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Pincinnati Recap | New Pin*Bot Tutorial | Stern’s Vault Program | AP Glassdoor Reviews | New DPX Rumors | Location of the Week | Links | More!
Colin Alsheimer
December 20, 2024 • Time to Read: 16 minutes
This Week in Pinball, we’re publishing our last newsletter of 2024 and getting ready to play a bunch of pinball. This is another long one, so for those of you reading this e-mail, I recommend pulling it up in your browser instead.
This Week's Pinball Agenda
Song of the Week
Let’s end the year with a light-hearted poppy pick. Something you can nod your head to while wrapping presents. It’s called Kids Go Down (孩子们的时光), from Chinese American Bear, a Seattle-based husband and wife indie-pop duo. Kids Go Down is off their latest album, Wah!!!, released earlier this year. The music video is worth a watch just for the dancers in dumpling hats, which I never knew I wanted in my life until watching this. Santa… are you listening?!
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If you were a paid subscriber, you wouldn’t see this ad! Sign up for $4.99/mo to support our work and receive other perks like access to our private Discord chat.
Pinball News of the Week
Pincinnati 2024 Recap
Matt Owen attended the 2024 Pincinnati show, which is one of, if not the last, major pinball show on the calendar and recapped all the highlights for us. We’ve heard great things about this annual show put on by noted community members Erik Wurtenberger and Jerry Westerkamp and would love to check it out one day. The Triple Crown idea - which can only be earned by winning all 3 Pincinnati tournaments in a row - is a neat concept.
New Pin*Bot Tutorial
While everyone is busy mastering Stern’s modern catalog while competing in the Insider Connected Pinball Cup, we thought we’d return to simpler times for the holidays with a Noah Crable penned (typed?) tutorial of the 1986 sci-fi classic, Pin*Bot, from famed pinball designers Barry Oursler and Python Anghelo. Even though Pin*Bot is a comparatively simple game, it shows up frequently enough in tournaments that we felt it was worth covering here.
It’s Never Goodbye!
The big news of the week is the announcement of Stern’s new Vault program and the official vaulting of 7 titles from their catalog: Deadpool, Iron Maiden, Star Wars, Star Wars Comic Art, Avengers: Infinity Quest, Elvira’s House of Horrors, and Foo Fighters. The new Stern Vault program (not to be confused with the old Vault program, which facilitated the return of titles like AC/DC and others in prior years) states that vaulted games will be removed from active production for at least 2 years, if not longer.
The big surprise in this list is the inclusion of Foo Fighters, which sold well on launch but maybe has tailed off since, or perhaps the Foo Fighters / Dave Grohl brand has taken enough of a public perception hit to make it difficult to move more units in this market.
Regardless, 2 years isn’t that much time! So it’s truly never goodbye.
New Year, New Stern?
Speaking of Stern, rumors have been circulating that they might be set to debut their latest cornerstone title at CES in Las Vegas in just a few short weeks. If that happens, the favorites in the rumor mill are a Keith Elwin-helmed King Kong, or a Brian Eddy-led rendition of Dungeons & Dragons. Personally, I have no idea what’s next in the chute, but a recent post from streamer GeekGamer.TV seems to provide further confirmation that something new is coming from Stern at CES.
American’s Glassdoor Reviews
Small follow-up from last week’s notes on the David Fix interview on LoserKids. On Pinside, prolific poster blueberryjohnson shared a few Glassdoor/Indeed reviews from former American Pinball employees, and yikes! These are some of the worst Glassdoor reviews I’ve read in some time. As if making pinball wasn’t hard enough, it’s gotta be even harder to do that if a lot of your employees are also deeply unhappy.
New Code and a Discount for Jersey Jack Pinball
After beta testing the update for the last month or so, Jersey Jack Pinball pushed the 1.0 code for their Pirates of the Caribbean pinball machine, which adds in the game’s final Wizard Mode, Break the Curse.
Additionally, Jersey Jack announced a significant discount ($2,025) on new Guns n’ Roses machines through January 7th, 2025. This is in line with similar discounts that were offered primarily to operator audiences at the recent IAAPA industry show.
Upcoming Games from DPX; Blade Runner & Space Mission X
Space Mission X
Final news item for the week! Knapp Arcade spotted a recent trademark filing from DPX, the subsidiary of Dutch Pinball, for a Blade Runner pinball machine. Who knows if it will ever see the light of day, but a trademark filing is a serious step.
When I checked the database to verify the information, I also spotted a new filing by DPX head Melvin Williams for Space Mission X, which appears to be a very deep cut from the John Popadiuk/Zidware catalog of semi-finished games.
Here’s my rhetorical question of the week; why don’t we ever see trademark filings for new IP from companies like Stern, Jersey Jack, or Spooky?
Product of the Week
This came across my feeds yesterday, and I’m including it because it’s an awesome idea that looks to be tightly executed. It’s a custom Music Box themed for the vampire-focused 3rd party P3 game Drained by For Amusement Only Games. I particularly liked the attention to detail for the costuming of the hand model used in the short (presumably maker Nicholas Baldridge), frilled cuffs, and all. This is the type of pinball accessory you don’t see every day!
Pinball Map Location of the Week
Ryan and Scott from Pinball Map run a regular series that highlights one new pinball location each week. This week, Scott writes about PINBALL CELLAR LANDSHUT (formerly FLIPPERGARAGE LANDSHUT).
