The 2025 TWIPY Pinball Awards: Full Winners and Recap

Kineticist·article·analyzed·Feb 20, 2026

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 (batch) · $0.012

TL;DR

2025 TWIPYs KISS Edition: Evil Dead sweeps, Harry Potter wins GOTY, format rebuilt for craft over scale.

Summary

The 2025 TWIPYs awards ceremony was reimagined as a stripped-down, seven-category "KISS Edition" focused purely on game design without sponsors or creator awards. Evil Dead (Spooky Pinball) dominated with three wins including Best Theme Integration and Best Sound, while Harry Potter (Jersey Jack) won Game of the Year and Best Animations, and King Kong (Stern) took Best Rules and Best Playfield Layout. The production was redesigned as a filmed, personality-driven show with extended interviews rather than a live broadcast, prioritizing craft and community connection over scale.

Key Claims

Evil Dead (Spooky Pinball) won three TWIPY awards: Best Theme Integration, Best Sound, and Best Art Package
high confidence · Official TWIPY results reported in article; Bug Emery and Chris Franchi accepted awards
Harry Potter (Jersey Jack Pinball) won Game of the Year and Best Animations at the 2025 TWIPYs
high confidence · Official award announcement; Eric Meunier accepted Game of the Year
King Kong (Stern) won Best Rules (Lyman F. Sheats Jr. Award) and Best Playfield Layout
high confidence · Official award announcement; Keith Elwin and Rick Naegele accepted on behalf of design teams
The 2025 TWIPYs were restructured to seven categories focused solely on game design, removing sponsors and creator awards
high confidence · Opening statement by Kineticist editors describing the 'KISS Edition' format change
Evil Dead's sound design was entirely original composition because Spooky Pinball didn't have rights to original Evil Dead film scores
high confidence · Bug Emery's acceptance speech crediting composer Matt Montgomery (Piggy D) for original sound work
King Kong's unlicensed status (based on public domain 1932 novel) gave Keith Elwin 6-7 months to refine the playfield layout without licensor toy placement mandates
high confidence · Keith Elwin's acceptance speech explaining the advantage of public domain IP for design freedom
Harry Potter required sign-off from two separate licensing parties, making it the toughest license Jean-Paul de Win has worked on
high confidence · Jean-Paul de Win's comments during Best Animations acceptance, noting some animation work was cut in approval process
Viewership and vote totals were down from prior TWIPYs years due to fewer categories and video production format vs. live broadcast
high confidence · Kineticist editors' reflection on KISS Edition metrics impact

Notable Quotes

“We said, okay, we're putting absolutely everything we have at this on all fronts. Just to see what we're made out of.”
Corwin "Bug" Emery (Spooky Pinball) @ Not provided — Reflects Spooky's deliberate commitment to audio and theme excellence on Evil Dead as a test of company capabilities
“Took us about 13 years, but we figured it out.”
Corwin "Bug" Emery (Spooky Pinball) @ Not provided — Positions Evil Dead as the culmination of Spooky's learning curve from founding to 2025
“If you take colors that already exist in that world and you brighten them up, you can get more impact, but you're still playing in that same playfield.”
Chris Franchi (Spooky Pinball art director) @ Not provided — Explains practical approach to translating muted film aesthetics into vibrant pinball art while maintaining thematic consistency
“These games take so much of our heart and souls when we make them, and it's not just the game designer that makes a game, it's the entire team.”
Eric Meunier (Jersey Jack Pinball) @ Not provided — Emphasizes team-based manufacturing philosophy; credited multiple engineers and production staff by name
“Playfield design is kind of the easy part. And of course the fun part's usually over way too soon, and then it's like a year of grinding development after that.”
Keith Elwin (Stern Pinball) @ Not provided — Reveals candid perspective on design workflow: initial creative phase is short; bulk of effort is refinement and debugging
“We took no sponsors. We produced it in a fraction of the time, on a fraction of the budget, with a small team of people who wanted to make something fun.”
Kineticist editorial team @ Not provided — Summarizes the editorial philosophy behind the KISS Edition redesign
“The TWIPYs have always belonged to the community. Now they get to be fun, too.”
Kineticist editorial team @ Not provided — Final statement on the awards show's repositioning toward accessibility and entertainment value

Entities

Evil Deadgame Harry Pottergame King Kong: Myth of Terror IslandgameCorwin "Bug" EmerypersonBen HeckpersonMatt MontgomerypersonChris FranchipersonBrad Albrightperson

