It's the potential retaliatory tariffs that it becomes an issue, *** for tat. (Breast for tat as *** is censored
)I wouldn't worry about it though at this stage.
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EAG Expo next week - anyone going?
- Thread starter Den - aka Wolfgang
- Start date
)I wouldn't worry about it though at this stage.
I think trump in charge is going to be very interesting for pinball as I suspect all the boards will be produced in china
And if he is going to march all the Mexican s home then who is going to make the games as most of the production line employees are Mexican maybe trump is just going to take over Greenland and stern can start making them there.
David retro
Site Supporter
Currently the line up for next week is
Abba
Blues brothers
Houdini
Hotwheels
Labyrinth
Bond premium
Guardians of the galaxy (may change)
Abba
Blues brothers
Houdini
Hotwheels
Labyrinth
Bond premium
Guardians of the galaxy (may change)
Enjoy anyone thats going today - Neil posted a pic on facbook this morining of the pins there (tho couldnt find the pics again when i looked) great to see DnD there but suprised no X-men or Metallica - looks like electrocoin had Venom / John Wick and Foo Fighters - which seems like odd choices for this type of trade show - With Foos being vaulted im suprised it was Jaws again considering how well its done for stern - looking forward to a look around on Thursday
Makes perfect sense, It be the machines they have most stock off and need rid of. Venom and John wick haven't sold. Don't know about foo but I'm guessing they also have alot of these. Giving the chance for operators and people to play them might increase the chance of getting rid of them
Is Metallica even here yet? Thought the only ones in the UK are the ones people have paid to air freight them across.
And for X-Men, maybe they just didnt want to install the fix kit on it.
I thought Foo was a good seller, would be surprised if they had a large stock of them, can see that being right for John Wick and Venom though, especially the Pro on Venom as its a bit bare although I thought it played ok.
And for X-Men, maybe they just didnt want to install the fix kit on it.
I thought Foo was a good seller, would be surprised if they had a large stock of them, can see that being right for John Wick and Venom though, especially the Pro on Venom as its a bit bare although I thought it played ok.
No idea with foo, I would have assumed it was a good seller, but if there showing it perhaps they got more stock of it then they would like, maybe with the surprisingly early vault on it. Wonder if there was a strict license time frame. It's a fun game, it's fault the music grates on you after a while, I'm not a massive foo fan. (Outside live where they where amazing)
Early Vault could just be down Licensing or to their new factory churning them out faster than people are now buying them, and distros in the US sitting on loads of older machines that they cant seem to sell and they'll only have so much space to store stock, they did stick 7 machines in the Vault.
Was surprised avengers was still being sold, there definitely producing too many.
Good points for sure , but i guess they have had to do some work to get D&D over for the show in time (i personally felt that only had an outside chance of making it over with it only being announced a week ago ) so thought Metallica and Xmen were locks for being there as had time to arrange it.
i guess there 2 sides to the machines and their choice to bring them - as others have said due to stuff they wanna sell but i dont know a huge amount of how electrocin operate
how they would advertise and sell the machines to operators the rest of the year for example
id have thought these type of trade shows are more about telling people whats upcoiming rather than moving old stock
The Blues Brothers was surprisingly… great, actually. I’ve been one of @Homepin’s biggest critics on here, but I don’t think @Will2.0 is going to be disappointed. It’s a solid, competent 80s-style pin, which should appeal to retro pinball fans wanting a NIB or casual players looking for a (kinda) budget option.
It’s at a price point of ~£5k with @David retro. Although l think that’s probably £1-2k too high in the current market, I really feel @Homepin got it (close to broadly) right with the pricing, theme and style of this pin.
The pin feels a bit flimsy, but that’s probably to be expected at the price. The main joy of this pin is that it’s competently executed (apart from a slightly sticky right flipper if it’s held up too long). The flipper buttons, lockdown bar and other parts feel pretty standard for the industry. The artwork is eye-catching and functional, and looks nicer in person than on the pictures.
