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Leftover Potter Bits | One Exciting Predator Development | The Score Card #4 | New Brian Allen Art | Digitizing Play Meters | Location of the Week | Links | More!

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Colin Alsheimer
June 12, 2025 • Time to Read: 16 minutes

This Week in Pinball, we’re gearing up for the next new game release.

This Week's Edition

Song of the Week

Inept Apollo, by Brooklyn’s Nation of Language, was one of the other songs I almost featured in last week’s edition. The other may never see the light of day here (but if you want some biting social commentary in pop song form, email me and I’ll share it with you).

It’s classic ‘80s synth pop in a slick modern wrapper. Auditory catnip for indie kids or those with an affinity for the sounds of that era.

In doing some reflection on the Harry Potter release, as well as a few other things I’ve been ruminating on, I wanted to highlight this quote from frontman Ian Devany in describing the song for Stereogum, as I think it will resonate with a lot of people who do all forms of creative work for a living.

“Work is a respite from pain. Whether it’s a paying job or just the thing you pour yourself into, having a direction to move in, finding a flow state, it can move focus away from the heaviness of the heart. So after life’s losses, in moments of despair, we resolve time and time again to dive headfirst into the work as best we can. But the artistic process also tends to be when imposter syndrome rears its ugly head – when I find my inner monologue spiraling: ‘this is the best coping mechanism I have at my disposal and I’m not even qualified to be doing it.’

Accompanying the song is a killer music video by our friend and brother John MacKay: it is an homage to creative pursuits, and in some ways came to represent the feeling of living in a city as an artist. The video feels like walking through an old warehouse in Brooklyn, full of practice spaces and studios, each room occupied by artists striving to express and understand themselves and their place in the world. No matter how bizarre the act may seem or how much self-doubt or pain runs through the mind of the creator, the beautiful thing is the striving and continuing on, rather than the final product or any notion of ‘success.’ The power of creation belongs to all of us; requires the approval of none.”

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Pinball News of the Week

Predator Reveal Coming Soon; One Thing I’m Excited About

If there’s one thing Pinball Enthusiasts are good at, it’s very quickly moving on from one release to the next. In this case, we’re lucky to have another major one right around the corner with Pinball Brothers’ Predator revealing on the 18th of June.

Despite their apparent miss with ABBA (in transparency, I liked the risk they took on the theme), I’m cautiously optimistic for this release. The pinball community seems genuinely excited for the theme (although if there’s no Arnold Schwarzenegger callouts they might riot), but more importantly, they are making significant changes to the guts of the game. ABBA got dragged in the community for its flipper feel, but this time, Pinball Brothers are turning to FAST Pinball for their boardset and incorporating Williams parts, much like production partner Pedretti Gaming has for their remake series (e.g. FunHouse).

It’s still going to be an uphill climb for the European boutique in this market, but Predator could have a fighting chance.

The Score Card #4: Canada’s Big Battle and More Majors

The Score Card: Canada's Big Battle and More Majors | Kineticist

www.kineticist.com/post/the-score-card-canadas-big-battle-and-more-majors

If you’re tired of new game coverage and just want to focus on, you know, actually playing pinball, we gotchu. Matt Owen returns with his fourth edition of The Score Card, where he recaps everything you need to know to have intelligent conversations at dinner parties about the IFPA circuit.

As if that’s a thing that actually happens in real life.

More Harry Potter Coverage

There were a lot of interviews recorded and released with the Harry Potter production team this week.

Thanks to Jersey Jack founder Jack Guarnieri for referencing our coverage, including the subscribers-only exclusive, Moving Units: Why JJP Needs Harry Potter to be a Guns n' Roses Level Hit, multiple times in his talks about the Harry Potter release.

Here are some of the notable interviews:

New Black Rose Alternate Art by Brian Allen

For fans of artist Brian Allen’s fully licensed, alternate artwork packages for Bally/Williams games, he has recently released another new set for Bally’s Black Rose. In it, Brian has reimagined and modernized the artwork, pitting the game’s central heroine against a crew of skeleton pirates trying to board her ship.

There’s a new translite, acrylic backglass, side blades, and a 5-piece vinyl wrap for the cabinet. As always, Brian has also created an LE batch of special gold foil art prints for those who enjoy the artwork but don’t own a copy of the game. Check it out!

Digitizing Play Meter Magazines and a Request for Help

For those of you who like to nerd out on pinball and arcade history, the preservation outfit Gaming Alexandria have been digitally scanning every Play Meter magazine from the 1970s-1999 and saving them to the Internet Archive for easy access. They’ve collected 392 issues so far and are trying to complete their collection with the remaining missing issues.

Those issues include:

  • 1974 - Issue 1 (December)

  • 1975 - Issue 2 (January), 3 (February), 9 (September)

  • 1976 - Issue 4 (April)

  • 1985 - Issue 5 (March 15th), Issue 15 (August 15th)

  • 1986 - 7 (May 1st), 8 (May 15th), 9 (June 1st), 11(July 1st), 13 (August 1st), 15 (September 1st), 16 (September 15th), 17 (October 1st), 19 (November 1st)

  • 1989 - Issue 6 (June)

  • 1992 - Issue 2 (Directory?), 4 (March), 12 (November) 

  • 1995 - Issue 4 (March)

  • 1998 - Issue 2 (Directory?)

