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Thunderbirds are Go

Neil McRae said:
Ok here you go...

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Tilt_Birmingham said:
I agree with @Neil McRae artwork is a pile of poo... and if you ask @Aksmoe he'll explain why the sounds and call outs are a pile of poo as well!

I was extremely disappointed in this machine, such a shame as it could have been awesome :(
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That's not a drawing, it's a photograph.

Remember the days when Stern were using crappy photoshopped images on their playfields and backboxes, and everyone hated it? Well luckily that changed and we started getting illustrated art again. Homepin have thankfully gone with illustrated artwork too, and somebody put a massive amount hard work into that Thunderbirds package.

Look at the hand drawn art on some of the boxes for Thunderbirds toys and model kits. Homepin have pretty much nailed it like for like.

Why is it every ar5ehole in pinball thinks themselves as some kind of art connoisseur.
 
What makes you one ? Out of interest, I am lucky enough to visit the Tate modern regularly and am no art connoisseur my self, but I find 90 % of the exhibits sh1te, but love a few and stuff like banksy that speaks to me.
I personally love the thunderbirds art work but hey ho
 
PeteB said:
That's not a drawing, it's a photograph.

Remember the days when Stern were using crappy photoshopped images on their playfields and backboxes, and everyone hated it? Well luckily that changed and we started getting illustrated art again. Homepin have thankfully gone with illustrated artwork too, and somebody put a massive amount hard work into that Thunderbirds package.

Look at the hand drawn art on some of the boxes for Thunderbirds toys and model kits. Homepin have pretty much nailed it like for like.

Why is it every ar5ehole in pinball thinks themselves as some kind of art connoisseur.
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BWHAHAHA!

Says the crypto currency and copyright expert - what a facking c0ck you are.


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I don't care for the theme, nor the artwork mainly driven by the theme, but as I have said before - a new pin manufacturer, that may be opening up the chinese market at a price point much more palatable to mere mortals such as myself - what is not to love.

Now ladies please....

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Stop with the handbags LOL
 
James said:
I don't care for the theme, nor the artwork mainly driven by the theme, but as I have said before - a new pin manufacturer, that may be opening up the chinese market at a price point much more palatable to mere mortals such as myself - what is not to love.
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This.

More choice and competition is good.
 
I honestly don't get the vitriol against this pin, on here and particularly on Pinside.

As far as I can make out this is basically one guy who has realised a dream of making a pinball machine, one that has never been pitched as being something for everyone (when has that ever been true? I love TAF but plenty of people find it shallow). There are design elements that are genuinely innovative - e.g. hinged speaker panel, schematics printed onto bottom of PF, etc. There are things the big hitters could learn from this.

For a first pin I think there's a lot to be impressed about, and the build updates are a nice insight that you don't get elsewhere outside of shop logs.

It's not all things to all men, nor is it a refined process (the guy even admitted the plastic ramp was a mistake). Stern et al have had the benefit of a decade or more of iterative R&D...
 
First pins are all over the shop generally and this is much better in my eyes....

What would everyone take as a first pin honestly....

Thunderbirds
The Mafia
Full Throttle
Houdini

Personally, I would take the Mafia as I REALLY like it - but I am highly confident that Thunderbirds would win a lot of that debate.
 
James said:
First pins are all over the shop generally and this is much better in my eyes....

What would everyone take as a first pin honestly....

Thunderbirds
The Mafia
Full Throttle
Houdini

Personally, I would take the Mafia as I REALLY like it - but I am highly confident that Thunderbirds would win a lot of that debate.
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Not without it's faults but I'd have a WOZ
 
James said:
First pins are all over the shop generally and this is much better in my eyes....

What would everyone take as a first pin honestly....

Thunderbirds
The Mafia
Full Throttle
Houdini

Personally, I would take the Mafia as I REALLY like it - but I am highly confident that Thunderbirds would win a lot of that debate.
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None of above but Houdini has the most features etc for the money. Even has a proper backglass.

Mafia doesn't even have a clear coated, screened playfield - just an overlay.

If Mafia were 4k, then fair enough.

Haven't put time on Mafia - it might be great fun to play but pricing is the main issue with this game.
 
James said:
First pins are all over the shop generally and this is much better in my eyes....

What would everyone take as a first pin honestly....

Thunderbirds
The Mafia
Full Throttle
Houdini

Personally, I would take the Mafia as I REALLY like it - but I am highly confident that Thunderbirds would win a lot of that debate.
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Honestly, I was really impressed by Houdini at the show, also mafia but not at the price point. I was ready to drop money on TB but I wouldn't touch it after playing it.
 
RudeDogg1 said:
Tbh the only person making themselves look a cock here is you.
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Completely agree the guy is an knob, end of. Most of his posts make me laugh out loud they are that ridiculous. Small knob syndrome me thinks.


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Some of the posts in this thread do make me laugh. Is it gang up on @Neil McRae day just because he expressed an opinion? You don't need to be an art connoisseur to know what you like and what you don't. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Last time I checked free speech hasn't been outlawed in the UK just yet. I take it you consider yourself an expert on pinball art now @PeteB after commissioning others to duplicate existing work! (For the record I don't have an issue with this as it helps out the pinball community and the licencor is a joke but it does make me laugh.)

