Who STOLE the show at Texas Pinball Festival 2026?

Cooltoy·video·14m 7s·analyzed·Mar 21, 2026

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 (batch) · $0.014

TL;DR

Spooky dominates TPF 2026; Turner Yeti, Pokémon, Harry Potter, and American Pinball's comeback drive show excitement.

Summary

Cooltoy provides an on-the-ground manufacturer breakdown of Texas Pinball Festival 2026, highlighting Spooky Pinball's dominant presence with sold-out Beetlejuice machines, Turner Pinball's well-received Yukon Yeti surprise announcement, strong Pokémon and Harry Potter performances from Stern and Jersey Jack, and American Pinball's successful return under new ownership with a 100th anniversary Houdini edition. The video emphasizes homebrew innovation and boutique momentum reshaping the pinball landscape.

Key Claims

Spooky Pinball brought 20 Beetlejuice units to TPF and they still weren't enough to meet demand
high confidence · Cooltoy direct observation at the event; machines were sold out pre-reveal
Turner Pinball's Yukon Yeti was announced as a surprise just days before TPF started
high confidence · Cooltoy gameplay and event report; announced before show
Yukon Yeti is the spiritual successor to Dennis Nordman's Whitewater with expanded code and similar layout
high confidence · Cooltoy gameplay analysis; Turner Pinball positioning
Pokémon is selling like crazy and operators report it's earning extremely well
high confidence · Cooltoy conversation with operators at the show
American Pinball nearly went out of business last year but is now under new ownership with a strong presence at TPF 2026
high confidence · Cooltoy observation of previous year's absence vs. current year's comeback
Multimorphic/P3 had no new game announcement at TPF 2026, which is somewhat surprising
high confidence · Cooltoy direct observation of the show floor
Jersey Jack has rumored Sonic the Hedgehog as their next game after Harry Potter
medium confidence · Cooltoy references Jersey Jack himself slipping info during Avatar seminar last year; no official confirmation at TPF 2026
Chicago Gaming Company had a minimal footprint and no major announcements at TPF 2026
high confidence · Cooltoy floor observation

Notable Quotes

“Spooky Pinball because it seems like they are again the bell of the ball, the winner if there is a winner or a loser of this beautiful event”
Cooltoy @ ~0:20 — Establishes Spooky as the dominant manufacturer narrative at TPF 2026
“20 machines still wasn't enough. There was a ton of people clamoring to play this game”
Cooltoy @ ~0:45 — Highlights Beetlejuice's extreme demand and scarcity at the event
“This is the spiritual successor to Dennis Nordman's Whitewater. Everybody loves that game. You know, it's a classic through and through”
Cooltoy @ ~2:00 — Frames Yukon Yeti's design lineage and market positioning
“I'm a huge fan of Brian Allen's artwork...I just I wish Brian Allen would have done the artwork there, but we all can't have what we want”
Cooltoy @ ~4:30 — Personal artistic preference critique; suggests community expectations for legacy title spiritual successors
“Pokémon is selling like crazy. Operators are telling me it's earning like crazy”
Cooltoy @ ~7:00 — Confirms strong commercial and arcade performance of Pokémon across operator network
“I couldn't tell you what I'm supposed to do because it gets a little too in the weeds...that's kind of good for home use”
Cooltoy @ ~8:30 — Notes Harry Potter's code complexity and bifurcated appeal (home vs. casual play)
“The only thing I don't like about it is the AI use of artwork on the playfield...I just that's the only thing that's kept me from buying it”
Cooltoy @ ~8:45 — AI art controversy affecting purchasing decisions in the collector community
“American Pinball is back, and I mean that with an emphatic exclamation mark, cuz it feels like they're truly back from the dead”
Cooltoy @ ~13:00 — Emphasizes dramatic turnaround narrative and market significance of American Pinball's survival

Entities

Spooky PinballcompanyBeetlejuicegame Turner PinballcompanyYukon YetigameDennis Nordmanperson Chris TurnerpersonStern PinballcompanyPokémongame