  • 1999 - All

Should any of you have these issues on hand, feel free to reach out to Gaming Alexandria here.

Pinball Map Location of the Week

Ryan and Scott from Pinball Map run a regular series that highlights one new or interesting pinball location each week. This week, Scott writes about Vintage Oasis Omaha.

Mmmm wedgeheads

Have you ever been to Omaha, Nebraska? I haven’t, but I’m not avoiding it or anything. It’s just not a place I organically end up at. But that’s a shame, because Omaha is where my favorite sandwich (the reuben) was invented and it’s also where Sal Goodman ended up after his well-documented crimes in the TV show Breaking Bad. The city boasts a world-class zoo that once housed, no joke, an orangutan named Fu Manchu who regularly picked the lock on his cage and escaped. He was eventually made an honorary member of the American Association of Locksmiths. It seems like a place where variety is the order of the day, but is also a place that is old and crusty enough to house a deep surplus of vintage house goods that I might want to buy. How could I mine those house goods while not betraying my aching desire to play location pinball? Omaha anticipated these needs and has coughed up a solution, Vintage Oasis Omaha.

Vintage Oasis Omaha is tucked inside a 14,000-square-foot warehouse, and from what I can tell, it nails the exact vibe I want from a place with "vintage oasis" in the name. The goods feel alive. Colorful, not dusty or worn-out. I spotted a whole lineup of Mego figures just hanging out on the shelves. The layout is that classic “flea market” style, with a bunch of small vendors rather than one big, impersonal setup. That’s always the sweet spot for variety, in my experience. Even better, the prices are reportedly reasonable, which is essential if I’m flying to Omaha to go shopping. If I’m not pulling things out of a locked glass case, I expect a bit of a treasure hunter’s discount. And before you ask, “But what about the pinball?”, don’t worry. There’s pinball.

They’ve got a basement full of pinball. It’s not just the shiny, indestructible Sterns fresh off the factory line. This place specializes in woodrails and wedgeheads. There are 20 of them with such hits as 1947’s Humpty Dumpty (the first machine that qualifies to be listed on the pinball map), 1961’s Egg Head, and 1968’s Paul Bunyan. The woodrails are set on 5 balls for a nickel. A nickel! The real challenge there is actually finding nickels to put in the machines. Wedgeheads are 5 balls for a quarter. Wow, they’re not here to make money I guess, and I find that delightful. If you are one of those people that requires a public demonstration of your pinball skills and a ranking that is relative to the skills of those around you, this place has you covered. Tournaments occur every 2nd & 4th Wednesday @ 5:20pm during the months of June, July, and August. Spend a piece of your summer in the basement of a nice vintage good store playing ancient pinball. Seems like a winning scenario.

Vintage Oasis Omaha is located at 2511 Leavenworth St, Omaha, NE 68105. They are open Wednesday-Saturday, 11am-7pm. And, Sunday from 11am-4pm. There’s a bunch of old pinball machines in their basement. You should play those machines, but also you should look for old button-down t-shirts that fit you well. You should look for quality glassware.

Vintage Oasis Omaha
2511 Leavenworth St, Omaha, NE 68105
Website

Poll of the Week

At the halfway point of 2025, what's the Game of the Year so far?

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Last Week’s Poll Results

“Prior to June 5th I was considering a 2nd hand purchase in a year or two, but after watching the JJP featurette I was struck - bought a HP WE that day. Whether this title loses $3k in x years I couldn't care, it seems that unique & exciting.”

-Selected “In”

“Not contributing to on location earnings because of transphobia”

-Selected “Out”

“Will wait to play it in the wild and if it has great ball flow I’ll buy the Arcade Edition for $10k since it has the exact same play and mechs as the Wizard & CE editions, plus the CE art sucks.”

-Selected “Out”

“I'm in (soon or eventually, I don't know). Based on the reveal and gameplay videos, to me, it looks like Eric and team did a great job with this theme. Even RetroRalph's video did a great job highlighting the details of the game. Does the theme scream "get it now"? No. But looking at the games I own right now, none of them did. I liked the couple of Harry Potter movies I watched and I never read the books, but it's the execution of that theme on a game that sells it for me. It's the basic simple question that I ask: is it fun? Does the hair stand at the back of my neck when getting through the different modes? Does the whole package; lights, art, sound make me say "WOW!"? I'd have to see and play it in person. but from what I see so far, I think the answer is yes to all of it. But, there are other games that do the same for me.”

-Selected “In”

“Not a theme that interests me, I'm afraid. That said, it is a fantastic piece of game design and as per usual, looks a million dollars! I am sure it will do very well for Jersey Jack.”

-Selected “Out”

“Anything about new pins interests me, if only to pilfer new ideas ;)”

-Selected “In”

“My nine year old was like it’s ok. Let’s get Pokémon instead.”

-Selected “Out”

“Wasn't ever in. Nothing in the reveal changed that. (Read all the books, saw all the movies)”

-Selected “Out”

Thank you for reading!

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