# Pinball Magazine & Pinball News PINcast April 2024 recap **Source:** Pinball News & Pinball Magazine Pincast **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2024-05-02 **Duration:** 86m 41s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pinball-industry-news/episodes/Pinball-Magazine--Pinball-News-PINcast-April-2024-recap-e2j5ioo --- ## Analysis Pinball News and Pinball Magazine editors Jonathan Euston and Martin Eb recap April 2024 industry news, covering the Pinball Brothers ABBA launch in Sweden, HomePin's announced Blues Brothers game (open-source, sub-$5k budget machine), and commentary on game design, playfield mechanics, and licensing complexity. Both games are works-in-progress with design refinements pending. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Pinball Brothers ABBA was originally scheduled to launch April 6, 2024, but details leaked two days early in haphazard fashion — _Martin Eb confirmed attendance at launch event in Örebro, Sweden; Jonathan Euston noted embargo coordination failures_ - [HIGH] ABBA game exists in two editions: Arrival (500 units) and Voyage (300 units), limited runs with different artwork but identical gameplay and playfield — _Both editors discuss edition differences; Voyage artwork directed by Ludwig Andersen who produced the Voyage holographic show_ - [HIGH] HomePin Blues Brothers is licensed to the SNL characters, not the movie; ownership is split among four parties making movie license extremely difficult — _Martin Eb states this explicitly: 'the intellectual property of the movie is owned by four different parties who don't seem to get along very well'_ - [HIGH] HomePin Blues Brothers will be open-source, Arduino-based, with moderation-approved community code modifications and custom music/sound support — _Martin Eb explains: 'the first open source pinball machine ever which will allow customers...to modify the code, have it approved through a home print moderated forum'_ - [HIGH] Blues Brothers price target is under $5,000, using simple playfield design inspired by 1970s-80s Stern Electronics era with minimal ramps and toys — _Martin Eb: 'it's to be a pinball machine under five thousand dollars' and 'borrowed a lot of elements from Stern Electronics Stars'_ - [HIGH] ABBA prototype had mechanical issues including helicopter ball lock dropping unexpectedly and weak auto-launch on steep wire ramp — _Jonathan noted launch coil issues; Martin confirmed redesigned bracket post-event to prevent ball drops from drop target resets_ - [HIGH] Martin Eb had advance knowledge of Blues Brothers license ~7-8 months before April 2024 announcement and kept it confidential — _Martin Eb: 'I've known about this for I think at least seven eight months already...I kept that secret, of course'_ - [MEDIUM] Community reception to HomePin Blues Brothers was negative due to Homepin's past track record with Thunderbirds and Spinal Tap licensing and concerns about Taiwan manufacture of Chicago-themed property — _Jonathan Euston summarizes concerns: people worried Homepin 'haven't been developed as well' and questioned Taiwan manufacture of Chicago-themed game_ - [HIGH] ABBA game rules and code incomplete at launch event; scoop function on left had no rules, not all songs included in prototype — _Jonathan: 'the scoop saucer thing on the left-hand side, which wasn't even included in the rules...not all the songs were in the game'_ - [HIGH] ABBA music videos were originally filmed in 4:3 aspect ratio but are displayed on 6:9 screen using creative cover-flow effect to fill space — _Martin explains playfield design solution: 'they've done a very nice sort of like a like a cover flow type effect on the video'_ ### Notable Quotes > "if you're aiming for the average ABBA fan, it doesn't have to be – the average ABBA fan is not a pinball wizard that knows everything about deep rules and all that...far more ABBA fans than pinball wizards out there" > — **Martin Eb**, ~28:00 > _Core design philosophy criticism of ABBA game's rule complexity; advocates for casual accessibility over depth_ > "the intellectual property of the movie is owned by four different parties who don't seem to get along very well. So it's easier to license the logo and the likeness of the two characters" > — **Martin Eb**, ~64:00 > _Explains licensing complexity preventing movie-based Blues Brothers; justifies character-only approach_ > "the first open source pinball machine ever which will allow customers who buy the machine or people who have access to a machine to modify the code, have it approved through a home print moderated forum and basically change the rules of the game" > — **Martin Eb**, ~54:00 > _Announces first open-source commercial pinball machine concept with community modding_ > "it all kind of just rolled out at its own pace after that. the old launch schedule was kind of abandoned" > — **Jonathan Euston**, ~3:00 > _Notes ABBA launch event coordination failures due to early leaks_ > "I have no idea whether he even looks at them or takes them seriously...I just want them to get the best ABBA game out there" > — **Martin Eb**, ~25:00 > _Indicates designer Daniel Jensen may not be receptive to community feedback_ > "I think the bar has been raised since Pulp Fiction came out, and there are now certain expectations for the assets" > — **Jonathan Euston**, ~71:00 > _Suggests market expectations for licensed games have shifted upward post-Pulp Fiction premium tier_ > "I had no idea it was going to be a scoop but I've known about this for I think at least seven eight months already" > — **Martin Eb**, ~35:00 > _Confirms advance embargo knowledge; indicates Pinball News received exclusive initial press release_ > "Why exhibit it? But apparently that's what Mike Kalinowski wanted to do" > — **Martin Eb**, ~38:00 > _Questions strategic decision to display work-in-progress Blues Brothers at Taipei Arcade Expo_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Jonathan Euston | person | Editor of Pinball Magazine; attended ABBA launch event in Örebro, Sweden; provides critical design feedback on prototypes | | Martin Eb | person | Editor of Pinball News; had 7-8 month advance knowledge of Blues Brothers license; attended ABBA launch event; maintains podcast/content coverage | | Pinball Brothers | company | Scandinavian pinball manufacturer; launched ABBA game April 6, 2024 in Sweden with prototype playfield and incomplete code | | HomePin | company | Taiwan-based manufacturing, Australian company; licensed Blues Brothers characters (not movie); designing open-source, sub-$5k budget game with Arduino platform and community modding | | Daniel Jensen | person | Pinball Brothers lead; presented ABBA at launch event in Örebro; received design feedback emails from editors; redesigned helicopter mechanism post-event | | Ludwig Andersen | person | Son of ABBA member Benny Andersen; art directed ABBA pinball game and Voyage holographic show in London; participated in launch event via Skype | | Mike Kalinowski | person | HomePin founder/designer; initiated Blues Brothers open-source Arduino system; decided to exhibit prototype at Taipei Arcade Expo; experienced licensing difficulties with movie rights | | ABBA (game) | game | Pinball Brothers release April 2024; two editions (Arrival 500 units, Voyage 300 units); three-flipper design with helicopter ball-lock toy; 20+ licensed ABBA songs; prototype playfield with mechanical and rules refinements pending | | Blues Brothers (HomePin) | game | Licensed characters (not movie); open-source Arduino-based; target price under $5,000; simple playfield design; numeric-only backbox display; first open-source commercial pinball machine; community-modifiable code and audio | | Pinball News | organization | Independent pinball media outlet; received exclusive press release for Blues Brothers on April 20, 2024; conducts interviews and event coverage | | Pinball Magazine | organization | Pinball journalism publication; coordinated coverage with Pinball News for April 2024 industry events | | Roger | person | Formerly Pinball Brothers investor; attended Taipei Arcade Expo April 26, 2024; photographed HomePin Blues Brothers prototype | | Clarion Hotel Örebro | event | Venue for ABBA launch event April 6, 2024; four-star Swedish hotel; hosted chaotic but well-executed party with gameplay, interviews, and livestreaming | | Taipei Arcade Expo | event | Trade show April 26+ 2024; HomePin exhibited Blues Brothers prototype; photography/details leaked to community | | Stern Electronics | company | Historical reference; 1970s-80s pinball design era; HomePin Blues Brothers playfield design borrows mechanical elements from this manufacturer's style | | Pulp Fiction (Stern) | game | Recent licensed premium-tier release; raised market expectations for licensed game asset quality and production values | ### Topics - **Primary:** Game launches and announcements, Pinball game design and mechanics, Licensing and intellectual property - **Secondary:** Community feedback and design iteration, Open-source/modifiable pinball software, Prototype vs. production readiness, Budget pinball market positioning - **Mentioned:** Event coordination and media embargo management ### Sentiment **Mixed** (0.55) — Generally positive on ABBA's potential and creative elements (music video treatment, disco ball, helicopter), but critical of design choices and complexity for casual audience. Cautiously optimistic about HomePin Blues Brothers concept but skeptical of execution viability, open-source moderation model, and company's past track record with licenses. Community reception to Blues Brothers was notably negative. ### Signals - **[business_signal]** HomePin Blues Brothers sub-$5k budget positioning as solution to rising manufacturing costs; eliminates video display, licensed music production, and complex playfield to control expenses (confidence: high) — Martin: 'one of the increasing expenses...of producing a pinball machine these days is in managing...video and audio assets...that is obviously not a problem here because there is no video display' - **[community_signal]** Negative community reception to HomePin Blues Brothers based on company's past licensing execution (Thunderbirds, Spinal Tap); concerns about Taiwan manufacture of Chicago-themed property; worry game will be budget-tier quality (confidence: medium) — Jonathan: 'some people were less pleased...Homepin had the license...based on their current track record were afraid that the game would not be any good'; licensing concerns about Taiwan vs. Chicago origin - **[community_signal]** Martin Eb as Pinball News editor received exclusive press release for Blues Brothers before broader announcement; positioned outlet as industry insider with access to embargoed information (confidence: high) — Martin: 'I had no idea I was going to be the only medium...received it...When I received it, it says, I'm sending this to you first...I was allowed to publish it on April 20th' - **[design_philosophy]** ABBA game rule complexity excessive for target casual audience; drop target routing illogical; playfield shot entrances too narrow due to chunky stand-up targets; metal ramp inconsistent with plastic design elsewhere; missing ABBA member artwork on playfield (confidence: high) — Martin: 'makes no sense...could be done easier...average ABBA fan is not a pinball wizard'; Jonathan: shots 'appeared narrower...chunky stand-up targets'; metal ramp 'looks rather off' - **[leak_detection]** ABBA details leaked two days before April 6 launch event; Blues Brothers photographed at Taipei Arcade Expo by attendee Roger despite early prototype status (confidence: high) — Jonathan: 'images already leaked two days before the scheduled launch...somebody undercut us'; Martin: 'Roger from formerly Pinball Brothers...was actually at the show and took pictures' - **[licensing_signal]** Blues Brothers movie license fragmented across four rights-holders creating impossible licensing scenario; HomePin pursued character-only license as only feasible alternative (confidence: high) — Martin Eb: 'intellectual property of the movie is owned by four different parties who don't seem to get along very well...probably impossible to do a Blues Brothers pinball machine based on the movie' - **[market_signal]** Pulp Fiction premium-tier release raised bar for licensed pinball asset quality; creates higher expectations for future licensed games (confidence: medium) — Jonathan: 'the bar has been raised since Pulp Fiction came out, and there are now certain expectations for the assets' - **[community_signal]** ABBA launch event unstructured; interviews conducted while audience played games; streaming promoted as gameplay reveal but was only party livestream; expectations mismanagement (confidence: high) — Jonathan: 'they were sort of winging it'; Martin: 'event started off...chaotic...everybody was already playing the games so nobody paid attention anymore' - **[personnel_signal]** Ludwig Andersen (son of ABBA member) art-directed game while simultaneously producing Voyage holographic show in London; dual creative role managing visual consistency across physical show and pinball game (confidence: high) — Martin: 'Ludwig Andersen was art directing both games...involved in the creation of the the Voyage holographic show the producer of the holographic show' - **[product_strategy]** ABBA game exhibiting at launch event was prototype with incomplete code, missing rule sets, mechanical issues requiring post-event redesign, and missing songs from final set (confidence: high) — Jonathan: 'not all the rules were in the game...not all the songs were in the game'; Martin: helicopter 'has been redesigned so the balls don't fall out' - **[product_strategy]** HomePin Blues Brothers roadmap includes moderation-approved community code modifications, custom music submission system, and tightly-moderated forum as sole distribution platform (confidence: high) — Martin: 'everything has to then be approved by Homepin before you can load it onto your game...discussion or upload your work to...tightly moderated unquote forum of homepins' - **[technology_signal]** HomePin pioneering open-source commercial pinball platform with Arduino-based modifiable code and community-submitted audio/rules; first commercial implementation of community-driven game modification (confidence: high) — Martin: 'the first open source pinball machine ever...allow customers...to modify the code, have it approved through a home print moderated forum...add their own music to it' --- ## Transcript ABBA Pinball Launched The Blues Brothers Revealed Dutch Pinball Exclusive Trademarks Former Deep Root Titles Hi, my name is Jonathan Euston, I'm the editor of Pinball Magazine and I'm joined by... Hi, I'm Martin Eb and I'm the editor of Pinball News and Jonathan and I are here to look back at all the excitement in the pinball world throughout the month of April 2024. Right, and it was a rather exciting month. It was exciting. We got some new game launches, some new game announcements and lots and lots of smaller news items to cover. So I guess we better crack on and get into it. Right, well, the first game launch of this past month, April that is, was of course ABBA by Pinball Brothers, which we already announced had been confirmed to take place on April 6th. And if it isn't pinball, images already leaked two days before the scheduled launch, which was a pity because I think we were both preparing articles to go live on the Saturday during the launch event, which we both attended, by the way, and then somebody undercut us, basically. Yeah, and then it all kind of, I don't want to say it collapsed, but it all kind of just rolled out at its own pace after that. the old launch schedule was kind of abandoned. It was like, okay, well, here's the information, because I guess that it kind of went out to people, but they didn't seem to know that there was an embargo on it until Saturday. Right. So details weren't being released. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, in a fairly haphazard manner. So then it's a shame because the idea is to coordinate it all and to tie in with the launch event, which was taking place in Sweden, in Örebro. Thank you. I was going to say in the town of Örebro. I was actually going to ask you to pronounce it, and you did very well. Thank you. Yes, so we were invited to go. so we did and um we met up at uh stockholm airport and both traveled over there um to the uh the clarion hotel right which was the the uh the venue for the launch party right yeah um which also was rather chaotic uh the launch party that is not the hotel no hotel is very nice yeah absolutely yeah I should probably mention actually just cut in there because it's something which struck me and it's maybe not something which other people are familiar with but the Clarion Hotel is part of the Clarion Hotel chain which traditionally certainly in America is a kind of fairly low end budget hotel of the kind of Days Inn, or actually sub-Days Inn probably, more a Comfort Inn and Motel 6 type chain. But this was a four-star hotel and a very nice one as well. Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah. Don't go by the name, I would say, if you're familiar with the Clarion hotel chain. This is a nice hotel and the whole event, I think, you say it's chaotic, I thought it went well. I think the problem was that it was maybe promoted as being something other than what it was. It was the reveal. It was the first chance for people to get their hands on the game. And it was promoted as being streamed live, but it wasn't streamed live in the sense of... Gameplay. Yeah, sort of like the way that Jack Danger would do a live stream, stream or indeed many other live streamers would do this was um just somebody with a phone streaming the the events of the party right and i think a lot of people were kind of a bit put out by that or upset that it wasn't what they thought it was going to be but it was the party that was being streamed not not the game played so much right and um to be honest how many parties do go to where you can or you parties you don't go to where you can enjoy them at home by watching a stream as being there yeah so okay there were maybe some some communication well yeah incorrect expectations or communication uh errors um the part where i thought it was kind of chaotic um I had the feeling that the event started off with Daniel Janson being interviewed by Christopher, I believe his name was, who played in the band. But they were sort of winging it, I had the feeling. And then