Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Homebrew and Custom Pinball Chat with the Makers: Golden State Pinball Festival 2024

Marco Pinball·video·1h 2m·analyzed·Dec 7, 2024
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Homebrew designers showcase games and discuss hardware platforms, MPF, and community support at Golden State Pinball Festival 2024.

Summary

Golden State Pinball Festival 2024 hosted a homebrew and custom pinball game seminar featuring six builders discussing their projects. Speakers included Ryan Bob Brown (Green Knight), Sean Irby (8-Ball Beyond), Thomas Fullenweider (Cobra Pin electronics developer), Jim Avenzi (Jack's Open re-theme), Mike Latchley (Devil's Pitchfork), Adrian DeGroot (Joust coffee table), and Chris Dana (Hopped Up, Green Out, and other games). Key topics: design philosophies, hardware platform choices (Cobra Pin, FAST, Multimorphic), Mission Pinball Framework adoption across projects, ramp fabrication techniques, and community resources for new builders.

Key Claims

  • Cobra Pin electronics cost $180 (Kickstarter price), significantly cheaper than FAST ($500-600) and Multimorphic platforms

    high confidence · Ryan discussing Thomas's Cobra Pin platform pricing comparison

  • Mission Pinball Framework allows mixing and matching different hardware (FAST and Cobra Pin boards in same machine)

    high confidence · Sean Irby explaining MPF flexibility during hardware discussion

  • Legend of Valhalla was originally a homebrew that American Pinball picked up as a commercial release

    high confidence · Unnamed speaker citing homebrew-to-commercial success story

  • Archer was a homebrew that became Iron Maiden for American Pinball

    high confidence · Unnamed speaker in homebrew-to-commercial discussion

  • Ryan Bob Brown laser-cut playfield from 100-watt laser through half-inch plywood, taking same time as CNC routing

    high confidence · Ryan describing Green Knight fabrication technique

  • Sean Irby's 8-Ball Beyond has been in development for 4 years and still needs wizard mode coding

    high confidence · Sean Irby discussing 8-Ball Beyond completion status

  • Chris Dana has built four complete pinball machines over 14 years (Regular Show, Elemental, Green Out, Hopped Up)

    high confidence · Chris Dana listing his game discography

  • Trident Pinball sells whitewood playfield kits with slings, trough, flipper mechanism, and complete hardware for builders

    high confidence · Chris Dana recommending Trident Pinball as resource for scratch builds

Notable Quotes

  • “The whole design philosophy on my game was upper play fields on pinball are like, usually like, oh, it's a good idea. But then either the play field is really cramped... So my design philosophy was, what if I use the space 100% underneath the play field”

    Ryan Bob Brown@ 1:26 — Core design philosophy explaining Green Knight's innovative use of underplayfield space with extended flipper shafts

  • “I'm going to start with Jack's Open, a Alvin Gottlieb EM, because I like playing the game, and I'm going to do a re-theme... don't do it on a game that you don't like playing, right?”

    Jim Avenzi@ 10:50 — Key advice for homebrew builders about game selection criteria

  • “My obsession started in college... I fell in love, and being a software engineer, the first thing I wanted to do was build one. But then being a poor college kid, I had to wait 20 years.”

    Mike Latchley@ 13:04 — Origin story illustrating long-term passion driving homebrew projects

  • “It was a dark and stormy night, probably 2009... I've never owned a pinball machine in my life. So I started this project with absolutely no idea what to do. So if any of you out there are interested in building your own games, if I can do it, you guys can definitely do it”

    Chris Dana@ 18:32 — Accessibility message encouraging newcomers to homebrew building despite lack of prior experience

  • “Cobra Pin is cheaper. And it's great. What I also like about the Cobra Pin is it was just one board. So underneath my play field is just one Cobra Pin board power supply and a little mini PC and that's it”

    Ryan (unnamed, discussing hardware)@ 22:00 — Practical advantages of Cobra Pin platform beyond cost

Entities

Ryan Bob BrownpersonSean IrbypersonThomas FullenweiderpersonJim AvenzipersonMike LatchleypersonAdrian DeGrootpersonChris DanapersonGreen Knightgame8-Ball BeyondgameThunderbirds Teamgame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Pinball museum (Pacific Pinball Museum) inspiring homebrew builder pipeline; serves as community gathering point and inspiration source

    medium · Chris Dana origin story: 'left Pacific Pinball Museum with son who said we should build our own'; Dan Fonce from museum contributed artwork for Jack's Open project

  • ?

    community_signal: Homebrew-to-commercial success stories (Legend of Valhalla, Iron Maiden) creating aspirational pathway and validating homebrew as incubation ground for commercial releases

    high · Speaker highlighting American Pinball acquisition of homebrew Legend of Valhalla and Iron Maiden (formerly Archer); framed as achievable 'dream' outcome

  • ?

    community_signal: Growing ecosystem of specialized vendors and resources supporting homebrew builder community (Trident Pinball kits, Game On Graphics, online forums, Discord communities)

    high · Multiple speakers recommending Trident Pinball, Game On Graphics, Pinside forums, MPF user group, Discord channels; Chris Dana noting larger homebrew showcase and growing Sacramento community

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Strategic re-theming of existing playfields (Jim Avenzi's Jack's Open, Mike Latchley's Devil's Pitchfork) reducing design complexity while enabling creative expression through artwork and rules

    high · Jim Avenzi building Robert Crumb re-theme on Jack's Open EM; Mike Latchley's Devil's Pitchfork from salvaged Gulfstream; Chris Dana's Green Out layout reused in Hopped Up; speakers recommending existing playfield as entry point

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Homebrew designers emphasizing iterative physical prototyping over theoretical CAD design, prioritizing playfield flow validation through actual ball gameplay

