Themes that (always) produce good/bad pins?

[VeeMonroe]

Not sure how we got onto this topic, but @MadMonzer had a theory that any pin with an aquatic theme was always good. We had a look on Pinside to test this out, and it appears to hold up with the notable exception of Waterworld… and anything to do with pirates.

Putting on my flameproof underwear, but Jaws, Fish Tales and Fathom are all great and themed around water.

As soon as you add pirates, e.g. Stern Pirates of the Caribbean, Hook and (IMO) Black Rose, the pin sinks deep below the waves. Not sure why that is, but it’s possibly due to the focus on cannons as a main mechanic (the crossbow is the worse bit of The Walking Dead).

Science fiction, especially aliens, also seems to create consistently good pins.

Just wondered if anyone else had noticed this? And whether there are any trends in themes that I’ve missed…

 

[johnwhitfield]

Gilligan’s Island kind of blows your theory out of the water

 

[VeeMonroe]

Gilligan’s Island kind of blows your theory out of the water

I don’t think either of us have played that pin…

 

[kev a]

Oooh good question, I think the battle mechanic lends itself well to aliens, high stakes save the earth, easy to understand the objective. Following on from that any big monsters (can dinosaurs be included as monsters) works well in that respect.
But my vote goes to circus/magic themes, TOM, CV, Pinball Magic, Funhouse, Houdini is debatable, probably a bit let down by Hurricane, but more hits than misses.

On the flip side, its always surprises me how badly ball sports translate to pins, well modern ones anyway, it should be a ready baked concept to scale down. The old EM designers seemed to make it work.