Signals

~
sentiment_shift: Spooky Pinball continuing its market leadership with sold-out Beetlejuice and dominant show presence; Turner Pinball generating substantial positive buzz with Yukon Yeti surprise announcement
high · Cooltoy describes Spooky as 'bell of the ball' and 'center of the show floor'; Yukon Yeti getting positive feedback and likely to sell out by end of weekend
?
product_strategy: Turner Pinball pursuing limited edition single-tier strategy with 500 units at $10,000; American Pinball ultra-limited 100-unit anniversary run; Barrels of Fun sold-out positioning creating exclusivity
high · Yukon Yeti 500 units only; Houdini 100th anniversary 100 units only; Winchester Mystery House sold out with first-time play opportunity at show
$
market_signal: Pokémon performing exceptionally well across arcade/venue operators with strong earnings reports and high demand
high · Cooltoy: 'Operators are telling me it's earning like crazy' and 'Pokémon is selling like crazy'
?
business_signal: American Pinball's dramatic turnaround from near-shutdown in 2025 to strong TPF 2026 presence under new J.B. Vincent LP ownership with refreshed product strategy
high · Cooltoy: 'American Pinball is back...they're truly back from the dead' after last year having no official show presence and appearing headed toward closure
?
design_philosophy: Turner Pinball positioning Yukon Yeti as spiritual successor to classic Whitewater with expanded code and mechanical tweaks, leveraging design lineage while updating gameplay

Topics

Boutique manufacturer dominance (Spooky, Turner, Barrels of Fun)primarySurprise game announcements (Yukon Yeti, potential Jersey Jack Sonic)primaryAmerican Pinball's organizational turnaroundprimaryCommercial success and operator performance (Pokémon, Harry Potter)primaryHomebrew innovation and talent pipelinesecondaryAI art controversy (Harry Potter)secondaryCode depth and complexity (Harry Potter, Pokémon Pokedex feature)secondaryLimited production and FOMO dynamicssecondary

Sentiment

neutral(0)