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.187

0:00
All righty. Hello, everybody. Welcome to Golden State Pinball Festival 2024. We have our awesome homebrew and custom game seminar starting up. We have a great lineup of designers and creators of their very unique games. You can play all of them right across the hall set up in the corner over there. And we're just going to start. And let's go, I guess, whoever wants to go first. We could do it like that. Introduce yourself and let's talk about your game.
0:56
All right. On the spot. I guess we're going last. Okay. I'm Ryan Brown. I do the Green Knight. There's not a lot of art on my game right now, so it just got ready for the show just in time, but it's been a long process, but actually building has been the short process, and it's good to have a deadline because it makes you finish your game on time, even if it's not quite finished. But I don't know if you've seen mine, but the whole design philosophy in my game was upper play fields on pinball are like, usually like, oh, it's a good idea. But then either the play field is really small and usually on the upper play field you can't put anything underneath it because you have decks and stuff. There can't be anything there. So my design philosophy was, what if I use 100% underneath the play field just to have that all available? so I could do that by the upper flippers have a very long shaft that go through the play field and have a bunch of orbits. And so the flippers kind of dictate my orbits spacing. So I was able to have, using all that space underneath and still having a big upper play field. And so far it's turned out how I originally drew it up. And that was pretty much the whole design of just like, usually I would say, homebrew, get a game that's already made and just make it yours, but I was like, let's go 100%, just redo everything. And the only thing on my game that's maybe different is that usually people see and see the play field would. The only thing I've done differently is I laser etched for my job. So it's actually laser cut, a 100-watt laser. So you can actually cut a half-inch piece of plywood on a laser. It'll do it. And this actually turned out really well because you don't have to worry about bits being dull or it didn't cut right. It takes about the same amount of time as a CNC, but that's why everything's kind of wood because I was like put in there, laser it, and I can play with it on different versions. Can you do the inserts? I did not do inserts because I am actually going to do acrylic for my, so I don't want to do inserts. With the laser kind of? Yeah, you can do that. But you will, you don't have the stop. So what I did is on my game I have little inserts. There's actually opposite where they're 3D printed and they go up and they're screwed in. But I had to get the height just right or you sand it down. But I'm not going to do that because I don't want to do inserts in clear coat and I do it acrylic but I don't know if it's going to work. But that's why if you play my game, there's no, there's lights but just enough for the show is what I got. Because I think, I think design wise is, it's good to get your shots down first.

  • “Mission Pinball Framework is written in Python, which is a fairly common language... But you don't actually have to program anything in Python to use Mission Pinball framework. It's all configuration files.”

    Sean Irby@ 25:19 — Explaining accessibility of MPF to non-programmers

  • “Take this enormous elephant and chop it up into tiny bite-sized pieces because it's easy to find yourself discouraged. So if you can find little incremental successes as you go, it will really keep you motivated.”

    Chris Dana@ 35:54 — Mental health and project management advice for long-term homebrew projects

  • “I really encourage you guys. I brought some examples of, because I noticed a lot of homebrew games don't have ramps because ramps are hard to make... CNC routing a form and then using PETG to vacuum form on top of that.”

    Chris Dana@ 19:22 — Sharing accessible ramp fabrication technique to address common homebrew limitation

  • “The Legend of Valhalla that was a homebrew originally that American Pinball picked up so that's like the dream right? but it happened and it happened for... Iron Maiden”

    Unnamed speaker@ 23:58 — Highlighting viable path from homebrew to commercial manufacturer partnership

  • “You don't have to figure out the geometry of your first game. You don't have to, you know, figure out CAD, anything like that. Start off just stripping the art and putting in new mechs and just seeing where it goes.”

    Chris Dana@ 32:55 — Practical entry point for beginners using existing playfield geometry

    • Jack's Open
    game
    Devil's Pitchforkgame
    Joustgame
    Green Outgame
    Hopped Upgame
    Elementalgame
    Regular Showgame
    Cobra Pinproduct
    Mission Pinball Frameworkproduct
    Trident Pinballcompany
    Golden State Pinball Festivalevent
    American Pinballcompany
    Pacific Pinball Museumorganization
    Game On Graphicscompany

    high · Ryan Bob Brown: 'You don't know how a ball travels until you actually flip it'; Chris Dana: 'Don't have to figure out geometry of first game, start with existing playfield'; multiple mentions of playtesting and iteration

  • $

    market_signal: Cobra Pin platform disrupting traditional control board pricing ($180 vs $500-600), potentially lowering entry barrier for homebrew builders

    high · Ryan explicitly citing Cobra Pin cost advantage; Thomas Fullenweider's deliberate Kickstarter pricing strategy; speaker noting affordability as key differentiator enabling hobby participation

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Artist talent development within homebrew ecosystem (Chris Dana's son studying art in college and contributing to game graphics) suggesting emerging generation of specialized homebrew artists

    medium · Chris Dana mentioning son as artist contributor on projects; son studying art in college; commercial artist collaborations (Game On Graphics, Dan Fonce from Pacific Pinball Museum)

  • ?

    technology_signal: Mission Pinball Framework's configuration-file model creates learning curve despite accessibility design; corner cases still require Python coding knowledge

    medium · Ryan Bob Brown describing hard initial learning curve on MPF before comprehension ('hard but you get it'); multiple speakers noting necessity of dropping to Python for custom logic; Sean Irby describing dynamic insert grid solution requiring Python

  • ?

    technology_signal: Laser cutting and 3D printing technologies increasingly accessible for homebrew playfield fabrication, reducing barriers to custom machine building

    high · Ryan Bob Brown using 100-watt laser for playfield cutting; Chris Dana showcasing vacuum-formed ramp trimming with laser; Adrian DeGroot using 3D printing for parts; emphasis on accessible fabrication via local vendors

  • ?

    technology_signal: Widespread adoption of Mission Pinball Framework across heterogeneous hardware platforms (FAST, Cobra Pin, Multimorphic) enabling community standardization around common software layer

    high · Multiple speakers (Sean Irby, Ryan, Chris Dana) emphasizing MPF usage; explicit discussion of mixing hardware with MPF support; community benefit from unified software framework