The ruleset is simple, but not *as* simple as the 80s pins it’s emulating to give added value to an 80s-loving customer. There are a couple of modes and a multiball, but nothing too complex.
Gameplay focuses on shooting down the drops, which are as satisfying on this pin as on Stars or similar machines of the era.
Compared to an 80s pin, it feels something of a long player. It has a long ball save, a slightly slower gameplay feel, and a ‘save’ wire that pops up in the left-hand lane, which gives it remarkable generosity compared to actual retro pins.
The music is a dream. I was bobbing along the whole time I was playing.
View attachment IMG_0901.mov
View attachment IMG_0900.mov
A couple of criticisms, apart from the stuck flipper on the show model. The left saucer looked flimsy and I wasn’t personally wasn’t able to make the shot on purpose. I also managed to start a multiball, pretty much off the plunge, by the ball bouncing off the pop bumper into a hidden area - that didn’t feel earned.
Short version: This might be the right pin for someone who likes retro pins, but found Pulp Fiction too hard.
It’s at a price point of ~£5k with @David retro. Although l think that’s probably £1-2k too high in the current market, I really feel @Homepin got it (close to broadly) right with the pricing, theme and style of this pin.
The pin feels a bit flimsy, but that’s probably to be expected at the price. The main joy of this pin is that it’s competently executed (apart from a slightly sticky right flipper if it’s held up too long). The flipper buttons, lockdown bar and other parts feel pretty standard for the industry. The artwork is eye-catching and functional, and looks nicer in person than on the pictures.
The ruleset is simple, but not *as* simple as the 80s pins it’s emulating to give added value to an 80s-loving customer. There are a couple of modes and a multiball, but nothing too complex.
Gameplay focuses on shooting down the drops, which are as satisfying on this pin as on Stars or similar machines of the era.
Compared to an 80s pin, it feels something of a long player. It has a long ball save, a slightly slower gameplay feel, and a ‘save’ wire that pops up in the left-hand lane, which gives it remarkable generosity compared to actual retro pins.
The music is a dream. I was bobbing along the whole time I was playing.
View attachment IMG_0901.mov
View attachment IMG_0900.mov
A couple of criticisms, apart from the stuck flipper on the show model. The left saucer looked flimsy and I wasn’t personally wasn’t able to make the shot on purpose. I also managed to start a multiball, pretty much off the plunge, by the ball bouncing off the pop bumper into a hidden area - that didn’t feel earned.
Short version: This might be the right pin for someone who likes retro pins, but found Pulp Fiction too hard.
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I also got to play Abba (Voyage) by Pinball Brothers on the @David retro stall.
It’s a very retro/disco/dance party themed, which - to be honest - isn’t my main association with ABBA’s music.
The sound system is also very strong on this pin. @David retro said he was using it as a Jukebox during setup (?) yesterday. Your mileage may vary, depending on how much of a fan of ABBA’s music you are.
View attachment IMG_0908.mov
Gameplay-wise, this is a long player. The player before me was on for AGES (and got the fourth highest score). It’s one of those pins where it felt that almost every shot started or advanced a mode, multiball or hurry-up, and you’re constantly applauded, cheered and given points for just about everything you do.
For this reason, I never felt there was a lot of tension or excitement in the gameplay, and had no interest in continuing to play. However, again, your mileage may vary - it feels like it could be a great casual title.
Shot-wise, there’s a centre scoop that’s an insta-drain if you miss, and you also need to use the left flipper to prevent a SDTM. Otherwise, it’s got pretty standard shots - two ramps that lead down to the flippers, there are two orbits, a couple of sets of drops, a stand-up target I couldn’t hit on purpose, and a captive ball. Nothing too exciting or revolutionary, but - crucially - nothing that could go horribly wrong with a more-than-competent delivery either.
The artwork is also appropriate to the theme and reasonably attractive. It’s quite purple. Again, your mileage may vary.
