# The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Pinball Featurette (Spooky Pinball, 2023) **Source:** Straight Down the Middle **Type:** video **Published:** 2023-12-08 **Duration:** 20m 13s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF6gHB2drdg --- ## Analysis Spooky Pinball presents an official featurette for Texas Chainsaw Massacre pinball (2023), a widebody horror-themed machine featuring innovative mechanics like meat hook shots, meat grinder toys, and a slamming door mechanism. The game integrates deep theme elements with four ramps, four flippers, and 14+ modes designed for speed and combo play, utilizing original film assets and featuring voice work by Ed Neil from the original movie. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Texas Chainsaw Massacre pinball has over 14 modes at launch — _Bug states 'there's a base layer of creepy sounds to go with all of those modes and on top of that he has ramps and buildups... out of the gate there's a base layer of creepy sounds to go with all of those modes' with specific reference to '14 modes'_ - [HIGH] The game features a meat hook mechanic where players place balls on metal hooks for Hook Multiball — _Bug describes: 'you're going to be putting a ball physically on a metal hook so you're going to launch the ball up there' and 'you actually be even putting three of them onto a metal hook to start the Hook Multiball'_ - [HIGH] Ed Neil (the hitchhiker from the original film) provides voice callouts for the game — _Bug states: 'who better to get for these call outs other than the hitchhiker himself Ed Neil from the original film which I guarantee you you can't really play this game without being surprised by some of the things you're going to hear him say'_ - [HIGH] Spooky is producing 888 collector's edition models of Texas Chainsaw Massacre — _Luke states: 'we're going to make 888 collector's edition models of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre'_ - [HIGH] The game features four ramps and four flippers for speed and combo gameplay — _Bug: 'I think people have wanted to see speed from us for a long time... so we packed four ramps into this thing four flippers and it's insane that you can actually you can feed everything every little shot feeds another shot'_ - [HIGH] Christopher Franchi worked as a pinball artist on the game alongside traditional horror artist Terry Wolfinger — _Bug states: 'we also brought in the legendary pinball artist Christopher Franchi to bring in that horror art into the pinball world' and references 'Terry Wolfinger he did an amazing job working on the backglass the cabinet the playfield'_ ### Notable Quotes > "I'm not joking at all when I say this is by far the best theme integration in a game that we have ever done" > — **Bug**, mid-video > _Indicates Spooky's commitment to thematic depth and suggests TCM represents a design benchmark for the company_ > "we were him and Han at the start about not going too far with it and eventually we just said screw it like we're going to get as sadistic and crazy as we possibly can because that's what this game needs to be to be the best horror game of all time" > — **Bug**, mid-video > _Reveals design philosophy decision to embrace horror intensity; indicates internal debate about content boundaries resolved in favor of maximum theme authenticity_ > "this game is unapologetically horror and we can't wait to scare the hell out of you when you play the Texas Chainsaw Massacre" > — **Rick Morgan**, late-video > _Summarizes the game's positioning as intentionally dark and uncompromising horror experience_ > "we packed this game front to back you guys know how we we We Are Pinball we put features on top the apron we'll do whatever blow right through the backboard doesn't matter to us" > — **Bug**, mid-video > _Reflects Spooky's design ethos of maximizing features and theme elements regardless of conventional constraints_ > "all four habitrails go to a flipper and those those flippers go back to ramps that you can feed with the same habitrails you can interchange so many shots in this game" > — **Bug**, late-mid-video > _Details the game's shot interconnectivity and combo potential, highlighting design complexity_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Spooky Pinball | company | Wisconsin-based boutique pinball manufacturer producing Texas Chainsaw Massacre as a widebody, limited-edition horror-themed pinball machine | | Bug | person | Game designer and creative director at Spooky Pinball; son of Charlie Emery; primary creative voice in featurette presenting game design philosophy and mechanics | | Luke | person | Chief Operating Officer at Spooky Pinball; describes production scale, feature integration, collector's edition specifications, and pricing strategy | | Ben Heck | person | Programmer at Spooky Pinball; credited for returning to work on Texas Chainsaw Massacre code with noted attention to detail and creative game mechanics | | Christopher Franchi | person | Legendary pinball artist; worked on playfield artwork and visual design for Texas Chainsaw Massacre alongside traditional horror artist Terry Wolfinger | | Matt Montgomery | person | Sound designer and composer; created dynamic music and sound design for Texas Chainsaw Massacre including over 14 modal soundtrack layers | | Ed Neil | person | Original actor from Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974 film) who provides voice callouts and character narration for the pinball game | | Terry Wolfinger | person | Traditional horror artist; collaborated on backglass, cabinet, and playfield artwork for Texas Chainsaw Massacre pinball | | Matt from Back Alley Creations | person | Designer/creator of sculpted toys and mechanical elements including meat grinder and freezer victim mechanism | | DJ | person | Full-stack engineer at Spooky Pinball; responsible for PCB design, operating system, firmware, and game code; developed the Warden control system | | AJ | person | Head of Tech Support at Spooky