    • 4:11
    Because if you cut a hole in your play field, there's a big hole there. If you move your shot over, and then it's like, well, now what do you do? So you have to put that up. I would say whatever play field you make first, there's going to be three more play fields, probably, from that version.
    4:30
    Yeah. It's been a lot of Cobra Pin. It's been good. Rule-wise, MPF, I just got into it, so I'm on the very beginning of the MPF Mission Pinball Framework learning curve and it's hard but you get it to like the tutorial it's hard and you don't know what you're doing and then you slowly like oh okay and you kind of feel like I think I'll feel like next year I'll feel like oh yeah there's no big problems do this but yeah I hope you enjoyed my game if anything if you don't like any input let me know because this again the show version but I've already changed things in my next drawing has already changed. So things are instantly draining. I hope to not have the next version.
    5:15
    But again, you don't know how a ball travels until you actually flip it. Because you could draw all day long, like, oh, I think the ball's going to do this. It's not going to go where you want it to go.
    5:25
    But yeah, that's it. Awesome, thank you. Hi, I'm Sean Irby. I'm from Seattle. and I made 8 Ball Beyond and yeah that game has been in progress or I've been working on it for the past 4 years and yeah I took it to the Northwest show around this time last year and I've been trying to take it to other shows over the past year so I've brought it to Expo and then TPF and now here at Golden State yeah Tell us about the concept of the game. Like, where did 8-Ball Beyond come from? Yeah, so I... Doing that game came out of me spending a year working on a different layout and just starting without a theme, just starting with geometry. And, I don't know, after working on that for a while, I realized that it wasn't really going anywhere, so I needed to simplify things and come up with a clear concept. And, yeah, so I thought about really simple games that I liked, like Alien Star or Stars, and also 8-Ball. And so after thinking more about those 8-Ball games and how I liked them and how everyone in my league liked playing them, I thought, wouldn't it be cool if I made a layout that incorporated some shot or some geometry from each of the original games. And so that's the concept for 8 Ball Beyond.
    7:06
    Yeah. Very cool. And is this game in its completed state? Yeah, I still need to code the wizard mode. I don't know what happens if you beat all the rounds of pool in the game. It might crash. Who knows? But that's the last thing left to do. Otherwise, it's pretty complete.
    7:27
    Awesome. Yeah. All right, we'll come back to you, Sean. Let's get next. Hi, my name is Thomas Fullenweider. I make the Cobra Pin electronics, and the game that I brought and am featuring here is Tag Team, and this is the original game that I used to develop the Cobra Pin electronics, and the idea here was I just decided I'm going to make pinball control electronics because I think I can make a small one single board pinball controller and that might make it easier for people to get into the hobby. So I for this tag team I picked up a populated play field. It was in bad condition and also cheap so it was perfect. And then I started working on the electronics and getting it all hooked up together and I put it in this plywood box here and just started coding up in MPF. I'm not really a programmer, but I learned MPF for this. And then I ended up launching a Kickstarter for the Cobra Pin controller in 2021. So I've been doing it about three years. And it's been a very fun adventure not only to make my own games but to be a part of helping other people make their games. So I really enjoy watching videos of people's games that have used my electronics and then of course at shows like this it's great to actually play the games, the people who have made a game with my electronics. Yeah? Yeah, that's how I started. Like, because the other platforms are malmorphic and then the fast pinball, but there's kind of a price, like, what, like, five, six hundred bucks to get into it, and then he came out with the Kickstarter, it was, like, $180, I think it is for now, and that's, like, doable.
    9:31
    Because you're, like, oh, what if I blow up, because I read guys, like, I had fast, and, you know, blow the board up, because you put a coil where it doesn't belong, and you got to buy another one, so it's, like, when he, that's what I started, because it was, like, you know, he's out of Sacramento, so it made it better. I had it better too. We were like, it's easier and easier every year to make games now. I think it's getting more affordable because there's more support too also because Tom's been here doing Cobra Pin a couple years, and he's making more and more parts, more and more things. And we didn't even have a homebrew section originally, and now we have all kinds of games. And I think we're having, like in Sacramento, we have, you know, growing this community. It helps when someone makes the boards.
    10:24
    Well, thank you, Ryan. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah, hi, I'm Jim Avenzi. I am a fraud because I'm sitting surrounded by all the programmers, the professional programmers here for their games, custom mechs. And my fraudness is I said, I'm going to start with Jack's Open, a Gottlieb EM, because I like playing the game, and I'm going to do a re-theme. So I guess I'm part of the homebrew, so thank you for accepting me, at least on the panel.
    11:05
    Yeah, it was a labor of love. I always want to do a Robert Crumb theme. I thought it would be cool. And, again, don't do it on a game that you don't like playing, right? Pick a game that actually has got some staying power to it. So Eric Neff helped me get the jacks open, and I worked on it and had to rely on the kindness of many strangers. I'll do afterward. I've got some props over there. So perhaps what you can learn from me is how I did the artwork and how I got some professionals to do all that stuff with me. I'm just the dumb engineer, but let's do the pros with the artwork.
    11:52
    So I also try to include a lot of the clip art. PG-13, please. I wanted to be able to bring it to a show, right? So there's some stuff that maybe shouldn't be on machines from his artistry.
    12:11
    So I used a lot of clip art and worked with the people to do the artwork here. So we did plastics. We did the play field, the cabinet art, the trans light. And again, oh, my. A lot of work, pretty much a long COVID project for me. So, and like I said, I'll take some questions at the end. I'll show off some of the techniques that maybe could help others for that. Okay.
    12:46
    Awesome. All right. So I'm Mike Latchley. Mine started, or really my obsession started in college. My wife decided she was tired of bowling one night and we went in the back room and played Elvira Scared Stiff. That's 1996.
    13:04
    And I fell in love, and being a software engineer, the first thing I wanted to do was build one. But then being a poor college kid, I had to wait 20 years.
    13:16
    So now this started off actually as a $100 Gulfstream that had a completely wrecked cabinet. The art was flaking off, and I didn't know what I was going to do with it, so I grabbed the parts I wanted. I squirreled away the play field. A friend of mine, who was actually in attendance, decided to try out the project.
    13:39
    Eventually it ended back up in my hands, and she had changed the shape a little bit, some of the inserts, and when my son, who is the artist, wandered by, he said, that looks like a devil's pitchfork, and therefore the theme was born.
    13:56
    And that was really, you know, I want to say three months of work to get it into a flipping state for last year.
    14:04
