# Meet the Homebrew Pinball Makers at Golden State Pinball Festival 2026

**Source:** Marco Pinball  
**Type:** video  
**Published:** 2026-05-27  
**Duration:** 50m 28s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfcU7YPEFts

---

## Analysis

Golden State Pinball Festival 2026 hosted a homebrew pinball maker seminar featuring 8 active builders discussing their machines, design processes, and the collaborative homebrew community. Speakers emphasized the importance of open-source frameworks (MPF, FAST Pinball, Cobra Pin), community resources (Trident Pinball Discord, pinballmakers.com), and the emotional/technical challenges of building from scratch. Notable projects include Trogdor, Misfit Cabaret, Joust recreation, Star Wars, Dark Chaos, and BC Boys, with several makers planning to open-source designs.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Mission Pinball Framework recently released an official full version with a new media controller (GDAU screen and audio interface) — _Alex Labashio stated MPF just released the full release of the new media controller versus the older legacy media controller_
- [HIGH] Bootleggers open-source pinball machine will be fully released at Expo — _Alex Labashio announced Bootleggers will be fully released to everybody at Expo this year, with MIT license code, playfield cut, and art available_
- [HIGH] Building a homebrew pinball machine costs in the range of Stern Pro or Premium pricing ($7,000-$15,000+) — _Mike Latchel stated that homebrew building is definitely in the range of stern pros, if not premiums_
- [HIGH] The Trident Pinball Discord is the primary community resource for homebrew makers — _Multiple speakers referenced Trident Pinball Discord as the main Discord for homebrewers and technical support_
- [MEDIUM] Virtual pinball experience (VPX/VPW) can serve as preparation for physical homebrew builds — _Dan Howard described virtual pinball as a long side quest that provided intensive education in pinball mechanics before physical build_
- [MEDIUM] Some homebrew makers are willing to release open-source design files and CAD assets — _Dan Massie plans to share Dark Chaos files on GitHub; Mike Roush plans to release BC Boys DXF playfield cuts; Alex Labashio committing FreeCAD/open-source tooling to his website_
- [HIGH] CNC and CAD tools have become essential for efficient playfield creation — _Mike Latchel spent six months learning CNC and CAD work, noting it makes playfield creation much easier_
- [MEDIUM] The Harry Potter homebrew was created by Kyle (now leading Pinforge/Bootleggers team) — _Alex Labashio mentioned Kyle who did the Harry Potter homebrew is team lead for Bootleggers_

### Notable Quotes

> "It just captures every itch of my ADHD brain, you know? It's got art, it's got software, it's got hardware, you know? The whole shebang."
> — **Mike Latchel**, ~18:00
> _Articulates the multi-disciplinary appeal of homebrew pinball building_

> "Before starting on this roughly seven months ago, you know, mid-process with Mike already doing the build. Um I have zero background in any kind of coding, programming, anything. Um so it's really testament to a lot of the foundation that the other guys... have helped build um to create something that someone who knows absolutely nothing about anything can step in and and make a machine."
> — **Stephen Donaldson**, ~8:30
> _Demonstrates accessibility of homebrew building to non-technical participants through community support_

> "The hardest part to get is the cabinet. If you can get a cabinet or have a game to rethe or just, you know, a scrap cabinet, that'll save you a lot of waiting. The the easiest part to do is to build a cabinet."
> — **Adrien Degrroot**, ~42:00
> _Practical advice about bottleneck in homebrew production pipeline_

> "You want to build a cabinet? One thing you don't realize is how much money it costs... it adds up fast. And then you start doing art and then printing art and putting all this stuff together and it's you're definitely in the range of stern pros, if not premiums or in putting into this."
> — **Mike Latchel**, ~43:30
> _Cost reality check for prospective homebrew builders_

> "When you're perfecting the instruction manual, it's pretty much done."
> — **Dan Howard**, ~56:00
> _Humorous but accurate observation about when homebrew projects reach completion_

> "Bringing it here, I felt like it was pretty close to done. And I still kind of feel like that. Uh, it's just I it's going to be different for everybody. The only one I know is done is the one I sold."
> — **Dan Massie**, ~52:00
> _Captures the iterative nature of homebrew development and difficulty of declaring 'done'_

> "We're working on a system that has, you know, electrical, mechanical, software, and it's amazing sometimes when software stuff, it's something that looks like it's mechanical ends up being software or vice vice versa."
> — **Dan Howard**, ~28:00
> _Illustrates complexity of diagnosing issues in multi-domain systems_