Short summary: This felt like it could be a great location pin for an ABBA-friendly venue. Easy to learn and play, visually attractive, but not especially inspiring to a serious pinball player/collector.
It’s a very retro/disco/dance party themed, which - to be honest - isn’t my main association with ABBA’s music.
The sound system is also very strong on this pin. @David retro said he was using it as a Jukebox during setup (?) yesterday. Your mileage may vary, depending on how much of a fan of ABBA’s music you are.
View attachment IMG_0908.mov
Gameplay-wise, this is a long player. The player before me was on for AGES (and got the fourth highest score). It’s one of those pins where it felt that almost every shot started or advanced a mode, multiball or hurry-up, and you’re constantly applauded, cheered and given points for just about everything you do.
For this reason, I never felt there was a lot of tension or excitement in the gameplay, and had no interest in continuing to play. However, again, your mileage may vary - it feels like it could be a great casual title.
Shot-wise, there’s a centre scoop that’s an insta-drain if you miss, and you also need to use the left flipper to prevent a SDTM. Otherwise, it’s got pretty standard shots - two ramps that lead down to the flippers, there are two orbits, a couple of sets of drops, a stand-up target I couldn’t hit on purpose, and a captive ball. Nothing too exciting or revolutionary, but - crucially - nothing that could go horribly wrong with a more-than-competent delivery either.
The artwork is also appropriate to the theme and reasonably attractive. It’s quite purple. Again, your mileage may vary.
Short summary: This felt like it could be a great location pin for an ABBA-friendly venue. Easy to learn and play, visually attractive, but not especially inspiring to a serious pinball player/collector.
Attachments
OMG, OMG, OMGGG!
Okay, I’m in the lucky (lucky?) position of liking Stern’s D&D theme. I play a lot of tabletop strategy games, and many of them have roots in the Dungeons & Dragons RPG and its imitators. I also enjoy D&D-inspired video games, such as Baldur’s Gate 3.
So, I’m the core target audience for a Dungeons & Dragons-themed pinball machine. However, having played Venom, John Wick, Uncanny X-Men and… I dunno, there’s probably some other mediocre pin that Stern has released recently (not Jaws though, that’s actually good), my expectations were low for this one. Had Stern ‘peaked’?
I’m happy to report that my first impressions of Dungeons & Dragons are largely positive, apart from some minor technical problems with the moving dragon (and ball search coding) on the Prem.
Both the Pro and Prem are stunning in person.
The visuals on the LCD screen include a wealth of hand-drawn artwork (not pictured), which is charming and evokes the theme.
My only artwork quibble was the slightly grungy fantasy map at the bottom of the playfield that reminded me, not in a good way, of the dirty beige map artwork on Stern POTC.
I absolutely loved the gameplay on this title. There’s nothing truly exceptional about the shot selection, although it is a (mild) departure from Brian Eddy’s standard fan layout. What’s wonderful is that Stern appear to have integrated an amazing wealth of coding with real-life pinball to create a physical object that nonetheless *feels* like playing through a simple D&D-inspired video game.
Speaking about the Pro and Prem, they feel reasonably similar - you’re not missing much.
At the moment, I would probably go Pro because the Prem dragon was constantly getting the ball stuck under his jaw. It happened in my game and it had also happened to several onlookers, including - I think - @Tilt_Birmingham. Once the ball got stuck, the ball search didn’t move the dragon’s head and we were all shoving the table trying to free the ball. It was very annoying and a real downer on the overall play experience.
When you start the game, you choose a character and a starting city. From there, you can bash the dragon to start a fight (multiball), travel to another town, enter a dungeon or start ‘quests’ (modes).
The ‘quests’ are beautifully thematic. Although they are shoot the flashing lights, they’re each introduced by a short narrative clip explaining what you’ve been tasked to do. At one point, I was shooting red shots to fight a Bullette while shooting blue shots to try to free some miners trapped behind the monster. I was ambushed by an Owlbear (!) and, then, when I chose to leave the town to go on a different set of quests, I had to shoot two different shots to finish my journey.
