NEWS IN BRIEF


Date: 1st November, 2011

PINBALL MOVIE

Two weeks ago we featured Anna Newman, who was hoping to raise enough money to start shooting her pinball-based love movie set in a donut store, Pinball Donut Girl.

At the time, the fund stood at a little over $7,000 and raising the required $21,750 needed to pay the crew and hire the equipment before the end of the month seemed a daunting prospect.

Anna already funded the shooting of one of the scenes at California Extreme, using a Gottlieb Slick Chick supplied as part of a display by the Pacific Pinball Museum.  If the remainder of the film was to be made, the donations would need to ramp up in the last two weeks.

Shooting one of the scenes from Pinball Donut Girl at California Extreme
Shooting one of the scenes from Pinball Donut Girl at California Extreme
(photo by Melanie Nelson)

Well, good news!  Following our report, a flood of new donations came in and the target was reached, meaning shooting can now go ahead.

Kevin Martin of PAPA fame was instrumental in ensuring the goal was reached with a $5,000 donation, earning himself an Executive Producer credit in the process.

Anna has already begun casting, with Baily Hopkins and Brian J. Paterson in the lead roles of Julie and Matt, teaming up with Jane Wiedlin (Star Trek, The Go-Go's). 

Production is slated to begin in the second week of November and of course Pinball News will keep you updated on the movie's progress and release date.


NEW PINBALL MACHINE

Not content with his Magic Girl project, game designer John Popadiuk has now teamed up with inventor and designer Benjamin Heckendorn (a.k.a Ben Heck) to launch a new zombie-themed game.

Ben Heck and John Popadiuk
Ben Heck and John Popadiuk

John's history designing pinball games for Bally is well-known, and Ben has created a couple of notable machines with his Bill Paxton game and his recent second game based on the TV series Lost.

Answering the cry from many for a zombie-based game, Ben and John are to bring us Ben Heck's Zombie Adventureland.


Backglass sketch by John Popadiuk
(picture from Engadget)

Details are as sketchy as the backglass image, but this is expected to follow in Magic Girl's footsteps and be a limited run of pricey machines with hand-drawn artwork and some unique features under the glass. 

Pre-orders are planned to start in January 2012 and we'll be sure to bring you all details just as soon as they're available.


PINBALL BOOK NOW FOR IPHONE

Back in February we reported the release of a new pinball app for the Apple iPad by Kevin Strasser. 

The Pinball Book took full advantage of the iPad's extended screen area to showcase 32 popular pinball games with a summary of the design and history, statistics about the game and pictures of the playfield features, followed by links to videos of the game in action.

The Pinball Book on the iPad
The Pinball Book on the iPad

Now Kevin has released a version for the iPhone.

The iPhone version
The iPhone version

The iPhone version includes a number of improvements rolled out to the iPad version since our initial review, including the ability to pause, rewind and fast forward the video clips.  Kevin has also re-formatted the book for the smaller iPhone screen to make navigation easier.

The iPhone version is now available from the iTunes App Store for a mere $1.99.


HEAD-TO-HEAD...-TO-HEAD

Our final report in this News in Brief looks at one of the wilder custom games made by an enthusiast while hovering over that fine line between madness and genius.

There have been a few head-to-head pinball machines.  Williams' Joust was one such, as was Alvin G's Soccer Ball (and the football version too), with perhaps the most eccentric being the conjoined Total Recall game which never went into production.

Now, a machine to top that had been built, merging three Jungle Lords to produce one behemoth of a game.

The triple Jungle Lord
The triple Jungle Lord

The ball can be flipper to the upper playfield and then into an opponents game for them to play with it, or to create an instant multiball.

Instead of a backbox, the game has a marquee mounted above the centre of the three machines.

The illuminated marquee
The illuminated marquee

To overcome the lack of a backbox, the score and credit displays have been moved down to the apron and the backbox mini-bagatelle game relocated to a separate steel case attached to the side of the cabinet.

The score and credit/match displays
The score and credit/match displays

The Jungle Lord backbox game
The Jungle Lord backbox game

It's an amazing engineering feat, not doubt.  How the game plays, and whether it is enhanced by having three machines connected together, we wait to see.

In the meantime, here's a video of the triple-play machine in action.

 

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