> "The goal there is an open source pinball machine uh for homebrew. So, um, we haven't locked down all the like the license choices that we want to make because we do need a license for everything. If we don't put one, you can't reuse it legally."
> — **Alex Labashio**, ~37:30
> _Indicates deliberate legal/licensing strategy for Bootleggers open-source release_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Thomas Fullen Wider | person | Host of the seminar, founder of Cobra Pin pinball controller and board set |
| Alex Labashio | person | From San Francisco, works on Trogdor Pinball and contributes to Mission Pinball Framework (MPF); part of Pinforge team working on Bootleggers open-source pinball machine |
| Mike Latchel | person | Built three games: Middleear 2.0, Escape from Hell, and current project Misfit Cabaret; recently learned CNC/CAD for playfield creation |
| Adrien Degrroot | person | Built Joust homebrew machine; first brought to Golden State Pinball Festival 4 years ago, initially at coffee table height then rebuilt to standard height |
| Dan Howard | person | From Spokane, Washington; brought Star Wars homebrew and Gemini (Gottlieb recreation) machines to festival; used virtual pinball as preparation |
| Dan Massie | person | Built Dark Chaos homebrew (first game), completed about a week before seminar; maintains GitHub repo of plans/files; planning eventual open-source release |
| Mike Roush | person | Co-creator of BC Boys homebrew from Seattle; hardware/mechanical builder; planning to release BC Boys DXF playfield files in version 2 |
| Stephen Donaldson | person | Co-creator of BC Boys with Mike Roush; handled software/code with zero prior programming experience; demonstrates accessibility of framework |
| Mission Pinball Framework (MPF) | product | Open-source Python-based game framework for pinball machines; recently released official full version with new GDAU media controller; primary framework used by all seminar speakers |
| FAST Pinball | company | Hardware provider for homebrew pinball; Aaron from FAST Pinball provides technical support to builders; Aaron Davis mentioned as hardware provider with global reach |
| Cobra Pin | product | Pinball controller and board set with lighting system; one of multiple control board options available to homebrew builders |
| Bootleggers | game | Open-source homebrew pinball machine by Pinforge team; planned MIT license release with full playfield, art, and code assets at Expo; weekly Monday streams and demos at TPF and Northwest show |
| Trident Pinball Discord | organization | Primary community resource and support channel for homebrew pinball makers; provides technical help, emotional support, and knowledge sharing |
| pinballmakers.com | website | Community wiki with overview of pinball technologies, downloadable CAD files and resources to start homebrew projects |
| Golden State Pinball Festival 2026 | event | Festival hosting homebrew seminar in Chardonnay Hall with workshop, playable machines, and build-your-own opportunities |
| Trogdor Pinball | game | Homebrew game by Alex Labashio based on three-minute flash animation; challenges of translating animation to pinball mechanics |
| Misfit Cabaret | game | Mike Latchel's current project inspired by San Francisco cabaret show; whitewood stage; experimenting with protective art lamination process |
| Dark Chaos | game | Dan Massie's first homebrew; features prominent light shows; brought to festival; VPX table publicly available for download |
| BC Boys | game | Homebrew by Mike Roush and Stephen Donaldson from Seattle; originally hand-routed/drilled playfield, version 2 has DXF cut playfield; compared to Eight Ball Beyond |
| Joust | game | Homebrew by Adrien Degrroot; head-to-head social game; built during pandemic after discovering only 402 original Joust machines were made |
| Star Wars | game | Homebrew by Dan Howard; brought to festival; includes detailed build thread on Pinside |
| Gemini | game | Homebrew Gottlieb recreation by Dan Howard; created because original Gemini machines sell for ~$10,000 with only 300 made |
| Pinforge team | organization | Collaborative team spread across Michigan, Texas, Seattle and other locations; developing Bootleggers open-source machine; led by Kyle who previously created Harry Potter homebrew |

### Signals

- **[community_signal]** Multiple homebrew makers committing to releasing open-source design files, CAD assets, and code; Bootleggers explicitly planning MIT license release at Expo with full design documentation (confidence: high) — Alex Labashio (Bootleggers), Dan Massie (Dark Chaos GitHub), Mike Roush (BC Boys DXF), and others publicly committing to asset releases
- **[technology_signal]** Mission Pinball Framework recently released full official version with new GDAU media controller and updated documentation; lowering barrier to entry for non-technical builders (confidence: high) — Alex Labashio announced MPF full release and new tutorials being developed; multiple builders credit framework for accessibility
- **[community_signal]** Homebrew collaborative teams now span multiple geographic regions (Seattle, Michigan, Texas, UK, East Coast); distance no longer a barrier due to digital collaboration (confidence: high) — Pinforge team spread across Michigan, Texas, Seattle; one builder collaborated with UK and East Coast partners; Adrien worked with geographically distributed collaborators
- **[market_signal]** Homebrew pinball machines now cost equivalent to commercial Stern Pro/Premium machines ($7,000-$15,000+); time and material costs accumulate rapidly (confidence: high) — Mike Latchel explicitly stated homebrew costs are in range of Stern pros, if not premiums; multiple builders emphasize unexpected expense accumulation
- **[venue_signal]** Community groups planning to build Bootleggers copies collaboratively at bars/venues; decentralized production model emerging (confidence: medium) — Alex Labashio mentioned hearing from community that bar patrons planning to host collaborative Bootleggers builds in groups
- **[design_innovation]** Builders using virtual pinball (VPX) as intensive preparation and testing ground before physical builds; digital prototyping enabling creative iteration (confidence: high) — Dan Howard used virtual pinball as long side quest for education; dark Chaos features light shows designed virtually then implemented physically
- **[manufacturing_signal]** CNC and CAD tools becoming standard workflow for playfield creation; manual routing becoming less common; enabling faster iteration cycles (confidence: high) — Mike Latchel spent 6 months learning CNC/CAD; describes playfield creation no longer a big deal with tools; multiple builders using DXF exports and CNC cuts
- **[product_strategy]** Bootleggers open-source release includes MIT-licensed code, playfield cuts, and art; phased release strategy with demos at TPF, Northwest show, then full release at Expo (confidence: high) — Alex Labashio detailed Bootleggers release timeline and asset strategy; team has shown demos at multiple venues before official release
- **[content_signal]** Alex Labashio actively developing new tutorials for Mission Pinball Framework; tutorials for zero-to-game workflow on mission pinball site (confidence: high) — Alex stated working on tutorials to help people start from zero and build out a virtual game with new interface on MPF site
- **[community_signal]** Trident Pinball Discord functioning as emotional support network in addition to technical help; community explicitly supporting members through difficult build phases (confidence: high) — Thomas Fullen Wider noted Discord community has supported many people through emotional roller coaster of builds across global distribution
- **[design_philosophy]** Builders grappling with permanence of physical decisions (CNC cuts, holes); iterative digital workflows conflicting with mechanical irreversibility (confidence: high) — Alex Labashio described fear of drilling pop bumper holes and long deliberation before permanent cuts; Mike Latchel discussed difficulty of changing mechanically integrated design decisions
- **[product_concern]** Homebrew builders struggling with scope creep and feature addition mid-build; commitment and editing described as key challenges (confidence: high) — Mike Latchel described rabbit hole of continuously redesigning playfield; multiple builders emphasized saying yes to features means saying no to others

