Pinball Circus Homebrew

Pintastic Pinball & Game Room Expo·video·19m 18s·analyzed·Dec 2, 2025

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.027

TL;DR

Homebrew builder completes Pinball Circus remake with custom fabrication, multiball, and expanded rules.

Summary

John Manuelian (Lynn), a homebrew pinball designer with extensive custom game experience, has completed a ground-up remake of the classic Pinball Circus arcade machine. Built single-handedly over 4.5 months using CNC fabrication, vacuum forming, and custom software (Unity 6, C#), the game features redesigned playfield flow, orbits on both sides, an eighth flipper, multiball (up to 4 balls), and expanded rules beyond the original. The project involved reverse-engineering from online videos and images, with active development continuing post-launch.

Key Claims

Built the entire machine by himself—cabinet design in SolidWorks, playfields with CNC machine, vacuum forming, artwork recreation—in 4.5 months of spare time while working full-time as a video game developer
high confidence · John Manuelian directly states design and fabrication workflow; host confirms 'Two and a half months of spare time'
Never played the original Pinball Circus and has no contact with original designers or Williams/Planetary Pinball; relied entirely on YouTube videos and instruction card images for rules and design reference
high confidence · Lynn explicitly states 'I've never played the game myself. I've never been to Vegas' and 'Nope' to contact with original designers
The wire form in the middle of the machine is not manufacturable at scale as currently designed; would need to be split into multiple parts for production
high confidence · Lynn: 'with at least how I ended up making it, I don't think it's manufacturable, but when you're making it all by hand all at once, you can kind of Mickey Mouse things'
The game has significant code development still ahead including wizard modes, Python multiball, and Python wheels; no code updates were released since October prior to the show
high confidence · Lynn states 'there's a lot of code to go' and 'there is I have plans for multiballs. I didn't get them added in yet'
Planetary Pinball recently took trademark protection steps on the Pinball Circus name, likely in response to learning about this homebrew rebuild
medium confidence · Host (citing Nap Arcade reporting): 'Planetary took steps to lock down the trademark on on the name. So, so I think it was because they heard about this'
Lynn does not own the IP; Williams and Planetary Pinball retain ownership, making commercial production impossible without licensing
high confidence · Lynn: 'I don't own the IP, so I'm not producing it commercially... Williams and Planetary Pinball still own the IP'
This is the sixth playable homebrew game Lynn has built; five others are permanently installed at the Electromagnetic Pinball Museum in Pucket for public play

Notable Quotes

“I treated this like the boss of a level. Can I defeat the boss and make it really that um secondly, I I wanted one.”
John Manuelian (Lynn) @ ~0:45 — Reveals motivations: personal challenge, desire to own the game, and public accessibility through touring
“The biggest challenge was the wire form in the middle, that big swirly wire form... I don't think it's manufacturable, but when you're making it all by hand all at once, you can kind of Mickey Mouse things and get it working right.”
John Manuelian (Lynn) @ ~2:30 — Identifies core technical challenge that explains why teams may have failed; hints at scaling complexity
“I've never played the game myself. I've never been to Vegas. I've never played the the one that you can play. So, the only things I could do is look at YouTube videos of people who played it or look at the little instruction cards.”
John Manuelian (Lynn) @ ~5:15 — Extraordinary constraint: reverse-engineering a classic without direct hands-on experience; explains reliance on secondary sources
“I designed the cabinet in Solid Works and I built it by hand... I have a CNC machine. I have a vacuum forming machine. I have a whole bunch of fabrication tools.”
John Manuelian (Lynn) @ ~7:20 — Technical self-sufficiency; demonstrates maker mindset with invested fabrication infrastructure
“I kept this completely secret, private throughout the whole development time... I like surprising people, both good and bad.”
John Manuelian (Lynn) @ ~14:30 — Development philosophy: intentional opacity and surprise reveal strategy; explains lack of designer collaboration
“Um, I always update my games during shows because I'm that kind of crazy. Um, and since this one didn't get a code update since October, and there are definitely some things I kind of wanted to add, I was here, I might as well add them.”
John Manuelian (Lynn) @ ~16:45 — Reveals development practice: live iteration at shows; suggests ongoing refinement even after public release
“The more shows I can start bringing it to, the more I'll have the desire to add more. Otherwise, if it's just sitting in my shop over in my little arcade area, I'll look at it. Oh, this is neat. But I won't necessarily add more.”

