Spooky Pinball Announces First-Ever Community-Designed Wizard Mode; Pinball History For Sale; Arcade1Up Sold to Basic Fun!

Knapp Arcade·article·analyzed·Dec 17, 2025

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.016

TL;DR

Spooky crowdsources Evil Dead wizard mode; pinball history on sale; Arcade1Up acquired by Basic Fun!

Summary

Spooky Pinball announces a first-ever community-designed Wizard Mode for Evil Dead through a live brainstorming session; Planetary Pinball offers rare Bally/Williams design blueprints for sale; Dutch Pinball's Alice game arrives in Canada; Arcade1Up is acquired by Basic Fun! after significant business decline.

Key Claims

Spooky Pinball is holding a community brainstorming session Thursday at 7 PM Central to create the wizard mode for Evil Dead's 'Hail to the King' mode
high confidence · Official announcement from Spooky Pinball's Facebook and YouTube
This is likely the first-ever community-written Wizard Mode for a pinball machine
medium confidence · Author's assessment based on Spooky's announcement
Planetary Pinball is selling Bally/Williams design blueprints and artifacts from the 1980s-1990s for a couple hundred dollars each
high confidence · Planetary Pinball Facebook announcement with contact email rick@planetarypinball.com
Dutch Pinball's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has arrived in Canada and is being shipped to buyers
high confidence · Nitro Pinball Canadian distributor announcement
Basic Fun! acquired select assets from Arcade1Up
high confidence · Official announcement from Arcade1Up
Arcade1Up experienced a 'stunning fall from grace' due to mismanagement
medium confidence · Author's commentary/analysis

Notable Quotes

“This is likely the first-ever community-written Wizard Mode for a pin.”
knapparcade (article author) @ article published December 17, 2025 — Establishes novelty and significance of Spooky's announcement
“This news represents a stunning fall from grace for Arcade1Up. The company went from having a massive community of fans who were buying its products several years ago to completely gone.”
knapparcade (article author) @ article published December 17, 2025 — Summarizes Arcade1Up's business decline and market impact

Entities

Spooky PinballcompanyEvil Deadgame Planetary Pinballcompany Dutch Pinballcompany Alice's Adventures in Wonderlandgame Nitro Pinballcompany Arcade1UpcompanyBasic Fun!company

Signals

?
business_signal: Arcade1Up asset acquisition by Basic Fun! indicates market consolidation and exit of struggling arcade cabinet manufacturer
high · Official announcement of acquisition; author notes company went from 'massive community of fans' to business failure due to mismanagement
?
community_signal: Spooky Pinball hosting live community brainstorming session to design wizard mode for Evil Dead, representing novel approach to community co-creation in pinball game design
high · Official announcement of Thursday 7 PM Central YouTube brainstorming session for 'Hail to the King' wizard mode
$
market_signal: Planetary Pinball monetizing historically valuable Bally/Williams design artifacts through sales, indicating demand for pinball history and memorabilia
medium · Planetary Pinball selling blueprints and design drawings for couple hundred dollars; many items already sold
?
announcement: Dutch Pinball's Alice exclusive version now in active distribution in Canada via Nitro Pinball
high · Nitro Pinball distributor announcement of arrived units being shipped to buyers

Topics

Community engagement in game designprimaryPinball history and collectiblesprimaryArcade1Up business acquisition and declineprimaryPinball game distribution and shippingsecondaryWizard mode design and innovationsecondary

Sentiment

mixed(0.45)— Positive sentiment toward Spooky's innovative community engagement and appreciation for pinball history sales; negative sentiment regarding Arcade1Up's decline and mismanagement

Transcript

raw_text · $0.000

News Spooky Pinball Announces First-Ever Community-Designed Wizard Mode; Pinball History For Sale; Arcade1Up Sold to Basic Fun! k knapparcade December 17, 2025 Yesterday afternoon, Spooky Pinball made a very interesting announcement on its Facebook page. This Thursday evening at 7:00 PM Central time on its YouTube channel, they are going to hold a brainstorming session with customers and fans of the company to help create the "Hail to the King" Wizard Mode for its Evil Dead pinball machine. Spooky believes, and I agree, that this is likely the first-ever community-written Wizard Mode for a pin. Spooky Pinball on YouTube Over the past several days, Planetary Pinball has been sharing pictures of some amazing pinball artifacts from the Bally Williams days on its Facebook page. These blueprints for iconic games from the 1980's and 1990's are for sale for a couple hundred dollars each. I love being able to see such amazing pieces of history. Many of the items have been sold, but there's still some remaining. Anyone who is interested in buying one should e-mail rick@planetarypinball.com . Planetary Pinball on Facebook Below is a small sample of some of the amazing design drawings: The Canadian pinball distributor Nitro Pinball announced this week that the first units of Dutch Pinball Exclusive's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland have arrived in the country and are being shipped to buyers. * The other day I wrote here about the rumor that the once-popular home arcade manufacturer, Arcade1Up, was going out of business. Well, those rumors were true...sort of. Yesterday, Arcade1Up announced that the mini-arcade game manufacturer "Basic Fun!" has acquired select assets from the company. The announcement went on to say that Basic Fun! intends to continue to support Arcade1Up products that are currently in the market to the best of its ability. This news represents a stunning fall from grace for Arcade1Up. The company went from having a massive community of fans who were buying its products several years ago to completely gone. It's a sad tale of mismanagement. It will be interesting to see what comes of this new arrangement. Basic Fun! stated that they will have more information to share "in the new year."