    And then one person's lucky shot completely destroyed the slings. So I had to do a little reengineering there. But, yeah, everything on there just sort of was trial and error.
    14:21
    And parts that I had sitting around because I'm also a hoarder. But like all the plastics and everything, that was all artwork that then we laminated onto polycarb, cut out, sanded out by hand. And it turns out pretty fun. At first it's a Cobra pen and it's running on MPF and I started adding so many rules and logic and extra modes and it just got to where I didn't even want to work It was too much. And I finally simplified it down. I said I want Space Shuttle on acid basically, or on speed. And that's what it became. And it's a pretty fun game now. So, yeah, I'll take questions later. Go ahead. Okay. My name is Adrian DeGroot. I built the joust that's based off of the 83 joust, although it's a little bit shorter. And you know when you got an apartment how do you squeeze one more pinball machine into the place You make a coffee table So it lower height So all the rules are based off of the 83 joust and I programmed it in MPF and the boards so the multimorphic boards, and did a bit of woodworking and some 3D printing and did a lot of research trying to figure out the bill of materials of the original one. Originally, I was building it up so I could learn about building a pinball machine. My only machine was Twilight Zone, and so I kind of jumped into the deep end building this one up. You know, there's twice as many mechs because there's two sides to it. I didn't really think that through, so there's a lot of work, a lot of wiring. And the next one, I'm definitely going to do a better job on the wiring, so I'm not going to show the underside too much. But, yeah, it's been a really great learning process, and my intent is to build my own design of a head-to-head game because I think that format is just kind of a unique one that really wasn't built upon in the industry just because it didn't really fit well into an arcade. Having two people play a game, it just didn't work out. But now with events like this and home ownership, I think that the head-to-head game is a good outlet. So I'm looking to build my own and taking some input on that. So, yeah.
    17:06
    I guess we'll talk about in-depth later. How hard. Hey, Joust is a super rare game, right? There's only a handful of cabinets in the whole world. and what was your process on being able to source enough to create essentially your mini-joust? So, yeah, once the playfield was available, then that kind of sparked it that I could actually do it, playfield and the plastics, and then I figured out the rest just from photos and from on Pinside. There was a great thread about rebuilding one, and then there's one that's here at the show, and I got hands-on on another one to take reference on, but I did a lot of drawings. My background is engineering and project management, so I figured out the whole bomb. So, yeah, a lot of research went into it, and 3-D printing the parts that I couldn't find.
    18:12
    All right, Chris. Hey, guys, Chris Dana. It was a dark and stormy night, probably 2009. My son and I were leaving the Pacific Pinball Museum, and he said, hey, Dad, we should build our own. And I said, hey, that's a pretty good idea. I've never owned a pinball machine in my life.
    18:35
    So I started this project with absolutely no idea what to do. So if any of you out there are interested in building your own games, if I can do it, you guys can definitely do it so I would definitely encourage you Hopped Up is my game over there I also have brought Green Out, which was my third game so I just finished my fourth one which was Hopped Up and it's been a 14 year learning process learning how to become a fabricator a pretty decent coder making my own music, working with artists working with voice over folks. It's just been a super cool process. So like I said, I really encourage you guys. I brought some examples of, because I noticed a lot of homebrew games don't have ramps because ramps are hard to make. How do you go about doing it? And so I'll show you my process, which is CNC routing a form and then using PETG to vacuum form on top of that. And what you actually end up with is some giant two-by-two piece of plastic that's all warped.
    19:55
    So then I make a jig that'll sit inside of a laser cutter. And you put your big gnarly plastic in the jig and you let the laser cutter trim it out so it fits like it should. So just wanted to show an example that, you know, this is all common stuff. all stuff I got from Home Depot.
    20:18
    And it's just about curiosity and going on an adventure and learning how to do stuff. So, yeah, that's what I got. Chris, this is your fourth pinball machine. You have several out there. Can you just run through your discography? My catalog of pinball machines.
    20:39
    The first one, which took me four years, was based on the regular show, Cartoon. Fantastic cartoon, my son's favorite cartoon. The second one was a sci-fi themed game that I did bring up to the Northwest Pinball Show about, I don't know, seven or eight years ago called Elemental.
    20:57
    Never ended up being super happy with that one, so I actually harvested it for parts for Green Out, which is the cannabis themed pinball machine over there.
    21:07
    I don't smoke myself, but I do enjoy some good beer, which is why I took the layout of Green Out, which I really liked, and made some improvements, and that's what Hopped Up became.
    21:20
    Very cool. All right, so one of the things that I noticed just from this group up here is we have so many different systems that these games are on. You know, the P3 Rock, Cobra Pin, Fast Pinball system. But can you all tell us why you chose the system that you did and kind of what the benefits are from using that system? Like why did you go that route when there's this option, so many options to choose from? CobraPen is cheaper. That's a great reason. And it's great.
    22:00
    What I also like about the CobraPen is it was just one board. So underneath my play field is just one CobraPen board power supply and a little mini PC and that's it there's a lot of wires but like other boards the new pinball machines there's just all kinds of they still take up the head and there's a lot of stuff going on they're like satellite boards but I liked it, it was cheaper and it was one board so if they go okay I can fit it anywhere I want so right now mine's in the bottom but I can put it in the back or up top and it's The technology, you know, if you look at an old pinball machine, they had to use the whole head because that's all the trunks. You know, everything's getting tinier. The little PC, I originally had a Raspberry Pi.
    22:47
    It wasn't powerful enough, but the PC I have is like this. It's so tiny. And it runs like you can run video games on it now. The technology is there where things are so cheap and so tiny that we could fit things that, you know, I'm sure Williams back in the day wished they could do.
    23:07
    My machines are, the first one was based on the original P-ROC system. Since then I've been using the fast hardware. I'll probably migrate to CobraPin going forward.
    23:20
    And I'm using MPF for software. And the reason I chose those is because of the community. And if you get stuck as many times as I do with problems I can't solve, having a group of people that are totally willing to help and fired up about what you're working on is super important.
    23:38
    And I'll just say this community has grown, and, I mean, it's just great people. And I remember when I was first starting, there was, like, you know, some guy in the Sudan and somebody else in Brazil making their own pinball machines. Like, it was hard finding help, and there's actually a pretty decent community nowadays. The Legend of Valhalla that was a homebrew originally that American Pinball picked up so that's like the dream right?
