My Spooky Pinball Factory Tour

Cary Hardy·video·12m 50s·analyzed·Jan 9, 2025

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.023

TL;DR

Cary Hardy tours Spooky's new factory, documenting production workflow and Evil Dead early builds.

Summary

Cary Hardy tours Spooky Pinball's new factory in Benton, Wisconsin with co-owner Bug, showcasing the complete production workflow from playfield assembly through final QC and packaging. The facility features custom-built rotisseries, test rigs, and a streamlined two-sided workflow (playfield and cabinet sides). Currently in transition between Looney Tunes/Texas Chainsaw Massacre production and ramping Evil Dead, with three Evil Dead units undergoing final testing and refinement.

Key Claims

Spooky Pinball has two factories; this is the one designed for production and camera-friendly demonstration
high confidence · Bug explicitly states 'This is one of two factories. This is the factory where all the cool things to show on camera are were actual productions going on'
All factory equipment including rotisseries and test rigs were custom-designed and built for this specific facility
high confidence · Bug repeatedly emphasizes custom construction: 'everything in this factory was custom made for this factory' and 'these test rigs were custom built, of course, like everything else for this factory'
The new facility prioritizes workflow and QC by having separate playfield and cabinet production lanes that converge at assembly
high confidence · Bug describes the two-sided channel system and states 'In our previous factory, all of our areas and everything were kind of scattered about all over the place, and having a nice workflow was priority number one to help with QC in this new factory'
Test rigs are custom-built to allow playtesting in controlled environment before cabinet integration, and players have requested to purchase them for homebrew work
high confidence · Bug describes the test rigs and notes 'A lot of people who tour keep asking us to sell them test rigs now. They want to use it for their home brewing'
Standard and Bloodsucker editions of Texas Chainsaw Massacre are rarely produced and currently visible on production line
high confidence · Bug states 'There not a whole lot of standards or bloodsuckers sold of TCM out there in the world. So these being on the production line right now is pretty crazy. Like most people never ever get to really see that'
Evil Dead's first three production units were being tested and refined as of the filming date, with code development still ongoing
high confidence · Bug describes 'These are actually the first three on the production line. We were just in all weekend this weekend working on these, playing on them, testing them, still adding things, still changing things' and Luke Peters is shown doing live code testing

Notable Quotes

“Spooky pinball playfields are some of the sexiest, if not the sexiest, playfields in the business”
Bug@ 1:30 — Brand positioning and pride in playfield design quality
“These test rigs were custom built, of course, like everything else for this factory, for doing all of the playtesting on the machines”
Bug@ 5:02 — Emphasizes Spooky's custom infrastructure approach and commitment to QC through controlled testing environment
“There not a whole lot of standards or bloodsuckers sold of TCM out there in the world. So these being on the production line right now is pretty crazy”
Bug@ 6:32 — Indicates rarity of standard/Bloodsucker TCM editions and market production patterns
“We were just in all weekend this weekend working on these, playing on them, testing them, still adding things, still changing things, just refining it as much as we possibly can”
Bug@ 6:52 — Demonstrates ongoing refinement of Evil Dead before release; continuous iteration mindset
“The code grind never stops here. We are always working on that”
Bug@ 10:35 — Highlights Spooky's commitment to continuous code development and refinement post-production
“In our previous factory, all of our areas and everything were kind of scattered about all over the place, and having a nice workflow was priority number one to help with QC in this new factory”
Bug@ 3:32 — Explains the rationale behind the new factory design focused on operational efficiency and quality control

Entities

Spooky PinballcompanyCary Hardyperson Bugperson Evil Deadgame Texas Chainsaw Massacregame Looney Tunesgame Scooby-Doogame

Signals

?
business_signal: Spooky intentionally moved to new facility specifically timed before Evil Dead production to optimize quality conditions for flagship release
high · Bug states 'I was able to get into this new factory before Evil Dead, because I really wanted to make sure we had this perfect setup so that we could work on these games at the best quality'
?
community_signal: Customer interest in purchasing test rigs for homebrew/custom pinball work indicates community demand for professional-grade testing equipment
medium · Bug notes 'A lot of people who tour keep asking us to sell them test rigs now. They want to use it for their home brewing'
$
market_signal: Production transition underway from Looney Tunes/Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Evil Dead; playfield racks 'a little bit more barren right now' indicating winding down of previous titles
high · Bug notes 'we are winding down the TCM and Looney Tunes production as we transition to Evil Dead' and describes racks being less full during transition period
?
product_strategy: New Spooky facility designed with dedicated test rigs for playfield QC before cabinet integration, representing significant process improvement over previous scattered factory layout
high · Bug explicitly contrasts old facility ('scattered about all over the place') with new design prioritizing workflow and QC through separate playfield/cabinet production lanes
?
product_strategy: Evil Dead in final testing and refinement phase with live code development ongoing; first three production units under active development

Topics

Factory workflow and production optimizationprimaryEvil Dead production status and early testingprimaryQuality control procedures and testing infrastructureprimaryCustom factory design and equipmentprimaryProduction transition between game titlessecondaryCode development and ongoing refinementsecondaryComponent sourcing and parts assemblysecondaryPlayfield and cabinet production workflowssecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.85)— Both Cary and Bug express enthusiasm about the facility design, equipment, and Evil Dead's development. Bug is proud of the improvements over the previous factory. No critical comments or concerns raised; tone is celebratory throughout. Minor humor and banter at the end.