later on, Daniel brought on Ludwig Andersen, the son of Abbas Benny Andersen, in a Skype call. after that the games were turned on and then a couple of more people were invited on Skype to talk about their participation in the game development but everybody was already playing the games so nobody paid attention anymore no I have to admit I didn't I hardly noticed that anybody was still being interviewed so I feel a bit sorry for them really I think Kelly and Oric who were both in America were interviewed and possibly other people as well the good news is the entire or a big part of that live event was streamed indeed and I think you can watch back an hour and a half of it on the Pinball Brothers Facebook page and it's probably up on YouTube as well I'm not exactly sure but anyway aside from the event let's talk about the game yeah well before we move off that i've just mentioned that i i also recorded um the the launch events from on my phone and uploaded that onto the pinball news site as well so you can you can watch it back there which isn't an hour and a half it's a bit shorter than that more than like 30 minutes or so which includes the full interview with Ludwig Andersen as well as some shots of the game as well and some gameplay as well is there but yes so I think I have to say and I think we may have said this before but I'll say it again anyway that in person the game looks far far better, well the artwork I should say, looks far far better than it does in the pictures I think it really much more vibrant and pops a lot more and generally just just encapsulates the theme so much better and um but it's also worth saying that the game that we played was i guess it's a prototype or they're all prototypes yes changes have been made since then to some mechs on the game. I don't think the artwork's changing, and not all the rules were in the game. There's one part of the game, particularly the scoop saucer thing on the left-hand side, which wasn't even included in the rules. It had no function in there at all. So those rules weren't written, but have been since, of course. Not all the songs were in the game, either. Yeah, so just to get an idea, there are two editions of this ABBA game, Arrival and Voyage. Voyage being the most exclusive one, the collector's edition, so to speak, limited to 300 units and 500 units for the Arrival version. The Arrival version has the band ABBA, as you might remember them from the 70s, a picture from the back glass and cabinet artwork that reminds of the Voodoo Elvin cover. Yeah, the triangles. Yes, while the Voyage edition has artwork from the Voyage virtual show, which is being held in London as cabinet artwork and on the back glass as well, where the ABBA members are not as recognizable as on the Arrival edition, I would say. So the Voyage edition is really heavily art directed towards the Voyage event in London, which is not that strange if you know that the earlier mentioned Ludwig Andersen was art directing both games. and he was involved in the creation of the the Voyage holographic show the producer of the holographic show right yes two different takes but the game rules are the same and the play field is the same for both versions a three flipper game with the main toy being a two ball locking helicopter which still needs some tweaking as we experienced that occasionally balls would drop locked balls would drop from the helicopter and the game had no idea how to handle those the game will include over 20 classic ABBA songs of which at the time of the launch 16 were in the game yeah each one of those is the music, it's the studio recordings and includes the promo videos as well for each one which is played and you picked up on this or you mentioned this in our interview with Daniel which you can get on the same place that you got this pin cast from with our special bonus pin cast interview with Daniel which we recorded just a couple of days after the launch and he talks all about how it went and about the game its creation and the plans um but um what can i say one of the things you mentioned in that and which one which is also something which i picked up on straight away when i saw it was the way that they treated the the music videos because when they were first made they would have all been created in a four by three aspect ratio and they're being shown on a 69 screen so what do you do with that well you can either enlarge them you can letterbox them or pillarbox them as it were so you've got something else down the side so then you fill up a part of it but they've done a very nice sort of like a like a cover flow type effect on the video so you get multiple copies of the videos playing you know down the edges of them at various angles and the main center is just the video by itself i think that's a very nice treatment they've done um which was a potential problem and they come up with a very creative solution to that yeah absolutely and well we were lucky enough to get our hands on a game sort of at the end of the party I think we got at least an hour of where we were just the three of us together with a friend of yours from the UK where we basically got to continuously play the game because everybody else already left and the team were basically waiting for us to finish so they could turn the lights out and go to bed I think after a long day yeah, oh yeah, definitely so we got a fairly good impression although that game had its mechanical issues I would say it had problems launching the ball which which is an auto launch but it goes up a steep metal wire form straight away and it couldn't make it all the time uh obviously in a home use setting uh that that's easy to fix by cranking up the power of that coil um but at an event like this you just need someone with the keys and no knowing what they are doing and so on so um that although it's an easy fix uh we experienced quite a few balls falling back and it took a while before they got launched into the onto the playfield um yeah i wasn't sure whether that was um a coil weakness thing or they just uh it wasn't aligned quite right the the launcher the um solenoid because now after a few goes it made it so it had the strength of whether whether the software automatically increases the strength after a few fails, I don't know. Anyway, minor issue with that. But I think we ended up with quite a good feel for the game, didn't we? What was your thought then, having played it for quite some time? I think it definitely has potential. Obviously, the code is still under development and needs some tweaking in some points. what surprised me was at some point during the evening Daniel took time to explain how to get to the first voyage mode if you wish where you basically have to complete like I think you have to spell get all the band members, get all the instruments Then you get to the full wizard mode, but as soon as you collect all the band members for which basically spelled out the word ABBA on the play field, which you do by completing several tasks, which stands for each letter from the name ABBA. If you collect all four, then you get to the voyage mode. But he also explained like, okay, we have this three bank drop targets at the top which would then activate something on the middle left and on the middle left there's also a three bank drop target which would activate the scoop in the center next to the upper three bank target and I was like that makes no sense it's easy to switch it around because that makes far more sense and there were more things in the game that I'm like to the average pinball player this makes no sense and it could be done easier which makes it also more fun and nobody will complain about that that's a bit of the feel that I had with the game I had some suggestions which I emailed to Daniel as well afterwards I have no idea whether he even looks at them or takes them seriously he said he would and maybe he disagrees with everything So I didn't send them to offend anybody. Don't get me wrong. I just want them to get the best ABBA game out there. And my opinion is if you're aiming for the average ABBA fan, it doesn't have to be – the average ABBA fan is not a pinball wizard that knows everything about deep rules and all that. No, it should be a fairly simple game that everybody can easily understand. And I think in some elements they took it way too far and made it too complex. So, well, that's probably good news for the pinball wizards out there. But I think there are far more ABBA fans than pinball wizards out there. So if you want to please the ABBA fans, I wouldn't make it too complex. That's my personal opinion. Okay. I will add on a different aspect of the game, which was the shots. I found it to be quite tight. Some of those shots, I think, appeared narrower than they actually are because they have quite chunky stand-up targets either side of the entrance to those lanes. And they are illuminated stand-ups, which makes them bigger than normal stand-ups. and I think that the effect of that is to narrow the entrance to those shots which made it play a little bit tougher, I don't know whether anything can be done about that, whether those targets can be slimmed down a little bit you can't move them because there isn't the space I think they could be moved like