Signals

~
sentiment_shift: Evil Dead's three TWIPY wins position Spooky Pinball as achieving unprecedented manufacturing and design quality after 13 years of iteration; community recognition of Spooky's progression from boutique startup to quality competitor with Stern
high · Bug Emery: 'Took us about 13 years, but we figured it out.' Three wins across theme, sound, and art categories; positioning as culmination of company learning
?
design_philosophy: Spooky Pinball deliberately invested in original composition for Evil Dead when licensing prevented use of film scores; treated sound design as a core competitive advantage requiring intensive labor (days in studio layering textures)
high · Bug Emery: 'We said, okay, we're putting absolutely everything we have at this on all fronts.' Sound package built from scratch by Matt Montgomery; multiple days spent by Ben Heck layering 4-6 textures per sound effect
?
product_strategy: Public domain status of King Kong (1932 novel) provided Keith Elwin 6-7 months of uninterrupted playfield refinement without licensor toy placement mandates, contrasting with typical licensed games requiring restarts due to IP holder changes
high · Keith Elwin: Unlicensed status 'gave him an unusually long runway to refine the layout over six or seven months without having to start over due to toy placement mandates'
?
product_concern: Harry Potter required multi-party approval process resulting in animation work being cut from final product; Jean-Paul de Win noted this was the most complex licensing approval he's experienced
high · Jean-Paul de Win: Harry Potter was 'the toughest license he's worked on from an approvals standpoint, requiring sign-off from two separate parties.' Olaf admitted 'some of his favorite work got killed in the process'

Topics

2025 TWIPY Awards Ceremony ResultsprimarySpooky Pinball's Evil Dead Success and Design PhilosophyprimaryJersey Jack Pinball's Harry Potter Game of the Year WinprimaryKing Kong Playfield Design and Public Domain AdvantagesprimaryAwards Format Redesign: From Live Broadcast to Produced VideoprimaryOriginal Soundtrack and Sound Design in Licensed vs. Unlicensed GamessecondaryAnimation and Licensing Approval ComplexitysecondaryTeam-Based Manufacturing Philosophy in Pinballsecondary

Sentiment

neutral(0)

