New Beetlejuice Callouts Today or Tomorrow; Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Production & Topper Update; Analysis of Time to Complete Code
By knapparcade
We're in the eye of the storm for pinball news this week, with nothing big happening before the new game reveals from Jersey Jack Pinball and Pinball Brothers very soon. Let's kick things off with info about Spooky Pinball. Last night, we got a bunch of new information about Spooky on the weekly Bug's Scream N' Stream broadcast. The biggest news is that a new code update for Spooky's latest game, Beetlejuice, is coming tonight or early tomorrow. That code includes a major change to the game...much-requested callouts. Specifically, there will be callouts from four different types of characters. These callouts will be automatically turned on, but game owners can turn them off in the menu. Ultimately, Spooky would like to give owners the ability to individually select which of the four callout types are active. The new code also includes a new "Head Shrink" mode and a "boatload" of new speaker-kit light shows. These new speaker light shows will work on the game's existing speaker lights as well as the upcoming "Dead Ring" under-cabinet lighting mod that Spooky is launching soon. The Dead Ring will work on other Spooky pins, including Evil Dead and likely others. Spooky has so far boxed up approximately 400 of the 999 Beetlejuice games it is making. Production has been slowed a little by the fact that Spooky keeps having to build Scooby-Doo and Texas Chainsaw Massacre games. Those two machines keep selling, and Spooky likes to keep an inventory of 10 to 15 in boxes for potential sales, so they have been replenishing their stock.
Next up is an update on the now-defunct Dutch Pinball Exclusive's game Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Both Dutch Pinball and its former employee Melvin Williams shared updates about the game on Pinside recently. Dutch Pinball has run into two different issues building toppers for the game: the cat sculpt itself and the PCB for the eyes. Dutch's original PCB supplier had promised to deliver them by May, already a delay from the original January promise. Delivery of the PCBs has now been postponed again, without explanation. The latest update is that a small batch of them is supposed to arrive at Dutch during the second half of June, with the remainder arriving during the second half of August. In response to this, Dutch has been attempting to design its own PCBs for the eyes. Testing and revisions of those are ongoing, with a larger production order scheduled for delivery by the end of July. If this comes to fruition, Dutch expects to be able to complete all of its toppers for the game during August and September. The company's second supplier for the cat sculpt is now delivering in larger quantities, so the PCB is the main obstacle at this point. Dutch has been able to build some toppers. Twelve units are boxed and ready for its next shipment to the United States, which will likely happen in the latter half of June. A batch of 12 units will ship to EU customers around then as well. Newly produced Alice games are all shipping with toppers at this point. If any customers end up not receiving a topper for their game, the machine's creator, Melvin Williams — who has since left and gone to American Pinball — has personally promised to make them himself with Lior. Melvin is busy working on new projects for American, but he does plan on finishing the Alice code. He hopes to have a code update for the game in six to eight weeks. Below are recent images of machines and toppers being built at the Dutch Pinball factory.
Last up we have a really cool project that Serge of the Pinpals and Electric Bat tournament streams shared with me. He put together a website that shows how long it has taken various manufacturers to complete the code on their games. The website has an interactive chart that shows how long it took games to reach code version 1.0 or equivalent, the final Wizard Mode and current status for games that aren't complete. The site even automatically updates itself every two weeks. Very cool information. https://pinball-code-completion.vercel.app/
Anyone who has any suggestions for the site can reach out to Serge directly at sergepinpals@gmail.com .