PINBALL CELLAR LANDSHUT
Ryan curates a list of new (or new to us) locations that we use to select our Location of the Week. I try to pick my location based entirely on its name. So, imagine my joy when I saw a place called FLIPPERGARAGE LANDSHUT show up. Then try to imagine my glee (because we don’t know each other very well) when I Netscape Navigated to their website and found that they have rebranded as PINBALL CELLAR LANDSHUT. Doubling down with the all-caps. I could not resist and this place did not disappoint.
A mere seven hour train ride from Munich, nestled in the light-brown/yellow bosom of Altdorf Germany, you will find PINBALL CELLAR LANDSHUT. The owner's insatiable appetite for pinball machines led him to spend countless Deutschmarks, causing his collection to outgrow the original garage. Now, he houses his life-changing game boxes in a sprawling 200 square meter cellar. “They are herd animals” the owner claimed in a questionably translated article from a local newspaper. PINBALL CELLAR LANDSHUT evokes the image of a classic small-town pinball fortress, reminiscent of those hidden gems we might stumble upon in remote US locations like Lakeview, Arkansas, or Hoisington, Kansas. The establishment presents itself as an unpretentious venue, offering "common drinks at reasonable prices" and boasting "separate sanitary facilities," (???) suggesting a straightforward and honest approach to pinball-centric recreation.
That newspaper article I was talking about earlier discussed weather conditions in the cellar: “It is humid in the basement, some are wearing gloves. Slipping with sweaty hands while pulling the balls and pressing the buttons - unthinkable.” There was even a close-up picture of someone wearing what appear to be weight-lifting gloves while playing. Bless up, glove man, I understand this scenario. I once played pinball with a guy that famously sweated through his hands while playing machines and carried around special wrist towels that he would use to sop up his filth after each ball. If you find yourself in the sweaty basement of PINBALL CELLAR LANDSHUT, be sure to bring gloves I guess.
At press-time, PINBALL CELLAR LANDSHUT claims ownership to 44 machines. They have Bally’s Truck Stop, which you don’t see too often. It is located at Dekan-Wagner-Straße 3A, 84032 Altdorf .
PINBALL CELLAR LANDSHUT
Dekan-Wagner-Straße 3A, 84032 Altdorf
Website
Links of the Week
Last night, I received a surprise phone call from none other than Santa himself, stepping in for Orby from the Pinball Nerd’s Podcast after Orby indulged in a few too many Malört-infused eggnogs.
Pinball Party Podcast returned from a hiatus with a new episode!
Wormhole Pinball interviewed Daniel Spolar and Taj Kniceley of Project Pinball.
Noah Crable published a fun action button guide on Tilt Forums for all Stern and Jersey Jack games. Should I slam it while draining? Sounds situational!
Nudge Magazine published an awesome 2024 recap video and somehow made our little hobby look way cooler than it is in reality. Definitely give it a watch and see if you made it into one of the clips!
I missed the launch, but it looks like Bee Kong from Kongs-R-Us launched a new podcast with Justin from Console Kits, called Arcade & Pinball For Everyone Podcast. In Episode 3, they did a tiered ranking of all the 2024 pinball releases.
Alongside our visual refresh of Kineticist the other week, we also kicked off a visual refresh of TWIP to bring it more in line with the look and feel of Kineticist (I run these off of two different platforms, so integrating them is harder than you’d think, but it’s important for brand consistency and all that jazz).
Speaking of integrations, I’m in the final stages of testing a new shared benefit for paid subscribers across both TWIP and Kineticist, regardless of where you subscribe. On TWIP it’s pretty easy for us to offer ad-free viewing for paid subscribers, but it’s much harder to do the same on Kineticist. However, soon, if you are on a paid plan with us, you’ll be able to create an account on Kineticist where you can log in for ad-free viewing there as well. More to come on this!
Poll of the Week
If you could add one of the following awards back into the TWIPYs, which would you choose? |
Note: our currently slated awards & categories can be seen here.
Last Week’s Poll Results
“The Visual Pinball scene and some of its developers are possible topics to explore, e.g., their dean JP Salas. There are some amazing original projects out there. In that subject neighborhood is the virtual cabinet scene, where some folks have gone to great lengths.”
“Digital Pinball is a great place to start for learning game rules, flow, and strategy. Nothing compares the physical, mechanical nature of IRL pinball though.”
“(Playing on XB1x) While the physics and lack of tactile feedback make it an entirely different experience (and dare I say GAME since the physical component cannot be understated), it’s still very satisfying to play and practice timing, telegraphing trajectories, and understanding rulesets. When owning a pin is unrealistic due to financial and physical limitations, ya can’t beat it to get the fix!”
“Digital was my gateway drug and have built a few cabs. I’ll never have room for all the machines I would want, and maintaining 30 plus year old electronics could be problematic. But Stern and Spooky and JJP get plenty of quarters from me plus I have a few at home.”
“Quite simply, digital is not the same as the real thing. I feel like I’m playing a video game. Half of the experience of playing pinball is the REAL mechanics of the game, seeing the toys, seeing the ramps, predicting the physics, and even seeing the light show. Watching an LCD is not even close to the same.”
“Like driving an electric car.... ;) Where's the rumble?”
“I do not have the chance to live close to a pinball venue (a problem, we, non-american pinheads, are facing more and more often), and fortunately, I can play digital pinball as much as I want. To me, digital pinball is the favorite cousin of real pinball, and I am glad we have it.”
Thank you for reading! I love putting these together, but it’s also real work, and paid subscriptions are what make it worth my time. Paid subscribers get Discord access, early access to product launches, ad-free newsletters, and my unending love and appreciation. If you are already a paid subscriber, thank you so much!
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