Early this morning, after a lengthy teaser countdown, the pinball community was introduced to Vonnie D Pinball’s new project entitled Pinball Gremlins. The new machine was announced by way of a Kickstarter campaign and introduction video that asked for the community’s supportin realizing their dream of building a pinball machine. The video highlighted some lofty aspirations, which is fantastic, but only if those aspirations are realized. The goal they wish to achieve through crowd funding is $100,000USD, with supporter rewards that run from keychain-style trinkets to limited edition machines.
The Kickstarter announcement video featured engineer Von Davis and producer Wes Upchurch sitting in front of a row of pinball machines, speaking about the table they wish to produce. To appeal to a younger audience more attuned to video games, their Pinball Gremlins machine will be more “interactive” with the player, having players battle Gremlin “bosses” that actually “fight back” in various ways. I like the theme of “Gremlins in the machine”, as it is something everyone in the community can relate to–we’ve all had that nagging mechanical issue that can’t be explained within a machine in our collection and can only be attributed to a “pinball gremlin” wreaking havoc on the inside. And no, Pinball Gremlins has nothing to do with the 1984 film of the same name, but I’m sure confusion will exist.
Vonnie D Pinball stated that they are working with Pinball Life and Marco Specialties to provide the parts they require for production, and will have a board set developed by Pinball Controllers (the P-Roc guys). The game will be made in a widebody style. They have pinball designer Barry Oursler on board to provide further help in the design arena. With the original theme comes original artwork, which looks quite intriguing even though what was released isn’t much more than ink sketches at this time. LED lighting, a full-colour DMD and smaller LCD display screens near the playfield round out the features of note thus far. A playfield layout sketch was also released.
The Kickstarter funds don’t seem to cover anything special, they’ll just support the day-to-day operations of the company and help get the machine produced. As for the machines themselves, a $6,500USD Kickstarter donation gets you a standard version of the machine, while $7,000USD will get you a Limited Edition (that price raises to $8,000USD once ten at the $7,000USD level are sold). This version of the LE looks to have a run of 500. To complicate things further, there also exists a $9,000USD pledge that will get you a Kickstarter Limited Edition and a $10,000USD pledge for an “Ultra Rare Limited Edition Gold” version. You almost need a spreadsheet to keep track.
The announcement comes on the heels of Circus Maximus’ announcement over the weekend that they will be re-imagining Python Anghelo’s Pinball Circus and starting full-scale production without the aid of pre-orders of crowd funding. This market is getting dangerously crowded. The boutique market is seriously ready to collapse under its own weight unless one of these manufacturers can step up and prove that pinball on a small scale can actually run with Stern and Jersey Jack Pinball. Vonnie D marks another “boutique” manufacturer looking for money from the community up front to help get their machine made. However, there is already the feeling in the community that pre-ordering machines without actually seeing, touching and playing them first is just not best-practice anymore. Vonnie D has their work cut out for them, as their goal is quite lofty. However, selling a handful of their limited edition machines through Kickstarter will certainly get them there. It will be interesting to see if the community responds.
More insight and analysis to follow once more details are released.
Further Reading:
Kickstarter – Pinball Gremlins Pinball Machine
Vonnie D Pinball – Homepage
Game Plan began producing video games, slot machines and cocktail pinball tables in the late 1970s. Many of the pin games were designed by 1990s Data East stalwart Ed Cebula, who was, at the time, just starting out in the industry. The company found little success with their niche cocktail tables in an already crowded pinball market, itself on the verge of a massive collapse thanks to the popularity of upright video games. It is interesting to note that Game Plan saw licencing as a viable marketing strategy very early on. Black Velvet liquor, Real brand cigarettes and Camel Lights cigaterres were three early “themes” for the company, and remain the most interesting cross-promotional tables the pinball world has ever seen. It was no secret the intended market for Game Plan–-their early machines were not for kids in arcades, but rather for sophisticated, discerning adults in bars and private clubs. As time marched on and the pinball bust took effect, Game Plan reversed this strategy, whole heartedly in 1979, releasing the cocktail tables Family Fun!, which depicted the smiling faces of a mom, a dad and their leaping child, and Star Trip, a pseudo-Star Wars knockoff. These two “arcade friendly” games appear just before the company released their first traditional pinball table, and first real success, Sharpshooter. Sharpshooter was designed by Mr. Cebula, Joe Joos and pinball godfather Roger Sharpe (he’s also depicted as the main cowboy character on the backglass), and turned Game Plan into a viable upstart competitor to Williams, Stern and Bally.