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.038

What's up guys and welcome back to the channel. I'm here in Benton, Wisconsin visiting Spooky Pinball. Spooky has brought a lot of your favorite themes into pinball. Last year they brought us Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre This year they're bringing it with Evil Dead And in this video Spooky Bug will be giving you a full tour of their facility Officer Doofy reporting for duty Alright, so we are at the very start of the production line here at Spooky Pinball This is one of two factories This is the factory where all the cool things to show on camera are were actual productions going on, cabinets made, playfields assembled, things tested, games played. But, you know, right at the start, obviously everything has to start with your playfields, and I thought this would be kind of neat to show off just because of the wide variety of playfields I have sitting next to me here. I have Evil Dead playfields, I have Scooby-Doo playfields, I have Looney Tunes. I actually might be just about out of TCMs, but I think I've got more coming tomorrow too, so, you know, Scooby-Doo upper playfields. But basically we have all of our really, really, I'll say it, sexy playfields, because spooky pinball playfields are some of the sexiest, if not the sexiest, playfields in the business. So yeah, everything starts down here. These guys will grab their playfields after they've gone through the appropriate checks, of course. And it gets brought over into this assembly area. So over here we have Jesse, also known as Sammy Hagar, who, he might not be on camera, but he is working on a Scooby-Doo right now. and what's nice is everything in this factory was custom made for this factory. So people are familiar with pinball rotisseries, you know, that's nothing totally new, but it was nice to be able to design these from the ground up, you know, mount them into the floor where we wanted them in the factory, set it to the height that was comfortable for our employees so that they weren't breaking their backs all day working on everything. Got it at just the perfect level for them. Nice brand new custom made rotisserie and Jesse's working on a Scooby-Doo. surrounding us on all sides of everything here is a bunch of parts for all the games that we are currently working on, which is those four that I mentioned earlier. Some of these parts being pinball life parts, you know, bins full of magnets and pop bumper assemblies, things like that. Other parts are the things that we do in-house, like this stacks of metal over here, where we have things like the gigantic inner loop on Texas Chainsaw and Looney Tunes, as well as other things done in-house, like our light boards, which goes... There's so many of them. It's a really fun puzzle to put together. I picked that up. I was going to say what part it went to, and I was like, oh, crap, we're doing too many games. I can't remember. But yeah so Jesse is surrounded by all these parts over here There actually another guy in this area Logan but he is overworking working on some upper playfields for Scooby at the moment not the big boards right now So this is where everything starts They work on this. They get all of the ball guides, the posts, the rubbers, the boards, the light boards, the warden. They get all these things slapped onto the playfields here, and when they are done, it moves on to the next area, which is the playfield wiring. In our previous factory, all of our areas and everything were kind of scattered about all over the place, and having a nice workflow was priority number one to help with QC in this new factory. So having things shift right over into the playfield wiring is great. There's a little test Evil Dead that we are still working on over here, kind of a sample playfield for these guys to work off of. But over here, so you have a multitude of playfields being wired. Right now, Steven's working on a Scooby-Doo. Dustin's working on a Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Looks like Seth is also working on a Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So these guys go through. They get everything wired up in the entire game. The switches, the coils. They run the GI, Optos. They run a whole multitude of different wires in the game. So they'll get that all wired up, everything soldered up really nice. And then that's where it moves on to the next area. One thing I'm kind of forgetting to mention is this really cool playfield racks that these guys put the playfields up on during each step. So when the playfield assembly guys are done, they set them up onto the racks, and then when the wires are ready for the next board, they walk over, grab it, set it down onto the rotisserie. The racks are a little bit more barren right now because we are winding down the TCM and Looney Tunes production as we transition to Evil Dead. I've shown countless photos of these racks completely full before, so just in a bit of a transition period right now between the games. But over here is where we get to what I think is probably the coolest thing that we've done in the new Spooky Pinball facility, which is our test rigs. So these test rigs were custom built, of course, like everything else for this factory, for doing all of the playtesting on the machines. So before, after a playfield was wired up, we would take it and it would go straight into a cabinet right away, which there's a lot of reasons that you maybe wouldn't want to do that. It's a lot nicer to have a more controlled environment to have the playfield in where you're using the same boards, same computers, same parts in the head so that you can really just focus all that QC on just the playfield. You're not walking next to a butter cabinet, risking scratching it with your belt buckle. You're not chasing down something that could be from the cabinet to the playfield. It puts it all under one more controlled area so they can really focus on getting the playfield done up nice. And then, of course, the cabinet area has its own QC checks as well to make sure that When this is done, you are marrying a perfect playfield to a perfect cabinet. But these test rigs are really great. One of the wildest things is that you can actually flip this completely 180 degrees around, or I guess 360, arguably, is to flip them around and everything. It's one of the coolest custom things that we got to work on in this factory was these test rigs, and we're really happy with how they've come out. A lot of people who tour keep asking us to sell them test rigs now. They want to use it for their home brewing and whatnot