Entities

John ManuelianpersonPinball CircusgamePantastic New EnglandeventPlanetary Pinballcompany WilliamscompanyPythonpersonElectromagnetic Pinball MuseumvenueFAST hardwareproduct

Signals

?
design_innovation: Addition of dual-side orbits, eighth flipper for intentional drain risk, lift ramp, and multiball support (up to 4 balls) with cross-playfield rule interactions
high · Lynn describes adding orbits to both sides, lift ramp, and eighth flipper explicitly; multiball design spans multiple playfield modes
?
design_innovation: Expanded rule set beyond original including formal wizard mode, multiple multiball modes, Python wheels on screen instead of physical, and expanded objectives beyond single-path-to-top gameplay
high · Lynn states 'wizard modes planned. I have additional multiballs like I I have a Python multiball I want to add' and describes multiball stacking strategy
?
manufacturing_signal: Central wire form element identified as not manufacturable for production; would require architectural redesign to split into modular parts
high · Lynn: 'I don't think it's manufacturable, but when you're making it all by hand all at once, you can kind of Mickey Mouse things... definitely would need to be split up into multiple parts if you wanted to make more than one'
?
technology_signal: Use of $120 single-board computer (Xbox/PS2-equivalent performance) running Unity 6 with C# for real-time pinball control via FAST hardware
high · Lynn: 'I'm using a $120 cheap single board computer... somewhere around an Xbox and or a PS2 type of thing. I'm running it off of Unity 6... being driven by the fast hardware'
?
licensing_signal: Planetary Pinball took trademark protection steps on 'Pinball Circus' name, apparently triggered by learning of this homebrew remake

Topics

Homebrew pinball design and fabricationprimaryIP ownership and licensing constraints in pinballprimaryReverse-engineering classic games without designer accessprimaryMechanical design challenges: manufacturability vs. one-off buildsprimarySoftware development (rules, wizard modes, multiball mechanics)primaryCustom fabrication infrastructure (CNC, vacuum forming)secondaryLive code iteration at shows and venuessecondaryCompetitive pinball design philosophysecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.85)— Overwhelmingly positive reception from host and audience; tone is admiring and celebratory of technical achievement. No critical objections raised. Minor uncertainty about future development bandwidth and commercial viability, but framed as logistical rather than negative. Community enthusiasm evident in questions and applause.