---

## Transcript

batteries. Batteries. No, it's fine. It just is like blinking on. I feel like you're louder than Yeah. I mean, I don't hear you. Check. All right. Can y'all hear me? All right. Uh, can you guys check your mics? Check. Mic. Check. You got a scream. Just kidding. Don't scream. I don't think I got anything. All right. No mic. Mic. It says it's on. Oh, there we go. Okay. Checking. One, two, three. Checking. One, two, three. Potato. It looks like someone's not on. Who has the orange mic? One, two. What about me? I am reddish. There's reddish. Who's orange? I think you're orange. Am I Jack? Oh, okay. You sound great. Yeah, I think we're there. This is our homebrew podcast. We're going to post the audio to the whole thing. All right, y'all. The raffle's over. So, we're going to get on with um this awesome homebrew and custom game seminar. Our host is going to be Thomas Fullen Wider for uh Cobra Pin. And uh we have a great group of gentlemen up here to talk all about their pinball machines. And then afterwards, y'all should head on over to the Chardonnay Hall to um play those games and talk to them more and then build your own pinball machine. So, I'm going to hand another mic. All right. Well, uh welcome everyone. Uh who is happy to be here at the Golden State Pinball Festival? Yeah. All right. Uh, thank you Marco Specialties, Emodo, Erica, and everybody else uh for making this uh pinball university happen. Um, like she said, my name is Thomas Fenwiter. I'm the maker of the Cobra Pin uh pinball controller and board set and lighting system. Um, so that's one of the many options that people can use to build their own pinball machines. And uh, we have a fantastic group of makers here that we can all learn from. And I have a few questions to, you know, kind of spark discussion and everything, but uh I don't want to hold anyone back from asking their own questions at any point. So feel free to interrupt. If you do interrupt, I may need to repeat your question for the recording and everything. Um, and that includes the makers up here. If you have a question of someone else, go ahead and chime in when you feel like it. Um, I'd like this to be interactive, as interactive as possible. So we'll see how this goes. Um, and then toward the end, uh, Mike actually has a little bit of a demo or sample here that he wants to show. So, we'll we'll show that as well. So, does that work for everybody? Yeah. All right. Uh, everybody else ready? Who won the pinball machine? Not me. All right. Welcome, losers. All right. Uh, so I'd like to start out with just some introductions. So, if you can introduce yourself, take 60 seconds or so to uh introduce yourself, your name, your latest game that you either brought or are working on, and how many games that you've made. So, go ahead, Alex. Hi, I'm uh Alex Labashio. I'm out of San Francisco. I work on uh Trogdor Pinball. I'm also a contributor Thank you. uh contributor to uh MPF, the framework that I think all of our games are running on, uh which is a Python uh game framework specifically for uh running pinball machines. And I also work with the uh Pinforge team on the Bootleggers open- source uh pinball machine that we'll be fully releasing to everybody at Expo this year. Yeah. Awesome. So, I'm Mike Latchel. I've built three games so far. a revamped Middleear 2.0, Escape from Hell, which was here two years ago, and um my current project is Misfit Cabaret, which is a a cabaret show out of San Francisco. Um got inspired by all of their antics and I'm currently on Whitewood Stage with that. um spent most of this round instead of doing things by hand. Uh spent about six months uh um learning CNC work uh CAD work makes everything so much easier if you got access to those tools and yeah suddenly making a playfield is not a big deal. So my current project is uh designing a process to laminate the art so that it's protected from the beginning. And uh if anybody wants to come check that out, my current progress, you can see it after the speech. My name is Adrien Degrroot and uh I built a joust and it's the fourth year that it's been here. First two years, thank you. Uh first few years it was like a coffee table height and I was tired of bumping my knees against it. So I made it uh the regular height and um it's it's fun to see everybody play it here. It's really a social game uh meant for people to play head-to-head against each other. And uh I really wanted to buy one a number of years ago when I saw one at another festival and found that they only made 402 of them. So I had to build one myself during the pandemic. So, that's what got me all started into this and um I need to go and build uh my own one uh my own theme next. So, hi, my name is Dan Howard. I'm out of Spokane, Washington area, and I've have this is my first time down at this show. It's very nice. I like it. Good stuff. So, I brought down my Star Wars homebrew machine. Yeah. Thank you. I also brought down the Gemini machine that's next to it, which is kind of a homebrew recreation of the original Gotly machine because they sell for like $10,000 because they only made 300 of them and so it was way cheaper to build my own. So, my name is Dan Massie. Uh, I built Dark Chaos. Uh, it's um it's my first homebrew and I really it's in a relatively finished state. I finished it about a week ago. Um um it's been a really fun really fun process. Met a bunch of cool people, learned a ton of stuff that I never thought I'd need to learn. Um and uh happy to share that experience with you all. Yeah, I'm uh my name is Michael or Mike Roush. Uh started BC Boys uh with Stephen here and yeah, thanks. We came down from Seattle. It's our first time uh here and we're having a blast. It's uh really fun. So, thanks for welcoming us. Yeah, and as uh as Mike already said, my name is Stephen Donaldson. I helped um run the software for Beasty Boys. And uh I think the main thing I want to tag on is just that before starting on this roughly seven months ago, you know, mid-process with Mike already doing the build. Um I have zero background in any kind of coding, programming, anything. Um so it's really testament to a lot of the foundation that the other guys down at the other end of this table have helped build um to create something that someone who knows absolutely nothing about anything can step in and and make a machine that we could bring here. So yeah. All right. Yeah. Uh thanks everybody. And uh so when you think about starting a game and uh you know think back to when you started your games uh what what comes to mind like how do you get your inspiration? How did you get started into this whole madness of building your own pinball machine? And we can start with anyone who wants to volunteer first. All right, there goes Mike. So uh mine started oh my god almost 30 years ago. the first time I played Scared Stiff and like that weekend I was like I'm gonna build one of these one day. Um, and then they went out of business and you know eventually I actually had money after