so they can work on playfields at home So that always really cool But yeah right now you have a multitude of different games on here This is actually a super rare sighting because these are not all collector edition playfields There not a whole lot of standards or bloodsuckers sold of TCM out there in the world. So these being on the production line right now is pretty crazy. Like most people never ever get to really see that. So they're working on Looney Tunes, they're working on TCM, and down here we have that special new game that we're currently working on, Evil Dead. These are actually the first three on the production line. We were just in all weekend this weekend working on these, playing on them, testing them, still adding things, still changing things, just refining it as much as we possibly can. But it's been really great working on them, and I'm very fortunate or very thankful that we were able to get into this new factory before Evil Dead, because I really wanted to make sure we had this perfect setup so that we could work on these games at the best quality that we could possibly handle. So in this area, when they get the game fully built out, like you can see, this Evil Dead is almost done. It is almost fully, completely built out. Once these are done, they get removed from these test rigs, and they get brought over here into these cabinets. So the cabinets will be sitting here, empty, ready for the playfields to go in. They will get their whole multitude of tests before a playfield comes into it. So when they're done with what they're working on over there, they pull them out, bring them over here, and that's where it then goes to the long line of QC and play testing that's behind me. But if we were to go back down this way, you'll notice the lines kind of two-sided. So that was all the playfield side of things. This is the cabinet side of things. So all these cabinets are on a channel that they can get pushed straight down in. Here's actually some playfields that are mostly done up and ready to get moved on to the QC phases coming up next. So down here you'll actually see where they're building the raw cabinets. So over here we have a bunch of the cabinets pre-decaled sitting, ready to go, ready to get decaled and put onto a stand. We've actually even got a Scooby-Doo butter that's sitting right here, a really nice butter cabinet that'll be ready to go into a stand soon. So in this department, and this part always kind of looks like a mess, but in this department is where they're actually putting all of the components into the cabinet. They're getting your subwoofer, they're wiring up the cabinet, the power supplies, the distribution boards, everything into here, as well as the heads where they have this awesome custom-made stand to work on the heads in as well. So they're getting like the topper installed with the lights right now. And as they get all that done here, it gets slid down to, like I said, where the playfields get met into the cabinets on the line. And then you'll notice as I'm walking around all these areas, there's a bunch of tables and a bunch of shelves around me. That is where everyone is working on various other components. Like right now, Chris is working on the display panels. You can see some of them stacked up here. And Emily is going to be working on... She's working on something really cool. She's working on the rockets and the grinders for Looney Tunes and TCM, getting those wired up and everything added onto that. Yeah, cool. Rocket ship. Emily got one of the cooler jobs because she gets to put together the fun little toys It like working at Santa elf shop So yeah those guys will be working on a bunch of different things in each area Each area is dedicated to various parts of the process like that. And then, yeah, like I said, coming down here, we're going to be a little bit quiet because Adam's on the phone with a customer because Adam is in the tech support department. But once you get down here is where we hit the multiple, multiple days of play testing and checks that the games get before they officially go out into the wild, into boxes, which I can actually show that area more back here. We've also got Luke Peters testing Evil Dead right now in the background, so you're going to see some live code development testing going on behind us. And he should probably cover his laptop screen just to be safe. Oh good, he closed it. Okay. So Evil Dead, Luke Peters is over here literally doing code testing right now. So when we had Mr. Cary playing the game earlier, Luke rolled over with his laptop on a stand, opened it up, and started taking notes immediately. So the code grind never stops here. We are always working on that. So, yeah, some wicked Evil Dead gameplay in the background for you. And then into this area is where Jay is doing the final touches on the games before they go into the box. This is where you start getting your magnet decal sets added. The glass gets put on, various foam packaging, things like that. And then the game gets folded down, set onto a pallet, boxed up. And that's where you have your whole row of box games over in this corner over here, ready to go out the door. Luke's on the phone yelling at someone for something right now. They probably deserve it. Or, you know, who knows what he could be going off about over there. but yeah that's essentially the workflow of the new spooky facility here and I hope you guys enjoyed it I could still talk for hours about each every single department and what they have going on and how we've improved it over the years but I think we're just going to let it speak for itself with Evil Dead's this year as they roll out the door and we're really looking forward to getting to the first shows with those games we're looking forward to getting these first few Evil Dead's off the production line in the near future here and yeah you'll start seeing a consistent flow from us pretty soon so looking forward to getting it out to you guys that wraps up the tour everyone this video and the whole trip was brought to you by my awesome supporters on patreon without their support this trip would not be possible. And of course, a special thank you to Spooky Pinball for having me over and allowing me to share all of this with you. If you are interested in getting a Spooky Pinball machine, you can reach out to them directly or contact your favorite pinball distro. And until next time, guys, peace out. I'll just jump right into it. Yeah, okay, so here we have Spooky Bug over here going to show us Did you almost forget my name? No, I saw you pause. I had a moment of autism.