    24:08
    but it happened and it happened for what was it? Iron Maiden that was originally what was it? Archer? and he had Archer homebrew and that turned into Jaws and that just took off Yeah, the cool thing about the system is that you don't need to have that back glass of the back board. You can have the boards on mine. They're underneath the play field. You know, there's no back glass and joust. And with these boards, you can do whatever you want to. You can come up with some game that doesn't even look like pinball, you know, that you can... Like Treehouse? Yeah, like Treehouse. Yeah, there's a few really cool examples that are more like art, kinetic art.
    24:58
    A lot of you all are using Mission Pinball Framework. Can you explain to the audience what that is and how it's used in your games?
    25:09
    So Mission Pinball Framework is written in Python, which is a fairly common language. A lot of engineers and hardware and software engineers use it. But you don't actually have to program anything in Python to use Mission Pinball framework. It's all configuration files. So once you understand the format, which is sometimes a little bit tricky, you just define what's in your system. Here's this set of switches. Here's this set of lamps, this set of solenoids. And then you have modes that say this is what it interacts with this time. and this is what that switch scores every time. And you look for events. It's an entire event-driven system. And so once you get that, you know, wrap your head around that, it becomes almost trivial to do the base stuff. Now, the corner cases are always going to be hard, but that's what the community is for, you know.
    26:08
    Yeah, awesome. Sorry, can I add one more thing to that? Please. Yeah, so one of the interesting things about MPF is that you've heard we use different systems here, but they all use the same Mission Pinball framework. And like Chris was saying, that really bolsters the community, and if everybody's contributing to the same software framework, then it gets better and more refined faster. And the really cool thing about Mission Pinball framework is you can actually mix and match hardware. So you can put a fast board in to your machine and a Cobra pin board if you want features from both. I'm not saying you should. I like the ability to switch. So, like, if you end up going with one hardware system, you can actually switch it at some point if you decide. So I like, you know, that we're all in the same software community together so that we can help each other. So... I have a question about that. Do you have rules that you wanted to add on that? Pass this mic around to you so we can get it on the recording. Thank you. Then I don't have to repeat it. Are there, like, rules or sets of rules that you wanted to implement but that were not possible or not worth the effort in Mission Pinball framework? Like, how do you drop down to the lower level and do whatever you need to? Yeah. So it is possible to insert your own custom Python code. I have started to do that twice and then realized that there was a method to do it within the framework already. And so I switched back to that. I don't know what other people's experience is. Yeah, so I would say like 90% of my game is using like what NPF wants you to do and to use config files for everything. But there were some cases like I have a big grid of inserts on my game that point towards the targets you need to hit. And that can change dynamically. So that was a use case where I did have to like drop down into the Python. Yeah, it's not super well advertised on the MPF site, but it's very easy to, yeah, do that if you want to. Yeah, I was having a hard time with having two ball troughs with the head-to-head game. I posted about that on the user group, the MPF user group. Jan, who is one of the major contributors, he had built the game called Good vs. Evil, which was a head-to-head. I ended up using his code to manage both of those ball troughs. Again, it's a great community, and there's custom things that are out there. If you're not a software programmer, there's other people who have done things.
    29:02
    Is there any other questions from the audience? All right. You see, we have this giant crowd. This is our biggest crowd of the day so far. So thank everyone for coming.
    29:21
    Assuming they're all here because they all want to go down this same journey as y'all and make their own custom games, what kind of tips can you give someone just fresh starting off? Where do they go? How do they figure out? how to start making their own pinball machine.
    29:39
    I'm going to go from the fake person that I am here and start with the artwork. Some of us engineers are not good artists, but we're creative. So I'm going to go with the idea that if I can show off some of this stuff later.
    29:58
    I used a company called Game On Graphics in Michigan, and what appealed that to me was I can print up the vinyl cabinet art for a pinball machine. Like, why would I not do that, right? So they did. And so as I came up with the artwork for the cabinet, we explored it a little further. So I'm going to kind of describe from here what I did. so the translate is Dan Fonce from the Pacific Pinball Museum who is an artist so he took kind of the Gottlieb theme of one big clip art of Mr. Natural there and Game on Graphics printed my translates so the flipper room I'm plugging everybody framed it up for me and it works out well the play field is also from Game On Graphics And this is a trick that you might use you may not Some people are drawing right on the white wood Some people are printing on it Some people are using overlays I did a little different on mine Wade Krause was looking for Jack's Open, so he designed Jack's Open to sell back to the community.
    31:23
    Luckily, Wade did. That's what's hanging off the pedestal here. He gave me the artwork so I could start laying it out. Game on Graphics did that for me. They subcontracted to an artist. And so technically you have to go back to Arcade, and it's a control panel overlay, right? So it's got some grit to it. And so what it did was adhere that to the play field, clear coat, clear coat, clear coat. and that's how that all smoothed out. So perhaps with some of the artwork you can do your own.
    32:02
    The way I did plastics, there's a gentleman in upstate New York, if you look on CPR's website, he did an alternate set of Joker poker and I had that on the table and I said, hey, could you help me design the clip art or at least the plastics for the thing? And he said, sure. So we did some horse trading, and so that's how it worked out with the plastics. So at least from an artwork perspective, don't be afraid. Give it a shot, right? And, you know, you can go a lot further than I thought with other people's help.
    32:42
    So I think one of the easiest ways to get into it is if you find a play field, like at the swap meet today, that looks like it has some flow that sort of speaks to you.
    32:55
    You can start with that, and then you don't have to figure out the geometry of your first game. You don't have to, you know, figure out CAD, anything like that.
    33:04
    Start off just stripping the art and putting in new mechs and just seeing where it goes. And that at least gets you flipping. That at least gets you, you know, writing basic code up and will get you started. My very first game was actually Middle Earth, which was here last year, and I didn't make any changes to the play field. I gutted the CPU and all the power and everything and built it up out of a CobraPen system, and it just had new rules and it had an HDMI display instead of the alphanumeric stuff that was there. and it worked out pretty well.
    33:46
    It was kind of a pain rewiring the switches, but it wasn't too bad. The next one started off, like I said, as an old EM. That one was just a bare board when I started.
    34:03