Pinball; handles customer service and support inquiries | | Rick Morgan | person | Supply chain manager, sales coordinator, and office operations staff at Spooky Pinball; oversees website revamp and general customer satisfaction | | Texas Chainsaw Massacre | game | Spooky Pinball widebody machine (2023) featuring horror theme with meat hook shots, meat grinder toy, slamming door mechanism, four ramps, four flippers, 14+ modes | | Exurbia | company | Content creators and licensing partner who provided comprehensive film assets and supported Spooky Pinball's theme integration for Texas Chainsaw Massacre | | The Warden | product | Spooky Pinball's custom control system and PCB board that drives electronics and electromechanical systems in Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Scooby-Doo machines | ### Topics - **Primary:** Theme integration and IP asset utilization, Mechanical design innovations (meat hook, meat grinder, slamming door), Playfield layout philosophy and shot interconnectivity for speed/combos, Sound design and dynamic music layering - **Secondary:** Collector's edition specifications and pricing strategy, Team composition and production scale at Spooky Pinball, Content boundaries and horror authenticity in game design - **Mentioned:** Customer service and technical support infrastructure ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.92) — Universally enthusiastic tone from all Spooky Pinball staff presenting the game. Bug and Luke emphasize pride in design achievements and theme integration. No critical perspectives or reservations expressed. Content is promotional/celebratory in nature. ### Signals - **[community_signal]** Production of 888 collector's edition units represents strategic scarcity positioning; specific number suggests deliberate FOMO strategy balancing production with limited availability (confidence: medium) — Luke: 'we're going to make 888 collector's edition models of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre' - **[design_philosophy]** Internal discussion about content boundaries ('were him and Han at the start about not going too far') resolved in favor of maximizing horror authenticity and sadistic themes (confidence: high) — Bug: 'we were him and Han at the start about not going too far with it and eventually we just said screw it like we're going to get as sadistic and crazy as we possibly can because that's what this game needs to be' - **[design_philosophy]** Shift from multi-level complexity back to single-level speed-focused gameplay; team responding to community demand for faster, combo-driven games (confidence: high) — Bug: 'I think people have wanted to see speed from us for a long time they wanted to see speed they wanted to see flow they wanted to see combos so we packed four ramps into this thing' - **[design_philosophy]** Spooky Pinball explicitly commits to maximizing feature density and thematic authenticity, deliberately pushing past conventional design constraints ('blow right through the backboard doesn't matter to us') (confidence: high) — Bug: 'we packed this game front to back... we put features on top the apron we'll do whatever blow right through the backboard doesn't matter to us' - **[personnel_signal]** Christopher Franchi confirmed as working on Texas Chainsaw Massacre playfield artwork; indicates continued collaboration with Spooky Pinball (confidence: high) — Bug: 'we also brought in the legendary pinball artist Christopher Franchi to bring in that horror art into the pinball world' - **[market_signal]** Spooky claims to have 'walked the price down' on collector's edition while adding more features, suggesting competitive pricing strategy focused on accessibility (confidence: high) — Luke: 'we've added more features to our CE we've made it more limited and we've actually been able to walk the price down a bit too which really means a lot to us we want to continue to make these things affordable' - **[product_strategy]** Four ramps with four flippers enabling extensive shot interchange and feed patterns, described as most complex combo system Spooky has created (confidence: high) — Bug details: 'we packed four ramps... you can feed everything every little shot feeds another shot all four habitrails go to a flipper and those flippers go back to ramps that you can interchange' - **[product_strategy]** Collector's edition specifications include laser-cut chainsaw-teeth rails, blood-red metallic powder coat, custom Leatherface topper, lighted speaker grills, and interior graphics (confidence: high) — Luke describes: 'we have a custom Leatherface topper... lighted speaker grills... laser cut chainsaw teeth into the side rails... blood red metallic flake with a clear coat... full powder coat package including the coin door' - **[licensing_signal]** Exurbia (film IP holder) provided comprehensive asset library supporting deep theme integration; creative partnership positioned as enabling full thematic experience (confidence: high) — Bug: 'The team over at exurbia has been absolutely fantastic to work on this game... because we had access to an unlimited amount of assets for this game' --- ## Transcript [Music] sure [Applause] [Music] a remote gas station in Texas with barbecue on the menu hey Cher should we pick him up oh yeah man pick him up he let fixate out there what does he look like you can have dinner with us you like hit cheese we make it real with no sign of her boyfriend Pam went looking inside the [Music] [Applause] [Music] house [Music] [Applause] a come on Franklin it's going to be a fun trip hey everybody my name is bug I am a game designer and creative director at spooky pinball and we're really excited today to be showing you the Texas Chainsaw Massacre the team over at exurbia has been absolutely fantastic to work on this game they understood that at spooky pinball we take theme integration incredibly serious so they made sure we have every asset we could possibly dream of and more for this game because we had access to an unlimited amount of