a millimetre inwards to the ramp on the left side which was a very tight shot you're very correct about that there are possibilities I just don't know whether they ordered already I don't know like hundreds of playfields with the holes pre-drilled then it becomes difficult to move them you know so yeah anyway that was the main criticism I think. Everything else I think can be adjusted. I think Daniel already mentioned to us that the helicopter mechanism has been redesigned so the balls don't fall out of there. I think the reason it was falling out was as you mentioned earlier there's a three bank drop target just below where the helicopter is and I think when the ball when those targets are resetting they were sometimes resetting and throwing the ball upwards which was sending it into the helicopter and which then knocked one of the balls out anyway I think he's redesigned the whole bracket for that so I don't think that's an issue anymore but it's a nice feature and I think it needs a little more choreography around it when it releases the balls because at the moment it's kind of like oh the balls have just dropped out and they're into multiball it needs more of a build up to it and light effects. So you can see, it's a nice transparent body to the helicopter through which you can see the balls that are locked. So you kind of want to make the most of that. It's got a nice disco ball at the back as well, which seems to reflect the light very nicely and better than disco balls we've seen in other games in the past. other than that I think it played very well and I think we're looking forward to seeing how they finish up the software on it right yeah quite a lengthy list where I tried to explain some things that sort of like I noticed maybe not a big deal but I mean if you have the right ramp on top of the right ramp is a gold record plastic which basically looks like a symbol from a drum kit but the rest of the drum kit is not there and I'm like why not and ABBA is only pictured once on the play field why not replace that gold record with a plastic which has the faces of the four members of ABBA in the early 80s which is quite different than what they looked like in the 70s because the game is about ever and you basically don't see that much ever on the playfield. No, you see, obviously, you see them on the back glass a lot. I think the promotional pictures had a couple of rather ugly bolts holding that record on on top of the right ramp which didn help That been improved in the version that we played It was black mounting on there, but you can certainly put... I don't have a problem with the record as such. I mean, it does kind of cover the top of the ramp, so you can't really see... If the ball's, you know, if you're doubtful whether the ball's going to make it all the way up to the top of the ramp, you can't actually see it because the ball disappears underneath that record. but if you want to have the record there at least put a label on it preferably from from the original records exactly yeah from the original label so and also also one of the reasons or one of the things that i questioned that right ramp is a full metal ramp it is and i'm just wondering why because it's the only full metal part on the playfield the other ramps are either plastic or wire form so why not go with plastic like on the left side the 180 ramp on the far right that's also a metal ramp well that's the one I'm referring to yes but yeah there's the you're just looking at plain steel which you don't see anywhere else on the game so it looks rather off there could be decals on there to make it to integrate it more into the game, I suppose, but I was like, why not just make them out of plastic? True. The left one is, and you can see underneath it, mind you, the left-hand one has that sort of fishbowl-type effect at the whirlpool at the top, which isn't a whirlpool, which I originally thought it was. And also, there is a magnet behind the back panel, which isn't, there's no attention drawn to that fact. You wouldn't know there's a magnet up there until you see it in action. It just grabs the ball and drops it. It doesn't need to be locked. Or a sign. Turn it into a feature when it's active. Have a flashing light up there or something. Right. So people know exactly. Anyway, like we mentioned earlier, days after the launch event, we recorded a special bonus pin cast with Daniel Jensen of Pinball Brothers where he explained a lot of things about the game and the launch event which is obviously still available through your favourite podcast supplier Yep, indeed so still having a listen to that if you haven't already done but I think we've probably spent enough time talking about the ABBA Pinball reveal and launch so probably time to move on to our second headline which um well it's a bit of a bit of a scoop for you that one uh i think donald so i'll let you uh lead off on that i had no idea it was going to be a scoop but i've known about this for i think at least seven eight months already um home pin uh from taiwan technically an australian company with manufacturing plants in Taiwan, announced they have the license for Blues Brothers. And well, I kept that secret, of course, because I was told not to tell, not to announce it. It was kind of a surprise to me that I received a press release that the game was going to be exhibited at the Taipei Arcade Expo, whatever, trade show, from April 26th onwards. But I also understood that the game is not ready. It's basically a prototype with artwork that still has to be approved, and the playfield is also undergoing a lot of changes. So my initial response was, why exhibit it? But apparently that's what Mike Kalinowski wanted to do. And I also like, even if you exhibit it, what are the chances of someone from Europe coming over and taking pictures of the game? Well, actually, that turned out to be my bad because Roger from formerly Pinball Brothers, one of the investors formerly of Pinball Brothers, was actually at the show and took pictures of the game. So I was incorrect over there. The chances of that happening are pretty high. Yeah, 100% as it turned out. Yeah. Still, I'm not sure whether it was such a good move to already show a game that's basically work in progress. Yeah. And I know we just discussed ABBA, which is also a work in progress, but that's mostly code. This is basically a Playfield ceiling development. Yeah. Well, we hope it is. Let's just backtrack a minute, because, yes, it's licensed of the Blues Brothers, but it's not the movie that's quite an important thing to take away from this it actually, or appears to be, we haven't got full details it appears to be a license of the characters created by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd from their Saturday Night Live skits, and not the movie of the Blues Brothers or either of the movies, I don't know how many movies there have been two, I know, but it's nothing to do with the movie. Right. So it's just the characters themselves. Right. And that's all that's depicted on the play field, apart from maybe a car, I think. The car that they drive. Right. Yeah, that's a police car. So there's a couple of things to know, I suppose, which were not very clear, but have become clear in the meantime because several people took the time to listen to earlier interviews with Mike Kalinowski of HomePin. So this game is intended for home game room buyers in the sense that okay, let's say you have already a pool table and a jukebox and you'd like a pinball machine and you think like, hey, Blues Brothers, that's a nice game that fits in my game room and but they're not the pinball wizards out there looking for deep rule sets and everything um the game is aimed at that audience and to target that audience uh for mike it's very important to make it a affordable game um so it's only going it's to be a pinball machine under five thousand dollars which is uh two thousand dollars less i think than the cheapest pro model from a stern pinball machine um but in order to do that that means the game will not have uh uh 15 grams or what have you so um i'm getting a call by the way oh okay no no no no there was just a little hiccup sorry so um but it's so it's going to be a budget game to buy but it's also going to be a budget game playfield wise there's not going to be 15 rams on there and uh 20 pop bumpers so to speak no so in this case it looks like the playfield design borrowed a lot of elements from Stern Electronics Stars and possibly some other influences from games from that era it appears to be single level although there is a jump ramp in there but still it's aiming at an audience that is not expecting five or six different rams with various outcomes where the ball ends and what have you. No, it's aiming at an audience which is just looking to add a pinball machine to their game room and rather an affordable one. And hey, if Blue Brothers is available, why not? Yeah, and also one of the increasing expenses, I think it's fair to say, of producing a pinball machine these days is in managing and developing all the video and audio assets and licensing as well of audio and character likenesses and things like that for video displays. Yes. Well, that is obviously not a problem here because there is no