Chicago Pinball Expo 2016

I headed over to the Chicago Pinball Expo for 2016 with a bit of trepidation given how bad I felt it was last year. But this year was pretty rock'n. Lots of new games on display.

So without dragging anything out I'll post the big stuff first.



Jesery Jack was out in force at the Expo. 2 Hobbits, 1 Wizard of Oz, and 5 of Pat Lawlers new Dialed In.

Having 5 of their latest machine on display was really how to do it to minimize lines. When you have one or two new machines on hand the lines can get bad (as you'll see in a bit). But this way I was able to play the table six or seven times without waiting long at all.



Dialed In isn't immediately attractive or the theme really grabbing you. But when you play it your opinion changes pretty quick. I think the theme is that you have a city to manage or at least deal with disasters (meteor shows, acid rain, giant spiders???). But in order to deal with the disasters your phone needs to be charged up first. There's a cell phone toy right above a ball scoop. It's initially dead and to power it up you have to hit a stand-up power target that moves across the table. Once you have it powered up you can shoot the scoop and trigger a mission.

The ball lock is a bit harder to hit. There's a small-right flipper near the middle of the table you can shoot it up a ramp to lock. But you have to hit the loop to get it to the flipper. I did manage to active multi-ball in one of my games and came close with a second. It was pretty hectic and not sure what I was shooting for (just went for lit targets) and managed to hit the Jackpot a few times.

There's a magnet under the table on the right which will usually stop the ball and sometimes toss the ball in to the cell phone scoop. There's another video monitor in the top-center of the table that sometimes displays a spider in it, other times a diamond or a box. That shot is a bit hard to hit and as I found if you don't make it fully the ball is likely going to go straight down the middle.

But the game is pretty forgiving in general. Got the ball save and kickback you can enable.

The toys are actually not bad when you see them. There's so many lights and animations going on. Like in the back on one of the habit trails there's a toy of a worker woman. She's holding a wrench and her arm will move up and down in a chopping motion over the habit trail. It looks like the toy can stop/grab the ball if it's going along the habit trail as it's animating.

[video]http://vid19.photobucket.com/albums/b151/Grugle/Chicago%20Pinball%20Expo%202016/IMG_1059.mp4[/video]

You can click on the above video to see a bit of the game in action.



The game also has a camera in there that will take selfie pictures of you while you are playing and start plastering them on the backbox. Was not sure how to initiate that but it was blast watching peoples photos displaying on the screen while they were playing.

You can also connect your phone to the game. I didn't play around with that - one of the Jersey Jack guys had a phone ready you could try it with. But it basically sounded like you play a small pinball app while you are waiting your turn and can somehow impact the game. Kinda wishing I tried that now.

But otherwise this game was a lot of fun to play. I dead hear the JJP guy mention the code was about 20% complete so looking forward to seeing how this game evolves.

Another big game at the show was this one...



This is the second game by Heighway Pinball. Their first game was a motorcycle racing game Full Throttle which was good for a first table. So I was interested to see how they could improve on things with their second table Alien.

Like Full Throttle this table also has a small video screen in the center of the table. I really like this feature as you don't have to take your eyes off the table to look at the back box to see your score, or what video mode you are on. And as Alien has a lot of video clips you can watch them right on the table instead of looking up at the back box which is also a monitor.

BTW, this line for the two machines did not go down at all when I was there. Just a bunch of people wanting to play this.



To my surprise this game actually covers Alien and Aliens. When I was waiting in line I heard Hick's say "Game over man! Game Over!" it took me a bit by surprise. Then I started seeing video clips from Aliens on the machine I was not waiting on. I thought maybe one machine was Alien and the other Aliens. But no once I got playing it was showing clips from both movies.

The machine played about the same as Full Throttle to me in terms of quality. I didn't end up leaving the machine blown away but also only played it the once due to the lines. I did appreciate there was a mission to Find Jonesy (the cat).

From what I recall of the gameplay there were lots of flippers to worry about (4 full-size ones). And in the left-lock if you don't use the flipper when the ball pops out it drains (although I think the ball got saved too). The 2 left ramps are a PITA to hit as the openings are narrow. Basically need a perfect shot. The alien egg bumpers are awesome looking. Did not see the big alien toy animate so not sure what it does - although hit it a bunch of times. Oh you wore headphones while playing it - it didn't sound like the music was from the films at all but the audio was. But man they had the sound cranked up to 11 which wasn't very pleasant.



Ok. While not on the scale of Dialed In, Alien, or Batman which all made their debut this Dominoes game from Spooky Pinball is new as well. Spooky are the same guys that made America's Most Haunted and more recently Rob Zombie's Spookshow. I didn't care so much for either of those but I have to say this Dominoes game is pretty damn fun.



They didn't go crazy with the toys like they did on Spookshow and the build quality seems a lot better.

