TEXAS PINBALL FESTIVAL 2017

Welcome to the start of our coverage of the Texas Pinball Festival 2017. We have been regular attendees to the TPF for many years, and we are back in the familiar surroundings of the Embassy Suites hotel in Frisco, Texas.

The weather here is usually pretty nice in March, but this year the weather on Friday turned to dark clouds and scattered showers amidst the sunny intervals.

The Embassy Suites in Frisco

Any possible doubts we were at the right hotel were soon dispelled

Fortunately, the rain had cleared before a false fire alarm forced hotel guests outside while the fire marshall checked it was safe to return.

Two fire trucks showed up

Apparently it wasn’t a promotion for Ghostbusters pinball

The show opened at 5pm, but before that we got a behind-the-scenes look at the games and the people setting up.

Immediately we are through the door we meet Jaap, Tommy, Suzanne and Andrew

Charlie from Spooky Pinball sets up the two The Jetsons pinballs
along with a Rob Zombie and Domino’s

Ultra-Violet light is often seen as detrimental to pinball artwork, but two games at the TPF are using UV to highlight playfield artwork and models.

UV lighting for Attack from Mars and Ghostbusters

And Attack from Mars is well represented on Chicago Gaming Company’s stand where three remake models are on display – one LE, one SE and one standard. They sit alongside a Medieval Madness remake.

The Chicago Gaming booth

Attack from Mars remake LE

Attack from Mars remake LE

Attack from Mars remake LE topper

Elsewhere in the hall, machines were being set up for the start of the show.

A display of home machines from Bally and Brunswick

In other areas of the show hall, machines were being put together.

Assembling games for the show

More games arriving

Just moving a game often creates problems

CoinTaker had three Alien games awaiting set-up

Marco had two Batman 66s and three Aerosmiths

Wizard Enterprises were building their display of illuminated pinball items

Lots of pinball bling at Pinball Plating

Brett Butler of Clear Gem had generously brought his Batman 66 Super LE
along for everyone to enjoy

Multimorphic had a large display of eight P3 machines

These were in addition to several P-ROC-based games

The tournaments were the first part of the show to open on Friday. Qualifying began at 11am in the tournament area at the front of the hall.

Tournament qualifying is under way

Tournament play on Friday afternoon

Tournament trophies up for grabs

Top trophies

Trophies for the various divisions of play

As usual, there was a raffle to win a new game

Lots of pinball swag available to buy

Registration for the show could be done online or in person at the ticket counter located just outside the hall.

The ticket counter

Just along from the ticket counter was Rob Anthony’s room where he had his usual assortment of pinball parts and a board repair service.

Rob Anthony’s Pinball Classics room

The TPF had a healthy schedule of seminars and screenings. They were mostly held in the seminar room at the far end of the building from where they would be streamed and recorded.

The seminar room

However, the very first seminar was held in the bar area at 6pm on Friday to coincide with the manager’s reception which provided free drinks and snacks to hotel guests.

6pm – So You Think You Know Pinball? – Jonathan Joosten and Martin Ayub

Jonathan and Martin ask the questions

This pinball quiz was run by the Editor of Pinball News, Martin Ayub and the Editor of Pinball Magazine, Jonathan Joosten. They asked guests to choose between two possible answers to pinball-related questions. Those who picked the right answer moved on to the next round, and as soon as there were around five players left, they all drew tickets for one of the many prizes donated by sponsors.

Martin splits the players according to their answer choices

At 7pm, the seminars moved to the main seminar room with Dennis Nordman revealing just what he had been working on for the past couple of years.

The seminar room audience

All the presentations in the seminar room were captured on a web stream. On Friday there was a problem with the internet connection which made live streaming impossible, but the stream was recorded and should appear on YouTube in due course.

7pm: Another Homerun From… – Dennis Nordman

Dennis Nordman

Dennis revealed the pitch and bat game he and Paul Reno developed a couple of years ago. It uses an established gameplay style, but adds some new features and retains some pinball-like elements to the design. He also introduced the team who had worked on the game and a second ‘zombiefied’ version with different artwork and sound calls.

Dennis, Paul and the team

The team then unveiled the game, and the second variant with the zombie theme.

The baseball game is revealed

The zombiefied version

Dennis with the game

Then came the seminar with the team from American Pinball.