video display. There is only a set of numeric displays in the backbox, very much a sort of retro throwback to the stern electronics era where you didn't even get alpha numerics. You've just got numeric displays. And because it's not based on the movie, you have no assets to work with. And because there's no display, you don't need to produce any of the video in any way or create your own graphics for it. And then we come to the question of music because if there's one thing that a Blues Brothers game is going to be about, it's going to be about the music. right well we know that there is going to be licensed music in the game we don't know which music that will be whether it's anything to do anything from the movies right or sound alike yeah or even related to it right but in order to solve that problem Mike came up with well address it maybe ok in order to address that problem sorry Mike came up with a new board system for the game driven by an Arduino computer and the idea is that this will be the first open source pinball machine ever which will allow customers who buy the machine or people who have access to a machine to modify the code, have it approved through a home print moderated forum and basically change the rules of the game, but also add their own music to it or sound effects and voice calls. And so if someone wants to put in 150 quotes from the movie, it's not officially licensed, but for your own game, you can do it. And if that code gets shared, so be it. So I guess that's sort of the reasoning for enabling others to modify the code in this game without or with the understanding that the game will come with a complete set of rules and gameplay. And some licensed music. Right, yeah. Of some kind. So if you buy that game, if you're interested in it and you buy that game, you get a complete game, but it comes with the option to dive in and modify the rules to your liking, so to speak. Yes. Which is basically taking modding to a whole new level. yeah um i i have to admit a certain amount of skepticism of this because i i think there's a lot more to making a game modifiable designing it to be modifiable in the first place then probably more work than just then just creating a complete game by itself because you need to allow people to have access to every aspect of the game if they want to write their own rules make their own sounds, do their own lighting effects, add their own music, then there has to be a method for doing that which works. And I also don't particularly like the idea that whatever you do has to then be approved by Homepin before you can load it onto your game or indeed anyone else's game. because that to me suggests that there are certain things you wouldn't be allowed to do with the game which means it's almost not open source but we'll see how that goes and also I don't like the idea that it says everything has to go to this quote tightly moderated unquote forum of homepins and that's the only place you'll be able to discuss or upload your work to, which, again, doesn't sound very open source to me. But, hey, let's see how it turns out. I can't imagine there's going to be a huge number of people wanting to work on creating new versions of this. and I suspect before long there will be as we've seen with people done with like Pinball Browser on some games there will almost be like a definitive version alternative version of the software that come with the factory software and then there will be the one which everybody says or agrees is the best alternative and that's probably about as far as it will go and that might have a few updates over the years but I don't think it's going to be a hugely vibrant forum we're not going to see 20 different versions of Blues Brothers supposedly now regarding the reception of the announcement first of all I had no idea I was going to be the only medium so to speak that received a press release I was under the impression others had it as well. And in fact, when I received it, it says, I'm sending this to you first, which leads me to believe that others will get it as well, but I got it first. So when I was allowed to publish it on April 20th, which I did, expecting others to follow as well. well others followed but more based on the shitstorm that was caused by the announcement where some people were less pleased to find out that Homepin had the license for Blues Brothers and based on their current track record were afraid that the game would not be any good which is a personal opinion of some people don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean that the game will not be any good. Well, I think it was based on the fact that Mike and Homepin have had good licenses in the past. And they lost you. Not necessarily taken those themes and created the best possible I lost you for about 20 seconds so if you can pick up based on the titles in the past or somewhere like that so if you can I think the problem really is that based on the themes and the licenses which Homepin and Mike have had in the past with Thunderbirds and with This Is Spinal Tap that perhaps those titles and those concepts haven't been developed as well and as thoroughly as people would like or have come to expect with a modern pinball game. And Blues Brothers as well. People say, well, Blues Brothers, it's all based around Chicago. It's got to be made in Chicago. It's got to be about Chicago. and it's being made by a company in Taiwan, by an Australian. So I think that put a few people's noses out of joint as well. And also the fact that I think once these licenses have been, you know, hoping they've got these licenses, that kind of stops anybody else, any other company, building a Blues Brothers game or a Spinal Tap game because the license is now tied up with Home Pin. Now, in this particular instance, because it's not based on the movie, it's probably more open to another company making a movie-licensed game. So what I understood from Mike, and probably the main reason why there hasn't been a Blues Rogers pinball machine yet, is that the intellectual property of the movie is owned by four different parties who don't seem to get along very well. So it's easier to license the logo and the likeness of the two characters. But it's more difficult to get all parties aligned in order to get all assets from the movie and what you would want in a pinball machine. So given the fact that it's hard, it's probably impossible to do a Blues Brothers pinball machine based on the movie due to the fact that the parties owning all the rights are difficult either to work with or don't work together very well and all that. this is probably the only option or the next best thing, I would say, to get close to a Blues Brothers pinball machine. And I understand that Mike is like, well, people have no idea how difficult it is to license this. If you know that backstory, then they might understand. If they don't know that backstory, then they might still have expectations. and that doesn't help, or people will not be as happy with the final result being the budget game that it's supposed to be as they were hoping for it to be, I don't know, to the level of a Stern Pro machine. Well, I think the bar has been raised since Pulp Fiction came out, and there are now certain expectations for the assets that will be included in a movie, even a simpler 80s style plate field design, you still want to have the audio and the music from the movie and if you don't have that then people are not going to be as understanding as you might wish. it's all very well saying oh you don't understand the problem in getting all this together as a buyer of a pinball machine you don't really care about that you've either got what you want in the game or you haven't and that is fairly simple if you're not happy with what the game eventually turns out to be don't buy it yeah well I was about to say the open source or the customizable aspect of it could be a way around that, but only if the customers buy in on that and somebody puts the effort into making the game how it could be. Right. And that also goes with the understanding that, first of all you need a programmer to reprogram the game That one thing But the game itself also needs to have enough on the play field for a programmer to work with absolutely yeah if if uh right now we know there two three bank drop targets and there's a bunch of stand-up targets spelling uh jake and the drop target spelling elwood but if there's nothing else then uh six more uh stand-up targets it's going to be rather difficult to make an interesting rule set out of that. Yes, and from what we've seen so far, I don't think the ramp, the jump ramp, is really all it could be either. It seems to be half a ramp for a start that doesn't really go anywhere. And it seems to be available all the time rather than it being a special moment in the game. Right, yeah, that shot could use a lift ramp where you shoot the ball underwards, underneath, and only at some points you would be able to make the jump ramp. Yes, and perhaps only briefly, you have to time it right. But personally, since that iconic bridge jump is at the beginning of the movie, I would probably put that shot in the shooter lane and worry gameplay about putting the band back together, which still remains