| Date: 31st July, 2013
It's been a while since we had any new news about Jersey Jack Pinball's second title - The Hobbit, but today we get to see another section of the playfield design in an update e-mail from the company, ahead of the full reveal later next month.
This latest view shows the top left corner of the playfield.
The top left corner
At the far left we can see a captive (or Newton) ball with an arrow insert and a standup target at the end of the lane. Next to that is ramp with what appears to be a dirverter at the top, although the arrangement suggest this may not be the only ramp in the game.
Beneath the ramp at the top of the orbit lane is a magnet to stop the ball and drop in into the pop bumpers through a non-return gate. There is another gate at the top right corner of the bumper area, which is presumably a possible exit for the ball, as it's an odd place for an entrance and there appears no way of sensing which of the two gates was used. The main exit would seem to be at the bottom right, possibly feeding the up-kicker a little further down the playfield.
In the centre of the drawing is a large standup target with a hotdog insert in front, while a spinner on the right orbit lane completes the picture.
The earlier picture showed the bottom part of the playfield layout.
The bottom part of the playfield
(click to enlarge)
The whole layout will be revealed by the end of August 2013, giving us a good idea of the features included in the game's design.
Once the whole layout has been shown, the price of the game will increase by $500 to $8,000 for all buyers except those who pre-ordered and are on the regular payment plan who are up-to-date with their installments. JJP also suggested further price increases could be a possibility before production begins.
Here's what JJP had to say in this latest update.
Greetings Pinball Fans,
Today we are happy and very excited to release another section of The Hobbit Limited Edition Pinball Machine playfield. This game will have several new and innovative features which will be detailed in coming weeks.
As of September 1st the price of The Hobbit LE will increase $500 to $8000.00. We ask that you are current on the payment schedule for The Hobbit by 8/31/13. Those who are not current will see a $500 increase in the price of their game after 9/1/13, making their game $8000.
Many people are paying according to the schedule which enables us to develop the game as we did with WOZ. We need to reward those who are loyal and stay on the payment plan while others who do not pay now will pay more later. There may be another price increase before the game goes into production. We have several distributors around the world looking to increase their orders so demand is growing for the game as more information is released.
We will proudly show the full playfield before the end of August. This is going along better than WOZ as much of the basis of the platform is already created.
This area shows multiple entrances into the pop bumper area which can be controlled by the game or by skill or luck. We also show one magnet and one spinner and a target above the banana shaped insert. There is a lot in this 25% of the main playfield to absorb. We will release another section of the playfield next week. The playfield is packed and the game is very different than WOZ.
Wizard of Oz games continue to roll off the line. Getting through the first few days of massive orders has taken time but we are now into group shipments and we have 180+ ECLEWOZ games in the queue for August with only 18 of them as WOZ. We are also expecting another code update in the next several days.
It has been a long road but we got here as fast as we could. We are producing the best game we can which gets better every day. We thank our loyal JJP customer base for their patience and support and we will soon announce a reward system for those loyal customers for parts and goodies at reduced cost.
Jack definitely did not do it alone but that's the name of the AOL segment. If anyone missed this, we were recently featured on an AOL.com/Huffington Post segment called "How I Did It". Here's the link to view. |
The e-mail also included a couple of pictures from the factory where The Wizard of Oz machines are in final test before shipping to customers.
The Wizard of Oz machines in test at the JJP factory
More machines in test
We'll be back with more news about The Hobbit soon, right here at Pinball News.
© Pinball News 2013 |
