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

Knapp Arcade·article·held·Dec 17, 2025

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.014

TL;DR

Spooky holds community Wizard Mode design session; Arcade1Up acquired by Basic Fun!

Summary

Spooky Pinball announces a first-ever community-designed Wizard Mode for Evil Dead via a live YouTube brainstorming session. Planetary Pinball is selling vintage Bally/Williams design blueprints and artifacts. Nitro Pinball reports Alice's Adventures in Wonderland units arriving in Canada. Arcade1Up ceases independent operations; Basic Fun! acquires select assets and commits to supporting existing products.

Key Claims

Spooky Pinball is holding a brainstorming session Thursday at 7:00 PM Central on YouTube to create the Wizard Mode for Evil Dead 'Hail to the King' mode
high confidence · Spooky Pinball announcement, reported by knapparcade
This is likely the first-ever community-written Wizard Mode for a pinball machine
medium confidence · knapparcade editorial assessment
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 page, contact: rick@planetarypinball.com
Nitro Pinball received first units of Dutch Pinball Exclusive's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and is shipping to buyers
high confidence · Nitro Pinball announcement
Arcade1Up was acquired by Basic Fun!, which will support existing Arcade1Up products
high confidence · Official Arcade1Up/Basic Fun! announcement
Arcade1Up suffered from mismanagement and went from popular to defunct
medium confidence · knapparcade editorial commentary

Notable Quotes

“Spooky believes, and I agree, that this is likely the first-ever community-written Wizard Mode for a pin.”
Knapp Arcade @ n/a — Editorial affirmation of the novelty and significance of the community design approach
“It's a sad tale of mismanagement.”
Knapp Arcade @ n/a — Characterizes Arcade1Up's decline as a cautionary tale of business failure
“Basic Fun! intends to continue to support Arcade1Up products that are currently in the market to the best of its ability.”
Basic Fun! (via announcement) @ n/a — Sets expectations for post-acquisition support and product continuity

Entities

Spooky PinballcompanyEvil Deadgame Planetary Pinballcompany Williamscompany Nitro Pinballcompany Alice's Adventures in WonderlandgameDutch Pinball ExclusivecompanyArcade1Upcompany

Signals

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announcement: Spooky Pinball announces first-ever community-designed Wizard Mode for Evil Dead via live YouTube brainstorming session
high · Official Spooky Pinball Facebook announcement reported by knapparcade for Thursday 7:00 PM Central YouTube session
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design_innovation: Novel approach to Wizard Mode creation involving community co-design rather than internal development
high · Spooky Pinball hosting live brainstorming session with customers and fans; knapparcade assesses as likely first-ever community-written Wizard Mode
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historical_signal: Vintage Bally/Williams design blueprints and artifacts from 1980s-1990s being sold through Planetary Pinball
high · Planetary Pinball Facebook sharing pictures of iconic game design drawings; items priced at couple hundred dollars each
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business_signal: Arcade1Up ceases independent operations; Basic Fun! acquires select assets and commits to supporting existing product line
high · Official announcement; Basic Fun! states intention to support Arcade1Up products currently in market
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sentiment_shift: Arcade1Up characterized as dramatic fall from grace due to mismanagement; went from massive community fan base to defunct
medium · knapparcade editorial: '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.'
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Transcript

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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."