Ben Heck's Zombie Adventureland™ will have a solid list of pinball features, new cabinet design, serious led lighting, and other interesting pinball gadgets. A pretty solid lineup of new stuff is in the planning now. The underlying premise for the complete design and development of the game is that all parts have to be sourced and manufactured in the USA. We are trying to have EVERY nut, bolt, bracket, cable, ramp, artwork piece, bumper, playfield and whole wood cabinet originate from here in some form. It is quite a challenge to accomplish this and we feel at this stage only some computer chips and game led lighting will be from overseas. So the higher price you pay for the game is really going out to help hundreds of other local craftsmen, artists, vendors, businesses and their families directly. It's great.
On top of that we enter the realm of CUSTOM DESIGN. Basically that means in many cases we have a choice to make the best part, coolest design or pick a rad material. It's not about cost or being easy. For example instead of making just a molded plastic ramp (easy + cheap), we would make an led-lit, laser trimmed, stainless metal ramp with silkscreend side interlocking PETG walls and terminated pancake magnets for magnetic effect to drop the ball. You get the idea. Custom = Cool = Difficult
From a design standpoint for a pinball designer it makes things VERY challenging as all this creative venting has to be distilled into something that works, is manufacturable and looks way cool. That is the goal and becuase it's custom, the games take "longer" to make. A lot longer to get it right. But so far as work progresses on Magic Girl™ (our first custom game) the process seems to be working fine and the output is breathtaking. So we have to try to dial it in a bit and get a little quicker in some areas.
People comment all the time that many of the successful or classic games from my past like Cirqus Voltaire™ and Theatre of Magic™ have many "pinball firsts". I never really made the connection until recently. As a designer I try to challenge myself and see if I can make more ORIGINAL stuff. Basically mechanisms, effects, toys or neat things not seen on pinball games before, or since! We will try to design and invent lot's of these for Zombie Adventureland. A few early ideas will be shown below.
Also not every feature will be revealed to all owners. Pinball has a great history of being truly magical and riveting. So many games of the past were game changers: Capt Fantastic™, Wizard™, Flash™, Xenon™, Black Knight™, Space Shuttle™, Addams Family™, Pinbot™, Cyclone™. The list goes on and on. But all of these games share a common theme. They are great. So for me as a pinball designer, that is the level I hope to reach and hang around a while. Although it's no easy task at all.
There must also be a real "surprise" element and pinball "wow" once the games get developed and are reaching the end of the build cycle to get boxed. We want ALL owners to open their games, or build them, and truly spend hours marvelling at all the cool marvels on the game or the beautiful silk-screened art panels. Hopefully all that coolnes is "never before seen" coolness. That's my goal as a creative designer and something people want. So we will keep secrets about these custom pins, and lot's of them! But here is a short list of some stuff to give you the idea.
- Full size 1990s arcade style pinball machine
- Ground-up new pinball game design and cabinet styling
- Stainless steel brackets, guides and trim
- Metal coin door with dual rejectors, lock and lighting
- Hardwood-plywood cabinet construction (no mdf)
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Narrow body standard playfield size (21" x 46")
- Metal legs and levelers (custom legs are planned)
- 2 flipper basic player control (maybe 3 if it flows)
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New "edgy" cabinet design built especially for Magic Girl™ and Zombie Adventureland™
- Neon lighting and ramp designs on the playfield
- 19" color LCD flat screen PIXELPLAY™ display
- Full size 10 color silk-screened backglass
- 2 chrome plunger loaded shooters
- Beautiful 10+ color silk-screened playfield artwork
- Plywood cabinet panels. (no mdf)
- NEW Titanium Hard Coat™ on the playfield
- 6 color silkscreened playfield plastics for brilliant color
- 120v-60hz Operation (220v-50hz please inquire)
- 5 Speaker "ZSound" custom pinball sound system
- Much more!!
Check out the featuregrams.
The Featuregram was something Herb Jones at Bally created to give you more of a jazzed look into the new features on a pinball playfield. Most pinball advertising had some copy explaining the marvels of the "new" thing on the game that made it a top location earner. In this case we are more interested in the creative aspect of the game asking the question: "what things are planned or wished for, or what will be a custom "pinball-first"? The Featuregrams below go into more early detail.
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