college and my lovely wife has allowed me to uh fill up our entire garage with all of this craziness. Uh but yeah, uh just seeing the mechanics and everything, I just it's it sort of captures every itch of my ADHD brain, you know? It's got art, it's got software, it's got hardware, you know, it's the whole shebang. Yeah, mine uh I was sitting in an audience like this at at the Northwest show I don't know how many years ago. It was uh right before the pandemic, I think. And I mean, how many people haven't thought, I want to do this in some aspect, right? And then uh a friend of mine made a ball beyond up in Seattle and uh got to play that when it was Whitewood and he brought it and it was like, oh, okay, if this knucklehead can do this, maybe I can fake my way through it, too. So, uh yeah, just two years ago just started drilling. Yeah. And for me coming on to that, so I actually had dreams of making a totally different kind of machine myself. And I went out and and got uh like a manufactured Williams cabinet with no art on it. And I found someone on Pinside selling stock playfields that had the lower third cutouts for flippers and slingshots, but nothing else. And it was a make your own thing. And then I got stuck. Uh I wasn't really sure what my next step should be. And it sat in my garage for a while. And then uh in running the Seattle Pinball League, we hosted a tournament at Mike's house and he's got this Beasty Boys machine with a playfield fully built sitting in his garage going, I don't have code for this. And uh and he was kind enough to let me jump in and start uh helping with stuff. And uh and we created kind of a buddy system to go back and forth. And I was I was very kind. Uh for me uh I I visited a friend uh just before CO uh in Michigan. He had a basement full of pinball machines and I'd never really even wanted to play a pinball machine before that. Uh but is I caught the bug like immediately and uh being an engineer I was like well I could buy one of these or I could make one. Uh so I decided I'd go down that path. Uh which actually brought me to uh into the world of virtual pinball. Um, and I took I would call that a really long side quest. Uh, which it got me to where I wanted to be originally, which was to build my own machine. Uh, and and, um, yeah, being exposed to, uh, virtual pinball allowed me to like have an intense education in pinball because you get to experience all these different titles that you normally couldn't experience in your home. Um, and then that that education led to lots of crazy ideas and uh and then I found uh the homebrew crew and uh the rest is history. A year ago, I started building the thing and here we are. For me, I uh I saw a another product similar to Cobra Pin announced on a computer programming website because I'm a software engineer and I said, "Oh, I'd like to build a pinball machine." I hadn't played pinball in five years at least like just I don't know it seems like that would be fun and uh all my jobs you know working on corporate code or whatever it you know the company goes under or gets acquired and everything you worked on is gone and you never really had ownership of that anyway and so I really wanted to build something that could be mine and I could own and could be actually fun versus you know planning software for make a corpse All right. So, uh, just to summarize, uh, Sean Irwin, if you're watching this, uh, Mike Sean Irby, yeah, Irby, sorry, sorry, Irvy, um, if you're watching this, Mike Roush has just thrown down the gauntlet and says that BC Boys is better than eightball beyond. So, sure. So, bring it next year. Yeah. So, bring it next year and we'll have it side by side. All right. Thanks, guys. Uh so uh what is the best and the worst part of making a pinball machine? This could either be something that you uh are better at or worse at yourself or that you didn't expect when building a pinball machine. The hardest part for me was um actually as a software guy, I'm used to being able to just make some changes, run them. Oh, that didn't work. Okay, undo. But when you're going to cut a pop bumper hole in your playfield, a 3-in hole there, you better choose the right spot, you don't really have the ability to undo so easily. And so there was a lot of fear and a lot of I'm just going to put this here and look at it for 3 months. Okay, maybe it's time to drill it in. But uh the the fun thing for me is the adapting the theme that you choose and figuring out how do you turn that into the the motions of pinball and the like the language of pinball versus you know what I chose Trogdor was like a threeminute flash animation. And for me it's the joy in all of this is making things. My favorite hobby is making things. I mostly make sawdust. I'm really good at making sawdust. Um, but making things and then learning all of the things that I didn't know how to do. So, I was very comfortable with the woodworking, making the cabinets, making the playfields, all of that was easy. Even doing the wiring was easy. The electronics that the wiring connects to, I know nothing. So, I learned a lot of that. All of the MPF and learning the code and how to do that. You know, they keep telling me my old brain I need to keep it active and learning things. So, it's I really enjoy doing all of that and learning all of these different things to do it and just putting it all together. It's just a blast. Um, for me, the the tough part and the uh rewarding part is the troubleshooting. Um, I've learned a lot from this process and really we're working on a system that has, you know, electrical, mechanical, software, and it's amazing sometimes when software stuff, it's something that looks like it's mechanical ends up being software or vice vice versa. So from this um I got some street credit from building this machine and uh the Pacific Pinball Museum. I volunteer there on Monday's uh fixing machine. So um it's really been a cool journey um working on the the pinball machines. I think the hardest part of this build for me was previous to this. I would always start with at least part of an existing playfield. And about halfway through, I just flipped and went with a a straight CNC cut of my own design. And the hardest part is you you go and you build an idea and you play it for a while and you realize, oh, it should actually be on the other side. And there's so much work involved in moving that flipper over there. And now it opens up some stuff here, but now two weeks later you've got a completely different idea about what could be there. And heaven forbid you go to a show and you find, "Oh, that mech would be great right there. Let me design one like it." That's the hardest part is is stopping yourself from going down that rabbit hole forever. Commitment. Yeah, exactly. Editing. For me, the uh the funnest part is before you even start doing anything, you're fantasizing about how awesome your machine's going to be, and it's going to have this over here and this over here. And it's also related to the hardest