    My son made the graphics. He's studying to be an artist in college right now. So I got lucky there. And we had that printed up by FastSigns just as a vinyl wrap. On top of that, I cut a playfield protector for it. And, yeah, just started bolting parts onto it and writing code. Again, starting with an existing playfield is a great way to learn all the underlying systems. So you don't have to start from scratch. But there are ways to start from scratch as well. there's a company called Trident Pinball for example that they will send you a whitewood that just has the slings the trough, the flipper mix and you know the bottom third cut everything else is blank they will send you the entire kit, every bit of hardware you need to wire it up and get that thing flipping so if you really want to start with a fresh idea, that's a great way to do it there's a good website out there called How to Build a Pinball Machine. It's a great place to start. It has all kinds of good information.
    35:19
    Also, a lot of the tools you need, you may already have. I do all my design using Adobe Illustrator.
    35:26
    I mean, I just knew it, so I just used it. It's easy. It can export to different file types, and you can send those off to makers out there in the world that will laser cut your stuff for you or 3D print your stuff for you, so you don't even need to buy all this fabrication stuff if you don't want to.
    35:45
    So, yeah, easy to get started. I would also say my other piece of advice would be take this enormous elephant and chop it up into tiny bite-sized pieces because it's easy to find yourself discouraged. So if you can find little incremental successes as you go, it will really keep you motivated.
    36:08
    Awesome. One of the greatest things that I found with the homebrew and custom games community is that there is this whole community around it, too, where y'all are all talking to each other, helping each other out with ideas and stuff. where can you direct folks to kind of get involved into communities like that where you can find support from other people kind of going through the same journey and, you know, discords or, you know, Slack channels of communication and really get involved and stay involved because, you know, having cheerleaders, everyone rooting each other on, it really goes a long way when you're doing something kind of so enduring. Yeah, so there's a lot of options there and you can partake in as many of them as you care to. So, I mean, there's Pinside forums so you can post your project on Pinside and oftentimes I've found that by posting my project there, it gives me an incentive to put updates up there and also it kind of rejuvenates my own interest when people start responding to it. It's like, okay, yeah, other people are seeing this and they think it's cool too. I'll keep working on it. But then there's also MPF users Google group. And so when you're having some software issue, you can post it on there and get some help for it. There's a number of Discord and Slack channels. One of the ones that I'm active on is the Trident Pinball Discord, like you mentioned earlier.
    37:46
    And I don't know. There's a number of others. Do you have any others? I think there's a, isn't there a fast? There's a fast one. Strictly Custom on Facebook. Oh, yeah, Strictly Custom Pinball on Facebook.
    38:01
    Yeah, that one's a great group, and I will have to thank Danzig because I believe that his Strictly Custom Pinball group is the reason why my Kickstarter was successful, so thank you.
    38:16
    Awesome. Was there anyone else? Did you want to say? I'm sorry, I thought you raised your hand ring.
    38:22
    Community, so not too long ago, I couldn't even get the lights to turn on. I actually mentioned it to Thomas because I was on there just like, there's the MPF, like, I can't even get my lights. They turn on, but they don't turn on. I was so discouraged. This would be the easiest thing of a light going on and off, and I don't know why I'm not getting it. And I just went on MPF, and I mentioned it to Thomas too, because he had the corporate, and I was like, what do you do? And he was like, oh, it was just this little thing. But like, you know, a little thing I wouldn't know, because you can go into talks with somebody, because you get stuck at a certain point, and there's no, you might be able to figure it out, but that could be like down here, but just ask someone, like, oh, just do this. So it was great to have, like, you know, there's not a lot of places, like Pinside, MPF Group, but like they're there, and you just have to go ask. And sometimes you just go out and like post something on Reddit. You can go on Reddit and be like, I've seen people on Reddit go, here's my project. and people go, it's cool. Or you can ask a question on there. I've learned so many things just like asking a question online. And you never know who's like the expert on that of anything, any hobby, right? Someone will be like, yeah, do this. And now this is great because we know online communities are just growing. Even on Facebook, you can go on Facebook. There's a custom pinball group on Facebook that people are posting that projects you would never know about. And they're like, here's a project. and I've learned things like, oh, he did it this way, and that's a cool idea. So I'll take that in mind. So a lot of communities. I think it's growing every year. Definitely more and more people are attempting to, like, oh, make mountain ball, and it's only going to get better.
    40:02
    YouTube, you did some good YouTube videos. He's got a question in the back. And I would say that right now we're sort of in the golden age because we have all this hardware available. 10, 15 years ago, this was a nightmare to start off. But now, you know, with 3D printing and with sort of these cottage industries of people just like, oh, this guy makes ramps. You can just send him something. He'll make you a ramp. Or, you know, they have metal cutting businesses like Send Cut Send. So I'm working on my first metal ramp right now. and we're talking I might end up investing $100 and get two or three ramps out of it if I'm ever insane enough to build more than one copy of these things and that's all possible now like in this maker space that has sort of grown up that we can take advantage of very cool this next question I'm going to start with Sean but I'd love for you all to chime in too. So Sean, you have toured 8 Ball Beyond pretty much all across the country. You've hit several different states. What have you learned from that experience and kind of the benefits of bringing your game around? And after so many people have seen it and played it, what are you most proud of on your game?
    41:33
    Let's see. I think the first lesson learned from bringing the game to the first show that I took it to was that players are going to treat it like a pinball machine. I mean, I should have seen this coming. For some reason, part of me thought that maybe they might baby it a little, but I think within five minutes of setting it up at the Northwest show, it was on two legs with someone trying to save the ball. so yeah I mean it's cool to see that players are going to treat it like a pinball machine they would expect and like maybe if they drain their ball while the grace period should be active and it doesn't happen they'll tell you about it and so yeah other than that lessons learned I think I was maybe a bit too hovery the first show that I took it to like trying to tell people what to do on the game. But yeah, I think players, it's better to just let someone experience it on their own and not really tell them what to do.
    42:40
