Heating Up

"The Mud Never Dries", by London's TV Priest, is a true banger. One could say it really slaps. Both are words I gather we're not supposed to use in pinball anymore, but they were the first that came to mind hearing TV Priest's newest single, their first in four years.

While we're on words that should be retired in pinball, my personal pet peeve is "legendary." Everything in pinball is legendary. Work in the industry long enough, you're legendary. Anyone knows your name, you're legendary. It's lazy.

Four years is a long time and also no time at all. Four years is how long I've been plugging away at Kineticist. Four years is longer than my son has been alive. But four years also feels like only yesterday. When I started down this path I couldn't see more than six months in front of my face. I still can't. Are we legendary yet?

An old Pitchfork review of TV Priest's debut, Uppers, said they were "redefining dad-rock." As a dad who likes rock music, and this song, I guess it tracks. I wasn't a dad then. I am now. I grew into it. TV Priest, AC/DC, what's the difference, really. On a long enough timeline it's all dad rock. Even the bangers.

We told you the Dungeon Crawler Carl license was real back when Matt Dinniman mentioned it on a recent stop on his book tour. What's happened since is arguably more interesting than the confirmation itself.

The post that got pinball fans' attention came from Luciano Fleitas, the artist behind the Dungeon Crawler Carl book covers, who also appears to be handling art for the machine. He shared an image captioned "This will look great on a pinball machine, won't it?" But he'd quietly been at it for months. On June 18 he posted an image captioned "wip Glurp! Glurp!", and the only tell that it was pinball-related was the Photoshop filename: "Back box left." Go back further, to May, and there's another image with the filename "Translite cover." That one showed basically nothing, apparently the result of a technical issue, so it would have been almost impossible to catch at the time.

Then the bigger names started showing up. On July 1, series author Matt Dinniman shared the cabinet art for the "about-to-be-announced Dungeon Crawler Carl pinball machine coming from redacted." The word "redacted" is his: he blanked out the maker in his own caption, then added an aside: "Y'all pinball folks are very…enthusiastic about this stuff. Please stop asking my family members and neighbors and editors who are making the machine. They don't know." Back when we first published the rumor, I saw people in chat groups and forums talking about how they play leagues and tournaments with people who know Dinniman, and that they'd try to dig for info. I'd like to think that behavior isn't unique to our community, but maybe it is.

On July 6, Soundbooth Theater, the audio production company founded by Jeff Hays, who narrates the DCC audiobooks, shared a reel that all but confirmed the machine, and by association, put Hays in the mix on the voices. It was also the first time we got a real title graphic: "Dungeon Crawler Carl Pinball," along with the line "The apocalypse will be played 2026."

That last part is the surprise. Based on our initial reporting, DCC pinball looked like an early-stage project we weren't likely to see before 2027. Now, a release feels imminent.

So who's making it? We still don't know for sure. Somewhere in the middle of all this, game designer Scott Danesi posted a photo of a coffee mug printed with a famous quote from a notable DCC character, signaling his involvement, then deleted it and reposted a version with the phrase blocked out. Danesi doesn't settle anything: he's designed games for Multimorphic and contributed to Barrels of Fun projects, and signals have pointed at both camps at different times.

The teasing itself has come almost entirely from the DCC side of the creative team, the cover artist, the author, the narrator, not the manufacturers or pinball influencers who'd normally break a reveal. Going after the book's core audience before the pinball crowd is a smart play. Pinball people will show up regardless.

We do know Multimorphic is gearing up for a launch, based on its last public update and community whispers of an event, and various pinball prognosticators insist it's definitely not Barrels. It also just brought on top modder Davey Price of Stumblor to add custom sculpts to its P3 games, and a theme like DCC would need those to be on point. Either way, we could get a reveal within the month, which is very exciting.

Pinventory keeps everything about your machines in one place.

Operators track collections, revenue, and audits across their locations, including public QR codes that link to online issue reporting with no app needed.

Collectors catalog their whole lineup with full maintenance history, parts, and manuals on hand.

Every machine, repair, and number lives in one place instead of scattered notes and spreadsheets.

Your data stays private and secure, visible only to you and the people you invite.

Built by Ed Giardina, creator of the IFPA Companion App. Free to use.

Word is Stern Pinball has hired notable homebrewer Tanner Petch as their newest game designer. No official announcement, but based on updates to his LinkedIn profile and messages shared to his personal Instagram, it's a done deal. Tanner is probably best known for his artistic homebrew creations, like Trashland and House of Flesh and Blood, and as a sometime collaborator with Nudge Magazine.

As a bonus, here’s a previously “lost” (offline) interview with Tanner Petch from 2023 with Dan Rosenstein.

It's a very intriguing hire for Stern, who could stand to benefit from his creativity in a similar mold to Jack Danger, assuming he gets the right production support. Congrats to both!

James Cardona builds officially licensed 2.0 game kits: full new games coded into classic Bally/Williams machines like Fish Tales, with the original still playable underneath. I had a chance to chat with him on his background and the business of it all, which is fascinating. He touches on his licensing deals with Planetary Pinball, major music labels, how he thinks about story development in pinball, and plenty more.

Matt Owen is back with Score Card 16, covering two Stern Pro Circuit stops. At YEGPin 2026 in Alberta (290-plus players), Escher Lefkoff ran away with the Open, taking walk-off wins in the first three grand-finals games (AC/DC, Eight Ball Deluxe, Foo Fighters), which was all it took to lock the title. Outside Chicago, Silverball Super Showdown 5 joined the circuit this year on a Target Match Play qualifying format, and Carlos DeLaSerda went back-to-back to win the A Division. Matt has the full cards.

Pedretti's remake put the 1996 Williams original back in the conversation right as it hits its 30th anniversary, and solar_espeon took the moment for the full rundown: the history of Popadiuk's game plus a proper how-to-play, from the seven story modes to the Rescue the Princess wizard mode. There's even a likely bug "Harem-Genie stack" that spins up basically unlimited scoring, if you can pull it off.

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