part, which is crap, if I put this here, I can't put this here. And making that like the whole world is your oyster. It's in front of you. You can do these amazing things, but you actually have to narrow it down. And every time you say yes to something here, you say no to four other things that could have been there. So, uh, it's exciting. It's wonderful. It's heady. And then you're like, like you were saying, this has to go over here. And now juggling. But super fun. Yeah. I would say the the hardest part and the most fun part for me are the same thing which is the collaborative part of it. Right? I think what I'm hearing from a lot of the guys at the table is that um they are specialized in one of the things but definitely know nothing about one of the other things and all of the things are needed to eventually have a working pinball machine that flips and is mechanical. Um, and you know, Mike and I exchange weekly very polite text message exchanges about whether the issue is mechanical or software. Um, and we have we're probably 50/50 on that. Um, but yeah, getting help from the rest of the community and having them say, "Is does this sound like a mechanical issue or a software issue?" And they go, "Well, what does your software say?" Oh, that's horrible. Don't do that. um and then saying, "Oh, you should wire that differently and have, you know, this other diode on it." Um there there are a lot of things that you learn by doing, but the doing is the fun and the learning is the fun for sure. Yeah. So, uh yeah, go ahead, Dan. Oh, okay. Uh for me, the the funnest part is just the pure act of creating something, you know. Um uh and I did a lot of my initial creation uh virtually as you can tell from my my running theme is that uh virtual first and then physical later and that seemed to work out for me. Everybody has their own approach. Um but uh what I really enjoyed doing virtually was like um making the light shows and when I got to like imagine those and then see them on the computer and then have it actually look like I wanted in real life. That was like uh just pure joy to have that creative experience. But it's also very difficult to get to that point uh to get to the point where you can exercise your creativity in that way. Are you seeing a light show right now? Yes. Uh yeah. And if you haven't played Dark Chaos, the light shows really shine in that in that game. So check it out. Um yeah, if we can actually riff off of uh Steve's comment there. Um for the people interested in uh potentially making their own games, what what people what communities uh what resources have helped you along the way um to to build your machine? Starting out pretty fresh. I think we're the the most newbies at the table. Um, and there is such a foundation of knowledge on the Mission Pinball Framework website, the Fast Pinball website. Um, and then the the Trident Pinball community has been incredibly helpful on, you know, helping to spread knowledge, whether it's related to certain board systems, certain software that you need, um, even just, you know, art assets, um, and and where to find artists to help with things. Um they they have a community for everything there that's on Discord. On Discord. Yeah. The the Trident Pinball Discord there. That's the main Discord that I know of. I'm not sure what other resources are out there. Yeah. The Mission Pinball Framework site and the tutorials there. I had no software programming experience before and learned a lot from those sites. And then also there's some good YouTube videos that Jan had done. um one of the programmers at uh on the Mission Pinball Framework that are just uh amazing. So, yeah. And even the makers of some of these board sets, whether it's Thomas from Cobra Pin or Aaron from Fast, they they all are willing to help everyone who's using their product to make sure that you're able to use it and don't get stuck um in a spot where you've bought their product and have no no way to use it. There there's resources for everything. And there's a there's a wiki called pinballmakers.com that does a great overview of pretty much every technology you need to know. Also has a lot of files that uh you can download to get you started on the CAD side. And I think it's it's a really great time also to start a homebrew project because um MPF the team we just released the official version like the full release of the new media controller where it's a GDAU screen and audio interface uh versus this older um what we call the legacy media controller which was a a much you know more pixel by pixel kind of way to define your interface. And so, um, the the sites are now updated and the, uh, all the different packages that you install, u, it's all up there. And I'm working on tutorials right now to help people start from zero and build out a virtual game with the new interface on, uh, the Mission Pinball site. Anybody else? Uh, one of the things that I noticed is that, you know, we've we've talked about some technical resources and everything. Uh, one of the things particular about the Trident uh, Pinball Discord is uh, this can be an emotional experience going through all of this and the uh, Trident Pinball Discord. We we've supported many people through that uh, emotional roller coaster and I think that's really great that you know we can be all over the world um, and still supporting each other in that community. So, uh, I really appreciate everybody on that on that channel and and you guys as well. So, thank you. Yeah, there's, um, a lot of people have build threads as well. You know, a lot of the guys here as well as many, you know, dozens of other home brewers around, uh, the US and the world. So, you can sort of go back and look at what somebody was doing two years ago, starting to build out their game or what they're working on now. So, people are uh, you know, updating. Is there a question? Is that Yeah, there's a lot of build threads in there. And then there's get GitHub repos of of games, so you can go and see how somebody coded stuff. And his his question was, was that in the Trident Discord? Yeah. Pin pinsite build threads. There's several people that have done build threads there. I put my Star Wars build thread there after I built it, but it's there also. Covers most a lot of the things on how it works. Yeah. Here up front. So I came up in tech and I learned how to do things by following instructions and and also like have used a lot of foss software, open source, that kind of thing. Are any of you interested in like preparing materials that would help somebody make the same machine that you already have? Like the art assets, the code, um you know, whatever would be needed to actually make the playfield on a CNC machine, like would that be something any of you would be willing to release? So someone like me could go ahead and grab a big giant bundle, figure out where to start, and just screw it up all the way through until I was able to try and get it going. So I will repeat that verbatim for everybody. No, but