When Game Plan licenced the Bossy machine, he was at the top of his game. He was in the process of helping lead the Islanders to four straight Stanley Cups, and, in true “Scoring Machine” fashion, racked up fifty goal seasons in each of the campaigns he played. Further, he has the honour of being the only player to score back-to-back Stanley Cup game winning goals and the only player to score four game winning goals in one best-of-seven playoff series. All this on his way to holding the highest regular season goals-per-game average in NHL history, a record that stands to this day. He was undoubtedly worthy of his own pinball machine, yet it still seems an odd choice, because a young upstart named Wayne Gretzky was tearing it up in the NHL at the very same time. Bossy was a more proven and successful commodity, but Gretzky had youth, good looks and marketability on his side….AND his own action figure. The sports world has never really given the Islanders their due, even when they were dominating the NHL in a way rarely seen since, and Game Plan’s selection of Bossy was a rare instance of putting the spotlight on a member of the rag-tag franchise. Regardless, the game never made it to production. Only one prototype exists. Maybe they should have went with Gretzky.
Overall, the game looks like it would be a dud. It has the sparse feel of a prototype mockup, which it is, however it must have made it through the white-wood prototype stage, as a complete populated playfield and professionally rendered backglass both exist. It also looked to be marketed as a multi-player game, as it would keep score, up to nine goals, between four different opponents. The promotional materials were vague at best, boasting the word “HOCKEY” over the name Mike Bossy, and claiming it was a “hockey game you play like a pin ball game”. It appears as if the Scoring Machine fell into some sort of neither region–a convoluted mix between a traditional pinball, a puck bowler, table top hockey and a pitch and bat–without actually deciding what the game was going to be. Instead of working out the kinks, I guess the idea was just completely scrapped.
News broke at the Southern Fried Gameroom Expo on Sunday that a company called Circus Maximus Games will be producing a version of Python Anghelo’s prototype masterpiece Pinball Circus. Southern Fried’s Twitter feed broke the story giving just a few details: Circus Maximus is building two whitewood test tables, twelve prototype models, followed by a regular run of games with a production number yet to be determined. They also provided the picture to left of one of the Pinball Circus playfields, which is signed by the pinball vampire himself.
I had the pleasure of playing this rare game at the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. The production run of the game sits at just two prototype units. The Hall of Fame machine was donated to operator Tim Arnold by longtime Williams honcho Steve Kordek, and each play on the machine will run you one dollar. Much has been said about its unique four level vertical design, and most of it has to do with its novelty and rarity. There is not much to the gameplay–it is very simple and quite repetitive. The game sits inside of a modified upright arcade cabinet, and a DMD is located in the play area itself, a la Cirqus Voltaire. Gameplay focuses on progressing through the three rings of a circus represented by three different playfields. The fourth, and last, playfield represents a final battle with a circus clown. The game has odd flipper configurations throughout: the main playfield has off-set pair of primary flippers, while the third has only one right flipper with a kicker in place of left. After three or four games on the Pinball Circus, I had done all that there was to do in the game.
Matt from Titan: The initial decision was more whimsical than anything. It just came up in conversation over dinner one evening. I didn’t really want to pursue a living in the same industry I had worked for the past fourteen years. What else could we do? How about pinball? The actual process of starting the business was beyond nerve-racking.
MT: Out of the blue. We were working on the Flintstones with the playfield up when I happened to look down at the tilt. I wondered how hard it would be to have all of my machines set to the same sensitivity. The first Tilt-o-Meter was a piece of paper taped to the tilt mechanism. Then came the idea for a small device. After struggling with 3D printer software for a few days, I sent the model to be fabricated. We realized 3D printing was great for a prototype, but not really conducive for volume production. This gave us a great excuse to play with silicone molds. After much trial and error, we finally made a mold that works relatively well. We cast in resin, pop them out, sand them, and apply the label. Voila, you have a Tilt-o-Meter.
CD: This innovation was a long time coming for a community ravenous to make their machines unique. Why has it taken so long for coloured rubber to hit the market?
Well, Stern got the Kiss licence. Somewhere in the distant future we are going see Gene Simmons and company on a Pro, a Premium, and as many different Limited Editions as our hobby will tolerate. No matter what the community says, this is a no brainer for Stern and a licence that should have been acquired years ago. There is a built-in fan base. If you look at pictures of any Kiss fanatic’s rec-room, you are bound to see, amongst all the other Kiss Krap, a 1979 Bally KISS pinball machine. Guaranteed, these same fanatics will pony up as much money as it takes to get a brand new Stern Kiss Dynasty Limited Edition (or whatever they are going to call it) right off the assembly line, if only to display beside the Bally original. The Bally game isn’t groundbreaking in terms of gameplay, but its popularity and theme make it a very important game in pinball history and an expensive game to obtain on the secondary market.