Personally I don't have any issues with the art on TB but I think the sound sucks. One minute it's playing the TB theme song and the next techno. Like Phil I was really looking forward to this game but wasn't impressed after playing it. So what, big deal, I'm sure there are plenty of people who love it and I hope it sells well.
 
Neil is just being honest and expressing his feelings. Manufacturer's need to listen to the buyers and carry out market research. I'd doubt if Phil has had one pre-order for this title.
 
Kenny Taylor said:
Neil is just being honest and expressing his feelings. Manufacturer's need to listen to the buyers and carry out market research. I'd doubt if Phil has had one pre-order for this title.
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Yes but he was also having a pop at other people because he didn't agree with other people's opinion. I don't have a prob with the guy but it's not the Neil show
 
MartinY said:
Looks lovely! The Tracy Island ramp looks like it is causing PF damage on the drop. Is that right?
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No. This is one of our factory test machines and we haven't removed the plastic protective cover sheet from the playfield.

The line you can see is a mark that the T2 ramp is making in the protective plastic BUT I guess an owner could fit a small piece of mylar if they wished to that spot.
 
Neil McRae said:
Ok last time I say this

What about the artwork? We could do with the characters not looking like they’ve spent a week locked in a pie factory :) the DMD artwork is great but the main artwork is very disappointing.
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It's pretty clear that you have NEVER had any experience dealing with licence owners. Try spending nearly two years going back and forth with them and amending drawings literally dozens of times and see how you feel then. Same goes for the audio clips and music. Our next machine is not licenced so feel free to hang s-h-i-t on it/me/us if you don't like it but for Thunderbirds it was 90% out of our hands.

Thunderbirds is not mine to determine how it is presented to the public - it's up to the licence owners.
 
RudeDogg1 said:
Yes but he was also having a pop at other people because he didn't agree with other people's opinion. I don't have a prob with the guy but it's not the Neil show
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Perhaps you missed the build up on the page before where the first shot was fired? Provocation much? Not sure how much **** someone is expected to take before retaliating.

PeteB said:
Isn't that overly opinionated prick NeilMcRae guy on here as well?
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I don't agree with everything Neil or anyone else in this world says. It doesn't make it right to call them out as pricks or ****holes.
 
Homepin said:
It's pretty clear that you have NEVER had any experience dealing with licence owners. Try spending nearly two years going back and forth with them and amending drawings literally dozens of times and see how you feel then. Same goes for the audio clips and music. Our next machine is not licenced so feel free to hang s-h-i-t on it/me/us if you don't like it but for Thunderbirds it was 90% out of our hands.

Thunderbirds is not mine to determine how it is presented to the public - it's up to the licence owners.
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Pretty clear eh LOL Maybe I need a job in content? ;)

so if ITV Studios supplied you with that artwork then my apologies; I thought you'd had that drawn. Sorry I'm a huge Thunderbirds Fan (did you know the tracy brothers are named after the Mercury astronauts?!) and I'd have bought one of these but the renditions (artwork) of the supermarionation version is what I would have liked to have seen...


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Neil.
 
I rather like the artwork tbh. It’s got a nice finish to it and the characters are all recognisable. Ok so the Center ramp was an issue when I played it at Newcastle expo thing but overall I enjoyed the game. Horses for courses I guess.
 
Also glad to see Kim Jong-il made it onto the backglass and not feeling so 'rownlee, oh so rownlee'
 
If it's time to offer constructive criticism, the flippers on Thunderbirds felt very spongy. Just didn't leave a good impression - sorry.
 
How is the centre ramp being finished Mike? Just polished Steel or powder coated blue like the rest.
Kudos for listening to some of the issues and fixing them.

Will look forward to hearing about the new IP.

Obviously you won't want to say too much since TB is still launching. But in theory, how quickly could you knock out game number 2 since you have your production line set up?
 
To clarify on the Thunderbirds artwork. ITV had NOTHING! Ziltch - we had it all drawn, every piece of it. The show is over 50 years old and anything that ITV had simply wasn't usable. We wanted "bright colours, cheery appearance and an overall family appeal". I think we achieved that. ITV had very strict guidelines on what they would, and would NOT accept. Neil doesn't like how it turned out, that's fine. I look forward to seeing his efforts when he makes a machine.

As to "spongy flippers" - please remember, Homepin made each and EVERY single part in the machine. We spent four years drawing up engineering drawings, having dies and moulds made and then having parts made and assembled them into finished assemblies. NOT ONE of our parts is going to be exactly like ANY other pinball mechanism. The flipper mechs for example involve 18 separate dies and moulds averaging AU$5K each. If our flippers feel "different" - I fully understand that because there is not one single part that is the same as anything else. I am not going to start chasing "the feel" of some other manufacturer.

We are aiming for high quality at a sensible price point. To compare our machines with (as one example) a WOZ just isn't realistic as a WOZ is DOUBLE the price. This comes to mind: "Why doesn't my Astra handle like a Morgan?"

The centre ramp was a problem from the start but, as we had invested over AU$10K in design and moulds for it, I was very reluctant to let it go. In the end it was for the best and I just had to write off the money spent and accept it as an expensive mistake - there are several others that I accepted during our initial parts building phase that nobody knows about but they still hurt my bank balance badly.

The replacement ramps are polished stainless steel. They look great as is and I think powder coating them would not be as nice.

Game numbers two and three are being co-developed. It remains to be seen which will be completed first. There are several new mechanisms that we are developing for them - remember - we make EVERY single part ourselves.
 
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