I wish I went back to this one and played it a bit more as I can't speak to the game modes much at all. I know there was one putting the pizza in the oven but can't recall what to do in that one. The only mode I recall was knocking down the targets in front of the Pizza Crusher. The targets drop and you can shoot in to the area below the Noid. Once you do that you have to make a loop shot around the Noid which spins him. I dunno why I was doing that but it was fun. I know I had to also put the pizza in the oven at one point which sounds more logical of a thing to do for the game.

In any case the game was fun and I think it had a $5k price tag on it which seems pretty reasonable compared to the $8-$9k+ for these new games.

I'll post some more later as there's some other fun stuff at the show to see. And some disappointments from the caped crusader.

Excellent write up, more of the same please. What was the vibe from the punters, the pinheads? Any news of the next Stern game? Any news on American Pinball, Houdini, Magic Girl, the whole JPop debacle? Anything from Dutch Pinball? Anything from Homepin? Any news of Multimorphic or Captain Nemo or Archer or other new stuff?

Any cool new mods or displays or gadgets or gimmicks? Any interesting seminars?

Would you recommend it as a trip? Been before?

Crawley is a place in South London near Gatwick airport, not a very nice place though. Don't suppose you know it.

So all three versions of the Batman '66 were on hand at the Expo. They look pretty fantastic. This is Sterns first game using a monitor on the backbox. The monitor shows various clips from the show and cartoon as well as your score. And the lighting on the game looks really good.

But that's all they are showing - some lit boxes. You actually couldn't play any of these.

So here's a video of the pretty lights: http://vid19.photobucket.com/albums/b151/Grugle/Chicago Pinball Expo 2016/IMG_1074.mp4



Moving on. One of the things I like about the Expo is people bring in their home brew projects. There are one off pinball machines, typically using P-Roc to program them. The quality can differ between each of them. But Doom here looks to be one of the higher quality ones.



Everything looks to be build from the ground up from the cabinet art, the back box videos, and all the ramps, decals, playfield art, and toys on the table. If this is based on another pinball table design I don't recognize it.

Unfortunately when I got around to checking it out it was not working - it couldn't find all the balls to start the game. So I have no idea how it actually plays.



But another pretty amazing home brew pinball project is the Buffy the Vampire Slayer table. This has been at the Expo before but this time there were 2 and it looks like its had some additional improvements to it.

The table layout itself is using Sword of Fury but all the artwork on the table has been re-done. The video screen on the back box was there before but it looks higher resolution to me. The screen will show your score and videos from the show. I did notice all the call outs now are voice actors rather than the original actors - and the new voice actors were actually pretty good from what I heard.

The games were fully playable and seemed complete to me.

You can see a short video of the table here: http://vid19.photobucket.com/albums/b151/Grugle/Chicago Pinball Expo 2016/IMG_1067.mp4

Did you guys see on the Batman 66 they had a volume control selector knob on the outside of coin door. I think that may be something new at stern but maybe they feel this game will strictly be home use or a close competitor to JJP games.

DanBradford said:

Excellent write up, more of the same please. What was the vibe from the punters, the pinheads? Any news of the next Stern game? Any news on American Pinball, Houdini, Magic Girl, the whole JPop debacle? Anything from Dutch Pinball? Anything from Homepin? Any news of Multimorphic or Captain Nemo or Archer or other new stuff?

Any cool new mods or displays or gadgets or gimmicks? Any interesting seminars?

Would you recommend it as a trip? Been before?

Crawley is a place in South London near Gatwick airport, not a very nice place though. Don't suppose you know it.

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The vibe was really positive this year. I think everyone was pretty happy with everything that was on display and other than Alien it wasn't much of a wait to play anything. It seemed like the attendance was down a lot from previous years which helped with that - I think last year was pretty crummy and may have kept people away.

American Pinball did not have any of their games on display in the vendor hall. I saw on Pinside they were in a room somewhere but just had a few table playfields from Houndini, one with all the ramps and lights on it. But nothing to play so I didn't bother to seek it out.

Dutch pinball had a Big Lebowski set up there next to the Bride of Pinbot 2.0.



This is before they turned them on. And I forgot to go back and play both although I have before.

There was nothing from Homepin and their Thunderbirds pinball. I didn't attend any of the seminars so not sure if they did something there.

Same goes for the Captain Nemo pin. Nothing I saw on the floor.

Multimorphic had their pins on display and for play again. About 3/4th of the playfield is a video monitor with the top third being more traditional pinball machine with ramps or targets to hit. Animated videos play on the playfield indicating what you should shoot for on the upper part of the table. It's a bit Pinball 2000ish (Revenge from Mars, Star Wars: Episode 1) in it's game play.

Here's a pic of their Cannon Lagoon table.



Cannon Lagoon is about as basic a pin as you can make - and it plays like a DMD game. You basically have ships criss-crossing on the screen and you have to make specific lane shots to fire your cannons to sink the ships. You just do this over and over and it's not much fun. No missions to speak of. Just sinking the ships before the time runs out.