assets for this game you're going to be seeing the full experience of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre hearing the full experience of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and honestly even feeling the full experience of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre as a absolutely gigantic Texas Chainsaw Massacre fan I wanted to make sure the game had everything in it that a true Texas Chainsaw Massacre fan would want to see and the most obvious thing that comes to my mind is getting a ball on a meat hook and slamming that door after Leatherface kills Kirk typically in a horror game you'd think you'd be playing the role of the victim and you'd be trying to escape the killer or in this case an entire family of killers but not today in Texas Chainsaw Massacre you are actually playing as the family you're going to be catching victims killing them and cooking them cuz at the slaughterous they don't let anything go to waste so even though you are playing as the family in this game you can still be totally scared playing this game it was really important to us that this game captures the incredibly dark unnerving feeling that that movie brings to you still today even though it was made 50 years ago one of the scariest things about this game is the sound design of it and I'm not talking just the music of the game the sound effects too everything about the sound and score of this machine is not what you would typically see in a pinball machine it is it's droning it's long it it builds on top of itself Matt “Count D” Montgomery who has worked on many titles with us over the years did some of his most impressive work he's ever done for this game and did the most tracks that he's ever done for this game something incredibly Dynamic that Matt did with the music in this game is how it can stack on top of itself there's a base layer of creepy sounds that goes with every single mode in the game which is over 14 modes out of the gate there's a base layer of creepy sounds to go with all of those modes and on top of that he has ramps and buildups that can dynamically be placed over top of these sounds to work with the player so that as you're progressing through the game is getting more intense in building so this game also sees the return of our programmer Ben Heckendorn his attention to detail on this game is unmatched some of the details in this game are so over the top only Ben heck could think to put them in there such as in a mode where you're luring customers into a gas station and selling them items when you go back to that mode later Ben heck accounts for the inflation between visits Matt from Back Alley Creations did an incredible job of making sure that these sculpts look both pristine and wonderful as well as grimy and disgusting because movie is exactly that it's a wonderful movie it's wonderful it's it's a wonderful movie but it's the probably one of the grimiest movies you're ever going to see something else in this game that is of course beautiful yet disgusting gritty and grimy is the artwork so we wanted to work with another traditional horror artist and his name's Terry wolfinger he did an amazing job working on the backlash the cabinet the Playfield but on top of that we also brought in the legendary pinball artist Christopher franie to bring in that horror art into the pinball World which is such a specific art form in and of itself so since you're a part of the family in this game it makes sense that we have a member of the family actually doing the call outs and guiding you along and who better to get for these call outs other than the hitchhiker himself Ed Neil from the original film which I guarantee you you can't really play this game without being pretty surprised by some of the things you're going to hear him say to you this game really truly has some of the creepiest modes you're ever going to see in pinball I mean this is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre we we were him and Han at the start about not going too far with it and eventually we just said screw it like we're going to get as sadistic and crazy as we possibly can because that's what this game needs to be to be the best horror game of all time and I can very confidently say this is the best horror pinball machine you're ever going to play Hey I'm spooky Luke I'm the chief operating officer at spooky pinball and I can't wait to bring you the Texas jsaw massacre this is a game about a creepy crazy Horror family and a creepy crazy Horror family made it using the largest and most talented team we've ever had at cookie pinball we've been able to bring the world of Texas chainsaw masc her to life so in this game since you're playing as the family you're going to be doing some pretty grotesque tasks throughout whether that's your leather face and you're sawing down victims you're the cook and you're grinding up the meat so that you can serve the family or you're The Hitchhiker and you're trying to catch a ride so you can start scouting out the area and and lure people into the gas station so you can find more victims to catch since you're playing as the family we want to really make you feel like you're carrying out these grotesque activities so when you're Leatherface and you're sawing a victim in half half the shots in the Playfield are going to slide off like a slab of meat just falling off of there and you're going to keep going and going until there's nothing left and when you're done with that of course you're going to go and select to play as the cook and you're going to take that meat you're going to be putting it into this amazing disgusting meat grinder Mech that we've created where the ball gets diverted off the ramp it gets sucked into the meat grinder and you can see it rolling it up the mechanism and dropping it into that scoop right off the bat one of our main focuses was really getting the interactive mechs in the game I want to actually see and feel some of the things from Texas Chainsaw Massacre