to be seen whether that phrase can even be used in the game. Anyway, a lot of work to go into that game and we will keep you informed with how it's developing over the coming months. Yeah. Or years. I love it when you're optimistic like that well just looking at Spinal Tap that changed quite a bit during its development well it's still being changed anyway so Stern Pinball Stern Pinball yes not no new game reveals from Stern which we normally kind of expect around this time of year to be honest normally it would have been around the MGC, the Midwest Gaming Classic. Might be that there could be a game announced tomorrow, but when we are recording this, nothing yet. Well, normally we get a little bit of a hint because of the briefing for distributors the day before it's announced publicly. But yeah, it could be by the time you are listening to this, it has been announced. In which case, apologies, but we don't know when they're going to announce it any more than anybody else. But, yes, there isn't a new game announcement, but there is a news of a remake of Black Knight Sword of Rage. They are doing another run of those, which is going to be available in June. Yes, only the pro model, by the way. Right, yes. Okay, and that news was broken, I think, by Tilt Amusements. who have sold all their games. Oh yeah. Very well respected and a large distributor or reseller I should say of Stern Games. Yeah, so they've sold all their games but I'm guessing other distributors will also be getting some of those Black Knight's Hall of Rage Pro games in the next run. and the latest isn't available? Yeah, the good news is that the Black Knight topper is available again. They remote made that one probably two months ago, so you might still find some with distributors so you can buy a pro model if still available and include a topper with it. Right, okay. Well, we mentioned about the expectation or timing of when another game is going to be coming out. I understand there's a bit of rumor about what that might be. Yes, John Wick being the most named theme for this upcoming Stern Pinball Cornerstone game. It remains to be seen whether that's correct, of course, but usually those rumors are not that far off. Interestingly, Stern, a couple of days ago, I think it was even yesterday, placed a Facebook post or post on their social media asking basically ask anything you want and we'll see if we can get you an answer. Well, let me pull it up so I can exactly quote what it said. And here it is. What are some of your burning pinball questions you'd like us to answer? That was the question from Stern. I think there were like over 300 people responding to that. There's 323 comments with that post. I think quite a few of them are from Stern themselves. Yes, of course. But if we're talking about rumoured themes, one person was asking, when do we get a Pokémon pinball machine? And Stern's answer was, stay tuned. So that could indicate that a Pokémon pinball machine is in the works. but we don't know for sure it could just be Stern trolling with us instead of us with Stern one thing we do know is that Stern attended the Craft Brewers Conference that was held in Las Vegas at the convention centre on April 21st to 24th obviously they are very big in trying to promote the sighting of pimple machines in craft beer bars and brewery tap rooms as well. And so that was a logical one for them to attend. I think I've been there before as well. This time they were represented by Eric Gilly, Tyler Carson, Evan Kirby, Roper Fuentes and Pablo Bedilla. So a big crew there, although none of the top management there. I'm surprised Gary Stern didn't make an appearance with his craft beer available. Otherwise, I think most of our other news is just about new code, and there's a lot of new code this time. In most cases, there's been one big update, which adds a whole bunch of new features, including maybe even a wizard mode, followed a couple of days later by a much smaller update which fixes some of the bugs that were introduced in the big update so we had that for james bond which finally reached version 1.0 and added the her majesty's her majesty's secret service um flips based multi-stage wizard mode uh and then followed almost immediately by 1.01 which as i say um fix a few bugs jaws current game is uh still in development um had 0.88, which was a big update, follows immediately afterwards by 0.89. Venom, which actually reached version 1.0 last month, had a 1.01 this month, which changed a few features. Foo Fighters, likewise, reached version 1.0 last month, had version 1.01, which was actually quite a big update, and then 1.0.2 a couple of days later, which fixed some of the bugs and tweaked a couple of things. So those are your code updates from Stern Pinball for the month of April 2024. Right, thank you for that. Now moving on to Dutch Pinball in the Netherlands, which is my home country. so well I don't want to I'm trying to figure out the right word don't want to discredit any pinball media there was a certain website let's not name any names suggesting oh go on suggesting in an article that Dutch Pinball will reveal back to the future at pinball expo so the first thing i did was send a text message to Barry Driessen the owner of dutch pinball asking like uh this and this website is saying that you will reveal that in that game at pinball expo is that correct to which barry responded we are not revealing anything at Pinball Expo. So I jokingly asked, will it be before then? To which he probably sarcastically confirmed yes before that. So that last part, seriously, don't take it serious because I think Dutch Pinball will be busy finishing up the Big Lebowski for the rest of the year and we'll be starting off with the Dutch Pinball exclusive first title. So they'll be busy building that, and if they will be at Pinball Expo, my guess is they will be busy focusing on that Dutch Pinball exclusive game and not on what might be next for Dutch Pinball themselves. Yeah, so don't believe everything you read. But moving on to Dutch Pinball exclusive, which is the collaboration between Dr. Pinball and Melvin Brow Williams, which we have reported on previously. Yeah. There's some news from there. Yes. Go on then. Do you want to go ahead? Turns out that Melvin already registered the trademark for Kingpin in March of 20... no I'm not sure whether it was but in 2023 February I think which might explain why Circus Maximus has no longer reported any news on that project as they were working on a remake of Kingpin originally a prototype by Capcom Pinball designed by Mike Ritchie so So it looks like that trademark lapsed then. Yeah, either they didn't renew it or I don't know what happened. But that trademark is now owned by Melvin Brower Williams. But he also owns two other trademarks which were registered March 29th of this year, which was very close to our previous pin cast, of course. but at that time we didn't know yet. So now this might come as a shocker and maybe not, but the trademarks that we're talking about are Magic Girl and Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland, which are two titles that were originally developed by Zitware and later taken into further development by Deep Root. As we discussed last month, Melvin has bought the Zitware locker units when they were auctioned off. So it's no surprise that he has a lot of Zitware material, games and prototypes, etc. to work with. but the fact that he registered the trademarks for those two games indicates that he might also have a connection with deep root intellectual property yes and I think we understood that most of that deep root intellectual property was acquired by Chris Turner as part of the bankruptcy of that business so it will be interesting to see where that goes well all I know is that Melvin indicated to me that he will make an announcement somewhere during the month of May where he is where I understood that he will clarify what his intentions are and where he is going with a certain game trademarks or properties or what have you. So that could be interesting news coming this month from Dutch Pinball Exclusive. We'll bring you all the details of that in next month's Pincast if you haven't heard it before. So I think that's about all we've got to say about Dutch Pinball and Dutch Pinball Exclusive. I don't know whether we should split those two up into separate companies now because they seem to be going their own separate ways with the titles they're developing. It's a sister company, yeah, so it seems logical. Okay, so let's have a look at some smaller news items, I guess. American Pinball, they've brought some code updates out for their current title, Barry O's Barbecue Challenge and their previous title Galactic Tank Force. Now they are available to download from the American Pinball website, the American-Pinball.com website. I'd like to tell you what the changes are, but unfortunately there are no release notes available. Even though there's a link on their website that says release notes, when you click it, it just takes you straight back to the same page again. So no details of those yet. although there is information about previous updates in the form of Google Docs so you can read about what's been updated before but not those two updates