Then, finally, I entered a dungeon and had to shoot an orange shot (to move forwards), choose a direction with my flippers/action button, and shoot purple shots to continue my quest. Again, it really *felt* like exploring a video game dungeon - 100% consistent with the theme!
It was all terrifically focused and charming, and the absolute opposite to the ‘shoot everything and some s**t will start off’, which is the default on so many pins - including some of the Elwins and even newly-released pins I’d played at EAG, such as ABBA. I think the only thing I’ve seen similar is the ‘Bog of Eternal Stench’ mode on Labyrinth, which has a similar deep, rich narrative theme.
I haven’t even got onto the gelatinous cube magnets (both models), the thematic shield that you can activate between the flippers (both models), and I didn’t have the opportunity to shoot into the physical dungeon on the Prem either.
The mechs are all, obviously, brilliant, although it’s possible the dragon is *too* big, especially on the Premium. Too many times I shot him by accident, while he verbally abused me, and his head quite often blocked the playfield when I was trying to complete an unrelated mode.
Yes, it’s possible this *was* thematic. I dunno, maybe you’re casually travelling to Arabel when a f****r of a dragon turns up to disrupt your plans.
Anyway, it feels like Venom was the prototype for the D&D machine and - unless I read otherwise from actually competent players - this seems to me a must-buy if you’ve got the cash. Stern is back on form with this title.
[NB: If you have an iOS-compatible device, I’d definitely recommend downloading the iOS adaptation of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game (https://toucharcade.com/2016/05/12/pathfinder-adventures-review/) and then, if you find it fun, imagine it’s been somehow ported into pinball format. That’s probably the closest you’re going to get to playing this title without actually playing the pin].
Okay, I’m in the lucky (lucky?) position of liking Stern’s D&D theme. I play a lot of tabletop strategy games, and many of them have roots in the Dungeons & Dragons RPG and its imitators. I also enjoy D&D-inspired video games, such as Baldur’s Gate 3.
So, I’m the core target audience for a Dungeons & Dragons-themed pinball machine. However, having played Venom, John Wick, Uncanny X-Men and… I dunno, there’s probably some other mediocre pin that Stern has released recently (not Jaws though, that’s actually good), my expectations were low for this one. Had Stern ‘peaked’?
I’m happy to report that my first impressions of Dungeons & Dragons are largely positive, apart from some minor technical problems with the moving dragon (and ball search coding) on the Prem.
Both the Pro and Prem are stunning in person.
The visuals on the LCD screen include a wealth of hand-drawn artwork (not pictured), which is charming and evokes the theme.
My only artwork quibble was the slightly grungy fantasy map at the bottom of the playfield that reminded me, not in a good way, of the dirty beige map artwork on Stern POTC.
I absolutely loved the gameplay on this title. There’s nothing truly exceptional about the shot selection, although it is a (mild) departure from Brian Eddy’s standard fan layout. What’s wonderful is that Stern appear to have integrated an amazing wealth of coding with real-life pinball to create a physical object that nonetheless *feels* like playing through a simple D&D-inspired video game.
Speaking about the Pro and Prem, they feel reasonably similar - you’re not missing much.
At the moment, I would probably go Pro because the Prem dragon was constantly getting the ball stuck under his jaw. It happened in my game and it had also happened to several onlookers, including - I think - @Tilt_Birmingham. Once the ball got stuck, the ball search didn’t move the dragon’s head and we were all shoving the table trying to free the ball. It was very annoying and a real downer on the overall play experience.
When you start the game, you choose a character and a starting city. From there, you can bash the dragon to start a fight (multiball), travel to another town, enter a dungeon or start ‘quests’ (modes).
The ‘quests’ are beautifully thematic. Although they are shoot the flashing lights, they’re each introduced by a short narrative clip explaining what you’ve been tasked to do. At one point, I was shooting red shots to fight a Bullette while shooting blue shots to try to free some miners trapped behind the monster. I was ambushed by an Owlbear (!) and, then, when I chose to leave the town to go on a different set of quests, I had to shoot two different shots to finish my journey.