8pm: American Pinball Update – American Pinball

The American Pinball team (L-R)
Jeff Busch, Jim Thornton, Jolly Backer, Dhaval Vasani, Josh Kugler,
Joe Balcer & Scott Goldberg

The team was here to unveil their new Houdini game which is a total redesign from the John Popaduik version of the game showed at Pinball Expo in October. Since then, Joe Balcer has created his own game design and the title has also changed slightly from Houdini: Master Mystery to Houdini: Master of Mystery.

Before the reveal, Scott spoke about the company’s aims and the work they have been doing so far. Joe then talked about his concept for the game, some of the features and how they are linked to the theme, and introduced Jeff who created the artwork and Josh who programmed it.

Joe Balcer

The game is still very much a work-in-progress with many hardware, software and artwork changes expected before it goes into production. However, we do know that the game runs on a P-ROC board and this will remain in the production version, with the team saying it makes sense for a rapid start-up company like American Pinball to get off the ground with an established and capable system rather than trying to develop their own from scratch.

The game was then revealed.

Joe removes the covers from the game

American Pinball’s Houdini: Master of Mystery

The game’s backglass with the LCD monitor

There was one final seminar on Friday, and this was with the actor who played Flash Gordon in the movie of the same name.

9pm: Q&A with Flash Gordon actor Sam J. Jones

Sam spoke about his acting career including how he got the role in the Flash Gordon movie.

Sam J. Jones

As it had been a long day and the session wasn’t strictly pinball-related we didn’t stay for the whole seminar. We also needed to prepare for Saturday’s full day of events which began bright and early at 8am.

8am: Swap Meet – DFW Pinball & Arcade Club

This regular part of the TPF takes place in the car park at the back of the hotel, and is the opportunity for casual sellers to offer games, parts, paperwork and other gaming-related items.

The Swap Meet at the rear of the hotel

Manuals, parts bins and playfields

Whole games and assorted parts for sale

Each new seller’s wares are closely inspected

Previous years had seen rain and snow on the Saturday morning,
but there was no such problems this year

Free pinball cabinets and backboxes

The first of the day’s seminars began at 11am with Jim Schelberg’s latest Pinball in the Media presentation.

11am: Politically Provocative Pinball – Jim Schelberg

Jim Schelberg

Jim showed a mix of classic and new media clips featuring pinball in one way or another, including several music videos and commercials.

12pm: Multimorphic and the P³: Game On! – Gerry Stellenberg

Before the seminar got under way, Gerry invited everyone to enjoy some Texan BBQ food for lunch which he generously provided for all audience members.

The queue for lunch

Potato, corn, sausage, beef, turkey, onions, chilies, pickles and bread,
all served with BBQ sauce

All washed down with ice tea (natural or sweetened)

After many years detailing the development and benefits of the P³ pinball platform, this year Gerry was able to announce that the first production run of P³ machines.

Gerry announces details of the first production run

He detailed how Multimorphic is working with a contract manufacturer in the Austin area so that the first run of machines and assemblies can be built, leading to the second run, orders for which were being taken now with expected delivery in Q3 2017. The first eight production machines were at the show set-up in various configurations to demonstrate the capabilities of the different playfield modules and games.

Gerry Stellenberg

Gerry was joined on stage by Michael Ocean who uses the P-ROC and P³ to teach students to program a pinball game as well as working on some of the other P-ROC game projects out there, and BJ Wilson who talked about some of the P³ software features he has developed for Multimorphic.

Michael Ocean and BJ Wilson

Next onto the stage were two brothers with a long history in the pinball design business.

1pm: Growing up Ritchie – Mark and Steve Ritchie

Mark Ritchie and Steve Ritchie

Mark and Steve spoke about their upbringings, about how their father and mother behaved and instilled in them both certain values. They continued by describing how they each were introduced to arcade games and pinball in particular, and then how they both became involved in the pinball business, starting at Atari in California before moving to Chicago to join Williams.

Mark and Steve

They then took questions from the audience about events from their youth as well as the background to some of their more recent game projects.

Earlier in the day Cassandra Peterson, who is perhaps better known as her alter ego Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, was at the show to meet fans and sign autographs for $20 each.

A sizeable queue built up to meet Cassandra long before she arrived in the hall.