from April now we also hear that apparently they have been sending emails to distributors of theirs asking them to suggest barbecue locations in their distribution area so that American Pinball can contact them and try to arrange a sale of one of the Barry O's BBQ Challenge games to that location on their behalf, which I heard this before and I had a certain amount of incredulity when I heard that that was their marketing strategy, was to try and get a model or one of these games into as many BBQ places as possible. But apparently it is the case And they are looking for sites So if you know of a Suitable barbecue place That would benefit from having A Barry O's barbecue challenge game There Get in contact with American Pinball And who knows Perhaps it will happen Right, ok It remains to be Well Let's just see whether the game ends up on the barbecue or not. Oh dear. Okay, right. Yes, Multimorphic then. Let's move on to them. They have been busy going to pinball shows. Yeah, they were represented, I believe for the first time ever, at Pintastic and Midwest Gaming Classic. So that's basically expanding their show program, which usually consists of Texas Pinball Festival and Pinball Expo and not much else. But correct me if I'm wrong because I don't know everything. And the company also showed a photo on their Facebook of a large batch of aluminium flipper beds which still need bushings and some assembly rubbers, etc. which are intended for P3 upgrade kits right so these aren't things which are going to be sent out automatically to buyers and these are upgrades which can be purchased to I don't know whether it enhances the feel but to enhance the look of a P3 game if you are lucky enough to own one of those they should be available from Multimorphic fairly soon right so keep an eye out for that if you own one of those games so um well that's all the news from multimorphic i could find indeed yeah okay um not much news from spooky pinball either uh it's a couple of code updates um to looney tunes and texas chainsaw massacre their current titles. I think there have been a couple of updates for that. Yeah, so if you haven't paid any attention to updating your Looney Tunes game the past month, you probably should do because there have at least been three new modes introduced in Looney Tunes with various code updates. So I don't know whether that's the same for Texas Chainsaw, but both games are multiple updates, so just get the latest one and you're up to date. And, of course, Spooky went to a number of shows, Midwest Gaming Classic, of course, being their home show. Yep. And, well, people enjoy their games, so good for them. That's about all the news. there is some spooky of course spooky has the tradition of if there is new code they do a live stream of that new code and they show the new feature so make sure to check out the spooky channel on YouTube yes well of course they're doing the regular bug stream and scream updates or videos anyway, so I think those get covered in those if they aren't covered sooner, but yeah follow their go to their website and check out all the videos that are available of previous streams as well so moving on to Jersey Jack Pinball still busy building their Elton John game which apparently is doing better than expected from what we hear or better than some people thought it would do. I'm sure everybody on the team, the company always knew it would do well, but I think it was a bit of a slow burner, but people are starting to realise, I think we've said this before anyway, just what a great game it is. And they are having to order more parts to build more games than they were expecting. So good news there. Steve and Jack Are on the cover of the May 2024 issue of Replay Magazine And featured in that And have a large advert On the back cover As well And inside in the article Jack mentions That the next Jersey Jack pinball game Is likely to launch in time for The IAPA trade show held in Florida in November. So I guess we'll be looking to see whether it will be launched there or it will be launched at Expo or launched before or outside of either of those two events. But certainly towards the end of the year, we should be seeing the next title from Jersey Jackpin Ball. So good luck to them with the development of that and building their Elton John games in the meantime. Right. So regarding that large ad on the back cover of Replay Magazine interestingly enough that an ad that features four different games So, of course, it features Elton John in the foreground, and then there's Godfather behind it, angled behind it, so you can clearly see it. And then there's Toy Story, and I think there's even, if I'm not mistaken, Guns N' Roses. Guns N' Roses, yeah. All the way in the back. I don't think I've seen such an ad from a pinball company itself in quite a while so well it's a trade magazine so obviously they're showcasing their range of machines not just selling one and they have previous titles available as well so So, yeah, good position to be in. Yeah, yeah. So, okay, moving on to Barrels of Fun, who are still busy building Labyrinth, also shipping out toppers for that game. Yes. Very nice they are, too. Yeah. Not much news other than that they were represented at Midwest Gaming Classic and Pintastic as well. and that's basically it just busy building games and going to shows yeah now who also was at Midwifery Gaming Classic and I believe by request was Turner Pimble bringing Ninja Eclipse first time at that show I think if I'm not mistaken yeah they were not planning on going but they got an invite to come over and bring the game. I don't know exactly how it happened, but long story short, they were at the show. And? Yeah, and they also released a video preview of the Ninja Eclipse comic, which I believe is a comic book that has been mentioned in presentations by Chris Turner before. I think it's a 36-page comic book detailing the backstory of the Ninja Eclipse game. So the video contains a number of stills with some audio dialogue. Yes, voiceovers. Yeah. And you can find that easily on the Turner Pinball YouTube channel. Personally, I found it rather confusing because if you need to read a 36-page comic book to understand the goal of the game or what you're supposed to do, basically, I still believe that pinball should be as easy to understand in the sense that if you don't know the backstory, you should be able to walk up to a game and just have a good time playing it. Yeah, I don't think it's necessarily exclusive. You can still do that, but be aware that there is a much deeper story there which you can get into if you are so inclined to do so. Right. But, yeah, so if you're battling against various opponents, having a little information about who they are and why you're battling them is always useful and helps with the enjoyment of the game especially for those people who own it to have a full understanding of what the designers were thinking in developing the gameplay so yeah I think it's nice but I did find the video a little dry shall we say I'm sure the comic book will be much better so moving on to Chicago Gaming no news no news no news no I assume they're just building Pulp Fiction and I believe they're scheduling another run of Medieval Madness but I have no idea when and it's very difficult to get some info out of Chicago Gaming yeah just kind of do what they do and that's it right so back to Europe for Hexa Pinball from France who have their first game Space Hunt which they are basically bringing to various shows in France and also Belgium they were at Flip Expo last weekend which is a show that we both have attended multiple times yes very enjoyable in Le Treport in France and if possible I tend to go there if only that the show last weekend basically fell together or coincided with a national holiday here in the Netherlands, which is really one of the biggest events of the year, and that means I have a busy agenda DJing, which was a lot of fun, I can tell you. You should have been there. Yeah, absolutely. Blew off the roof of a couple of places. Not literally, I hope. No, no, no. But you should have seen the mess we made. Oh, well. Anyway, so they reported that during Flip Expo, 500 games of Space Hunt were played over the weekend, which is a very large and consistent number, I would say. That basically means the game was played nonstop. Was it just the one machine, do we know? or was it more than one? I don't know. Based on the number 500, I'd say it was probably one machine. But it could have been two. On the photos that I saw, I only noticed one machine. Okay. And we also reported, I think it was two pincast episodes ago that Hexapimble was visited by a camera crew from a, I'm not even sure whether it's a TV channel or a YouTube channel. Anyway, the video that resulted from that visit has been published. unfortunately it's in French so you better outrageous but it features interviews with various design team members and it also explains what it takes to build a pinball machine and they basically say you start with a play field and then everything goes on top that's the very short version of course it sounds so easy yeah so and also pinball was hard yeah yeah yeah well it is and labor is also very expensive as you might know and Hexa