Transcript

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Like what you're reading? Get pinball news, analysis, and deep dives delivered to your inbox. Get pinball news, analysis, and deep dives delivered to your inbox. We billed it the KISS Edition — a deliberate stripping down to what the TWIPYs were always supposed to be about. Seven categories, all focused on game design. No sponsors. No creator awards. Just the games and the people who made them. Thirteen games were eligible: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Dutch Pinball Exclusive), Blues Brothers (Home Pin), Dungeons & Dragons (Stern), Dune (Barrels of Fun), Evil Dead (Spooky Pinball), Harry Potter (Jersey Jack Pinball), King Kong: Myth of Terror Island (Stern), Merlin's Arcade (Turner Pinball), Portal (Multimorphic), Predator (Pinball Brothers), Star Wars: Fall of the Empire (Stern), Walking Dead Remastered (Stern), and Winchester Mystery House (Barrels of Fun). The nominee pool varied slightly by category, with voters ranking their top three in each. Points were awarded 3-2-1. Three games took all seven awards. Harry Potter took Game of the Year and Best Animations. Evil Dead swept Best Theme Integration, Best Art Package, and Best Sound. And King Kong earned Best Rules (the Lyman F. Sheats Jr.. Award) and Best Playfield Layout. Spooky Pinball's Evil Dead was the story of the night. Three wins out of seven categories — more than any other game. Corwin "Bug" Emery accepted on behalf of the Spooky team for both Best Sound and Best Theme Integration, crediting software developer Ben Heck and composer Matt “Count D” Montgomery (Piggy D) for a sound package built entirely from scratch. The team didn't have the rights to the original film scores, so Montgomery composed every piece of mode music as original work. Bug and Heck spent days in Heck's basement layering four to six textures into every single sound effect in the game. "We said, okay, we're putting absolutely everything we have at this on all fronts," Bug said. "Just to see what we're made out of." Evil Dead, he suggested, was the culmination of everything Spooky has learned as a company. "Took us about 13 years, but we figured it out." Christopher Franchi, Spooky's new art director, took Best Art Package — his first TWIPY since winning for Stern's The Munsters in 2019. He was gracious about the field, singling out Brad Brad Albright's two art packages (Winchester Mystery House and Portal) as a newcomer worth watching. When asked about translating Evil Dead's muted film palette into a pinball art package, Franchi's answer was characteristically practical: "If you take colors that already exist in that world and you brighten them up, you can get more impact, but you're still playing in that same playfield." Three TWIPYs out of seven is a statement from Spooky. Eric Meunier accepted Game of the Year for Jersey Jack Pinball, thanking lead programmer Joe Katz, mechanical engineer Dan Dan Lachcik, and the animations team of Jean-Paul Jean-Paul de Win and Olaf Olaf Gremie in the Netherlands. He called out Krystle Gemnich, an unsung hero who turns prototyping chaos into production-ready documentation, and made a point to acknowledge the production line workers who build the game every day. "These games take so much of our heart and souls when we make them," Meunier said. "And it's not just the game designer that makes a game, it's the entire team." Jean-Paul and Olaf, accepting Best Animations earlier in the show, offered an honest peek behind the curtain. Jean-Paul noted that Harry Potter was the toughest license he's worked on from an approvals standpoint, requiring sign-off from two separate parties. Olaf admitted that some of his favorite work got killed in the process — water under the bridge, he said. Keith Elwin accepted Best Playfield Layout for King Kong — adding to a TWIPY collection that at this point needs its own shelf. He credited the lack of a licensor on King Kong (based on the 1932 public domain novel) for giving him an unusually long runway to refine the layout over six or seven months without having to start over due to toy placement mandates. "Playfield design is kind of the easy part," Elwin said. "And of course the fun part's usually over way too soon, and then it's like a year of grinding development after that." Rick Naegele accepted the Lyman F. Sheats Jr.. Award for Best Rules, thanking Joshua Joshua Henderson, Brett Z Rubin, Mitch Deason, Mark Guidarelli, and Mark Penacho by name. He gave particular credit to Deason's Blender plugin that allowed artists to choreograph Kong mech animations in 3D software — a pipeline innovation that made the animatronic feel alive rather than mechanical. Viewership and vote totals were down from prior years. That's to be expected with fewer categories and a produced video instead of a live broadcast. The early TWIPYs were scrappy, DIY affairs — the show grew from there, and it kept growing until it was bloated past the point of manageability. The KISS Edition was a reset. Strip it back to the essentials. See what happens. What the show lost in scale, it gained in focus, craft, and personality. The KISS Edition framing was designed to give our production team cover to do something simple if they wanted to. Matt and Don took that permission and ignored it entirely — delivering something way more ambitious than anyone expected. They were genuinely funny as hosts. The creative segments — a running sci-fi storyline involving pintonium and interdimensional portals, a man-on-the-street bit where arcade-goers tried to guess what a TWIPY is, and a chaotic mid-show interruption from Gorgar, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and King Kong arguing over lifetime achievement awards in a bit riffing on Conan O'Brien's Syncro-Vox segments — were the kind of weird, specific, low-budget comedy that only works when the people making it are having a good time. They were having a good time. The interviews were the highlight. Instead of a quick thank-you and a wave, each winner sat down for a real conversation about their craft. Bug explaining how he and Ben Heck spent entire days in an unfinished basement making obnoxious noises into microphones. Christopher Franchi on why fans beg for original themes and then don't buy them. Keith Elwin describing the dopamine of layout design. Eric Meunier getting visibly moved talking about his team. Rick Naegele breaking down the difference between good code from a programmer's perspective versus a designer's. These conversations don't happen in a live awards format. They happened here because this format made room for them. To the BASH Pinball crew — Matt and Don — for being willing to take a weird idea and run with it, and then making it way better than it had any right to be. To Ian Jacoby of Nudge for co-writing and production, and to Sarah Atashi for additional production support. To Marc Marc Silk for narration that made a shoestring production sound like something with ten times the budget. To Anna M. in props and Brad Brad Albright for lending his art and playing along with the bit. To Will Oetting for the vote stewardship. To every winner and nominee who gave their time for an interview — Jean-Paul Jean-Paul de Win, Olaf Olaf Gremie, Christopher Franchi, Rick Naegele, Keith Elwin, and Eric Meunier. To the Triangle Pinball Collective, the crews at Arcadia Manor, the Basement, Super Abari Game Bar, and the Baxter for opening their doors. And to everyone who voted. This was a different TWIPYs. We took no sponsors. We produced it in a fraction of the time, on a fraction of the budget, with a small team of people who wanted to make something fun. We filmed it at real arcades where real people play pinball, and we asked those real people what the hell a TWIPY is, and most of them had no idea, and that was funny, and we kept it in. Different doesn't mean worse. It means we get to try things. It means we get to be weird and creative and see what works. It means we can make an awards show where Gorgar and Arnold Schwarzenegger crash the ceremony and argue about nipple definition, and a guy from Portugal tells us his favorite game is Lord of the Rings, and Corwin (Bug) Emery describes the toilet situation in Ben Heck's basement. We'll also be releasing the full-length interviews — many of which ran longer than what aired — as a series called The TWIPYs Afterparty. Stay tuned for that. We're excited about what this creative team can build together going forward. Same energy, same people, more time to push the format further. The TWIPYs have always belonged to the community. Now they get to be fun, too. Colin is the chief pixel pusher at Kineticist. He's a lifetime gamer who became enamored with pinball after taking in a family copy of the 1979 classic Joker Poker (the EM version). Since then he's bought, sold and repaired many machines, competed in all kinds of tournaments, and contributes to This Week in Pinball, the New Robert Englunds Pinball League, and Pin-Masters of New Robert Englunds. Previously, Colin spent over a decade working in marketing for agencies and tech startups. He also started and ran a music blog, happy hour website, and wrote a regular craft beer review column for Central Track in Dallas. Once aspired to be an artsy film director.