The game’s production began in mid-1978, but was ultimately released to the public in June 1979, with Kiss, arguably, at the peak of their popularity. This era saw the band release the certified platinum albums Love Gun and Dynasty, and the double platinum smash hit Alive II that redefined how the music industry recorded and marketed live albums. I think even hardcore fans would like to forget that the band also released their four individual solo albums during this period, which all eventually obtained platinum status, but are considered a commercial and artistic failure by many. At the time the pinball machine hit the market, their line of Barbie-sized Mego action figures were on the toy shelves across North America. The band also filmed a made-for-television movie entitled “Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park” which aired on NBC in 1978, and is an absolute nightmare in both production value and storyline, but hey, they were on network television, right? Even if the quality went off the rails a time or two, Kiss always knew how to market themselves. They did something almost unachievable: they were at the forefront of 1970s pop culture, while existing as complete outsiders in the mainstream. They were the biggest band in America, selling out stadiums across the globe, but number one hits and artistic credibility eluded them. It is bound to happen with one-dimensional lyrics and silver face paint.
As with the Mego dolls, the backglass of Bally’s Kiss depicts the band in a slight variation of their Love Gun era costumes. The art is beautifully rendered by Kevin O’Connor–it is one of the earliest pinball art packages he worked on and is far and away his best work as a pinball artist. The backglass captures all the sexuality and excitement the band exuded while performing on stage. You can almost smell the sweat. I hope that’s sweat I smell. O’Connor still works in the medium, most recently working on Stern’s X-Men and Star Trek. It is interesting to note that O’Connor worked on Bally’s Star Trek as well, so if he gets the opportunity to work on Stern’s Kiss release, he will have come full circle on two licences (wait, make that three, he also worked on the Data East Simpsons and Stern’s Simpsons Pinball Party). The playfield features snakes and fire and lightning and breasts and everything that a teenager would be drawn to. The playfield follows the rule of fours: four drop targets, four pop bumpers, four stand-up targets, four letters in the bank A-B-C-D, a four-by-four matrix of K-I-S-S letters and, of course, four members of the band. There are five roll-over lanes at the top of machine that throws that whole theory off though–four of them representing a single letter in K-I-S-S and an extra lane in the centre to represent the entire word.
The game sports a Bally AS-2518-35 MPU, which was Bally’s go-to unit from about 1977 until they moved to the ever troublesome 6803 operating system under the Bally/Midway banner. With a little elbow grease and some well documented modifications, the -35 MPU can be solid, and if not, you can always get yourself any one of a handful of after market replacements. The Internet Pinball Database page for the game has a quote from a Bally employee claiming that the game had originally contained speech in prototype versions, which would have preceded Gorgar, the first game with speech, by about a year-and-a-half. The sound package contains all the beeps and bloops of the era, with the extra bonus of having a few lame bars of “Rock and Roll All Night” play when you start a game, and an almost unrecognizable electronic mess of the “Shout It Out Loud” chorus at game over. They should have sunk their money into speech. Foreign markets received a different backglass than the North American market at the request of the Germans: the two trademark lightning bolt “S” letters in the Kiss name were changed to generic lettering (reminiscent of sports jersey lettering), as it too closely resembled the “SS” logo of the Nazi police. Germans have the right to be a little sensitive about Nazi connotations, I suppose, but it just goes to show how much influence the European distributors had over American pinball manufacturers. Add this change to a list which includes, but is not limited to, an alternate backglass for Special Force and the introduction of Williams lightning flippers.
As a Kiss fan, the only reason I don’t own this game is that they demand insane money on the secondary market. They made an absolute ton of these games, a run of 17,000 confirmed units, but the problem is condition. The game did so well on location, for so many years, that the original playfields are absolutely blown out to the bare wood (especially around the centre Kiss matrix) and the cabinets beat to hell and back. Reproduction playfields are available, but sinking that kind of money into such a one dimensional game is something few collectors are willing to do–unless the machine holds some sort of sentimental value or they happen to be a Kiss fanatic. Reproduction pop bumper caps are also out there, and they are probably the coolest to ever grace a machine: each one bearing the visage of one of the members of the band.
CREDIT DOT 