Taco Meat Sweats

We’ve got a 3-meat platter of a TWIP edition for you this week. Log in or subscribe to read!

• Song of the Week

• Pinball News of the Week

  • Custom Pinball Leads the Way

  • Get Hyped for TPF

  • GnR Code Update Coming

  • New North American Pinball Champion

  • Arcade Highlights from Past Times Arcade

• Topper of the Week

• Creator Highlights of the Week

• Post of the Week

• Comment of the Week

• Meme of the Week

• Poll of the Week

Song of the Week

For those of you headed to the Texas Pinball Festival, this is a short, high-energy earworm from Peelander-Z. It’s about their love for tacos, particularly those from the great state of Texas. Should you find yourself on the other end of an indulgent night, remember that few things will cure your ills like a couple of good breakfast tacos from a sketchy food truck and a cold bottle of Topo Chico.

Pinball News of the Week

Custom Pinball Leads the Way

Loved the interview this week on Pinball Innovaters & Makers podcast between Dan Rosenstein and Jake Danzig, the founder of the Strictly Custom Pinball Machines! group on Facebook and originator of the award-winning Dukes of Hazzard custom pin.

I wanted to riff for a minute on a segment that I found to be particularly interesting. Dan shares high-level insights from a detailed analysis of all 399 custom games shared to the Facebook group over the years.

He uncovers a number of trends, including 25 titles that would eventually be produced commercially, 22 that are currently rumored titles, and a general passion for titles in the sports and video game genres.

The big takeaway (for me, and probably for Dan too) is that the custom and homebrew community acts as sort of the grassroots of pinball where themes, designers, and more bubble up from the community, eventually finding their way to commercial productions.

I also wanted to see how some of this data lines up with what we track in our Hype Index.

Of the 399 custom games tracked by Dan:

• 32% are original themes

• 18% are based on movies

• 8% sports

• 7% TV shows

• 6% video games

This is a pretty different makeup from our Hype Index, where the breakdown looks more like this:

• 33% movies

• 17% bands

• 16% TV shows

• 5% video games

My takeaway here is that free from the constraints of needing to generate a profit; people are much more likely to explore non-licensed themes for their games, which are, at the end of the day, creative endeavors. Like Dan, I also see the gap in video game-themed titles. There’s definitely a hunger for games based on IP like Sonic the Hedgehog, Mario, and Legend of Zelda, among others.

Mapped directly against the Hype Index, here are a few notable titles with strong demand by the pinball community for a commercial game:

• Back to the Future - #1 in the Hype Index

• Harry Potter - #3

• Evil Dead - #4

• Pokemon - #7

• The Matrix - #12

• Van Halen - #13

• Big Trouble in Little China - #18

• Friday the 13th - #19

• Futurama - #22

• Indiana Jones - #24

• Mario - #28

• Mad Max - #30

Get Hyped for TPF

Texas Pinball Festival kicks off next Friday. Long one of the highlights of the pinball convention circuit, the show generated buzz last year when just about every pinball manufacturer released a new game at the same time.

There’s quite a bit to look forward to.

• Multimorphic will have their latest, Princess Bride, available to play at the show.

• We may see a new game launched by American Pinball. (edit, we 100% will)

• It wouldn’t shock me to see Pedretti/Euro Gaming Corp. show up with a Bally/Williams remake title.

• Spooky Pinball will have Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre available.

• Turner Pinball will have a revised version of Ninja Eclipse on the floor.

• Wormhole Pinball will expand its booth presence and bring along a few super rare games, like a Bell Games Future Queen, an LAI Cosmic Princess, and a Playmatic Trailer. They will also be streaming the Texas Wizards Tournament again, and we hear they’ll have an upgraded streaming rig as well!

• A custom pin based on the band Motörhead will also make its debut, developed by Dave Peck with custom artwork by Brad Albright.

GnR Code Update in Q2

Jersey Jack announced that a “significant” code update would be coming to Guns n’ Roses in Q2 of this year, primarily to address scoring imbalances. And GnR owners on Pinside rejoiced in unison.

New North American Pinball Champion

It’s Dalton Ely! Streamer of streams and maker of comics. Dalton’s a great dude, so congratulations! Check out the full bracket of results here.

Arcade Highlights from Past Times Arcade

Oops, how did this get here? It’s not pinball news, but classic arcade games are like jelly to pinball’s peanut butter, so we’re going to include it anyway. On Kineticist, we welcomed Matt Owen to the team with his first article, a round-up of some of the can’t-miss arcade games from the pristine Past Times Arcade collection in Ohio.

Meme of the Week

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