Is it No , you will not see it by Xmas ?
I copied this from JJP forum .Its a bit of a read but interesting .
I can add a few things I didn't know before hand.
Keith answered my question about software progress - essentially the
software mix is 2/3 foundation and 1/3 game specific.
In other words, the operation system, I/O interface for the board set, the
diagnostics and switch communcation etc. that will be the foundation of JJP
o/s 1.0 (my label, not KEF) and reusable for game 2,3 etc.
so 2/3 is game rules, light shows, animations, etc. specific to OZ,
including choreography of music and video to go with game play modes, etc.
I would guess Keith is maybe
I'd say after playing the game, that the foundation is about complete, so
say 70% of the code for Woz is foundation and about done.
As Keith posted earlier, the game specific stuff will come quicker with
each passing month. Its further along than it was at PPE, and I'm sure the
IAAPA deadline of having games ready for the biggest distributor show of
the year is only 3-4 weeks from now. Essentially that is a deadline where
KEF is pushing to get many more features than a multiball mode and a few
animations, up to a lot of the score and animations and maybe even some
more modes by then. At the chat, KEF said the ruleset was put on paper
about March of 2012. So he has had the gameplay plan design fairly solid.
From what I'm seeing when playing, I'm guessing about 1/3 of the game
specific stuff is done. I.e. a third of the remaining third of the code,
so its about 80% complete.
But this last 20% is where Keith really works his magic ala simpsons and
LOTR depth of modes, multiballs etc. Again the 20% estimate is my number,
but putting together some of the fireside chat answers, and talking to KEF,
I'd say that's a good guess.
The physical game is complete, per Jack during the fireside chat. OTher
than a few spotlight features, its all one there.
The crystal ball - an 8 yr old asked the question - so just just smilled
for about 20 seconds and knew he had to answer the kid. SO..... it will be
a great light show of some kind. That's all you'll get guys until you open
the box. He did say the team is doing something incredible and said they
can make it work.... I'm guessing we aren't talking about color changing
palantir.
I did see the connectors while the head was being raised as games were set
up. Essentially its power and connector for LCD, and power and connector
for lights - done. You can remove 6 bolts for the hinges and move the game
separately of head v. body. Its a heavy game too - you can shake it, but
don't pull a muscle!! Its solid. Jeff, the super secret cabinet guy, was
introduced at the fireside. He and his wife were at the show. He is a
super craftsman, and between charlie on printing and Jeff on cabinetry and
clearcoat - its amazing piece of furniture for the pinball game - I mean
stunning. Both in the artwork beauty and feel of the finish for sure, but
its a solid piece of cabinet work.
Joe Granner had a lot to say about the scoring. He has spent a lot of time
on orchestration and it very happy with the results. The abilities of the
hardware are leaps ahead of anything. The sound is clean turned at top
volume, and he and KEF have tested. It will bounce the floor if you want
it too. The voices are very good. Dorothy sayings like the forest is dark
and creepy, and only being armed with this basket, do hit that 1/10th of a
second (as Joe said in the chat) where you give it the benefit of the doubt
that it could be the real voice - and that's all it takes. The tin man and
witch are especially spot on.
NO JOURNEY IS THE REWARD speech was ever heard. Glinda now says follow the
yellow brick road, and its quite good. The Wizard is also excellent. The
lion doesn't come up very often, but his lines are pretty good - you won't
be distracted that it doesn't sound exactly like Bert Lahr. The score is
awesome, and we are only hearing a small percentage of the total available
for KEF to work with. We may have seen and heard maybe 3-5% of the
material in the video we've seen so far.
Animations - unreal. Just dorothy being captured and when she faces you
jumping over the log in slo-mo, its awesome. The witch flying a black
smoke trail spelling GAME OVER is wonderful. There will be some really
cool back-story of how they got the witch animations done - watch the movie
and you'll notice there are no real full face shots of Margaret Hamilton -
profiles and brief offscreen shots made it tough to do loops - not like the
iconic dance move of the tin man or scarecrow, or the lion doing their
thing - those loops work well in the upper right main split screen you see
most of the gameplay time.
Body armor is gorgeous. The games were set up next to each other at a
slight outward angle. I got a pic of the both sides of the cabinet in one
shot - I'll try to post as its kind of cool to see the two side cabinet art
panels in the same view.
One more fireside chat note was that both games 2 and 3 artwork has already
started. The titles are decided, but not the order of whether the license
or unlicensed theme will come first. From Jack's answers during the chat,
its clear we won't hear a title until after game 1 ships - but I'm hoping
we are seeing games in December, and with 1/1/2013 being the two year
anniversary of JJP.......???
Gameplay and crowd reaction post is in the Expo thread. I spent all 3 days
at expo, and a lot of time watching people's reactions and seeing both the
number and mix of people it attracted. I asked a few here and there what
they thought, and players, novices, girls, kids, families - all loved it.
And to the post about operators getting line-jumping, not what I heard Jack
say. I heard that LE and standards will be built on the same line, and
Jack wants to get them in the wild, but also that the order date is the
priority queue positioning, with consideration to shipping to
concentrations within a geographic area if it makes sense - nothing that
Jack hasn't said before, and its the same story, not a waffling.
I would guess (and its a total guess, not Jack's answer in the chat) that
some operators will put the LE version in the wild. The "operators first"
was taken out of context a bit.
The tech guys are going to hold seminars for operators around the country
on servicing and operating the game. The manual will be like none you've
ever seen - they guy writing it is a long time pinall owner and service
tech who knows what he didn't like about the hard to read circuit board and
connector clues, to the inability to easily identify replacement parts,
etc. that the manual will be a collective knowledge and improvement of what
you have always wanted when reading those gottlieb or bally/williams
manuals of the 70's 80's or 90's. Plus the LCD is a lot of real estate to
help you dignose and help visualize servicing the game. On screen
tutorials for showing what leads to use on the multimeter and where to put
the black and red leads and meter settings... anyone? - so instead of fine
print trying to find TP1 TP2 TP3 etc on the board schematic, how about just
show it on the screen? I think that would be cool, and I'm sure the team
has lots of those types of surprises for us.
The most obvious observation from hearing from the guys was the passion and
the pride they had in the development and end result. Every detail. No
worries from me, and happy to be in at the beginning.
Dan Garrett