basically um was does anybody here have uh a whole set of um instructions and assets and everything to recreate uh a pinball machine that you have made? Um I have one that um I will eventually release um but it is nowhere close to being ready. So So uh the Pinforge team uh working on bootleggers um we've been streaming every week on Mondays. Now we're moving to sort of every other week um as we've been doing this for six months already. But the goal there is an open source pinball machine uh for homebrew. So, um, we haven't locked down all the like the license choices that we want to make because we do need a license for everything. If we don't put one, you can't reuse it legally. So, have you talked to the brothers chaps about like redistribution license uh for Drag Door? Yeah. Um, I've met some people who are connected, but I don't know. I haven't directly connected with them. But, um, but so with but with um bootleggers, uh, I think it'll probably be MIT license code. Uh the playfield cut will be available, the art will be available. Um Kyle, who uh did the Harry Potter homebrew as well, is sort of the team lead there. And his goal is to make a pinball machine that anybody can make, especially if you you'd rather sort of have a Lego set with instructions rather than just a bunch of pieces that you go, I I don't know how to put these together. So, um yeah, we want to have that as a full game at Expo. Uh we're going to have it in the Northwest show in a couple weeks. We had a demo at uh TPF as well and so yeah look for that. Um definitely we want to make it so that anybody can make you know their own copy and uh yeah we want to see you know them all over and yeah anyone else interested in taking on that challenge. I would love to make my own boys. Uh, I mean at this point the the playfield that you see over there in the in the uh event center is uh completely hand routed and drilled, but I version two I did get it into DXF and uh it's been cut. It looks like it's going to work pretty well. So I'd be fine with it. I I mean again it's a homebrew. I can't sell it or anything. I don't want to. That's just it's for fun. So yeah. Yeah. Be it'd be fun. And for me, I since I only use open source tool sets, uh converting everything from um you know, Fusion 360 is seems to be the most common one. Uh I'm converting everything to FreeCAD and pretty much all the the inserts, all of the the tooling that I create, it's all going to go on my website. So, anybody will be able to use that, too. I I've been uh maintaining like a GitHub a private repo of all of my plans and files and uh resources to build Dark Chaos mostly because I wanted to share that with the team that helped me build it because they may want to build a copy. Uh but you know if if it comes around to you know in like a year or so and I don't have any uh offers on licensing it for real then I'm going to for sure share it with the community. I hope I hope you license it for real and I hope you find a way of sharing. But you can download the uh VPX table. Yes. Yeah. You can download the VPX and play it uh right now. So go do that. I need to get more practicing in. So, guess. All right. So, uh what advice would you give uh new home brewers that could be out here today or watching this online? What do you wish you would have known? Uh somebody that somebody would have told you before you got started? The the hardest part to get is the cabinet. If you can get a cabinet or have a game to rethe or just, you know, a scrap cabinet, that'll save you a lot of waiting. The the easiest part to do is to build a cabinet. So, I was waiting for that. I was waiting. I'm from the opposite side. Um, you want to build a cabinet? One thing you don't realize is how much money it costs. You know, all these all these pinball parts are available. You can go to Pinball Resource, you can go to Pinball Life, you can go to Marco Pinball of course, but it's all this stuff adds up and it adds up fast. And then you start doing art and then printing art and putting all this stuff together and it's you're you're definitely in the range of stern pros, if not premiums or in putting into this. Yeah. Time. And yeah, it's like building a car with car parts from Napa Auto Parts, you know. So, this might be good advice and bad advice at the same time, but I always hit the swap meets and anything that looks remotely interesting ends up coming home with me. And so in my garage, yeah, in my garage there's this shelf that's just boxes labeled, you know, ejects, vucks, you know, here's switches. God knows what they are, who what they came from, but if it looks like it'll fit a purpose, yeah, I'll stick it in a box. Like today, I bought some linear uh uh slings. I don't know what I'm going to use them for, but they look like they'd make a good diverter. All right. Um, we're gonna start with uh Dan Massie on this one since we talked about it a bit last night, but how do you know when your game is done? I I don't think I can answer that because mine isn't done and it's my first game. So I um but I think one thing that um is really useful is to bring a game to an event like this and it's like the ultimate stress test. Um for one thing, you get to see where all the balls get stuck that you never imagined they could get stuck there. Um and all the things that'll break uh when they get used for like 12 hours straight. Uh, but the other cool thing is just to see people's reactions and see what works, what doesn't work, what you want to change because I already, you know, have ideas for things I want to change. Um, but bringing it here, I felt like it was pretty close to done. And I still kind of feel like that. Uh, it's just I it's going to be different for everybody. The only one I know is done is the one I sold. Somebody bought one. Dan, do you think yours is done? Star Wars. It'll be done when I find that last bug that keeps causing it to not want to eject a ball once in a while. Um, otherwise, yeah, it's probably done. Probably. Yeah, there's always a qualifier. You should see the instruction manual that he made. When you're in the when you're perfecting the instruction manual, it's pretty much done. All right. Um, so you had a hard time with the cabinet. The cabinet was the easiest part. So the question to all of you uh would you consider a collaboration um or do you prefer solo making and and why please I don't want to Yeah that's Thomas asking you please. Yeah specifically. Yeah. Will you be my friend? I would love help. Yeah I I come up with too many ideas. I mean, it's a daily occurrence when I say that would make a great pinball game. And I I flush out some central mech for something I'm never going to build, but I I would love to finally, you know, put some of those down and say, "Hey, somebody else help me build this and help pay for it." Yeah. I mean, we're already in a collaboration, so yeah, it was more fun. I I had a lot of fun in my basement being a weird guy with tools for hours at a time and then when Stephen joined it