Pinball found one way to source out some of the the labor on their game specifically the the electric wiring which is carried out by believe it or not prisoners so yeah and they were part of an exhibition where which had to do with labor done by by prisoners and they were present with a space and pinball machine there as well if I understood correctly and my French is still up to par so but I found it rather surprising to see that they source out the electric cabling or wiring I should say of space on two prisoners but it's probably cheap labour I suppose I'm sure there's a joke there and I can't quite work out what it is but we'll come back to that one at a future point but yeah it's a novel idea and maybe something which other pinball companies might consider doing I know there are some people who work in a pinball factory and they're fine at a prison but I'm not sure whether that's the same thing. No, no probably not. Anyway, that's an interesting little tidbit of information so thanks for that. Move on to well, from one H to another H and Haggis Pinball in Australia unfortunately no news from them at all this month we're kind of hoping to be able to bring some good news but I suppose in the absence of good news we have to consider that there isn't any good news and they haven't yet been able to rearrange their finances or refinance their company in the way that they were hoping to and well it's not looking good is it for those people who are either working for the company or have orders in for their sent all revisited games so if we do hear anything of course we'll bring it to you and we just fingers crossed that some good news to report next month but we'll let you know on that right so but there's more from us there yeah yes there is some good news as there is now also vector pinball who um introduced eight ball fury to us a couple of months ago and at that time i thought it was just a single prototype which was um i think in in one arcade available but at the Hoey Moey Pinball Festival which is not as big as you think it might be but anyway that was held in April two 8-Ball Fury games were present and they also posted a small video on YouTube for which you can find a link on their website, which has a little bit more content than last month. Yeah, it's quite comprehensive now. Yeah, and so the game is currently priced at 7,000 dollars, US, I believe. US dollars, yeah. Or 6,500 euro, or 5,600 UK pounds. Yeah, plus shipping plus any taxes which may be imposed. Those are the prices that are conversions of the Australian price minus the sales tax in Australia, which you don't have to pay, obviously, if it's an export game. But you would have to pay a tax on importing it. So those are the standard prices. But exactly how much it would cost to get it to your location is going to vary. looked a nice game I have to say we've reported on it before this isn't the first time we've seen it but having looked at the website and more of that content that you mentioned before including some detailed pictures yeah it's a fun game there's a little bit of gameplay video as well yeah it doesn't include some of the key multiples unfortunately but there is also a full description of the rules as well Right, so do check out vectorpinball.com, I believe that website is. That's correct, yeah. Yeah, okay. Now, Pedretti Gaming or Pedretti Pinball in Italy had absolutely nothing to report last month. We're still waiting for them to announce their first remake pinball machine, especially after they announced several parties that they are working with so it's kind of surprising to see that they're not reporting any news last month but then again they're probably also busy either setting up the production line for ABBA or at least continuing with Queen and Alien for for Pimble Brothers slash Euro Pimble Corporation. Yes, indeed. So instead of them, let's go to Pimble Adventures in Canada, where, again, there is virtually no news other than the fact that they're still working on fine-tuning their next title, which is Elements. Yes, and so I had already received a message last month, which was saying that the elements is in its final stages, I believe. I'm not sure if that is the exact wording that was used. Another pinball media website also received an update saying that they were about to do the finishing touches on elements and were still waiting to see it. So we'll just have to wait and see how long that will take, those finishing touches. Yeah. Okay. Other companies we have no more news this month from include Cardona Pinball. Right. Yeah. No new conversion kits from them. Nothing from Biktronic in Spain either. No. Or from STR Pinball, also in Spain. Or Quetzal Pinball, also in Spain. Right. No news from them. Yeah, and then last, but, well, probably also, I would say not least, but then again, I'm not sure about that. It's not a nice thing to say, but we haven't heard anything from Circus Maximus in a while, and considering the news earlier on that Dutch Pinball Exclusive had the Kingpin trademark, that doesn't bode well for Circus Maximus Kingpin Project, I suppose. Yep, sadly not. But we have some other news, though. I'll start off with one that got an email from Pinsound in France saying they have launched their new Rocket CPU replacement WPC95 CPU board. So they have that as a new product which adds to their WPC89 and WPCS rocket CPU boards which means they now cover all WPC games. So if your CPU board is either missing or damaged, probably by battery leakage, then you can buy a complete new board. And you can buy either fully populated with a new CPU, ASIC chip, EPROMs, game EPROMs and NV RAM. So you don't have to worry about batteries anymore. or you can just buy the board and transfer your existing chips onto it. Costs seem to be from about £150 UK. That's the price I got when I went to the website because I guess they regionalised the pricing. Up to nearer £300 UK for the fully populated board with all the chips and the EEPROM added plus shipping. I think that's reasonable. Yeah, well certainly compared to the cost of sending a board away to get it fixed I think it's probably just hardly worth fixing them these days they've got significant damage to them from battery leakage because it takes a lot of time and time is money and if you can buy new ones particularly these ones which are modern tech and can come with things like NVRAM pre-installed then you can always keep the old one as a backup just in case right okay so and there's one last bit of news to make it full circle since we started with ABBA pinball the designer the playfield designer of that ABBA pinball game is Alexander Alexander Spohr from Germany and And we found out that he formed another company called German Pinball Design, together with Stefan Hoppe. And their registered address appears to be a residential home north of Hamburg, near the airport. And apparently they have been working on a game called Battle Hordes. but they have been doing that since 2021 and last month we also reported on Rudiger Backman no longer working for Pinball Brothers guess what he's working for German Pinball Design amongst other projects so he's not completely out of pinball and well, remains to be seen what German pinball design will do. It could be that Alexander is designing games for a company like Pinball Brothers where he's also still affiliated. But basically under his as a third party designer just delivering the design and then production will be handled by Pinball Brothers. I was looking very closely for any mention of German pinball design on the ABBA game it said anywhere that the game was designed by them but I didn't see any reference to it but yeah we don't know whether German pinball design is a design studio or it had any intention of going into manufacturing of games themselves. Right or it could just be that they built one of or re theme existing games that could all be the case. True. Yep. No information on that yet. We'll try to find out what we can about German pinball design and now we know who's behind it. Right. And we look forward to hearing from them, of course. Yes, indeed. So, anyway, I think that's about everything from the month of April. Right. Does that sound right? That sounds right, yeah. So, hopefully... Yeah, good. Okay. Well... In that case, we will. Yeah, we will. We will be back. We will. You're trying to stop us. No, I'm not trying to stop us. At the start of June, hopefully with a new Stern Pinball Cornerstone title, we also look forward to hearing from Melvin Brower-Williams of Dutch Pinball Exclusive about his ideas for the company and all the IP that he recently or less recently acquired. and as usually we'll be back looking back at all the events in the pinball industry throughout the exciting month of May 2024 early June and we look forward to getting back to you so until then we hope you both have a truly magnificent May and we look forward to seeing you again next month for the very latest edition of our regular Pinball Industry News Pincast. So from me, Martin Ayer of Pinball News and me, Jonathan Jewson of Pinball Magazine Yeah, we will see you next time and have a wonderful month. Bye for now. Bye. _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 965c7ed1-f3b9-4087-b62f-7f07675e6a00*