The line to meet Cassandra

Cassandra signs Elvira-related items

After her appearance in the show hall, Cassandra then joined Greg Freres and Dennis Nordman – the design and art team behind the two Elvira-themed games – to talk about the design processes in a panel discussion hosted by Charlie Emery.

2pm: Getting Up with Elvira – Cassandra Peterson, Dennis Nordman, Greg Freres & Charlie Emery

Charlie, Dennis, Cassandra and Greg

Greg and Dennis described how the idea for the first Elvira game – Elvira & The Party Monsters – came up, and how they developed the characters in the game to appear alongside Elvira.

Charlie, Dennis, Cassandra, Greg are joined by a bunch of leapers

A packed seminar room

The big announcement was that Greg and Dennis’s second game following Whoa Nellie! would be their as-yet-unnamed third Elvira-themed game, following on from Elvira & the Party Monsters and Scared Stiff.

Dennis & Greg announced joining up with Elvira again
at the seminar hosted by Charlie Emery

No date for the game was announced, but it is expected to be built by Stern Pinball as one of their ‘studio’ titles.

Next onto the stage at Frisco was Jaap Nauta from Dutch Pinball.

3pm: Dutch Pinball Update – Jaap Nauta

There was a lot of news, rumour and speculation surrounding Dutch Pinball’s The Big Lebowski game, and Jaap was here to tell the story of what has happened to the both the game and the company.

Jaap Nauta of Dutch Pinball

Jaap related the history of the game, the agreements Dutch Pinball has with ARA to build the game, and how those agreements were broken when the price was increased by €1,000 and the agreement to build the remaining games as well as a number of Dutch Pinball’s second game was not kept.

He said eventually Dutch Pinball had enough and couldn’t give in to ARA’s demands, which put them in a stalemate situation where ARA had around 40 completed games in their factory but wouldn’t release them until the new, higher price per game was paid.

Jaap explained the Dutch legal process and said their intended way forward was to build their second title with a new contract manufacturer in the Netherlands called VDL, sell it, and raise enough operating capital to continue production of The Big Lebowski at VDL. Or maybe ARA would see reason and come to a deal.

That second title hadn’t been announced until the TPF, but now it was revealed as Bride of Pinbot 25th Anniversary.

The Bride of Pinbot 25th Anniversary logo

This takes the Bride of Pinbot 2.0 ruleset and builds upon it to produce a complete game with a new cabinet and remade playfield incorporating the 2.0 modifications.

The playfield design is the same as the original Bride of Pinbot, but with updated inserts, display, lighting and sound. They plan to make up to 150 Super Limited Editions by the end of 2017, followed by a run of standard games and – hopefully – the remaining The Big Lebowski games.

The Bride of Pinbot 25th Anniversary translite

The Super LE’s would have 100 machines sent to North America and split between DP distributors CoinTaker and Nitro Pinball. The remaining 50 would go to the rest of the world. The first batch of 25 is scheduled for June 1017.

Bride of Pinbot 25th Anniversary

The next speaker was Andrew Heighway of Heighway Pinball.

4pm: Heighway Pinball Update – Andrew Heighway

Andrew Heighway

Andrew was back at the TPF to bring the latest news from the Heighway Pinball factory in south Wales and update us on progress on the company’s Alien Pinball title. Three Alien Pinball machines were in the show hall for guests to play.

The three Alien Pinball machines in the show hall

Andrew talked about the new facilities at the company’s factory in Ebbw Vale and their production schedule for both Alien and Full Throttle. You can see Andrew show us around the Heighway Pinball factory in our exclusive Pinball News video shot right before the Texas show.

The next speaker at this year’s TPF was Jack Guarnieri of Jersey Jack Pinball.

5pm: Jersey Jack Pinball Update – Jack Guarnieri

Jack Guarnieri

Jack updated the seminar audience on the latest happenings at the Jersey Jack Pinball factory, including production details of The Wizard of Oz, The Hobbit, and shorty, Dialed In!. Regarding Dialed In!, Jack told how he and game designer Pat Lawlor met and agreed to collaborate on creating the company’s third title.

Jack was joined on stage by Eric Meunier and Butch Peel from JJP who spoke about the technical aspects of the game, including the lighting system and the upcoming manual for The Hobbit.