interact with the ball so to me the most iconic scene in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and my personal favorite moment in the entire franchise's history is the scene where Leatherface hits Kirk over the head with the Mallet and he slams that door shut on the viewers and it was incredibly important to me that spooky Luke and I get that into the game I wanted to experience the best moment of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre inside of this game and it does exactly that when you hit the door it grabs onto the ball it throws it in there and the door gets slammed in your face so the first thing everybody says to me when we would talk about designing the Texas Chainsaw Massacre game is how are you going to get a ball on a meat hook so spooky Luke and I made sure that in this game you are going to be putting a ball physically on a metal hook so you're going to launch the ball up there and you're going to see that iconic shot of Pam getting tossed on the meat hook and oh man it's hard to even talk about it so bad so you actually be even putting three of them onto a metal hook to start the hook multiball of the game something else you've probably never seen before in a pinball machine is we have a victim who is inside of the freezer over on the right side by the Habit Trail so when a ball gets shot through that area or shot underneath that sneaky Behind The Flipper shot the Pam the victim will be popping out of the freezer gasping for air and life which she won't find another thing in this house of death is a chest freezer where leather phas keeps all his victim you're going to be able to shoot up the Habit Trail and you're going to see one of his victims spring out of the freezer go back in and right under that chest freezer you're going to see an under flipper lock where you're going to be able to lock and keep your victims and then release them at any time by hitting the target so beyond of course my favorite scene the door slamming scene the shot most people would know the Texas Chainsaw Massacre for is Leatherface twirling around throwing the chainsaw up in the air and uh we of course put that dead center on this layout for everyone to see when they go up and he's constantly just spinning around losing his mind more than he's already lost it one of the first things you're going to want to do in this game is hit the captive ball that captive ball is what you're going to use to qualify that hook lock in the back of the game which everyone wants to see that work right so we were almost completely out of room in that area cuz we we packed this game front to back you guys know how we we we are we put features on top the APR we'll do whatever blow right through the backboard doesn't matter to us so we actually had to go vertical with this captive ball instead because we had no room for it to go backwards I'm not joking at all when I say this is by far the best theme integration in a game that we have ever done I'm a massive Texas Chainsaw Massacre fan I saw this movie a million times before we decided to make it into a pinball machine and I've seen it a million times since then so it's very important to me that we got all of the key moments from the movie into this game and on top of that still have it be an absolute flow monster with a maze likee layout of shots we just did a giant upper play field and we've done the triple level playfields and all these things this one we wanted to come back and just refocus on speed combos ramps in a single level game in the layout we have the shots very specific to the characters and the modes that you're playing as in the game so when you shoot the leather face shot it goes up to that upper flipper where you can start ripping this chainsaw looping combo over and over when you shoot the left ramp that goes past the grinder the meat grinder which is the cooks mode of course and when you're shooting the orbit for the hitchhiker that's of course The Hitchhiker chasing people around as well as the woods Chase on the right side chasing victims through the woods all the way around the layout of the game as we continue to focus on making this layout just the most insane combo Beast we've ever made I think people have wed to see speed from us for a long time they wanted to see speed they wanted to see flow they wanted to see combos so we packed four ramps into this thing four flippers and it's insane that you can actually you can feed everything every little shot feeds another shot all four habitrails go to a flipper and those those flippers go back to ramps that you can feed with the same habitrails you can interchange so many shots in this game and we're not just feeding the bottom two flippers we're feeding all four flippers which have a bulk of shots off of them there's multiple Pathways off of each flipper including Loops vuk other ramps all sorts of things we did something we've never done we actually have a subway system that you can shoot off the right upper flipper it's going to launch the ball in a vuk all the way around that orbit and feed that right upper flipper again to three more paths you're going to be able to nail that combo off of and after you do that even the left upper flipper has a ramp that you can feed it all the way back down to your main flippers or you can keep it up there and just rip those chainsaw loops really what one of the most important things about the movie that we wanted to encapsulate in this game too is that when people think of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre they think of this gory blood bath of a movie and what they don't realize is it it's actually even though it is a very gritty grimy movie it does leave a lot to the imagination with most viewers you leave it thinking you saw more than you actually did so this game really keeps you on your toes it has you wondering am I about to see something I really don't know if I'm supposed to be seeing right now a lot of the base modes essentially are going to be using