I'm a huge Spotify listener. No tiny genre-specific playlists for me though. Whenever I hear a song that I like, I chuck it into a massive playlist that I've been cultivating for years that I have appropriated titled "Random Stuff." It's currently up to 2,162 songs or 137 hours and 28 minutes of rap, rock, soft, hard, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s goodness.
Well, I'm calling this Knapp Arcade post Random Stuff, because it consists of random Odds and Ends that I've made note of over the past couple of days.
First up, we have Spooky Pinball. The folks at Spooky are currently, rightfully basking in the glory of the positive reception of their latest game which they revealed last week, Evil Dead. Word on the street is that we will all get to see Evil Dead gameplay on Wednesday.
In the meantime, I've been keeping close tabs on what the Spooky folks have to say in their dedicated Pinside discussion. Spooky Luke recently said there that the Company not only already has licenses locked up for four games into the future, but three of the designs for these themes are already complete and are being coded! They started drawing the layout for the fourth game in CAD last week.
Whoa. It sounds like there's lots of great stuff coming from our friends up in Benton, Wisconsin. I sure hope that one of those games really is based on The Goonies as I heard earlier this year :)
UPDATE: The Evil Dead gameplay came early. Here you go…
A couple of days ago, the Loserkid Pinball Podcast published a great interview with Stern Pinball designer John Borg. They went into great depth about the development and details of John's latest game, Metallica Remastered. Fans of the game will definitely want to give it a listen.
One interesting tidbit that I found in the episode was confirmation that Borg was indeed working on a game, rumored to have been Indiana Jones, for a number of months before the project was abruptly cancelled:
“It was just like doing a full-blown game. But I did two games after Rush, and one of them I spent about five or six months on. We ended up not procuring the license for it.
So they were trying to do a package deal, and I believe it didn't go through. So I had to just take five months worth of work and just push it off to the side and go, OK, what's next?
Save it. Well, I guess that's the business, right? You never know where it's going to be.
You never know. So yeah, but I did make some new toys for that game that'll surface in the future on something else somewhere.”
From LoserKid Pinball Podcast: Ep 153: Rock On with John Borg, Nov 16, 2024
Last week, the fledgling pinball company Wonderland Amusements announced the title of its first low-priced pinball title, which is currently in development. Not surprisingly, they are calling the game "Alice Goes to Wonderland."
Earlier today, they actually gave us a look at the first prototype of this game in action. I'm fascinated by the open development process that Wonderland is undertaking. I can't embed the Facebook video here for some reason, but I have included a link to it below.
In the short clips of gameplay, I see an open layout with the following:
Two plastic ramps
A trio of standup targets on the left
Three pop bumpers that all fire simultaneously
A slightly smaller than normal pinball, 22 mm vs. I believe 27 mm for a standard
If you look really closely at one of the pictures, you can see a monitor in the background that shows the direction that Wonderland is likely heading with the game's art and sculpts (thanks Taber!).
"Drumroll please... 🥁 After our factory visit last week, we’re excited to share the very first video of our "Alice Goes to Wonderland" prototype pin! While Carlos’ incredible artwork isn’t on the machine yet (this build is purely for mechanical and ball flow testing), you can see all the mechanics have been scaled down to match the 22mm ball size and you’ll spot the beginnings of some 3D sculpts we have planned. Overall, we think we’re headed down the right path! Take a look and let us know what you think!"
This afternoon, Stern Pinball Stern launched a huge wave of code updates across 23 different games. According to a Facebook post from the Company, it is getting its games ready for an upcoming "Insider Connected Pinball Cup" event. I'm curious what that is all about.
"NEW CODE! Stern Pinball has posted new code updates across 23 different games to get you ready for the upcoming Insider Connected Pinball Cup! Make sure your machines are updated at home and at locations everywhere. Stay tuned for all details on this epic pinball global showdown!"
I wonder what killed IJ. Costs for clips? Disney mandating to use new films (with the old)? What Disney property will fill the void (besides Marvel)