This Week in Pinball, we've got our ears to the ground — a peculiar clue in Spooky's code, a slow week turned rumor-fest, and two more bylines on the team.
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Song of the Week
Mountain Sized by Eaves Wilder, from North London. Her debut album Little Miss Sunshine came out April 17, and this is the second track off it that's caught my ear — the first was Everybody Talks a few months back.
It’s very early-to-mid '90s influenced. In a recent Rolling Stone interview, she talks about writing riffs on Pearl Jam and Mazzy Star songs, which shows. Anyway, I keep coming back to it. The chorus is straight addictive, and I love the parallelism between youthful malaise (I want a house but no one pays me) and confident optimism (in my mind, I'm taller than the highest mountain sides) in the lyrics.
Pinball News of the Week
A Peculiar Clue in Every Beetlejuice Release
A French Facebook post tipped us off to some peculiarities buried in Spooky's Beetlejuice code. Turns out there's been a potential clue in every code release since launch. We've since exchanged messages with the person who did the initial investigation; they are currently working with Spooky to address any potential security vulnerabilities found before publishing their findings on their blog, which I can’t wait to read.
We Rebuilt Kineticist — And Paid TWIP Members Get Ad-Free Browsing
The new Kineticist has been live for a few weeks, and one of the features we shipped in the rebuild is ad-free browsing for paid TWIP subscribers. Every article, every page, no ads.
If you've been paying for TWIP, you already earned this. Here's how to turn it on:
Create a free account on kineticist.com
Link it to your TWIP subscription from your profile
Browse ad-free for as long as your subscription is active
Not a paid member yet? TWIP is free to read but not free to write — a paid subscription starts at $25/year, unlocks ad-free Kineticist, exclusive content, our Discord, and helps keep an independent pinball publication running. Most people join at $60/year.
Rumor Flotsam
How do you know it's slow in pinball content land? All the creators turn to rumor roundups. These last few weeks were a veritable smorgasbord of rumors as everyone figures out what the hell to feed the content pipeline when 2026 has mostly been Pokémon with a side of Pokémon.
Smart readers already know most of these rumors thanks to our handy-dandy notebook… err, rumor tracker (updated regularly since 2022).
In no particular order, themes that got a name drop: Transformers, G.I. Joe, He-Man, AC/DC, Fallout, Van Halen, Sonic the Hedgehog, Dracula, Godzilla Gold, Goonies, Gremlins, KISS, Big Trouble in Little China, Dungeon Crawler Carl.
Of these, I'm probably most excited for Fallout, Sonic, Dracula (if it's truly unlicensed), and DCC. Everything else is kinda meh, but I'm not the target demographic for most of these themes either.
Oh, and speaking of word of mouth, I’m hearing new whispers of a “Summer surprise”.
Every Dennis Nordman Machine, Ranked
Chris Krentz joined the team and led with a big one: a definitive ranking of every Dennis Nordman machine. Judging by the Facebook comments, he made a few controversial decisions!
Chris Granner Returns to Pinball for Yukon Yeti
Speaking of Nordman, Turner Pinball announced that Chris Granner is leading sound design on Yukon Yeti, working alongside Adam Gubman. Granner worked on the original White Water too, which makes this hire especially fitting. The rest of his credits? Bangers. Addams Family, Twilight Zone, Lord of the Rings, among many others. He hasn't done pinball work since 2013. Nice get, Turner.
And speaking of Turner, founder Chris Turner spent some time chatting with the LoserKids on their latest.
New Tutorial for Theatre of Magic
solar_espeon (The Pinball Primer) also joined the team with a complete tutorial for Bally's 1995 classic. While she was at it, she broke down Soren's 2.0 community code update, which, as far as I can tell, has never been covered like this elsewhere. If you've ever wondered what changes a community ROM update brings (or why you should care), this's a good entry point.
Full guide on Kineticist.
We Launched an API and Stuff
In the name of building cool things for fun and seeing if y'all use it, we launched an official API a few weeks ago, along with what could be pinball's first CLI and MCP server. Right now, it's mostly focused on our games database and some of the new features we've been working on, like play logs, lists, and collections. People are already using it to build fun projects, like Pinventory (a tool for operators by Ed Giardina) and Silverball Labs (an experimental platform by Will Oetting). The plan is to keep iterating on it as people use it (and share feedback!), so check it out.
Links of the Week
Why Do We Learn Rules Like This? — Nudge talks about the unique way some pinball players learn game rules.
Midwest Gaming Classic opens today — MGC's 25th anniversary, Baird Center in Milwaukee, April 24–26. 10,000+ playable games and 35,000+ attendees expected. If you're in driving range, go.
Pinball Map app 5.4.0 is a big one — Zoom limits removed (you can now see the whole world), five new filters, score tracking revamp, global activity feed. Biggest release in a while.
"Same Player Shoots Again" reviewed in the WSJ — Andreas Bernard's slim 112-page memoir on a Munich youth spent in arcades, framed as Proust-meets-pinball. I ordered a copy!
World Cup Soccer '94 is leaving Pinball FX on April 30 — Apparently, Zen's license expired. Could that mean someone (AP?) has a remake in mind?
The Shadow, turned into a real-time sound experiment — Really cool audio experiment by Dirty Pool.
Pinball Profile sits down with David Morris of Phantom Amusement — Manitoba arcade owner, league/championship organizer, and, unexpectedly, a source of pinball machines for major movies.
Triple Drain Pinball isn't dead — The hosts return after a two-month gap to talk Beetlejuice, Pokémon, and more.
Dune's final wizard mode, in full — IE Pinball puts it on camera.
Wedgehead on Pokémon from the operator's perspective — Hosts switch gears to talk Pokémon after its first weeks on location.
Poll of the Week
Was the Goonies file in Spooky's Beetlejuice code intentional or an accident?
Last Week’s Poll Results
“It's a tough call, because I would like to see The Thing and The Lost Boys made into pins, but I haven't been drawn to play the PB games even though I love the themes. So I worry the games will be underwhelming, but I'm also not sure anyone else would make them. So better to have them and not be amazing or not have them at all? Pinball philosophy...”
“The only one of these that I know from watching the movie. I dig the big band theme song”
“I’m a simple girl— I see Tomb Raider for anything, that’s what I vote for (if Metroid isn’t an option :P)”
“It’s a good rickety theme, just like their pinball machines”
“Damn! That's a hard choice. New York, Warriors and Thing are all "take my money" themes.”
“While all these IP's would make for an incredible pinball experience, part of my "smell test" on prospective new games involves the question, "How do we get more people playing and how to we engage the younger generation?" Tomb Raider bridges this gap as it has wide appeal to older and younger audiences and has been consistently relevant to popular culture since the 90's with new games and movies being produced with some regularity. I also consider toys and mechs that COULD be developed with new IP's. Tomb Raider is prime for bash toys, subways, magnets, and upper OR lower playfields. But hey, any new pinball is good pinball!”
“The Thing would be a fantastic theme for a pinball machine!”
“I would like a Tomb Raider...as long as the assets were intact.”
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