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Spooky, Chicago Gaming and Ben Heck to collaborate on a new machine

Thought spooky had binned off ben heck.. they fell out i seem to remember over something
 
They're best friends again now. I believe Ben left when Charlie picked TNA as their next machine when ACNC wasn't ready, rather than the machine he had designed. Something like that.
 
It'll be interesting to see if its an original theme or a licensed machine...

Spooky are doing some really great machines but lack the resources to mass produce the machines... A partnership with Chicago Gaming could be great to make their games more accessible
 
It'll be interesting to see if its an original theme or a licensed machine...

Spooky are doing some really great machines but lack the resources to mass produce the machines... A partnership with Chicago Gaming could be great to make their games more accessible

I want to love Spooky but Spooky has some great concepts that are sadly made from cheese. TNA falling apart, Never seen an Alice Cooper last longer than an hour, and R&M having a bunch of issues off the line...
 
I want to love Spooky but Spooky has some great concepts that are sadly made from cheese. TNA falling apart, Never seen an Alice Cooper last longer than an hour, and R&M having a bunch of issues off the line...

Sound like what Sterns going through
 
I've had one stern issue and stern took care of me...I've bought 10 NIB stern games and another 10 odd used . imdn captive balls annoying but that's it.
 
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Bunch of issues off the line sound familiar . Just look at the latest Stern pin.
Every pinball company has issues.
Spooky is a low budget company starting off.
It's not like Stern and just started producing so don't compare.
 
I want to love Spooky but Spooky has some great concepts that are sadly made from cheese. TNA falling apart, Never seen an Alice Cooper last longer than an hour, and R&M having a bunch of issues off the line...
How come you are getting a Rick and Morty if you clearly aren't happy with what Spooky produce?
 
Bunch of issues off the line sound familiar . Just look at the latest Stern pin.
Every pinball company has issues.
Spooky is a low budget company starting off.
It's not like Stern and just started producing so don't compare.

can't compare to others but of all the games I've had Ive had zero problems except for GB play field that they swapped.
 
I wouldn't let Ben Heck loose with a pack of crayons let alone design anything for a pinball machine.

ha ha classic! Ben heck just decided he was a pinball expert one day with no knowledge or experience. I heard Gary stern told him to do one, when he tried to tell him how to change pinball, brilliant!

my 2p for spooky, stick with Scott and Eric you’ll be fine, Ben, hmmmm , not so much
 
I've owned a TNA and currently own an Alice Cooper and would have zero hesitation in getting another Spooky game. Their support has always been first class and they've always got back to me the same day and I've received spare parts within a week for free for the minor issues I've had, even when they didn't have to not being the original buyer of ACNC.
 
I've owned a TNA and currently own an Alice Cooper and would have zero hesitation in getting another Spooky game. Their support has always been first class and they've always got back to me the same day and I've received spare parts within a week for free for the minor issues I've had, even when they didn't have to not being the original buyer of ACNC.

how was you TNA playfield? how did they take care of that?

how is your Alice Cooper doing? the one at the club has constant problems...
 
how was you TNA playfield? how did they take care of that?

how is your Alice Cooper doing? the one at the club has constant problems...
My TNA had very minor issues under a couple of posts, something I wouldn't have even noticed if I hadn't read about it. The washers they sent covered and protected from further issues. I was never expecting them to send out new playfields to everyone who had issues.

No issues with my Alice. I realise it won't get anywhere near the amount of plays the one at your club does.

Whilst Spooky never publicly said why some of their playfields had issues, at least Charlie acknowledged there was an issue and that they did fix it, as proven by the later TNA's, 550 ACNC and early reports of Rick and Morty playfields. As far as I'm aware Stern or JJP haven't even acknowledged their is/has been issues with their playfields. It's just been radio silence hasn't it?

I would have bought a JP Pro last Xmas but won't touch a new Stern until I'm sure the playfield issues are resolved. I know others who are in the same boat.
 
I wouldn't let Ben Heck loose with a pack of crayons let alone design anything for a pinball machine.

+1 to this. Having played Americas most wanted (on visual pin granted) - it lacks basically everything! No nice shots even! Bad sound, rubbish DMD as well.

The best hting to do is keep him away from the electronics side of things. His pinball PCB is absolutely rubbish - probably 25 years out of date. Perfect for homepin! Heck is now out on his own now he doesnt do the 'Ben Heck Show' anymore.

Well on the design side of things, lets see what they come up with.

Personally I really rate the Chicago Gaming remakes. I am not a fan of PROC stuff, it always seems 'home made'. That is my personal view.

TNA is a great machine, R&M isnt one for me because of the theme.

Let's see what AFMrm plus TNA equals. But lets just hope it doesnt use Heck Electronics.....



PS - has anyone sat thru the hour plus pod cast to get an idea what is going on!!!!???
 
how was you TNA playfield? how did they take care of that?

how is your Alice Cooper doing? the one at the club has constant problems...

i thought you’d said that Spooky took care of you and you were happy with their support - is this not the case? What did they do for your playfield?
 
+1 to this. Having played Americas most wanted (on visual pin granted) - it lacks basically everything! No nice shots even! Bad sound, rubbish DMD as well.

The best hting to do is keep him away from the electronics side of things. His pinball PCB is absolutely rubbish - probably 25 years out of date. Perfect for homepin! Heck is now out on his own now he doesnt do the 'Ben Heck Show' anymore.

