Winchester Mystery House Pinball Production Update; Initial Batch of Wonderland Amusements' Home Pinball Machine Complete, Announces Next Theme; Pulp Fiction Discounts & More
By knapparcade
Happy almost Thanksgiving everyone! I'm hosting this year, so between shopping for food and hanging out with relatives here's a quick update. Yesterday, the Houston, Texas-based pinball manufacturer Barrels of Fun provided an update on its newest pinball machine Winchester Mystery House. The Company has shipped several games so far, all of which were built by its special prototype engineers. If I recall correctly, during its recent factory tour Barrels said that it planned to have those engineers build the first 15 or so machines. During the first week of November, Barrels of Fun began training employees for its second production line (it is building Winchester and its previous game Dune simultaneously). This week the engineers have taken a step back from training and the second line has begun to produce games. Production has been slowed by delays on parts from a couple of vendors who missed their original ship dates. It will also ramp up slowly as Barrels' Quality Control team double and triple checks games before shipping. A batch of Winchester games will ship from the factory in the middle of next week after the Thanksgiving holiday. Barrels of Fun expects to ship all 525 Winchester machines by late Spring / Early Summer.
Those of you who are not into competitive pinball might not know that Stern Pinball has a special program that provides discounts on games to the Top 1,000 ranked IFPA players in the World. This program has been going on for quite some time. Now another company has decided to offer a similar perk. Moments ago Play Mechanix launched its own "Rewards Program" that also provides a special unspecified discount on Pulp Fiction SE pinball machines for customers in the United States who are in the Top 1,000 of IFPA's rankings. I didn't realize that there was that many Pulp Fictions sitting in stock. If you play a lot of tournament pinball and like the game, now is your chance :).
The new manufacturer of home pinball machines, Wonderland Amusements, announced yesterday that it has completed its initial production run of Alice Goes to Wonderland for Kickstarter backers. The games have been built, but they have not yet shipped. The last I heard, Wonderland Amusements is expecting to send its first batch of tracking numbers to people who ordered the game in mid-December. Hopefully they arrive in time for Christmas for the people who ordered them as gifts. On a related note, Wonderland recently announced the theme for its second home pinball machine...Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There is no timeline as to when that game will be shown. Wonderland is still building Alices. In fact, it just announced a "Black Friday" sale on the game, $200 off of its Retail price of $1,199. Games ordered now are expected to ship in early 2026.
Speaking of Black Friday promotions, Stern pinball recently announced one for its Metallica Remastered pin. Through December 31st customers who purchase the game and reference the code MET2025 will receive "an exclusive highly collectible Metallica Remastered foil poster set while supplies last"
