Scorbit Launches Achievements for Classic Games; Stern Pinball's King Kong was Almost Very Different & More
By knapparcade
One more sleep until we get to see The Goonies pinball! While we wait, let's talk about today's news. First up, we have a way to earn achievements for classic pinball machines. As I've mentioned a bunch of times here in the past, I'm a complete sucker for achievements and score tracking apps like Stern's Insider Connected. To the point that when I come across a modern Stern on location that isn't connected to the Internet it makes me sad lol. As someone who has collected achievements in video games on Steam for decades, I love how they give me an entirely new way to play a game besides just going for score. Achievements make me want to start a mode that I otherwise might not care about from a scoring perspective or have some sort of other goal in a game thereby extending its life for me personally. Sorry for going off on a tangent. Well, this afternoon Scorbit officially launched "Scorbit Achievements." It’s a new feature that awards collectible badges in the Scorbit app when players hit goals during a game. The first game supported is Bally’s The Addams Family. To use it, open the Scorbit app at a participating machine and claim a player slot. When you reach a goal, the badge unlocks in the app and goes into your collection. One example on The Addams Family is “Ten Million? I’m Waiting...”, earned by collecting 10 million on the Million Plus ramp. Each badge has its own artwork, and achievements come in related groups that can be completed as a set. Achievements are live on The Addams Family at four public locations to start: The Pinball Capital in Stone Park, Ill. Grizzlybird Brewing Company in Westerville, Ohio Reclaim Arcade in Fredericksburg, Va. Austin Beerworks at Sprinkle Valley in Austin, Texas Home owners can also use Achievements by connecting their machine with the Scorbitron Home Connection Kit ($399.99 at shop.scorbit.io). The kit connects over WiFi and doesn’t require a subscription. It also adds automatic score tracking and home leaderboards. Scorbit says more games will be added to Achievements across its network in the future. https://scorbit.io/
Next up we have some cool history...well modern history that we recently were given by Stern Pinball. Yesterday, Stern shared an interesting short video on Facebook that showed off the development process of the animatronic King Kong in Keith Elwin and team's 2025 game King Kong: Myth of Terror Island. Kong actually started out way, way bigger than he ended up on the final game. Meaning the only thing that would have been on the playfield would have been his left arm reaching through the back panel. That sure would have been totally different. Eventually the team switched things up and went with the moving Kong that we have in the back right corner today. I go bananas for this behind-the-scenes stuff. Get it? Waka waka waka lol. So we monkeyed around a bit 🦍 A behind the scenes look at how the King Kong mech in King Kong: Myth of Terror Island pinball!
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Stern also gave us a fun interview with several of its designers from its "Drinks With Jack" segment at Pinball Expo:
Ever wondered what it takes to design a world-class pinball machine?
In this special episode of Drinks with Jack, host Jack Danger sits down at Pinball Expo with legendary Stern Pinball designers Brian Eddy, Keith Elwin and Elliot Eismin.
Watch as these top pinball architects peel back the curtain on the pinball design process, theme integration, mechanical engineering, and game rules!
🔍 In this video, we cover:
• Pinball Inspirations: What drove these iconic designers into the arcade and pinball industry.
• Theme Research & Adaptation: How to approach a licensed theme and turn fan-favorite moments into playfield action.
• Playfield Engineering & Prototyping: 3D CAD layout vs. bending ball guides and physical Whitewood testing.
• Designing Pinball Mechs & Toys: The secrets behind iconic playfield features like the Twilight Zone Powerfield, the Doctor Who mini-playfield, and Godzilla's destructible building.
• Developing Rulesets: How designers collaborate with software engineers to build fun, deep game rules.
• Advice for Homebrewers & Aspiring Designers: The single most important thing you need to build to land a job in the pinball industry!
In location news, the major expansion by the Delaware Pinball Collective that I talked about here several weeks ago has begun. They recently picked up the keys to their new space that will more than DOUBLE the size of their pinball collection to a whopping 6,800 square feet when the buildout is complete. Their old spot was already amazing, I can’t wait to see what the new one is like. The DPC folks actually started renovations last week. Their goal is to be moved into the new spot across the street before Christmas. January 1st marks our 5 year anniversary of the club. Here's a quick peek at the work in progress at the new location, which is literally only 50 yards away from our current spot. Everything is ground level!, so no steps to haul games up :). I've also included a video of the old Delaware Pinball location that I filmed last year.
Last up I have a look at the cool speakeasy-style No Flip Pinball booth at this year’s Chicago Pinball Expo. No Flip returned to Expo with a booth of pre-war pinball machines from the 1930s, all set up for attendees to play. This was the group’s second straight year at the show. None of these games have flippers. Flippers didn’t arrive until Gottlieb’s Humpty Dumpty in 1947. On these machines you plunge the ball and guide it through fields of pins, holes and pockets by nudging the cabinet. Many of these games are rarely seen working, let alone lined up together on a show floor. The booth also brought back its 1930s pinball tournament at the event. Among the machines on the floor was Genco’s Spit Fire from 1935. Neat stuff!