was even more fun. So yeah, doing it together is great if if you can manage that. We're lucky that we live pretty close together. So nice. So I collabor collaborated with two other guys and uh one is in the UK and one is on the east coast. So you don't necessarily need to be neighbors. um uh it just worked out really well and that was probably the most fun part for me was collaborating with them and the the result uh was way better because of it for sure. Yeah, the the PinForge team uh there's three guys in Michigan uh another guy in Texas, another guy in Seattle, just all over the place. And so it's actually been kind of great that they're building it in Michigan. So I can't do any of the physical work. I can just focus on the code. Um, but you know, I think that what we've heard in the community of people who do want to build their copies of bootleggers is that, you know, some people are planning on sort of hosting it at a bar and saying, "Oh, let's let's get people together like, you know, the community who already comes and plays and does repair work at the bar and like the five of us will come together and make our copy of Bootleggers." So, it's kind of cool to see people coming together to make like I mean we don't have the plans out there yet, but planning to to make copies as groups. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, for me I I think uh as a hardware provider, I have a little piece of a lot of people's games and it's it's all over the world. And so it's it's interesting to see um what people are creating all over the world with um you know stuff that I uh started um and like there's a um pinball manufacturer Vector Pinball in Australia and he's uh released a new game that's lost in space themed um and it's available for sale um and you know he's using my hardware in there Cobra Pin hardware and I helped him out with some of the MPF code. So, and and he's in Australia and I'm in California. So, um that's that's been a lot of fun to do. And yes, I did create that question so I could do that sales pitch. So, that's that's for you, Jason. Question for you. How many people have you sold hardware to? And how many of those people actually made a game? Um, it is, how many are like me who bought the code, bought the parts, but haven't actually made anything. It's really hard to to keep track of where people are in their journey. Um, I mean, I've sold lots of hardware to a lot of people uh over the past uh what has it been uh five years I think um since the original Kickstarter that I did. Um, and I only hear about it when they when it either shows up at a show or or if they send me uh their their uh pinside thread or or whatever. So, well, I I was browsing your site uh your your store on Pinsside uh the other night and I saw a tag on one of them was over 200 sold. Uh well, yeah, I'm sure I've sold a lot more than 200, but but that's, you know, that's a little more Nate. Yeah. All right. Uh let's see. So, um uh what is the next step or milestone for homebrew pinball? So, not just you, but homebrew pinball itself. Do you have any ideas of where it can go, where it could expand? I'd like to see more collaborative head-to-head games. Yeah. So, we were discussing this already at at one point. My ideas were dumb, but but you had much better ideas for how having how to implement it. Um and so I I came at the idea of of allowing um you know switches in another machine to register on your machine or just switches that are not in your machine for things like uh adaptive use for handicapped people uh to be able to also play. But uh also you can take that and turn it into head-to-head or cooperative games. And you know, like I would love to see you line up some games that all have, you know, this this uh MPF module built and as more and more of them are there, more features start showing up that can't exist unless they're in the same room. Things like that. I think that sort of thing would be really incredible. Um I I remember when we did this seminar a couple years ago and the question came up about uh working in virtual um pinball platforms and there wasn't anybody that really did that. So it's really amazing to see uh the use of of simulation and and that the the process of iterating virtually and then coming up with a real machine like like Dan did. I have a question on that. Are there any alternatives to VPX? So the question was, are there any alternatives to VPX? Yeah, VPX is the probably the most well supported and up-to-date one. There's also a future pinball. Um, those are the really the only two that I know of that you can make your own games in right now. Um, but VPX is continuously being uh updated and improved and uh Dan is has been in that game longer than I have. So, he might have some info. Yeah, been Star Wars started out as a virtual table that I built 10 years ago and got around to making physical uh what year and a half ago is when I first put that together. So, that's a good start. There's also um Powolski pinball. Um mostly he's got threads on pin side, but he has a building system that's kind of a virtual. I don't know if you play it as much as you do. It's more of a designer. Um but it does allow you to do some playing. Um there was another one. Pin Builder on Steam. Yeah, Pin Builder. Pin Builder on Steam. There. Pin Builder on Steam. But so the there's other options out there. VPX is one that it's where I got started back into pinball after many years not being away and uh eventually led to me buying real machines and then eventually banking them. So VPX is uh is Windows. Uh it's actually the newest versions can be run on Mac and Linux. Um so and you know it's actually the scope of the program's been expanding a lot lately. Uh is anyone else in the audience aware of another uh option? Just checking. Somebody mentioned to me yesterday about VP VP. VPE is a visual pinball engine which is in development. It's been in development for a few years. It's a Unity based uh virtual pinball system. Uh currently uh the developers are working on their like pilot project for it. Uh but it's not released to the public yet. But if that if and when that does get released, it'll make uh developing a virtual pinball machine way easier than it currently is. So there's a you could yeah you could almost do no scripting and set up a whole reproduction of a real machine. MF uh actually that one is already there's already an MPF bridge set up for that so that you could uh actually fully simulate in MPF with VPE. Um but again it's not released yet as far as I I'm aware. Um but it it should be coming soon. Thank you. And the uh I would just add that there is one other option which is to you know if the software and using VPX and designing it in that way feels daunting just don't do that step. Um which is what Mike and I did because it was a little too daunting for us to try to you know make the ramp at exactly the right angle that we wanted there. So, the first step can always be going to Home Depot and buying a sheet of plywood and