Eric Meunier and Butch Peel

After Jack’s seminar there was an autograph session on a table outside the seminar hall. People queued with items to be signed – such as translites, backglasses, playfields and flyers – or simply to meet the pinball celebrities and talk about their work.

The queue for the autograph table

John Trudeau signs a Ghostbusters plastic

Batman 66 artist Christopher Franchi signs a flyer for the game

Steve Ritchie, Mark Ritchie and George Gomez greet guests to the autograph table

Once the signing session was over, George Gomez took to the stage in the seminar room for his talk about the happenings at Stern Pinball.

7pm: Stern Pinball Update – George Gomez

George Gomez

George told the audience about the games Stern Pinball currently has in production, and the different types of games the company produces which he separated into ‘Cornerstone’ titles – regular in-house designs – Studio Games brought to the company by external designers, Vault Titles remade from previous title when demand is seen, The Pin home models, Contract Games made for, and marketed by other companies, Virtual Games such as the Stern Pinball Arcade with Farsight, and their accessories business selling mods, clothing, collectibles and the like.

George describes the different strands of the business

After George there was a break from the seminar format with the world premier of a new pinball documentary.

8pm: Official World Premier of ‘Things That Go Bump In the Night: The Spooky Pinball Story’

The full-length documentary details the creation and business expansion of Spooky Pinball in Benton, Wisconsin, USA through interviews with the team involved in starting and running the business, as well as those creating the games.

Charlie Emery talks about founding the company

The film was made by Joel and Dana Reeves and they were here to talk about its creation, from concept to shooting and editing.

Joel and Dana Reeves

The audience for the documentary screening

After the documentary screening, there was a panel discussion with members of the Spooky team where the company’s next title was revealed as Alice Cooper’s Nightmare Castle. A teaser video has also been produced.

For those otherwise engaged on Saturday evening, the documentary was repeated in the seminar hall at 10am on Sunday morning.

Let’s return to the main show hall and see how the TPF looked on Saturday evening.

Into the main show hall

Nicolas and Timothie Manaud from Pinsound

They had several games fitted with PinSound boards

Including these Last Action Hero and Tommy games

Game Over Videogames had classic consoles, handhelds and games

Flip N Out Pinball had their Escalera stair-climbing handtrucks

This stall was selling pinball items to raise money for the family of Jimmy Hefner, owner of Metro Pinball and Video who passed away in October 2016

Spooky Pinball brought a Rob Zombie’s Spookshow International,
two The Jetsons and a Domino’s Pizza pinball

The Jetsons

The Spooky Pinball stand

KAHR.US Circuits were selling power supply boards and volume controls for Williams games

Starship Fantasy had their usual large selection of pinball ramps, playfields and backglasses

Tim at Mezel Mods had numerous ways to enhance your game

Lermods also wanted to make your game extra-special

Some of Lermods illuminated add-ons

Kimball’s Pinballs was showing two super-blinged games

Their Ghostbusters had numerous lighting enhancements

Playing games can be thirsty work, so there was a bar to provide refreshments

For more solid refreshment there was also a snack bar

Prices at the snack bar

Marco Specialties had three Aerosmith and two Batman 66 games

Enjoying the new Aerosmith game on the Marco stand

Marco also had a small selection of parts available

Along with the games and parts Marco had Stern clothing

The Gulf Coast Pinball Club had a nice selection of quality games to play

Pinballz were promoting their three Austin arcade locations

Pinball Plating has lots of shiny and vivid pinball trim parts

Chrome and gold finishes

Legs of many colours

Double Danger had a big range of pinball T-shirts

Devin Lawson of Spicy Donut was showing her artwork prints and posters

Total Pinball Restorations brought their Frontier and Flash Gordon projects

The DFW Pinball Arcade Club has a great display of pinballs and videos

KingPin Games had the newest JJP titles

KingPin Games had two Dialed In! games which were in constant demand

Fun! had a line-up of new and classic games

Fun! featured new Stern and JJP titles

Fun! were also showing the new Stern Pinball HD anti-glare glass

Here’s a side-by-side comparison (HD glass on the left)

Fun! were also selling the new Attack from Mars remakes at $7,999 for the LE and $7,299 for the special edition

