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Welcome to Pinball Magazine’s recap of what happened in the world of pinball manufacturing during February 2017. If you read our recap of January you may have noticed there’s actually a lot going on. Last month is no different, although the parties making the news may not be the usual suspects. Let’s see what happened:
 
John Popadiuk’s Zidware (finally) released the Magic Girl games that American Pinball assembled. For a long time it looked like these games would never be build as John had indicated a few years ago he ran out of funds to manufacture these games, as well as the Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland and Alice in Wonderland games he was working on. Thanks to American Pinball stepping in about 20 Magic Girl games were built after all and those who had one on order received an email last month that their game was ready for pickup. Chris Kooluris was one of the first to have his game delivered and shared a bunch of photos of it on his Facebookpage. As no Magic Girl games will be build, these are very rare. In the mean time some owners decided to not hold on to their game and offered it for sale on Facebook or Ebay. Speaking of American Pinball: they are still developing the Houdini game, which should be presented at the Texas Pinball Festival at the end of March. See the diary at the bottom for dates.
Heighway Pinball was another company who happily announced to have started shipping their Alien game. While technically correct the number of shipped games is two. So it’s not like they are cranking out the hundred games per month the company mentioned a few months ago. Nevertheless the first two games shipped and the first Alien game that shipped is currently being operated in Starport Arcade in Morgantown, WV. The company also released a new 11-minute gameplay video, which is getting very good feedback. March 6 there will be a live stream of Alien gameplay on Dead Flip on Twitch.
 
Speaking of Dead Flip: tune in today (March 3rd) at 5PM Central for live gameplay of Scott Danesi’s Total Annihilation homebrew pinball game. The game has great music and a brilliantly simple ball lock, so if you’re into some innovative pinball, do check that out.
Multimorphic just sent out a newsletter in which they revealed some more details on the production of their P3. The first production run will be 25 units, which will be assembled in March and April and shipping in April. A second production run for currently placed orders is expected to begin in June or July. At the Texas Pinball Festival three new games will be presented, bringing the total games available for the P3 platform to eight. These new games are:
  • Wizard - A pinball training game - Learn and practice all types of pinball playing techniques
  • Heads Up! - A fast-paced, head-to-head, network-linked game across two P3 machines
  • Grand Slam Rally - A baseball game and also the first P3 game developed by a 3rd party
At the Texas show Multimorphic will have their own seminar on Saturday at noon, where they will be describing the new games and providing free pizza as well.
Dutch Pinball,  who have been building and shipping the first 55 units of their Big Lebowski game, ran into some issues with ARA, the company that assembles the games. Actually the situation surfaced just last month, but has been going on for a while. Apparently both companies have an agreement that states that ARA will build 300 games for Dutch Pinball at a certain price, within a certain timeframe. Once the first games were being build (over a year too late according to the contract) ARA concluded they wanted over 1,000 Euro extra per game. Dutch Pinball was willing to pay the extra money per game, but only on the condition that ARA would deliver all 300 games of The Big Lebowski before the end of 2016, as well as 50 games of game No. 2. The good news here is that DP have completely finished the design of their second game! However, in October 2016 DP found out that ARA hadn’t even ordered parts to build the 50 games of game No. 2 and DP concluded that ARA would never produce the 50 games of game No. 2. Although ARA didn't perform according the added condition, ARA still wanted the extra money per game. DP instead says that they are back at the price they originally agreed upon.

When ARA invoiced DP for the agreed price (+ the extra over 1000 Euros) DP refused to pay. In return ARA responded by not releasing the about 40 games they had built in the meantime. Soon after ARA stopped the assembly of the game. So currently ARA is sitting on about 40 ready to ship games and a part of the inventory to build the remaining 210 games. By now the situation has escalated to the point where it is just lawyers talking to each other. In the mean time DP is already talking to new parties to pick up production of both The Big Lebowski as well as game No. 2, so hopefully this will be continued in a positive direction.
 
Note that in Pinball Magazine No. 4 an interview with Dutch Pinball is published, which covers the making of the game right up to where to the issues with ARA started. In between the lines the first signs of the relation between the companies not being perfect can already be spotted.
 
Jaap Nauta of Dutch Pinball will be attending the Texas Pinball Festival where he will be doing an update seminar on Saturday.
While Stern Pinball usually is dominating this monthly summary, there’s not that much to report on them this time around. The company was featured in a video that aired on CBS on the Sunday prior to Valentines day, Batman code .69.0 was released, flyers for Aerosmith became available and Deadflip streamed Aerosmith gameplay video from the Stern factory.