Then, finally, I entered a dungeon and had to shoot an orange shot (to move forwards), choose a direction with my flippers/action button, and shoot purple shots to continue my quest. Again, it really *felt* like exploring a video game dungeon - 100% consistent with the theme!
It was all terrifically focused and charming, and the absolute opposite to the ‘shoot everything and some s**t will start off’, which is the default on so many pins - including some of the Elwins and even newly-released pins I’d played at EAG, such as ABBA. I think the only thing I’ve seen similar is the ‘Bog of Eternal Stench’ mode on Labyrinth, which has a similar deep, rich narrative theme.
I haven’t even got onto the gelatinous cube magnets (both models), the thematic shield that you can activate between the flippers (both models), and I didn’t have the opportunity to shoot into the physical dungeon on the Prem either.
The mechs are all, obviously, brilliant, although it’s possible the dragon is *too* big, especially on the Premium. Too many times I shot him by accident, while he verbally abused me, and his head quite often blocked the playfield when I was trying to complete an unrelated mode.
Yes, it’s possible this *was* thematic. I dunno, maybe you’re casually travelling to Arabel when a f****r of a dragon turns up to disrupt your plans.
Anyway, it feels like Venom was the prototype for the D&D machine and - unless I read otherwise from actually competent players - this seems to me a must-buy if you’ve got the cash. Stern is back on form with this title.
[NB: If you have an iOS-compatible device, I’d definitely recommend downloading the iOS adaptation of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game (https://toucharcade.com/2016/05/12/pathfinder-adventures-review/) and then, if you find it fun, imagine it’s been somehow ported into pinball format. That’s probably the closest you’re going to get to playing this title without actually playing the pin].
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Devil-Mish
Site Supporter
Brilliant write up @VeeMonroe, thanks for sharing your experience!
I doubt it’s the floor…
KendarTheOrc
Site Supporter
I 100% need to go to this next year
David retro
Site Supporter
Great first day plenty of games being played lots of positives
Look forward to seeing people tommrow if your attending do drop by and say hello it’s always great to catch up
Look forward to seeing people tommrow if your attending do drop by and say hello it’s always great to catch up
Oh, it is - giving everything a slightly bilious tint.
Trade shows always feel a bit weird. All those stuffed toy sellers. Do arcades really check out what’s new or do they just buy crate loads of whatever is going cheap? Same with the big stall selling care boxes for people suffering breast cancer. Hope they were given the pitch for free.
I didn’t make it there until home 16:00 but there were a lot of booths without customers.
The pins seemed to be doing good business though. Lots of the familiar reprobates playing them at least so hopefully that will translate into sales for the sellers.
D&D seemed to shoot really well but was insanely easy to get multi balls on. Hopefully newer code will sort this out. Not sure about how it lets all the balls drain after a time limit. I assumed initially it had broken. I do quite fancy buying one but would struggle to cough up the extra amount to go for the premium.
Let’s just say Blues Brothers is a better pin than I could build but after two games I have absolutely zero desire to ever play one again. During multiball the first one got stuck on the end of the ramp. It then fired out a couple more that struggled to make it onto the playfield.
I didn’t make it there until home 16:00 but there were a lot of booths without customers.
The pins seemed to be doing good business though. Lots of the familiar reprobates playing them at least so hopefully that will translate into sales for the sellers.
D&D seemed to shoot really well but was insanely easy to get multi balls on. Hopefully newer code will sort this out. Not sure about how it lets all the balls drain after a time limit. I assumed initially it had broken. I do quite fancy buying one but would struggle to cough up the extra amount to go for the premium.
Let’s just say Blues Brothers is a better pin than I could build but after two games I have absolutely zero desire to ever play one again. During multiball the first one got stuck on the end of the ramp. It then fired out a couple more that struggled to make it onto the playfield.