Their Lexy Lightspeed table, which was their first, is a more complete game with actual missions to complete, voice overs, and animations. It certainly plays better than Cannon Lagoon but I've never been taken with the game and it's Plan 9 From Outspace style theme.

I didn't really check out any displays, gadgets or gimmicks. Basically go there for playing the pins. So can't report on any new technology in that sense.

It's hard for me to recommend the Expo as it's so lopsided on if you're going to get a good year or a bad year. But it also depends on what you are looking for. If you are in to the seminars there are a bunch of those to attend. But you need to pay extra for those and most of them wind up on Pinball News as is. If your in for the Tournament well its certainly good for that. They typically have a good turn out from what I can tell and manage it well. Here's a shot of some (not all) the tourney machines.



The free play area is one of the areas that can be hit or miss both in terms of number of games and quality of games. Two years ago they had an amazing number of pins in the free play area to the point where they had to open up an additional room to fit them all. And the pins were great that year too as they had a lot of well maintained EMs, some rare machines like 2 Big Bang Bars and a Defender, and the variety of tables was just fantastic. But last year was pretty terrible. Half the free play area was empty and a lot of the machines were beat to hell.

So you never know what you're going to get here. This year the free play area was pretty decent (will post later). But if your primary motivation is to play a lot of pins other Expo's are likely better. I just go the one day to the Expo now and that's plenty to pretty much cover everything I wanted to. I can't see being there the full 5 days.

If you just want to play a ton of pins in fantastic condition I can't highly recommend Vintage Flipper World enough (Ann Arbor, MI) which is just a pin playing paradise - but no seminars, companies showing off their new machines, and limited vendors (like maybe 2). That one would be worth the trip just to play pins for 3 days.

Thank you. I followed a link and found myself reading about that Mike P bloke that organises it, and apparently he routinely pisses off his friends, shouts at vendors, and is generally an arsehole. Why doesn't someone else just take it off him?

Wanted to post a few other things from the Expo here of note.

So here's one of my bucket list pins to play, Pistol Poker. It's by Alvin G (Al's Garage, Mystery Castle, and A.G Soccer which may come to TPA for the head-to-head play). I've never seen a Pistol Poker at an expo. They're pretty rare at 200 units produced. The A.G. machines tend to be quirky and I've been pretty curious about how this one plays.

But ala it was not to be. The vendor that brought this machine, and the others, wouldn't allow play on them. So I could only look at it longingly and hope that it makes an appearance at a future expo where it's playable.



This is the first time I've seen the Nightmare Before Christmas homebrew pin. It's a whitewood table so no artwork but whomever is putting it together spent a lot of time with the mechanics on the table. There's a lot of interesting ball locks and ramp gates that open/close to let the ball pass or divert. So the gameplay on the table looks promising.

The DMD did work and played some videos from the movie but that was about it. There was no other artwork on the table.



This Tattoo Mystery table was pretty neat. It's a hybrid early SS with run with a P-Roc to control the DMD animations, sound, and table mechanics.

Not sure if the table layout is unique or is of another table but it was pretty good. The DMD animation was particularly good and the backglass light display is awesome. Take a peek at them here: http://vid19.photobucket.com/albums/b151/Grugle/Chicago Pinball Expo 2016/IMG_1080.mp4



The Pabst Can Crusher is limited edition revamp of Hello Nellie. Hello Nellie has been at the last few expos I've been to so I've gotten to play it a lot and really enjoy it. Like Tattoo Mystery it's a hybrid (EM) with mixing old and new technology together. It's got a pretty simple layout but man is scoring on it fun. The Can Crusher has an identical layout but the art and sound package has been totally re-done. It's got this late 70's early 80's theme going on where you're in a band. The bands music plays as you play the game but there's a lot of voice overs. Being the early 80s era it almost outdoes Dr. Dude with the "Dude!" and "Duuuuuuuuudeeee!" voices.

Hoping when Stern Pinball Arcade does Hello Nellie it also offers this version of the table too.

What a great selection of pins at that show! Thanks for sharing the pics.

Btw, I got to play Pistol Poker at the Allentown Pin show two years ago. I remember really liking it, even though it was a bit on the easy side with some long ball times. My wife and I played it maybe 3 times, but it made a good impression on us in just a few plays.

Yes on the pistol poker - playable one at Colorado pinball showdown last year. Really liked it -fun rule set and great ramps.

Crawley said:

Hello Nellie.

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Whoa Nellie

Kolchak357 said:

What a great selection of pins at that show! Thanks for sharing the pics.

Btw, I got to play Pistol Poker at the Allentown Pin show two years ago. I remember really liking it, even though it was a bit on the easy side with some long ball times. My wife and I played it maybe 3 times, but it made a good impression on us in just a few plays.

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I played the same one I guess... I didn't have a clue what was going on, despite finding it similarly difficult to drain.