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

It's another exciting year of Texas Pinball Festival. If you're not here, you're missing out. So, it's another wonderful year at Texas Pinball Festival. As always, I'll be doing a little manufacturer breakdown. I'll put timestamps down in the video description box below. That way, you can kind of skip ahead and go to what you care about. We'll start off with once again Spooky Pinball because it seems like they are again the the bell of the ball, the winner if there is a winner or a loser of this beautiful event. Uh I mean they are once again the hubbub of the show floor. They brought 20 of their brand new games Beetlejuice and 20 still didn't seem like it was enough. There was a ton of people clamoring to play this game. Obviously it's a newer game. It's already sold out. So if you want one, tough, you're out of luck. Uh congrats to everybody that got one. It's a beautiful looking game. The artwork looks amazing. Uh, purple powder coating, everything about the art package itself just looks awesome. Gameplaywise, I enjoyed it. Uh, I I thought they did a really good job with the animations and things they use to integrate with the movie clips and everything. Uh, layout-wise, it's a very unique layout. Some interesting geometry choices. I didn't really have any big issues with the game. The only thing I didn't like so much was maybe uh it has a middle spinner shot uh that goes like straight back into a scoop and it just kind of feels like the the spinner is a unnecessary goeteen between a shot that goes all the way back to a scoop. Anyways, but other than that, I enjoyed my time with Spooky Pinballs Beetlejuice. Again, like I said, everyone wanted to play this game. 20 machines still wasn't enough. So, tip of the cap to Spooky for another great release. Next up on the excitement level has to be Chris Turner with Turner Pinball and his new release, Yukon Yeti. This was a surprise announcement a few days before the show started. This is the spiritual successor to Dennis Nordman's Whitewater. Everybody loves that game. You know, it's a classic through and through. Uh this is a very similar layout, albeit it's got some tweaks and changes to the original Whitewater. So, it's an update. Uh has deep expanded codes. So, if you've played Whitewater and you, you know, went through all all the rapids and all the rafts and you've made the wizard mode numerous times cuz the game's been out for a long time and you just need something a little more, well, this might be for you. Art styling is a little bit different. Brad Duke, I believe, is the same artist they used on their last release, Merlin's Arcade. Um, he has a kind of a Disney aesthetic, at least that's how I would classify it. Um, although they did change the art style a little bit. Has a little more brush strokes. Kind of looks like a painting, if you will. artist subjective, so there's going to be people that like it or dislike it no matter what. Um, gameplaywise though, I absolutely love playing the game. It's super fun. Has a really cool avalanche mech there, um, where you can do this kind of riskreward and lock five balls or three balls. So, you can kind of choose incrementally if you want a three ball multiball. If you want to risk it all and keep building, go to a four ball, go to a five ball. Um, if you get the five ball, it's really cool. It just pours down all five balls down to the flippers. very very neat uh aesthetic to watch it happen. Plus, it has a little stairstepping mechanism which looks really cool. Uh layout and everything, geometry. I mean, this game's great. Dennis Nordman once again designed it. Uh so, everything's shot well. Uh it's it's a fun game to play. My only criticism here um is the music and the call out. I just I didn't think the music matched the the theme and the vibe. Uh, it's kind of like this ragtime piano music from the depression era and it just it didn't for me go well. Call outs were a little offputting. There was a couple of sound package bits where like the slingshots would fire and it was like a weird girl kind of chuckle laugh. Um, that got old real quick. But I had a lot of fun playing this game. I had no problem with the artwork. Albeit I do have a personal preference. I am a big fan of Brian Allen's artwork. He's done some white water kind of reimagined as a snow, you know, icy escape artwork package already for the original Whitewater. So, personal preferences, I would have loved to seen Brian Allen be hired to do the artwork for this because it's a, you know, it's spiritual successor to Whitewater and it has this snowy yeti um, you know, package and everything. I just I wish Brian Allen would have done the artwork there, but we all can't have what we want. Only one trim package here, the legendary edition. Previous Turner pinball, they had like a stripped down arcade version, $10,000. They're only making uh 500 units. It'll be curious to see how quickly or if they sell out. But uh just going off the hubbub of the show floor. I would not be surprised if this game sells out by the end of the weekend. It's just getting a lot of positive feedback. And again, the only real negatives I've heard are similar to what I was personally feeling, and that was just with the music and the call outs. So, uh, one thing I will definitely give Chris Turner at Turner Pinball credit for is he is very good about taking consumer feedback and, you know, making changes if necessary. So, hopefully, um, maybe Chris maybe reconsider doing the sound package a little bit differently. That's my only suggestion. That's my only critique to an otherwise fun amazing game. Next up, we have Stern Pinball and a slew of Pokémon machines for everybody to try out and play. lots of pro and premiums out there, so you could test each one as well as, you know, a lot of their other recent releases like Star Wars: Fall of the Empire, Walking Dead, uh, Remastered. Pokemon is selling like crazy. Operators are telling me it's earning like crazy. Super exciting to see this do well, as a lot of us already kind of knew it would. Um, fun game to play. I enjoy it. I've actually got a Pro on order, so I'm looking forward to bringing one of those home sooner than later. Uh, I was hoping we were going to see the topper and accessories for this game. That was kind of a rumor that they were maybe potentially going to have that ready and available to uh show to the public here at TPF this year, but unfortunately it didn't happen. And also, unfortunately, there's no code update for the Pokedex. That's one feature I can't wait to see uh when you can scan in your Insider Connected and start collecting all those Pokémon that you're catching in the game. So, really looking forward to when that feature rolls out because that is going to, you know, breathe new life into this already addicting game. Jersey Jack was here with loads and loads of Harry Potter. Absolutely phenomenal game. I love it to death. Uh the code is super complex and deep and like most Jersey Jack games, I couldn't tell you what I'm supposed to do because it gets a little too in the weeds. Uh