all the assets from the film to tell stories of you chasing victims luring customers in cooking meat cutting people up and then on top of that in all of our wizard modes and sub- wizard modes we're actually going to be telling the direct story of the film where you're chasing down specifically Franklin Jerry Kirk Pam and then of course we have the iconic dinner scene one of the craziest moments in all of horror movie history and then to Cap all that off the wizard mode one of my main jobs as Chief Operating Officer is to make sure that we continue to integrate as many features and include as many features for you as we can and I think we've absolutely nailed that you guys have become accustomed to all the things that you see in our collector's edition but we've added even more to this one so right away at the top of the game you're going to see that we included that custom Leatherface topper we have to we're always going to give you guys that um moving down you have a real printed back glass we have returning the lighted speaker grills that we always give you guys with the interactive light shows another one of the things that we had a lot of fun with on this project is we actually laser cut chainsaw teeth into the side rails just so it's actually kind of we had to coat them just to make sure they're safe on top of those custom cut chainsaw rails we have a blood red metallic flake with a clear coat over top of it and we give you the full powder coat package including the coind door and the display panel that same high-end metallic powder coat that we have on your armor of your game we also have on every habit Trail and ramp in the game so the whole thing is just blood candy red it's it's perfect it's beautiful even the start button custom launch button custom every little bell and whistle we could put on this thing just to make you guys the perfect horror collectible we did we always have the interior Graphics in there but we did custom art for the display panel the apron and the coind door as well and there're even these really nice magnetic stickers that you can just peel off or reposition a gruesome tidbit is on the display panel you'll actually see some of the photos that The Hitchhiker took in the movie and these were never actually seen in the movie somebody found those later and now they're displayed on there we've added more features to our C we've made it more limited and we've actually been able to walk the price down a bit too which really means a lot to us we want to continue to make these things affordable and we want you guys to be able to get one of them we're going to make 888 collector's edition models of the Texas Chainsaw Maser hey y'all I'm DJ so I'm sort of the full stack engineer here so I do everything from PCB uh design and Fabrication operating system level stuff uh firmware all the way up to game code here at spooky pinball I also developed the warden which is the control system for the Scooby pinball machine and continuing on with the TCM and Looney Tune pinball machines the warden system is the control board that drives all the electronics and electromechanical in the uh pinball machine if I'm doing my job right hopefully you don't know that I've done anything at all hey I'm AJ and I'm the head of Tech Support here at spooky pinball here at spooky pinball customer service is number one for us and do know that we are always here to help you if you need anything reach out to us I just wanted to pop in and remind you all inside inside the coin door there is a sticker with my service hours and service number and also email feel free to reach out to me if you guys have any questions and we will take care of you hi guys my name is Morgan uh I am the voice behind the phone when you call us here at spooky pinball uh you may have never seen my face before uh I am in charge of many different things here in the office at spooky pinball uh I do Supply Chain management uh I am in charge of sales and pretty much anything else that I can do to make you guys happy when I am not fixing things that Luke and Bug screw up I am in charge of a lot of different things around here one of them being the revamp of our website so in case you haven't noticed uh the website is completely revamped it's all new it's all great we put a lot of hard work into it why did we put a lot of hard work into it because TCM is for sale you can head on over to Spooky pinball.com place your order there or otherwise you can contact one of your favorite Distributors I I really don't know what else to say other than I I freaking love this movie I love the Texas Chainsaw Massacre we're spooky freaking p ball we want to do badass horror titles for you guys and we really could not have possibly made a better horror game than what we have right here for you and I I really can't wait for you guys to get your hands on this thing it's a beast this game scares the hell out of me this game is unapologetically horror and we can't wait to scare the out of you when you play the Texas jsaw massacre remember when I talk about like how around here I'm the outcast but we go other places and I'm like fitting right in this is what I mean this is what I mean we're going to do it then that's what we're going to do you're so high-spirited Zach going to say who the hell you are and you're what's your title the victim will be popping out of the freezer gasping for air and life which she won't find [Laughter] but now you're going to say it to me but pretend that somebody take one ball and smile all right go ahead who are you spooky pinball R metallic flake and a a [Laughter] clear put that in the yeah [Music] savy you want to go all the way back to the beginning no no oh I was like God it's going to be a fun trip that's the [Laughter] clo I hope you got that on film I have any more fun today I don't think I'm going to be able to take it [Applause] [Laughter] _(Acquisition: youtube_auto_sub, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 64d3ba52-f996-4c47-86c7-e77ec0969678*