Both had the large high-resolution colour graphics, although the standard edition at $6,499 has the original smaller monochrome display

Although there were some glitches, they generally looked very attractive

A look under the playfield

American Pinball were debuting their Houdini game at the TPF

Game designer Joe Balcer and programmer Josh Kugler were on hand to talk about the game

There were long lines to play the two Houdini games

It’s not all new games at the show

You never know who you’ll meet at the TPF

Pinball Side Mirrors had some demonstrator games to showcase their products

Comic Wreck had books, posters and other prints of sci-fi and horror themes

The Vector crew had an nice mix of electromechanical pinball and modern arcade games

This Polynesia game on the Vector stand looked interesting but sadly seemed to be out-of-order throughout the show

Bob Herbison had some more of his wonderful EM restorations

This stand at the back of the hall is a regular TPF fixture selling assorted marquees as well as manuals, plastics and all kinds of gaming paraphernalia

Coin Taker had their regular LEDs but also games from both Heighway Pinball and Dutch Pinball

There were three Alien pinballs to play

The long line to play them remained throughout the show

CoinTaker also has the Dutch Pinball Bride of Pinbot 2.0 upon which the new 25th Anniversary edition will be based

Pinball Refinery had some nicely upgraded games on their stand

Chrome plating, powder coating, additional lighting and more

Mirco Steffen was at the TPF selling reproduction playfields

Pinball Wheezer were selling pinball apparel and cup holders

Tilt Graphics were promoting their big range of cabinet interior decals

William ‘Bubba’ Flint was presenting a selection of his artworks

Dennis Nordman, Paul Reno and Tom Taylor’s Gizmo Game Design company presented their two pitch and bat games

Titan Pinball were selling their silicone pinball ‘rubbers’

The History of Pinball exhibit featured an array of pre-flipper mechanical games

No power needed to play these games

Goofy and Fleet

Two table-top games

Sam J. Jones (Flash Gordon) was often to be found on his stand signing autographs and talking to guests

The Multimorphic stand was showing multiple P³ machines in various configurations to show off its capabilities

Next to the Multimorphic stand was a row of P-ROC-powered custom games including this original work-in-progress Total Annihilation machine…

…and two Buffy the Vampire Slayer conversion games

Doom was another P-ROC custom game on display

The un-released and un-finished third Pinball 2000 title, Wizard Blocks, is being made using a P-ROC

Passionately Rivalicious had a big selection of sports clothing

This Perspex Super Straight was a popular attraction

The games were pretty busy throughout the show

Although it was mostly about the pinball, there were plenty of video games too

Wizard Enterprises were showing their pop bumper night lights and framed illuminated backglasses

Rockin’ Robin were selling pop art posters

More shiny bling for your game at Pinball Plating and More

If you wanted an oscilloscope, multimeter, wave generator, logic probe or other test equipment, Arcade Components had you covered

It’s almost a tradition to pair these two at any pinball show

VP Cabs had a gazebo display of assorted virtual pinball cabinets

Here’s our exclusive Thirty Minute Tour video of the show hall which was shot on Sunday morning.

The Pinball News Thirty Minute Tour of the Texas Pinball Festival 2017

At the end of the show on Sunday afternoon, there were numerous presentations for the Best-in-Show awards in various categories at a ceremony hosted by Ed Vanderveen and Bill Morrison.

Plaques and rosettes for the winners

Bill announces the winners

The awards were chosen by the TPF team of Bill Morrison, Keith Holbrook, Scott Martin and Rich Wiski and went to:

 

Kevin Moore receives his Grand Champion award

The winning game with hand-painted artwork

The show finished with draws for cash prizes for those who brought machines, and the grand Pinball for Patriots prize draw for a virtual pinball from VP Cabs.

VP Cabs’ virtual pinball machine

Ed looks for a volunteer to draw the prize

The tickets are given a spin

The winning ticket is picked

The lucky winner takes home the VP Cabs game

The show then wrapped up and the breakdown of machines and stands could begin.

Show’s over folks!

Load ’em up!

We’ll be back with to complete this report with the results of the tournaments and our closing thoughts, but until then we’ll just thank the Texas Pinball Festival organisers Ed, Kim, Paul and Ken for their help and hospitality.

Ed & Kim Vanderveen, Paul McKinney and Ken Kemp