    And I think the thing that I'm most proud of was, I don't remember what person was playing, but someone looked a little bit at the rule card before they played the game, and they started their game and did the progression of hitting the seven balls that they had to do and then make the eight-ball shot by doing this combo thing. And when they made that shot, they, like, pumped their fist. And that was the thing I was super proud of, just because you can, like, squeeze an emotion out of somebody, and, like, that's what it's all about, I think, for me.
    43:17
    Yeah. Very cool. Anyone else want to chime in on your experiences touring your game around? As I've brought Crumb to several shows, I get people that just look at me and say, that is cool, I really want to do this, right, I want to do my own game. So maybe it's inspiration. Maybe it's people just picking up on saying, yeah, I can do this too. So I think maybe that's the fun result of actually putting together a machine like that. And I'll just second the tilt bob comment.
    43:56
    So if you bring a homebrew to a location or a show, definitely put a tilt bob in it. I had somebody come up to me, and I had seen them play, and they were so angry because they had tilted, and they said, I tilted on your game. Yes, you did, and you should have tilted with the way you were moving that around. So if you care about your machine, put a Tilt-Paw in it. They're there for a reason. Awesome. Well, we have about 10 minutes left. I'd love to pass the mic around for any questions. Anyone want to talk about games they're building? We have a bunch of experts right here on the stage just waiting to help you. I got here a little late, so sorry if you just talked about this, but how many people are hooking up, like, MPF to simulators or to, like, virtual pinball or not doing that at all. Just curious about the kind of, like, how much you simulate before you put it on a piece of plywood. So I did that with my game.
    44:56
    There's a tool on the Mission Pinball GitHub repo called the MPF VPX Bridge. And so it takes a little bit of setup to, yeah, configure VPX visual pinball to interface with MPF, but you can totally do it, and I think I used it for, like, the first 5, 10% of the project of just some very, very, like, boilerplate kind of rules to figure out what I wanted to do, and then I stopped using that and just switched to doing things physically with actual game code. But, yeah, it's a super, super useful tool in the beginning.
    45:36
    Yeah, so I didn't use the VPX bridge, but I just used Visual Pinball to kind of lay out a few things just to try out some shots. So there was no logic involved in it, just feeling out what the shots were like. But then I quickly moved to, like, cardboard and hot glue and everything, poster board.
    45:58
    And then the other thing is you can actually code it. You can code a game without having a game in front of you. So there's a part of MPF called MPF Monitor, and you can actually have your game code running on your computer but not targeting any actual hardware. And you can have a picture of your play field and you can drag and drop all of your switches and lights onto that play field and there's like status information about the events that are happening. And so you can code a game without actually having one in front of you. So I coded a game for somebody in Australia and I never touched his machine and that actually something that I would recommend to people to consider If you nervous about the software side of things you can actually try that without having any hardware. So before you invest any money, you can, like, I think I could probably do the software, but I'm not sure. Like, go ahead and try it. Because for a lot of people, I think the software is the toughest part. But now that I say that, maybe don't start there because you might get discouraged.
    47:10
    So it depends on what type of person you are. Yeah. Anyone want to ask a question? Well, I was going to say that I am a hands-on learner, so I would like to use CAD and I would like to use VPX, and it always inevitably ends up on my dining room table, and it's just me with a soldering iron and something starts to flip and I get excited.
    47:38
    That's about it. Yeah. Alright, we've got another question over here. So something I've toyed around with some homebrews in the past and I think one thing I like to do is scale modeling. I do a quarter scale machine. I mock it up in cardboard, kind of make quarter scale models to see where things, that they fit in the concept, do you have any of you ever started on a small scale and worked up versus doing it virtually?
    48:10
    I guess that's the answer. Baby pinball. Well, a pinball is like an inch and a sixteenth or something like that. It's always been that way. And when you mess with the ball size, like the flippers and stuff, they're all like the physics. You're going to be totally different. So if you want to scale down and you're going to scale up, I don't think it will translate one-to-one. Yeah, I'm trying to look at energy levels. Yeah, because like the flippers, the length and all that, and the rubbers. I think I remember there was a guy doing the mini ball on Munsters. He had the mini ball, and he wanted to make a mini one. I remember reading it. He had to get the mini flippers and stuff like that, and I don't think he – I don't remember he finished, but I really thought it seemed totally like its own thing. You have to design everything now. Everything has to be redesigned because you have to account for all the spacing. So I think I thought about it, though. Yeah, you used to have to do it. The way I've always pictured it is doing it based on energy, like how much potential energy you have to go up the play field.
    49:13
    You can scale from there. I think it's an interesting avenue that would be maybe easier if the hardware were there.
    49:22
    But my next game will be small, though. it'll seem the same ball size but I'm doing like a weird smaller longer but I do have a cocktail at home and it's a different size having a cocktail size it definitely like it's different but not bad in a bad way I think and I would say going with that I understand what you're trying to do is scale it up but the physics are entirely different right the shot placement the geometry what you're trying to do you might end up doing so much more work than you had actually intended.
    50:02
    I'm not discouraging you, but I'm just saying that it might be one of these, like, well, that didn't scale correctly.
    50:11
    Just because you want those angles, you want the strength of a flipper, you want the size, the dynamics of a real ball. you know that's why Powerball and Twilight Zone plays different or you know something else so what is this a pinball machine for ants so any other questions I had a question most of y'all did your pinball machines all by yourself powered through it Chris I believe you had a team one age yeah Chris had a team someone had other teams like can you explain what that process is like working with a team like you don't have to do everything by yourself like the software the hardware you know Jake Danzig we talked about him earlier from the Strictly Customs group on Facebook he's one of like my pure examples if he just went like complete producer role and he's like, I want a Dukes of Hazzard pinball machine. I'm going to find a bunch of artists, a software person, a mechanical engineer, an artist, and then put them all together.
    51:25
    What's y'all's thoughts on navigating through that, and would that be something that y'all would be open to doing, too, in the future, too? Because if you think of, like, Stern or Jersey Jack and everything, it's not just Keith Elwin making a game. He has a whole village working with him. I bug some of these people in the audience on a daily basis to come to my house and help. And so far it's mostly just me. Yeah, definitely get friends that help out. Thomas helped me troubleshoot a lot of things when I blow up a MOSFET or something like that. So those lessons learned are good, and it's good to have friends that can help you out with those kind of things. art is a scary thing for me because like you said I'm creative but not very good at the art part so I am interested in working with somebody on artwork for my next game so find someone I know a guy we'll talk later were you going to say something Adrian oh Chris sorry That's why, I mean, man, y'all just. The ball guy's on the right side.
