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Sail Away
Creating Memories at the Media Mixer | Johnny Mnemonic Tutorial | Stern IC App Updates | Product of the Week | Location of the Week | Links | More!
Colin Alsheimer
November 08, 2024 • Time to Read: 12 minutes
This Week in Pinball, we’re doing our best.
This Week's Pinball Agenda
Song of the Week
I had no earthly idea what I was going to use for Song of the Week and debated skipping it entirely, but where’s the fun in that?
It’s interesting, actually. For a pinball newsletter, you’d think most people would skip the Song of the Week to get to the good stuff, but that is not the case with my readers! No, you all actually seem to humor me enough to listen to these (ps subscribe to the playlist on Spotify or YouTube). Sometimes, y’all even reply to my emails with nice words of your own or links to other songs I should check out. It’s one of my favorite interactions to have with readers here.
This week, after much internal strife, I decided to go with World Party’s Ship of Fools from 1987. This song has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, but it seems to have taken on new meaning for me in the last decade. It’s gone from a fun pop song to one where I’m frankly a little concerned with how much I identify with the lyrics. Like, get me off this dang ride! It’s just a ship of fools!
At least we have pinball.
What songs have captured your attention this week? Send ‘em my way. I could use the distraction.
Sponsor of the Week
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Pinball News of the Week
Creating Memories at the Pinball Media Mixer 2.0
I was bummed when Matt Owen sent me the copy for this story earlier in the week. At that point, I was still waiting for the camera shop to develop the film from all the disposable cameras we had at the event. As luck would have it, a few hours later, I’d receive the notification that they were ready! I rushed to review the scans, made some edits, and promptly published his story alongside a few of my favorite pics. I still have a dozen or so unfinished cameras to develop.
New Johnny Mnemonic Pinball Tutorial
Remember when I said Noah Crable has been churning out excellent tutorials lately? I meant it! He’s back with another! This time covering the wonders of the 1995 George Gomez-helmed game, Johnny Mnemonic.
Stern Updates Insider Connected App
Long teased, Stern announced an update to their Insider Connected app on Wednesday. The hype video focuses mainly on updates to the interface (new navigation), content (new home screen), and new functionality (social sharing for badges). On the surface, these are all good things for the app, but I’m not sure they hit the mark on day one of the release?
I have that as an actual question because when I tested my app for this update, it was doing some strange things, like giving me access to a debugging tool and including a “prod” label in the upper corner.
Still, though, I’m hoping this was a case of taking a couple of steps back in order to move forward faster in future updates (i.e., improving underlying systems and architecture). The desktop version of the site seems mostly nuked, features that users enjoyed have been removed (how many people also hit a 90-day play streak, for example), and there’s a lot of content that could be interactive or lead you down a specific path that doesn’t do that at the moment. I’d love to get my hands on some heat maps or user session recordings to see how people are responding to the changes because my guess is more than a few are confused.
Barrels of Fun Hires Butch Peel
Congrats to industry vet Butch Peel on his new gig at Barrels of Fun where he will be creating future game manuals as well as helping with tech support. Looking forward to seeing what he does with the next game!
Cactus Canyon Docs
Moosie McMooface is my favorite
Not sure how many people have seen these yet, as the distribution has been a little confusing, but a whole trove of production artifacts (sketches, storyboards, etc.) from the Cactus Canyon Remake Update Kit was uploaded to the IFPA website recently. I found most of the docs to be interesting, particularly if you’re a fan of learning more about how the pinball sausage is made, as I am.
Stern Makes More Inroads with Creators
This is something that would probably go unnoticed by most, but I do want to give some kudos to the Stern marketing team, specifically how they are starting to make more use of 3rd party community creator content in their marketing efforts (the kind of stuff we create and highlight here).
This was most notable in the latest Stern of the Union update, which featured at least 10 different community creators’ work. I went back and did a quick inventory of Stern of the Union updates going back to 2020 to see how frequently 3rd party creator content was used, and as you can see in the graph above, it wasn’t often. When they did in the past, it was mostly with quasi-employees (Dead Flip) or business partners (Marco). This year, they’ve certainly expanded their efforts, and it comes alongside other initiatives like media events and more visible community participation.
I hope they keep it up!
New Brian Allen Alternate Art Package
Friend of the newsletter Brian Allen has released a new officially licensed 2.0 art package for The Machine: Bride of Pinbot. He’s offering a new translite and acrylic backglass, new side blades, a 5-piece vinyl wrap for the game, and an LE batch of rainbow foil art prints (pictured above), which are signed and numbered.
For this project, Brian asked himself: “What if Pinbot hired Aliens to build his new bride instead of human astronauts?”. Well, now we know!
Product of the Week
Shhhh… let me bring you in on a secret. The product of the week will be a product I’m launching very soon! An officially licensed limited edition collectible of particular interest to pinheads like yourself. It’s signed and numbered, and it has taken me no less than 18 months to get it to this point.
Paid subscribers will get the first notice when it goes live, maybe as soon as next week. So, if you’ve been on the fence about joining the supporters club, now’s the time!
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, Ryan writes about Sip n’ Flip Arcade and Soda Bar.
I’ve never played in a place that has giant playfield screens above each machine, but it sounds luxurious. My primary competitive strategy is to assume that my competitor spends a lot of time reading rules and mastering the optimal strategy. So then I just watch what they’re doing, copy their moves, and try to make more shots than them. Too often, though, am I straining to get a good view of their playfield. I’m pretty tall, but I’m also polite, and I don’t like to stand in a place that requires others to walk around me. Sip n’ Flip Arcade and Soda Bar, in Windsor, Colorado, just opened the other day and, as you might be expecting now, comes replete with a bank of beautiful playfield monitors.
Sip n’ Flip slings beer and wine, and also “dirty soda.” I wasn’t sure what dirty soda was, but then I remembered that Mormons in Utah made waves not too long ago on TikTok under the #watertok hashtag, where they maximized their non-alcoholic liquid intake by devising concoctions of soda water, syrups, juice, clinky ice cubes, and other garnishes in gigantic cups. And Utah is right next to Colorado, so this must be like that. Complex sodas are also fun for kids, and Sip n’ Flip is indeed family-friendly.
The lineup includes a healthy mix of newer Sterns along with a Sega and a Data East from the ‘90s, and also one EM! Why are you not playing here right now?
Sip n’ Flip Arcade and Soda Bar
516 Main St, Windsor, CO 80550
Website
Links of the Week
Nudge Magazine has put forward an interesting plan to save American Pinball.
The Pinball News/Pinball Magazine monthly Pincast has a couple of good interviews with BoF’s David Van Es and Pinball Brothers Daniel Jansson.
Pinball Map dropped a new episode of Mappin’ Around with Scott and Ryan. It’s been described as the “least pinbally pinball podcast out there,” and I think that’s one of the reasons I like it so much!
Pinball Profile interviewed IFPA President Josh Sharpe about competitive pinball in 2024 and beyond.
Poll of the Week
Has your Stern Insider Connected app experience improved, gotten worse, or stayed the same? |
Last Week’s Poll Results
“I really looked forward to the Twipy's each year. It's fun to talk about and listen to the community about the industry for the couple months leading up to it. Bring it back!”
“The community lost out last year. Twipy was a highlight of TPF for me. My yes assumes you don't make arbitrary exclusions like you attempted last year. You're not brave (or fool) enough to say Stem can't win anymore or JJP won too many times. That's not appropriate.”
“I want to share my favorites and let other pinheads know what is good.”
“only if the show is back at TPF. This online only award stuff will not do.”
“Of course. I look forward to these every week. :)”
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