Well on the design side of things, lets see what they come up with.

Personally I really rate the Chicago Gaming remakes. I am not a fan of PROC stuff, it always seems 'home made'. That is my personal view.

TNA is a great machine, R&M isnt one for me because of the theme.

Let's see what AFMrm plus TNA equals. But lets just hope it doesnt use Heck Electronics.....



PS - has anyone sat thru the hour plus pod cast to get an idea what is going on!!!!???

TNA is a proc game!

And, there's nothing wrong with driver boards that use 8 bit latches and mosfets using plate through parts. Solid proven design, not stupid serial chained smd rubbish. I'd take a SAM driver board any day over the node crap! :) SAM driver boards were used up to quite recently as well, not 25 years ago.
 
The golden rule with pinball is that you NEVER EVER trust to luck that something has happened. I have ACNC and its a great game but it'll never be reliable because they took short cuts.
The castle locks. Yes they have switches but they are NOT on the lock, they are at the entrance. Thus they can see if a ball enters the lock but NOT if it has exited or is still there. This is why on this game you can steal locks. They can't determine if a ball is physically still there. They can't properly ball search.
The save magnet. Does not have any detection! Stern use the windings as an eddy board, I use a laser. This is why it can't save SDTM and why it stays on so long before flinging the ball - it guesses the time it'll take to roll down the outlane and be caught by the magnet!
the amplifier is always on. I added a switched relay to turn it off on FP when not in use.
etc.

Having watched some of Heck's Youtube, he appears to be of the opinion that a 3D print is good for everything. As a lecturer in this, I can tell you it isn't.
 
I would have bought a JP Pro last Xmas but won't touch a new Stern until I'm sure the playfield issues are resolved. I know others who are in the same boat.

Is Batman 66 exempt? Or does it precede the more recent issues? I thought, beyond the ironic GB ghosting issues, they'd never really gone away!
 
The golden rule with pinball is that you NEVER EVER trust to luck that something has happened. I have ACNC and its a great game but it'll never be reliable because they took short cuts.
The castle locks. Yes they have switches but they are NOT on the lock, they are at the entrance. Thus they can see if a ball enters the lock but NOT if it has exited or is still there. This is why on this game you can steal locks. They can't determine if a ball is physically still there. They can't properly ball search.
The save magnet. Does not have any detection! Stern use the windings as an eddy board, I use a laser. This is why it can't save SDTM and why it stays on so long before flinging the ball - it guesses the time it'll take to roll down the outlane and be caught by the magnet!
the amplifier is always on. I added a switched relay to turn it off on FP when not in use.
etc.

Having watched some of Heck's Youtube, he appears to be of the opinion that a 3D print is good for everything. As a lecturer in this, I can tell you it isn't.

Couldn't agree more :)

Programming a game is not a simple experience

As for magnet control, sega had it spot on when they created the control board for golden eye and twister. A masterpiece really and i've spent a long time recreating and improving it.
 
i thought you’d said that Spooky took care of you and you were happy with their support - is this not the case? What did they do for your playfield?

I ended up paying them well over a $1000 for a populated playfield which is in a box in my garage. The original playfield is still in the game as I thought I might as well use it until it falls apart which looking at some parts of it won’t be long notably where the ball drops off the shooter lane. I’d have preferred a swap but Charlie came up with this offer which was a reasonable compromise given a swap wasn’t going to happen. I like the spooky guys but as you know if someone asks me for a view I’m not going to sugar coat it because in the long run that doesn’t help spooky.

If I compare the ACNC we have at the club with my IMDN Premium which has been in the club couple of months longer (and hasn’t been out of order anywhere near as much) the Stern playfield is in much better shape. I cleaned the ACNC we have in the club last week hoping we would use it in the league and from an engineering stand point Stern would appear to have a considerable upper hand. Although TNA is a better built machine than ACNC also in my view, JJP games would also appear better engineered but with poorer quality parts/sub-assemblies. CGC ****es all over all of them.

My expectations in engineering are high but with each of these companies I know what to expect. That hasn’t put me off ordering R&M from Spooky but I expect to fiddle with it a lot more than other games. What I’m not standing by and doing is let the idiots in pinside spin nonsense about the quality of games for people to get the wrong expectation.

Cheers,
Neil


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
The golden rule with pinball is that you NEVER EVER trust to luck that something has happened. I have ACNC and its a great game but it'll never be reliable because they took short cuts.
The castle locks. Yes they have switches but they are NOT on the lock, they are at the entrance. Thus they can see if a ball enters the lock but NOT if it has exited or is still there. This is why on this game you can steal locks. They can't determine if a ball is physically still there. They can't properly ball search.
The save magnet. Does not have any detection! Stern use the windings as an eddy board, I use a laser. This is why it can't save SDTM and why it stays on so long before flinging the ball - it guesses the time it'll take to roll down the outlane and be caught by the magnet!
the amplifier is always on. I added a switched relay to turn it off on FP when not in use.
etc.

Having watched some of Heck's Youtube, he appears to be of the opinion that a 3D print is good for everything. As a lecturer in this, I can tell you it isn't.

Spot on.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
The PROC boards are epic in my view but if you stick them in **** then they might smell.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
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