Harry Potter on the production Line at Jersey Jack Pinball; New Modes for Evil Dead & Dune; Why Does Stern Pinball Take Longer to Complete Code Than in the Past?

This afternoon, Jersey Jack Pinball gave us our first look at its newest game, Harry Potter on the production line at its Elk Grove Village, Illinois factory. I'm sure that they're going to be making this one for a looong time.

"Take a peek behind the curtain, where the magic begins ⚡️

What does it take to conjure a pinball machine into existence? Years of imagination and invention.

More than 3,000 intricate parts forged to make magic beneath the glass. Light, sound, and story—brought to life by gravity and enhancement. Step inside the factory.

Bring the magic home today."

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Last weekend Barrels of Fun showed off the new "Rescue" mode on its Dune pinball machine in a stream over on the Pinsomniacs Twitch Channel.

This weekend we have a look at yet another new mode, "Prophecy," on the IE Pinball Twitch channel. Tune in tomorrow night to watch Karl DeAngelo put up scores and reach modes that I personally could never dream of achieving lol.

Now...

DUNE Pinball. Livestream Friday with @iepinball at 5pm PDT

Prophecy Mode:

Fight: Paul vs. Jamis

Intense, single-ball mode. Dodge Jamis’ attacks with perfectly timed shots, then strike back to light the Spice Jackpot.

Featuring authentic video and audio from Dune: Part One, including Paul’s pivotal moment over Jamis.

Play the scene. Live the fight.

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We have dueling new mode streams on Friday. Spooky Pinball is also planning on showing off two new new modes for its latest game, Evil Dead, in a stream tomorrow as well. The modes are called "Mirror Mirror" and the game's first Wizard Mode "Hero From the Sky." So tune into Bug's Scream N Stream tomorrow evening to check that out.

"Tune in this FRIDAY at 7PM Central on YouTube for some delicious new Evil Dead code! This update will feature TWO brand new modes! Including the first wizard mode, "Hero From the Sky", and the next sanity mode, "Mirror Mirror"

It's a two for one code update! Check it out on Bug's Scream N' Stream"

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Next up, I have an interesting look at how long it takes Stern Pinball to hit code Version 1.0 on its games. Pinball Monk put together an interesting chart on the subject that I shared below with his permission.

By far the "Champion" of the longest time before hitting complete code, if you want to call it that lol, is not surprisingly Batman '66, coming in at a whopping 700 days. Not only is that game super deep, but it also launched with very incomplete code. It did eventually go on to become a Lyman Sheats masterpiece.

Interestingly, starting with the 2021 Stern game Mandalorian, the time from game launch to complete code started to increase significantly. Pre-Mando the average period of time to 1.0 code was 170 days. After it, that number Spiked (pun intended lol) to a whopping 387 days.

The question is, why? Is it because code is deeper in newer Stern pins than it was in the past? I'm kind of leaning towards no. Elvira's House of Horrors is super deep and it still took less time to finish its code than it did for several games that came after.

Deeper games still may be part of it, but it can't be the only reason. Part of it may be the addition of Insider Connected, which needs additional coding for achievements and other features. Insider Connected started to come included from the factory on Godzilla. I wonder if part of it is also officially launching games with earlier code than Stern has in the past? Have you noticed that to be the case?

https://pinmonk.com/

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Game of the Day:

2011 Stern Pinball Transformers Limited Edition pinball machine.

500 units produced. Designed by George Gomez with music by David Thiel and programming by Lonnie Ropp and Waison Chang.

The game incorporates elements of three movies in the Transformers series, Transformers (2007), Revenge of the Fallen (2009) and Dark of the Moon (2011).

Transformers Revenge of the Fallen was released on movie theaters 16 years ago today.