    52:41
    I'm sorry. I was making eye contact with you guys. Oh, God, which one? Sorry. Yeah, go ahead, Chris. You had the team. I was just going to agree with Thomas. It's like, you know, a lot of us can do the mechanical stuff, but, man, we need you artists out there to come hook up with us so we can do our next thing. Well, I'm going to try to do the artwork on mine, but I have like a limit. You know, I can do art, but to a limit. And so what I'm planning to do is do art, and I go, someone else, you know, that can really, like, finish it. You know, maybe that's where I'm going to fight. Hopefully I can finish it, but, like, it takes a professional to be like, maybe, you know, especially coloring and stuff. So that's my plan. We'll see how long it goes.
    53:22
    Very cool. And then I guess the last question to wrap it all up is, hopefully maybe you know, what's next for each of you?
    53:35
    Well, I can't stop thinking about new designs. So while I was finishing this one up, there was a high-speed play field on my table that took over my dining room for the last four months maybe. A year.
    53:55
    And it's becoming – I go to this Misfit Cabaret show in San Francisco a lot, and I think it's a great idea for a theme. and they're local and they're willing to do voice work.
    54:07
    So I'm going to partner with them for that one. That one I'm building new mechs for. I'm going to be doing some wire form work, things that I haven't gotten into, the metal ramp that I'm designing. And then after that, I've got a white wood already waiting, and that one's going to be my wife's a fan of a band called Faster Pussycat, and if you're of a certain age, you might remember them. And yeah, it's going to be less of a PG sort of game.
    54:40
    But I have a lot of mechs based on their songs that have just been living in my head. So I can't stop.
    54:51
    Next. What's next for you? Yeah, let's go. So I'll be working on this game for a while, but I've already started designing. My wife wants a Pushing the Cat pinball. Yeah, it's going to be pushing. I'm actually pretty stoked to do it. He's going to go on. I'm going to offer Spectrum. It'll be very kid-friendly.
    55:11
    And I have design ideas, because I don't have a big house. So how do I fit more pinball in a house? I've got to make my pinball machine smaller.
    55:20
    So that's what I'm going to do. So eventually, once you start a homebrew, I think it just keeps going. There's always another project. There's always going to be another game. How many? I don't know. That's why I'm going to make smaller pinballs so I can fit more in my house.
    55:34
    But yeah, that's I when you have a theme I think it helps to like I want to do this theme It's like okay. That's what you get and I get design around that Keep going
    55:45
    Few months ago. I had this idea of Using the plunger rod is a control surface like you can you can twist the shooter rod continuously, right? and so I finished up like a plunger rod that senses rotation and And so I realized I could do a cool driving game with that. So you could twist the shooter rod and control diverters on the play field and stuff. So I'm going to try and do a Speed Racer game next. That's how it starts. You have a single idea, and it turns into a game. Mine was like, what if the play field was really big up at play field? That was my game right now. And now the next one is like, what if I have a bunch of pop bumpers in a certain area that's not there before? That's my next game. and like having a drive-in, that's a good idea. Yeah, it's awesome.
    56:37
    So my next game is I'm going to release it as open source. And I don't know if he remembers that he agreed to this, but my father's in the crowd and he's going to voice it.
    56:53
    But it will be like a dauntless deputy themed, so like a goofy cop theme so and in addition to that of course I make electronics so I'm constantly working on like the next system so I'll keep supporting the existing Cobra Pin system but I'm coming out with another one that I'm labeling the Fang system so Fang Cobra Pin will come out soon Chris and Adrian as mentioned I'm going to work on a head to head I'm going to do something that has a little bit more flow between the two sides as opposed to like shooting right down the middle or close shots. I've got some ideas on that. And then also I ended up getting a silver ball mania that I can strip down and redo and re-theme. It kind of happened like, oh, you know, I've got some ideas for that one too. So yeah, keep on coming up new ideas. I'm ready to start game number five when I lie in bed at night I pretend that I'm on a pinball play field and I follow the ball around I do and sometimes it puts me to sleep and sometimes I come up with a neat idea and I have to get up and put it down on my notebook and then I can't fall asleep at all but I'm ready to get started on the next game right now I think it's a dark Celtic fantasy theme but I want to hook up with a good digital artist and it may change.
    58:26
    Awesome. And how about for you, Jim? Now that you're over here. I'm going to be the party pooper. I'm one and done. Sorry.
    58:37
    You have creative geniuses that are on to their next project from inception and customizing things. This is about 10 years for me. so time to go on to other things but yeah good luck and we're actually looking at all this stuff if you hadn't heard about Motorhead at TPF you need to look it up because I was there and saw the game played it and just amazing just amazing right what you can do creativity artwork how professionally it was done so yeah yeah I can do this so translate again done is an artwork project from Dan the play field this is the control panel you can feel it's clear coated very nicely, source artwork, clip art. Yeah, Robert Crumb with somebody playing pinball. This is the gentleman who did the Jack's Open graphics. So it's a, okay, well, let's take a piece of clip art, let's do it on color photo paper, right, and get tap plastics, cut out the same thing. You attach this with craft dots underneath and it's very simple. So that's your field. And this is the gentleman's work he did for that. So I want to give him credit for showing off what you can do with original design and redesigning plastics. So anyway, I'll take other questions later. Well, thank you all so much for joining us. We're going to have another homebrew seminar tomorrow. Thomas, can you just give a quick explanation of the seminar tomorrow for CobraPin? Yeah. So the seminar tomorrow, we'll be talking about actually how we put together our games with Cobra Pin. I'll be doing a little build demo where I'm actually connecting things to the Cobra Pin controller and hopefully give you a little bit of an idea of, you know, what some MPF code looks like, how you might work with MPF, and yeah, anything else? Yeah, so I'll be talking about specifically the Cobra Pin angle on the two games that I built using it and sort of my lessons learned. Yep, going over lessons learned that built the system. Yeah, so feel free to bring more questions, any specifics about any interest that you have in getting into homebrew, and we can talk about it then. And we're always willing to talk about this when we're out on the floor as well. So thank you. Awesome. Thank you all so much for joining us. Let's give them a round of applause.
    62:01
    All right. Our next seminar is going to be with Dry 374, Michael Madsen, and he's going to teach us all about how to stream pinball. So that's going to start in about 30 minutes.