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Making a Pinball Machine?

Tucks

Tucks

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Sep 21, 2014
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Not sure if this has already been asked (or even if it's possible) but has anyone on here tried making their own machine?

Individually a very hard task but with the collective knowledge on here not an impossible task. I would love to personally and I have a theme and certain shot/requirements I would like to see in my game but by myself, not really going to happen. I'm sure some of you have thought likewise.

Crowd source for the labour, Crowd fund for the parts/licence, make a cracking game and sell/licence it to Heighway to build and distribute like Dennis Nordman and Greg Freres did with Whoa Nellie at Stern. Easy? How hard can it be?

Jokes aside, this was something that Andew said could be a possibility in the future.
 
I have toyed with the idea on and off for a while now as I have a theme I want to do. If I could stop buying games that need restoring for long enough then I might have a chance but not looking likely anytime soon :)
 
Phil Dixon's putting together a Forbidden Planet machine - might be worth contacting him if you need advice.
 
Yeah, I played The Matrix at an Expo which I think is a Johnny Mnemonic re-themed game and it was very good. I was more thinking about a fresh design, toys, layout etc. I'm sure it is very very hard to do but a nice idea nevertheless.
 
Sorry, I didn't mean to pee on your parade. There are a few on here who have done great things with rethemes.

Good luck in getting your ideas made!
 
The re-themes are great and probably the best way to go to start. There are far more talented folks on here than me but one day, maybe one day..............
 
Yep, I built my own machine. Took about 5 years, still not completely finished. Need a major pin-show in the south again as motivation!

These days shouldn't take too long to get going with a doner cabinet and one of the electronic kits like Fast pinball or P-ROC. Some key parts can be hard to get as N.O.S. or remanufacured spares if you don't have a full doner machine (or don't want to use rusty old parts).

http://www.pinballinfo.com/community/threads/futurama-is-finished.16543/

IMG_20141009_200011425(edited).JPG IMG_20141122_094612148(edited).JPG
 
Wow impressive stuff! Futurama looks great and very 'professional'. Thanks for the advice and links all.

Now, where did I put Ben Hecks number??
 
Futurama looks great - I actually want to do one with the same theme but it takes AGES to do.

You can get the P3 boards which were used in the 'Forbidden Planet' game but that is not completed yet (bur Phil Dixon and co have done a great job).

if you are looking at licensing something then that will cost a fortune. You may as well 'rip something off' like MM (which is obviously Monty Python).

The most important thing is the shots. Any game can be themed after the shots are layed out.

You mentioned Heighway Pinball - it took them years to get from a simple game that flips a ball around the table to a full game. They had to also evolve all the technology but that is another story.

Oh- plus another thing - you need to know programming. Linux and Python seem very popular.

Companies shy away from windows due to license cost of the OS.

On a thing like this - I would find maybe 4 other people who could work as a team in different fiealds and agree to make a game each.
 
Good advice and many thanks. I realise there are many parts to building a Pin and will probably start by learning some of the basic individual skills and ripping a donor machine.

I agree that working as a team would be the way to go. Cheers.
 
I'd love to work on a pinball machine. I have zero coding skills but I'm illustration and graphics based. I've worked on some projects before and seeing your work out in the public is something I really get a kick out of. Makes me sad to see a lot of the recent pfs have been just ****ty photshop jobs, I was really dissapointed whe I finally got to play Tron in the flesh
 
jack burton said:
I'd love to work on a pinball machine. I have zero coding skills but I'm illustration and graphics based. I've worked on some projects before and seeing your work out in the public is something I really get a kick out of. Makes me sad to see a lot of the recent pfs have been just ****ty photshop jobs, I was really dissapointed whe I finally got to play Tron in the flesh
Click to expand...
You may not need as many coding skills as you think. Look at the Mission Pinball Framework. If you're making a fairly simple game you can do it all with config files. If you wan't to do more then you will need basic python. if you can do basic, you can do basic python.
 
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