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

Hello everybody. It's April 10th, 2025. Potentially a historic day in pinball. We're here at Pantastic New Robert Englunds, the pinball show that innovates. We've been supporting homebrew pinball games since our very first show 10 years ago. And we are a fullfeatured pinball show. This is just one part of our seminar program. And we will have more coverage of homebrew pinball later on in this weekend. And you can also plan on more coverage next year for our dates of April 9th to 12th, 2026. What we have here is a seemingly impossible game to build. The pinball circus homebrew done by the gentleman you see there, John Manuelian aka Lynn, who built it by himself where whole teams were apparently not able to accomplish as much. Now Lynn, yes, you usually do original designs. You've done so many homebrew games that are original. What made you decide you wanted to do a a redo of somebody else's design? Uh, a couple reasons. First reason, I wanted to challenge myself. Basically, I treated this like the boss of a level. Can I defeat the boss and and make it really that um secondly, I I wanted one. And uh thirdly, people should be able to play the game. So, if I'm able to bring it around, which it's an uphill battle sometimes to get it around, but I I want the public to be able to play the game. It's a cool game. And speaking of the challenges, uh what would you say are the biggest challenges that you faced? And do you think those were challenges that defeated other teams in their attempts to build it? Um the biggest challenges that that that I'm I'm not sure what the biggest challenge was. There's really just a lot of little challenges along the way, like making sure things fit, making sure things kind of stayed where they needed to. Well, actually, no. The biggest challenge was the wire form in the middle, that big swirly wire form and all that. That um with at least how I ended up making it, I don't think it's manufacturable, but when you're making it all by hand all at once, you can kind of Mickey Mouse things and get it working right. Um definitely would need to be split up into multiple parts of if you wanted to make more than one. Well, yeah, since you bring that up, uh I I presume that uh for a suitable fee, you would assist the manufacturer if they wanted to take it into production. I mean, you've you've designed all the specialized parts and you've done all the coding. Well, not all the coding. More coding to come, but yeah. Uh there's still a lot of code to go. Um I mean, I'll help. I don't mind chatting. I'm not I mean, there's lots of different moving parts in that. No pun intended, but it I mean, yeah, I don't mind chatting with people and helping. So, uh, so tell us a little bit about how you've done the rules differently, extensions or uh um what you've All right. Well, when I was working on this game, it this game took me last summer, so four and a half months to make it. Soup to nuts, zero to to this. And as I was going through it and finding all the images first, I spent about a month before that actually doing some due diligence, seeing if I could actually do it, collecting images, scouring the web for whatever I could find. And once I started building it up, I was kind of playing it with my eyes and I'm like, this this doesn't feel kind of right or this seems kind of weird with where the flippers are. So I redesigned a lot of flow and lots of little pieces to it um just by my own feeling. So most of it is what one would think of as pinball circus. Like the uh the three playfields are largely the same because they were cool and there's nothing wrong with it. The main playfield I made it so you could do orbits on both sides. I added a lift ramp because why not add more things? Um I added an eighth flipper because why not add more things? And um and actually that eighth flipper I put in specifically to kind of screw you over on the left side. The original game it did it only had one flipper on the left side and no out lane. So there was no way to really drain. So now with having kind of a double flipper over there, you can very easily drain on that side or by you know the ball going scissored or whatever. And that was the kind of the purpose of that to to screw you over, not really to help you. So those were the little tweaks I made. Um I also wanted to make it so it had multiball. So this now has a regular Williams trough in it. So I can have up to four ball multiball in the scheme. And that is very interesting to play, especially some of the multiballs I had planned. You need to kind of get things on different playfields all at the same time. And juggling that is definitely a circus. How about uh anything uh purely in the the rules and the scoring or the objectives? So, a lot so many of the objective like the only I've never played the game myself. I've never been to Vegas. I've never played the the one that you can play. So, the only things I could do is look at YouTube videos of people who played it or look at the little instruction cards that it had on the uh on on the skirt. So, I I took a lot of those and I incorporated as much as I could that made sense with some of my new design and I've added more on top of that. So, there's still like the gold ball mode. you still have uh can complete the uh the giraffe the the second playfield on the on on the side there to get up to the top kind of like what the original game wanted and you still have wheels that spin but instead of having a physical wheel I have a screen now so I can have multiple wheels depending on what's selected what what you have acquired and things so it there's a lot of the same but there's a bunch of just additions just because I can and and price was no object you you weren't trying to stay with particular bomb cost. No, I was just Well, I mean, some of the bomb cost is going to be cheaper because I don't have some physical things, but other bomb costs are going to be higher