for me to truly have a narrow path, but that's kind of good for home use. I mean, you can really explore a lot in a home use environment. Uh but it's a it's a fun game to shoot. It has amazing mechs. The staircase mech is truly a marvel. the upper playfield in the Quidditch area. Uh it's probably one of the best, if not the best upper playfield as far as satisfying to shoot uh of all of pinball in my humble opinion. I love the Harry Potter game. The only thing I don't like about it is the AI use of artwork on the playfield and areas. Um you know, I just that's the only thing that's kept me from buying it. Um because I don't want to support that aspect of it. But overall, like gameplay-wise and just, you know, the full package, Jersey Jack knocked it out of the park with Harry Potter. We didn't get any teases or actual release information of their next game, long to be rumored, uh, as Sonic the Hedgehog based. Last year, Jersey Jack himself let it slip during the Avatar seminar that Harry Potter was going to be their next game. People were hoping we're going to have a repeat of that, but as it stands, no official announcement that Sonic the Hedgehog or any other official game is coming from Jersey Jack. So, we'll just kind of have to wait out and see how things play out. P3 and Multimorphic. No new game announcement this year. That is a bit surprising. A lot of times they've just coincidentally lined up with Texas Pinball. Uh they had one of every one of their games out there on the show floor. So great time to play. This is the first time I got to play Portal with the updated code since last year. Very fun game to play. uh excited to see what the future holds for P3 and Multimorphic because I believe in the platform. They're just one amazing game designer, you know, great IP away from getting me to buy in on the P3 system. So, look forward to the future with Multimorphic Chicago Gaming Company. Very small footprint this year. No real official massive presence or anything like that. No new announcements. Uh rumored Halo game coming for them soon. Uh we just don't know how soon. So maybe later on in the year we'll see that game show up. Uh as it stood, they only had uh a few games out there on the floor. They had a couple of Cactus Canyons, some with and without the uh Lyman Sheets upgrade kit, which is a mustave in my opinion. It adds so much to the game. Uh some Pulp Fictions, as well as the Medieval Madness Merlin Edition. So nothing real exciting or new from Chicago Gaming Company, but they do make some fun games. And American Pinball is back, and I mean that with an emphatic exclamation mark, cuz it feels like they're truly back from the dead. Uh last year, they didn't really have any official representation. They had a distributor that brought a few games, uh but they didn't have any show presence whatsoever, and then later on in the year, it just looked like they were truly going to go out of business. They're under new ownership. They've made a lot of interesting acquisitions that I'm a huge fan of and they actually had games and a presence here and the future is looking good for American Pinball. Uh they announced they had a 100th anniversary edition of their first official title Houdini. Uh basically gave it a new art package courtesy of Christopher Franchie uh on the side cabinet. It's a direct print art package, so it's not a decal, so it looks really nice. Uh, you got some nice little features like the Invisa Glass and a shaker motor. So, I've always been a fan of Houdini. I thought it was a great game, especially for a first game from a new company back in 2017. It's got some tight shots, but it's got some really cool mechs and everything. You got powder coating armor. You got a new topper as well. Uh, so they're only making 100 of these. $7995, I think, was the retail price. So, $8,000. Um, you know, pretty good deal. They also had some sweet Hot Wheels that have new uh red powder coating on them as well as the uh dinosaur topper. So that that's cool to see kind of some, you know, upgrades to some flagship titles that they've done in the past with some new uh tweaks and new aesthetics and, you know, new value for new consumers. So definitely check them out. And like I said, I'm really excited to see what the future holds for American Pinball. Homebrew section always super exciting. again partnered with Marco Specialties this year and they have an awesome setup. Jeff over at Dirty Pool did some awesome setup where he had some custom callouts from the community. So, he's inviting a lot of people into a little custom sound booth. You could record call outs that potentially are going to be, you know, put together for people to pull from and use uh for homebrew projects in the future, which I thought was a great idea. Um it's a nice community exercise. Plus, you know, potentially you could find out that you're a golden voice that could be, you know, poached for later projects in the future. Couple of the standouts for me, uh, Monsters, Inc., Salted Expo. Uh, Ernie, you did a great job on that one. I love that game. Uh, super fun to play. Top Gun. That was the first time I got to see this one. and I've been following its progress through uh the Facebook group on the custom pinball machines. Top Gun was really cool. King of the Hill also a standout for me. I'm a huge King of the Hill nerd. It had an awesome little like barbecue grill ball lock. Uh even had like a grill flipping spatula next to it. Really cool uh design. I'm always impressed with what everybody pulls off in the home brerew section. And I love that, you know, Marco is, you know, partnering with them and giving them more attention because truly, uh, the homebrew guys are the star of the show. These guys are the most talented people in the room. And, uh, it's no, you know, secret or shame why these, uh, bigger companies are poaching some of those talent because these guys do an amazing job. You guys should definitely go to the homebrew section if you got time and check them out. Barrels of Fun had numerous units of each one of their games. So, you got Labyrinth, you got Dune, you got Winchester Mystery House. Lots of fun to play. They even had a nice little tent. That way, you can really get that full-on experience. Very cool. Great games to play, but this is the first time that a lot of people are getting to play Winchester since it is a soldout game. Uh, lots of positive feedback. It's a great game to play. One cool thing that Barrels have done each year is they do a barrel ball, aka stall ball game at the end of Friday evening. Massive conga line of people playing this very fun game at 10:00. Super cool. Always a fun time with the Barrels of Fun crew. Guys, let me know out of the sights and the sounds, the announcements, the games you played, the games you want to play, what are you most excited about this year in the world of pinball. Let me know down in the comments below. If you enjoyed the content, make sure you hit that like button. Share this video with your friends if you found the information helpful. And as always, thanks for watching, guys. It really means a lot.