taping some cardboard to it and then running a ball with your finger and say like, "Does that feel like a ramp? Does that seem like it could be cool?" Um, you know, it can be more hands-on if that's the way that your skill set is inclined to to open that door for you and get you into the into the headsp space of making your own game. Yeah. And I've I've seen this a number of times um for like high schools or colleges, community colleges where um you know some kids are really good at in like a simulation environment, some kids just need to make and so they both just go they go at the same time and eventually they come back together to create a pinball machine as part of a school project. Um and that just to me seems like a fantastic experience for a student um to be able to create something this multidisciplinary um that is also fun and and 3D printing has really helped. I I think everybody here has 3D printed parts in their machine. So a question up front uh for the folks who designed tables in some sort of software or other virtual software I'm assuming translating the virtual to the physical didn't go flawlessly what were some of the difficulties of making that transition so the the question was uh some of the difficulties of making the transition from virtual to real hardware and things not translating perfectly So for me um the the main difficulty was uh you can do anything you want virtually. Uh it could be easily not uh possible to produce it. So uh I had to uh set up one whitewood just to make sure that you know everything fit underneath the playfield even though you know because you have all the the mechanical issues that you know and interactions below the playfield that you don't have to worry about virtually. Um, so once I was able to prove to myself that it did work and I had to shift a few things around to make it work. Uh, and then uh I was able to then do my final play field. So it was it you still needed like that intermediate step. Everybody uses CAD here of some form, right? Yeah. I I did not for the uh first iteration of the machine in any way, shape or form. And then I realized if I want to get art on this that's accurate, I need to get this into CAD. So I went at it totally backwards. Drilled, drilled, drilled. You know, like he was saying, we got that first playfield done and then I stripped the top. Did a lot of measuring. I had no idea how to use AutoCAD, so I had to learn that. got it into a DXF and bought a um bought a CNC kit, built that, had to learn how to run that. And that's part of the fun again is all these different skills that you have to learn, but I backed into a lot of them. So, I wanted to ask about just export as a DXF replicate everything they did totally. Yeah. So the the question was how do you go from like a quote unquote soft CAD system like VPX into a real CAD system. So, um, the way I did it, and there's probably more than one way to do this, uh, but you from VPX, you can export an image of the layout essentially, and then you can import that into a CAD program and just like sketch over the, you know, what, you know, put put holes where where the VPX image says you need to put holes and things like that. So, you had to redo the work in CAD based on a a canvas of an image that you imported. VPX also exports uh 3D model. So you can 3D everything in VPX and you can actually export the full 3D model of it if you wanted to get that into CAD or take those ramps or whatever and 3D print them and stuff like that. Awesome. But I did the same thing. Exported a blueprint, brought it into Fusion, basically recreated it there to put it in the CNC, which I forgot to mention earlier is you get to buy new tools. A great part of this is buying new tools. I'm allergic to uh certain software. So if there's if there's a open source version, I'm probably going to do it. So Frecad, I love the fact that that the same tool just it's kind of like Fusion. If I want to do a a 3D print, I model it up in the same tool and just how I export it is how you you get it. Um my other advice, if you can't buy a bunch of tools, find a maker space. And there they tend to be hidden all over the place now. But that completely changed the game for me. I wasn't just hand tools in the garage making a bunch of sawdust and realizing I'm a quarter inch off of where I thought I was and the ball's not going to fit through there. And suddenly I can just, you know, press a button, cuss when the tool breaks, but eventually have a really nice play field. Uh, and I did want to give uh Mike a little little bit of an opportunity to show um his sample here. You want to talk about that a little bit? Okay. So, yeah. Um, one of the reasons why I don't have a game here this year is because I got on a ton of side quests. First of all, learning CAD, but also given my limited space, um, and my neighbors probably not appreciating toxic chemicals, I don't have a way of shooting clear onto a a playfield. So I went the route of creating um the art on um not acrylic but uh PET G which is also used heavily in u 3D printing and it's supposedly pretty easy to it'll survive uh heat warpage better than most materials. It's kind of the way that that Turner's doing in their playfields. turns out it's the way that uh Outer Edg's hardtops work. Uh so I I sort of reverse engineered how Outer Edge does theirs. Um and this is the result. This is the test that I made. The the wood part is all CNC uh cuts and then just standard inserts uh epoxied in. Then you sand the whole thing down. Uh you I used u a 3M uh very high bond uh double-sided tape uh which is stupidly expensive, but uh if you if you get lucky, you can find it on sale. And um essentially this thing has been sitting in hot cars and tents for days and there's no delamination, there's no warp. Whereas this is the test version they did and it's warping like crazy already. That that was acrylic. Yeah, but that's als Yeah, that's also acrylic. But anyway, so this is the way I did it so that uh I'm not going to have to worry about finding somebody to to shoot clear and then messing it up or anything like that. Now, my earlier art was done with nylon uh or vinyl covers, and that that also works well if you can protect it. Uh but this is just the way I ended up going on this one. How uh you can come check it out. How are you going to deal with the extra thickness that the uh PET G adds to your ply? Uh well, most of the the mechs I'm using are adjustable, so you can like the drop targets, you can dial them in. Nice. So, it's not it's not a big deal. You don't No, we're talking like a 16th of an inch. Oh, cool. All right. Uh well, all of these makers are going to be here. their games are over in the Chardonnay Hall. So, um, come over and ask us any more questions that you want. And I think that's about all the time we have. So, thanks everybody for coming.

_(Acquisition: youtube_auto_sub, Enrichment: v5)_

---

*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-06-06 | Item ID: b542e632-cff2-49d9-9407-26da1453e2e5*