because, you know, so give and take with with what you add and what you remove. And uh one big change that I made, line up for questions. Oh, yeah. Line up for questions if you have questions. One one big change I made, you'll notice I don't have the elephant on there. I do plan on making a little elephant toy, but with multiball, there's going to be lots of ball hang-ups and problems with that whole elephant mech. And to fix that would be out of the scope of what I wanted to deal with. So, I just put a ramp there, which is a lot of fun. And I'll eventually have a little elephant there just for incidental animations and and movement. Mhm. Okay, Dave, your question. Yeah, David, the classic pinball podcast. Um, so that game I I played a pinball circus at Allentown a couple years ago. Uh, really fun game. Again, not quite finished, but it was fun. Um, and it's a Python Anghelo game. So, this one here, again, I don't know if you you must have said something, but I didn't quite get it, though. How did you actually acquire the cabinet and what you had already? How did you actually get that? I designed the cabinet in Solid Works and I built it by hand. Wow. Okay. So, it's this is all you me. Yeah. all the playfields I I designed and I well I made changes. So I have a CNC machine. I have a vacuum forming machine. I have a whole bunch of fabrication tools. So I I I cut once I cut them. There's a sign shop nearby that has a flatbed printer. I brought it to them to just do a direct print right on the thing. So it really looks nice. And uh yeah, all the artwork I had to recreate pixel by pixel based on blurry pictures that I could get off of things. So yeah, it was all all me. So, have so you've actually you've played this game before? You have not played? No, I've never Well, I play I play it now. I've never played it beforehand. No. Okay. Okay. So, you're just going off what you saw online? Wow. That's impressive. Well done. Can't wait to try it. Yeah. Well, you get your opportunity over the course of the weekend be in our custom game room. Okay. So, you know, um and this was four and a half months of build time. M four and a half months of build time and about Yeah. Oh, I'm I'm I'm a loony. Um do you have a day job? Yeah. Okay. See? Yeah. Two and a half months of spare time. Yeah. And I have a family, so in my my spare spare time. Yeah. Um I'm a game developer. Well, a video game mobile. Yeah. Question here, Derek. Have you contacted anybody who maybe at Planetary Pinball or anybody that worked at Capcom back in the day that retired back in the day, but you know, they did work on that game? Nope. This was all Okay. No, no contact with Laughlin who had all the No, no, it was all what I found online and what I could infer and what kind of fit. Like the nice thing with pinball is once you start building something, especially if you're trying to remake something, everything kind of has its place. So I couldn't take a playfield and move it to the right a little bit more because then it wouldn't line up with what what's underneath it, so to speak. And since this is already there, I and I saw pictures. I well, I knew that like the elephant playfield needed to be on the left side and a little bit to the front. So how does that line up? If I look straight down, oh, that looks a little bit like what I see on that's close enough. And hey, there's spots where I can drill the hole. So great. Um, so there was a lot of that and so there's definitely going to be differences. It's, you know, it's all my own work, but it came out pretty good, I think, and it plays pretty well. How much more do you expect to do on the rules? Uh, oh, I have a lot more rules to put in. Um, there is I have plans for multiballs. I didn't get them added in yet. Um, maybe they'll appear magically through an update this weekend. Um, I have wizard modes planned. I have additional multiballs like I I have a Python multiball I want to add in and Python wheels and things because uh no the original pinball circus had this Python toy in the middle and I've heard various degrees of oh it never worked. Oh, it was cool. And I just didn't want to try to add that thing. So instead, if you look closely at my game on the left slingshot, I used a uh I don't what was it? had a hobbit, one of the Hobbit um slingshots thing, and then we put a Python head on that. So, it it it kind of bites the ball when it hits the slingshot. So, it's kind of there, but it instead you'll have a more traditional flip flipper layout instead of like a weird offset or something. Hey, George question. Could this game be produced commercially? And the second part of the question is who owns the IP? Um, well, I don't own the IP, so I'm not producing it commercially. Uh, I made this one and done. I'm happy with it. I'll just keep working on it. Um, Williams and Planetary Pinball still own the IP, so it would be up to them. Yeah. In fact, Nap Arcade recently reported that uh, Planetary took steps to lock down the trademark on on the name. So, so I think it was because they heard about this and so they they wanted to make sure that whatever relationship or future development might happen that they got their role properly defined for it. Would you say that's a you think fair idea of what they're they're not looking to uh prevent this from ever being built by anybody as far as Right. You just can't have a floating IP that and and any hobo off the street can just build one. That's that's like not great. Yeah. Brian, you have a question. What are you using for uh code and electronics to drive it? Um I'm using a $120 cheap single board computer to to run the thing. Um it's probably the equivalent of I want to say like somewhere around an Xbox and or a PS2 type of thing. Um I'm running it off of Unity 6. as far as software. So, it's C and everything. It's the same engines I use on all my other augmented games and whatnot. And it's being driven by the fast hardware. And how many games have you done uh that are