The same goes for Jersey Jack Pinball, who have just been building and shipping games as usual. The company swapped their Dialed In test game at Level 257 in Schaumburg, IL for another unit of the same game to continue testing. On the original testgame the playfield had started to wear around one of the playfield magnets. On the replacement game this area is mylared to reduce wear to the playfield.
On Facebook JJP also shared photos of games being put in a container that would ship to their European distributor Freddy’s Pinball Paradise. Speaking of which: FPP are planning a European Dialed In tour to promote and sell the game. The game is currently scheduled to be presented at the following events:
  • February 23 – 25 // Italy // Double Pinball // Dialed In event at their new showroom in Milano
  • March 04 – 05 // Switzerland // Andreas Salathé // Nordwestschweizer-Flippermeisterschaft ECS-Event in Pratteln
  • March 15 – 17 // Italy // Double Pinball // Dialed In event at their new showroom in Milano
  • March 25 // Germany // Open house at Freddy's Pinball Paradise in Echzell
  • April 01 - 02 // France // Michael Platje // Flip expo in Le Treport
  • April 08 – 09 // Austria // Stefan Riedler // Comic Con in Linz (Oberösterreich)
  • April 13 – 14 // Austria // Stefan Riedler //  Tournament „Auf Die Kugeln Fertig Los 3.0" in Badendorf in der Steiermark (near Graz)
  • April 29 // Germany // Open house at Freddy's Pinball Paradise in Echzell
Spooky Pinball have also been busy, building about 12 Rob Zombie and Domino’s Pizza games in total per week. Spooky will be bringing these titles, as well as the new Jetsons game they are making for The Pinball Company, to the Texas Pinball Festival. The company will also launch new T-shirts at the show. There may even be some Rob Zombie games for sale at the show. The final 300th Rob Zombie game will be auctioned off at the Midwest Gaming Classic show in April.
ColorDMD announced two new game titles: The Walking Dead and Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.
Arcooda, an Australian company that makes video pinball games for home use and commercial operation, have partnered with Barnstorm Games in order to release Timeshock! - The Arcade Edition. Timeshock is an iconic virtual pinball game from the late ‘90s. Now the game will get a new life as it becomes available for Arcooda products. Earlier this year Arcooda also announced that all games from Farsight Studios’ The Pinball Arcade would be playable on their platforms.

When asked whether there is any correlation between this new iteration of Timeshock and the physical game that Silver Castle Pinball is developing Arcooda responded as follows:
"Our Timeshock product is seperate and unique to what Silver Castle Pinball is doing. Silver Castle Pinball is working on a dedicated standalone machine, whilst the work we are doing with Timeshock is to make it an "arcade edition" version, which will form part of the software library on our Arcooda Video Pinball machines. The arcade edition software will have many new features added so that software interacts with our cabinet allowing lighting/coil matrix to function. There will also be new artwork and software written to make this version unique to other Timeshock models."

Note that in Pinball Magazine No. 4 graphic artist Jean-Paul de Win discusses his art direction for the Silver Castle Pinball version of Timeshock with lots of illustrations to follow the proces. 
Adam Humphreys started a Kickstarter project to fund his Protean 8x2. This is a new affordable Arduino Programmable Power Control that could be used to drive coils, lamps, LEDs, motors and more, making it a perfect board for use in pinball machines. Currently he projct is backed by 60 backers, but with $1,734 raised and only a week to go still far from the pledged goal of $5,000. Humphreys PCB could make it easier for a lot of people to get into designing their own pinball games, so if that’s something you would like to see happen, check out his video at his Kickstarterpage for more info.
A few months ago this newsletter reported on Wayne John’s attempt to break the record for non-stop pinball playing in an attempt to raise money to raise awareness of prostate cancer. The attempt took place and Wayne reported back to me that his attempt was not only successful, but also is recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records. So congratulations to Wayne John!
Pinball Magazine News
As editor of Pinball Magazine I was interviewed last week by Jeff Teolis, who produces the Pinball Profile podcast. The interview is currently still being edited, but expected to ‘air’ within a week or two.
 
I’m currently working on the cover story for what could be Pinball Magazine No. 5, but it could also become something more like a coffee table book. Haven’t decided on that yet. Either way I hope to be doing some more interviews for that the upcoming month. Publication of this project will still be months away, but at least you know there’s being worked on new material.
 
Pinball News editor Martin Ayub and myself will be doing a new edition of the So You Think You Know Pinball pop quiz at the Texas Pinball Festival. Last year the quiz debuted as the opening seminar on Friday evening. A ton of prizes was awarded to those who knew the correct answers to the questions asked. This year the quiz is likely to take place in the bar area of the hotel, which should be fun as happy hour will be in progress. If you’re attending the Texas Pinball Festival, it would be nice to see you there and participate in the quiz. Who knows you might win some cool stuff, kindly sponsored by Texas Pinball Festival, various pinball manufacturers, various pinball stores and others.
 
Speaking of the Texas Pinball Festival: interviews with the organizers of the show and of the History of Pinball booth from the show, are featured in Pinball Magazine No. 4, which is still available in the Pinball Magazine webshop. Unlike previous years Pinball Magazine isn’t planning to be present with a booth of its own, but copies of Pinball Magazine No. 1, (the sold out) No. 2, No. 3, No. 4 and Santiago Ciuffo’s PINBALL book will all be available at the stand of Pinball Classics / Rob Anthony. For those attending the show that haven’t ordered a copy of (the sold out) issue 2 or issue 4, make sure to get them at the show and have them signed by Dennis Nordman and Greg Freres (both featured in issue 2) or Mark Ritchie ( featured in issue 4). Note that the available copies of issue 2 are limited to only four or five and are sold on a first come first serve basis.
If you can’t make it to the Texas Pinball Festival you can still order Pinball Magazine No. 1, 3 and 4, as well as Santiago Ciuffo’s PINBALL book, in the Pinball Magazine webshop. I’ll be shipping out a new batch of orders early next week, so if you’re missing any of these make sure to order them now!

Upcoming pinball events for March and April 2017    
That’s all for now. Keep on flippin’!
 
Kind regards,
 
Jonathan Joosten
Pinball Magazine
 
Copyright © 2017 Pinball Magazine, All rights reserved.


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