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Avengers: Infinity Quest Revealed, Spooky Stories, Hot Wheels Update, deeproot Hammer, and Reveal of Ranger in the Ruins – TWIP 9/7/20

Avengers: Infinity Quest Revealed, Spooky Stories, Hot Wheels Update, deeproot Hammer, and Reveal of Ranger in the Ruins – TWIP 9/7/20

September 07, 2020 • Time to Read: 15 minutes

— This Week’s Top 5 Stories —

1. Stern Pinball Reveals Avengers: Infinity Quest

Last week our friends at Stern Pinball revealed their newest creation – Avengers: Infinity Quest! Get all the details here!!

AVENGERS DEEP DIVEPics | Videos | Overview | Price | Who’s Who | Features | Rules and Code

Make sure to tune into the Dead Flip reveal stream this Wednesday at 5PM Central / 6PM Eastern!

Keith Elwin GOAT Apparel

Just in time for Keith Elwin’s brand new Avengers design, our friends at Silverball Swag have released a premium line of Keith Elwin GOAT apparel – check it out here!

2. Spooky Pinball Expanding Production, David Van Es Design Coming, Yellow Submarine Story

Our friends at the Spooky Pinball Podcast shared some very interesting info on their monthly podcast – here are just a few highlights:

On setbacks from COVID and bouncing back:

We’ve had some people change positions and some new people coming in. This week was the first week we’ve done 11 games in a week. Next week will hopefully be the first week we do 12 games. We’re shooting for 15 games a week.

On expanding production:

Charlie: We actually talked about this on last month’s podcast, on expanding production and what we were doing there. The trick and the caveat to all of this is, at the end of the day, once we get to the point when we get making more than 500 a year, which has always been the Spooky goal, and we’ve hit it the last few years. You start doing 750 or 1000 or whatever we end up going to, you gotta keep that train rolling. So it is a bit of a fine line to kind of manage…

Van Es: So what you’re saying is…

Charlie: We’re expanding production.

Van Es: You’re expanding production which basically means more content needs to be created.

Charlie: True.

On Alice Cooper’s Nightmare Castle:

Charlie: There is a written Deep Dive coming out by Bowen, and we will also have a Deep Dive video as well by Bowen or Bug…moving forward, we’re going to have more content on the video side of things to help people do stuff…general tidbits to help people know what they’re doing with their game…more Deep Dives on each mode…with Bowen’s Deep Dive that is about to come out, we’ll have a video to support that.

[NOTE: An updated Alice Cooper’s Nightmare Castle Deep Dive will be released on TWIP this week!!]

On the next game and David Van Es designing it:

Charlie: We’ve been busy…we’re kind of spreading the love between all games, trying to make everything better, things we didn’t have time for before we’re working on now. Since we have two programmers we have that capability. While we’re also prepping for – should we say – people kind of know that the next game is not my game?

Van Es: No it’s not your game.

Charlie: Who’s game is it?

Van Es: It’s a Spooky game.

Charlie: You’re not comfortable on this one are you? [laughs]

Van Es: Well no because it wasn’t what I originally signed up for! [laughs] I guess I am leading the next game for Spooky…there is not much to talk about except we tossed around ideas and for some reason it landed on that…I’ll have to think about that because I wasn’t planning to talk about this. [laughs] …I can’t really remember, how did I end up…

Charlie: Designing a game?

Van Es: Yeah!

Charlie: With help of course…

Van Es: Of course. But that is the thing…

Charlie: I can tell you exactly how we got here. David and I have known each other for quite a while…

Van Es: Because of my work in film and television…I am more involved in the licensing side of things as the Creative Director of Spooky…a bit of the process is we sit down and talk about what we like, and then we go to the studios to see what is available.

Bug: …did you foresee yourself going to licensors trying to get deals for us…or even designing a game?

Van Es: I mean, lets be honest, anybody that wants to play pinball wants to design a game…we do hold the designers on a very high regard when it comes to pinball machines. But there are SO many other people that support that designer. It really is a team effort.

On licensing:

Van Es: We spend nearly two years chasing some licenses that didn’t happen, just purely for timing, timing didn’t work out for us. But that led to other great opportunities which is what we have for the next – I mean literally we have the next three games lined out.

Charlie: And that is what a lot of people don’t understand about pinball licensing – its not just a matter of “here is a pile of money, give me everything I want” – it never works that way.

Discussing the top 5 musicals that would make good pinball machines:

Charlie: My number three is actually going to kick off a story that I have never told and it is pinball related. I was a part of this and it almost really happened. My number three is the Beatles Yellow Submarine…I love the Beatles. In my early early early days, and I’m guessing this was 8-9 years ago when I was working as a vendor for Jersey Jack Pinball. And I think I can tell this story without getting anyone in trouble. Joe Balcer called me and says that Jack Guarnieri is on his way to talk with a license, and would I be willing to do some samples and tests and of course I was. And that game was Yellow Submarine. They were trying to get the license to Yellow Submarine. So I was wigging out, losing my mind, and I started laying out art for the cabinet…I still have somewhere deep deep deep in the archives some of the cabinet stuff I started doing in vector format and everything else…we all know that the Beatles have since had a game that went through Stern…and the little bit I know about that is you kind of get what the Beatles give you and that was what they wanted, the early classic Beatles and that is what you get. So I don’t know if Yellow Submarine ever could happen, but I’m telling you at one point they were trying to make it happen and I was really really hoping I could be any tiny little part of that.

The Spooky Pinball Podcast can be heard here, but also went to video this month – check it out below!!

3. Teasers from deeproot Pinball

Last week deeproot Pinball released several teasers about their upcoming launch:

They also shared a teaser about their “Hammer Tested” playfield quality – check it out!

4. Hot Wheels: New Code and Tutorial on Victory Lap Multiball

Our friends at American Pinball shared some updates last week – including a cool tutorial on Victory Lap Multiball – check it out!

American Pinball also had a code update for Hot Wheels which you can check out here:

5. Buffalo Pinball: Ranger in the Ruins Reveal Stream

Last week our friends at Buffalo Pinball revealed a new game on the P3 Platform – Ranger in the Ruins! Check it out!

TWIP plans do do a Deep Dive on this game soon – stay tuned!!

[Note – in other news regarding Buffalo Pinball, tune into their Twitch channel tonight at 8:00PM Eastern to check out P3’s new Twitch Connect feature!]

Change your pinball machine and playing experience with Pin Stadium Lights!!

The collector’s choice for premium LED lighting pinball mods. Pin Stadium Lights pinball mod brightens the entire playfield and add dramatic flasher effects to any pinball.

Check out the video below from Cary Hardy showing the installation process for putting Pin Stadium Lights on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

Avengers: Infinity Quest
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Heavy Metal (contract game)
Stranger Things
Star Wars Vault
Elvira’s House of Horrors

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