playable or that I've done that? Well, how many games how many how many games have you designed and brought to some level of physical realization? Okay. Um, well, this is to be able to play right now. This is number six that you have. Well, technically number five, Lua's number six, but anyways, this is the sixth one. Um, and so, and they're all in a lineup in the home. Well, this is going in there, too. They're all being in the homebrew that everybody can play. Um, and except for this one, all the other ones are going to be at the Electromagnetic Pinball Museum in Pucket. They're always open for people to play them uh on location. And as far as what I've designed, I don't know, a dozen plus. I have a lot of playfields I haven't finished up and or like I I had a Tale of the Dragon playfield once years ago, which I had to use the cabinet for another game, but eventually I put it back in a cabinet. So, I have I have a lot of things going on. And uh so, how do you how do you feel about this? Uh when you get all your rules in, do you think uh it'll be something that would be a a dedicated pinball player would enjoy it for year after year. It's got a lot of longevity in it. Like, um, again, one of the things I've I've heard, uh, and again, I haven't played the original, but it's one trick pony or you get to the top and that's it, or it's fun to see. Um, so I I wanted to add more pinbally rules into this. I wanted to make it feel like there are more things to do than just get to the top. Maybe I want to I need to complete this this ring or this mode or get into the wheel or something else. because that's why I added the multiballs. That's why I have a more formal um wizard mode with with goals to get to the wizard mode. Um there's always the the need to climb, but you don't always have to climb. Like for instance, one of the multiballs only takes place or will only take place on the main playfield. Another multiball will only take place on the mini playfields. And you if you stack them, then you have other things going on, right? So I I'm trying to make you you know your your riskrewards and the things that everybody kind of likes or if you're just a casual player you go up and you see this is neat type of scenario right? Yeah it uh I definitely had that experience playing the original that uh being at a show with a lot of other people. I didn't get that many games on it but I I was able to get up to the top level. So, I had that sense during my first hour of playing it. So, you need something more than that for Yeah. Um, I'd love to make it so people want to play competitively on it. That would be really cool. I play competitively myself. Uh, it'll be difficult, but I think it would be kind of neat if I can get that working. So, but first I need to get the rules in before balancing to make that a possibility. Mhm. More questions. Can wrap this up. If there are no more questions, run over there. Okay. And it will be in the home brewer room here at Pantastic New Robert Englunds, as you said, uh for the rest of the weekend with occasional code updates potentially. Yeah, occasionally. I mean, I always update my games during shows because I'm that kind of crazy. Um, and since this one didn't get a code update since October, and there are definitely some things I kind of wanted to add, I was here, I might as well add them. Okay, Dave, did did you ever reach out to any of the original designers or people that were involved with this with the original Pinball Service? Nothing like that. Never. Nope. I I kept this completely secret, private throughout the whole development time. Okay. Um, yeah. I I I like surprising people, both good and bad. And uh how close are you think you're until you're be a complete finished product you think? Well, it depends on how much time I put into this compared to my other games. Like I I I I need to kind of serialize my or thread my time between multiple projects. So I don't know like since I I'm able to have this at this show, I don't know if I'm going to be able to bring it to other shows in the future. It is kind of a a touchy feely thing to see if I can do it. the more shows I can start bringing it to, the more I'll have the desire to add more. Otherwise, if it's just sitting in my shop over in my little arcade area, I'll look at it. Oh, this is neat. But I won't necessarily add more. I'll I'll work more on the ones that I'm actually showing. Well, if I may, I'd like to invert his question and say, of the six games you have here, Yeah. are there any where you say, I'm not going to change the code. The code's done. Almost luau. Almost lu. But but that's the newest one. That's Yeah, but it's also a a 60sm style thing, so there's not a lot going on. And yesterday I pushed eight code updates to it. So, all right. Do you plan on calling it pinball circus when you're done or pinball circus reimagined or what do you uh Lyn's Pinball Circus home brew? Something like that. Like it's I I I wanted Pinball Circus, so I want to have that in there somewhere, you know? Right. Okay. Yeah, thank you. And I love Python's art. I respect him a lot as an artist, so I want to make sure his art's on there. So, calling it something different completely would be I I don't know. I wouldn't feel right about that. Yeah, I think uh there there's another Williams artist that did part of it, but probably Python on the sculpts probably. Yeah. But either way, I wouldn't feel right naming it something different if it has art from the original. All right, any other questions? Uh, for those uh watching remotely, we uh going to have it all weekend right here at Cantastic New Robert Englunds. Come to Massachusetts, exit 63B off I495, and you're right there. You can come and play it yourself. So, thanks uh to Lynn and thanks to Jillian Hafner and our audiovisisual team. This is less than 24 hours since we got the necessary permissions. Yeah. To do this. I was about to fall asleep and I got a a text and I'm like, "Oh, okay." Yep.