract manufacturer that constantly fails to hit any deadlines.

Homepin are the only other option, some way into the future ... but again if they were going to use their system, it'd involve some redesign and code rewriting.

A non-pinball contract manufacturer is a possibility, but I wouldn't be confident about one in the US. Which means it's not really possible. Ones in Europe (like ARA, whom DP use) are both too far away to keep an eye on, and likely too expensive.

They already did expand into their new/current building which sounds to be full now...

I think Spooky is VERY smart and staying right sized. Keep the perfect sized shop and keep it running somewhat smoothly for the extended time frame. Chuck is a good dude and just looking to carve out a nice niche for his family and close crew. From what I see, he has no desire to become bigger than he is and then deal with letting people go/rehiring/ eb and flow of manufacturing. My guess is that he would like to work into blockbuster titles where he can sell 300-500 of each game and keep them 'limited', produce those 300-500 of each game in 1-1.5 years of time. This allows him the perfect amount of time to be developing the next title. Planned correctly they can bring out a new title and have the one behind that in development for 3 years. Keep the cycle going and bring in contract jobs (dominos, the poorly kept secret, ?) to pepper in between the spooky blockbusters.

If anything, I see them bringing in new games that others develop (like Total Annihilation by Scott D). I personally hope the benheck board becomes available so people can start building future/potential Spooky games with it. The cost alone is a HUGE savings over the other options on the market for home brewers. To me, it would be best to encourage the home brew market to start out with the ben Heck board system and then if someone has a great game there is less rework to start over with recoding if they opt to contract a build with Spooky.

no it would not. People wanted WOOLY but were afraid of the price. A kit is the perfect answer (after Aliens). Assuming Aliens sells well, there will be hundreds of kit ready cabs out in the world that could snatch up a WOOLY kit for much less than a full game. Heighway is the only company running widebodies currently and they are built on the kit concept.

You do realize that EVERY possible manufacturer (besides DP but they are not even remotely a real world option) is using a board set/technology different from P-Roc (which WOOLY is on). That means any option would require a full re-engineering.

1) Widebody or standard is totally academic. It's a cabinet. It doesn't influence anything else.

2) The installed base is currently too small for it to be much of an attraction yet.

3) To nowhere near the same extent. The inductive switches and other bits would involve total re-engineering and code base likely completely splitting from the original games.

4) You didn't address anything else.

5) Necessarily, they are going to need to visit and liaise with a contract manufacturer regularly, and at least weekly once production has started. A 4 hour car trip is bad enough. Probably a minimum of 20 hours - plus a fortune in air tickets - is both completely impractical and would be totally exhausting. What if something goes wrong and requires their immediate presence, and tickets are mostly sold out, meaning they can only buy costly ones? That's probably going to wipe out their margin for 2-4 machines.

You aren't thinking any of this through.

sure I am. I have thought it through tons and spoken with Scott and Frank about it lots over the years.

Reality is that ANY option is going to require tons of rework from what it currently is. The real question is IF they even want to go down that road and what THEY consider the best option. We can all have our opinion and all that will ever matter is what team Riot wants to do. I hope they figure out a way to bring it to market. Last I heard they may even be willing to sell the whole package deal to someone and let them take it to market/ contract with a manufacturer.

To me, that is the best idea. Pay team Riot for what they have done and then let someone else take it and run on the production side. I have always thought that could be a good option for any of the major manufactures.

Came looking for some sort of build announcement...all I got was more chatter about why/whynot the game will be built.

I feel like making a flow chart, because its always the same arguments and points on both sides.

You build it, they will come!

I know what's best for other people's companies.

No, I know what's best.

Nah uh, I know what's best.

I want this game to get made. I got in on the preorder at the last minute and was sorry to see it didn't work out but not surprised. Bad timing and a price that made people scared. With the giant jump in pricing it doesn't feel as out of line now though. If there is a good option to make it happen Riot will do what is best as they seem like good, smart people. I think its funny that some of you know exactly what others should do and are certain of what would be smart business decisions. Maybe, just maybe, they know what they are doing.

Still fun to discuss.

Either way it means people have a rejuvinated interest in the game and that is good. Maybe just to motivation the riot crew needs to give it another go?

I would like a kit but a generic kit. Not a Heighway kit. It would be like the conversion kits of old that would fit in a certain style of cab. They could make it fit in a Stern or Williams cab. Playfield, boards, translite, with optional side art. It would give people the flexibility either to use an existing cab, build a cab on their own, or have someone build one for them. It would cut down on a lot of the manufacturing, material, and shipping cost. It could also be a nice jumpstart into making full games of their own like what Pinstar did for DE (I may be wrong there but it seems like a nice assumption).

Logistical nightmare for support IMO. Only way it could be done is to sell a prepackaged blank pf, list of all the needed parts, and the code for X amount. EAch person has to sign off that there is zero support expected or given and good luck in your build. When you screw it up, don't contact riot. Aside from that it would be a mess, esp with the expectations combined with lack of skill of so many people that think they are capable.

Yup and if it were a kit it would probably dramaticly cut the number of people who would want it.

Yes, building a pinball machine would be so much harder than building a factory five car or kit airplane, lol. The only reason the kits haven't worked so far in pinball is nobody has done it, which is ironic since assembling the machines is the worst part. If I was to ever to make my own pinball machine, I'd make it kit for sure because:

a) no warehouse needed for assembly
b) no workers needed for assembly
c) instead of having to support 100 games that I built, I now have 100 other owners doing the same thing that can help. Plus really I'm only supporting defective parts
d) I could contract all the parts out to other people for a license fee, meaning I could get the game produced without capital expenditure.

Basically, you eliminate risk and capital needed while still getting the game out much faster than you could have otherwise. If it works for cars and airplanes, things that are much more complicated and safety driven, then it's hard to see why it wouldn't work for pinball.

Because airplanes and car kits cost way more than a pinball kit.

It is worth the hassle becuase there is more profit and a bigger audience to buy them. How many kits would really sell and what would the profir be? Not worth the effort to even do the documentation.

I suggested to scott that a feasible option would be to host a build camp and offer the experience similar to when we built the four games in one week.

15k gets you all the parts and the ten day experience of building you r own game from scratch. Wonder how many would be willing to do that? Granted you also have to have all the skill and tools to do the job. I think reality is pinball is already a small hobby and even a smaller number are able to build a game from a pile of parts.

Maybe if the game was actually available for pinball enthusiasts to play, it might get more people willing to buy. The 10 or so machines locked away in basements arn't doing anyone any good at getting it made.