Author Topic: Spooky's 1st Production Pin - America's Most Haunted  (Read 57421 times)

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Offline swinks

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Spooky's 1st Production Pin - America's Most Haunted
« on: May 09, 2012, 10:23:32 PM »
So the big news is we scrapped “Lost” pinball. This was for a variety of reasons, the main being we spent so much time trying to cram things into it that we didn’t spend enough time making it play well. So it’s a beautiful game with boring loops and bad ball returns.

But, much like our independent film projects of the past, we took this as a learning experience of how NOT to build a pinball machine. Since then we’ve been working with John Popaduik who’s taught us a lot, and is even putting me in his Zombie game!

Our next pinball project is a custom game inspired by the 2011 Halloween episode of The Ben Heck Show… Ghost Squad! It started as a way to test our new system, but is developing into a game as well. Here’s why we picked this theme:

Easy-to-create assets. Like everyone else, our pinball is going video and our backbox is basically one big LCD. One issue with this is you need far more art assets than an old DMD game. With Ghost Squad we already have access to our characters and can easily film content in front of a green screen. Compare this to a hand-drawn game like “Tesla Vs Edison” where we’d have to create everything from scratch.

Unlicensed Theme: While Ghost Squad is obviously inspired by the 94,000 Ghost Hunting shows on cable, it’s an original theme which means we can build multiple copies and sell them.

Humor Potential: The theme is great for satire, we can’t really insult anyone with it, and since women love those kind of shows, it might even be The Pinball Machine Your Wife Likes Too. (holy grail of collectors)


We’re also trying to have more ball interaction toys than our previous efforts. Special features include:

Spooky Door. A plastic door than opens, closes, traps balls or can be bashed open. Has a VUK (vertical up-kicker) behind it for ball locks or flow interruption for mode start.

Hellavator. An elevator from Hell. Balls can enter from behind (“first floor”) or enter via a ramp shot (“second floor”) The Hellavator can change floors, release the ball and also lock it. The ball can also fall through into the Basement of Horrors.

Basement of Horrors: A tunnel under the playfield that leads from the Hellavator to the Basement Scoop. Balls can be blocks and collected in the basement.

Spirit Magnet: A moving magnet under the playfield, like in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Playfield art in that area will be a Spirit Board (Ouiji is copyrighted so we can’t call it that) so the ball “moves by itself” to answer questions from the dead!

Ball Jump: One shot is up a broken staircase to a balcony, and you have to actually jump the ball across a gap to get there. We’re working hard to make this shot around a 50/50 probability of success.

So keep on eye on this site, my YouTube page and of course the Ben Heck Show!
« Last Edit: June 06, 2013, 09:04:46 PM by swinks »
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Offline swinks

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Re: Ghost Squad - by Ben Heck
« Reply #1 on: November 21, 2012, 09:01:29 AM »
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Offline Strangeways

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Re: Ghost Squad - by Ben Heck
« Reply #2 on: November 21, 2012, 09:48:14 AM »

Unlicensed Horror Theme. I like it already.
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Offline Caveoftreasures

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Re: Ghost Squad - by Ben Heck
« Reply #3 on: November 21, 2012, 01:29:07 PM »
ghostbusters is copyrighted so ghost squad it is.....hmm, a very 80's feel to it....It didnt grab me at all but i do wish them well.
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Offline swinks

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Re: Ghost Squad - by Ben Heck
« Reply #4 on: November 21, 2012, 07:46:38 PM »
a pic
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Offline shootar

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Re: Ghost Squad - by Ben Heck
« Reply #5 on: December 08, 2012, 12:42:58 AM »
What happened to zombie adventureland?
The mallard anas platyrhynchos is not all he's quacked up to be.

Offline swinks

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Re: Ghost Squad - by Ben Heck
« Reply #6 on: February 02, 2013, 10:43:46 AM »
an extract from a comment made by Ben Heck referencing a difference between this pin and Spooky Pinball's first pinball.

"Yes, my new game, called GHOST SQUAD, is a humorous title about paranormal ghost hunting TV shows. You must complete 6 investigations (modes) and defeat the GHOST BOSS in each of them.

One mode is a bar haunted by a deceased prostitute, or, in technical terminology, a "ghost whore"


utoplay=1&rel=0
utoplay=1&rel=0
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Offline swinks

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Re: Ghost Squad - by Ben Heck
« Reply #7 on: February 12, 2013, 11:47:47 PM »
Charlie from spooky pinball shared on his end of jan 2013 podcast about his new venture of spooky pinball and that he will also provide services to manufacture other people's pinballs, with a special comment relating to ghost squad. That said it's a wait and see but we might just see a run of these made by spooky pinball.
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Offline Retropin

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Re: Ghost Squad - by Ben Heck
« Reply #8 on: February 13, 2013, 12:28:44 AM »
All starting to sound like an "inner circle" of well known people pulling together to make a go of things.. all die hard pinball enthusiasts.

This is a real powerhouse of talents and could prove to be a serious market contender for the stale licenced theme... a dedicated enthusiasts market??
Has great promise.

Offline swinks

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Re: Ghost Squad - by Ben Heck
« Reply #9 on: February 18, 2013, 09:28:09 AM »
a few words from Ben:

"So I've been working on a new game myself for the past year called Ghost Squad. Just CNC'd a playfield a few days ago that I hope to have stuffed for Midwest Gaming Classic.

It's a humorous game whose premise is that you're a team of "Ghost Hunters" like all those green night vision shows on TV. I feel modern pinball is sorely lacking in humor and my game aims to address this.

The goal is to advance your "investigations" in 6 typical haunted locations / modes - a hotel, theater, bar, prison, hospital and war fort. Modes are advanced by shooting a path 3 times or collecting pop bumper hits.

Each mode has a unique "Ghost Boss" you must battle. Ghosts are animated on the DMD, and there's also a moving, 3D printed glow-in-the-dark Ghost Bash Toy on the playfield. This toy has a bank of 3 motorized targets in front of it, like AFM, a mini-orbit under the ghost, and in this orbit, a magnet to "catch" (possess?) your ball, and an IR beam so you can bash the captured ball out like BSD.

There is also a motorized "Spooky Door", a Motorized Scoop "Hellavator", a subway, and a ramp shot where you must JUMP the ball over a chasm.

Ghost Squad is fully ******ed with over 140 pages of dialog and 11 different characters including the ghosts. We have the voices about 70% recorded. The dialog is a bit more adult than an average pin but it's the kind of stuff that'll go over kids heads, like MM.

The idea is, take the game in hopefully a playable form to MGC, see what people think, and if there's demand, make it available for sale.

I'm happy to answer any questions, and can post more pics upon request.

PICS: "Final" artwork (plastics not shown), clay "bigature" model, 3D printed copy, CNC playfield."





Here is where I got the info from if you are curious
http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/ghost-squad


looks good, I'm interested and Spooky said they can make them as well plus found a guy close to Sydney that can import pinballs from LA to Sydney for $500 which includes all freight and customs, price only goes up if the machine is more than $5k.
« Last Edit: February 18, 2013, 05:34:50 PM by swinks »
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Offline swinks

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Re: Ghost Squad - by Ben Heck
« Reply #10 on: February 18, 2013, 01:57:18 PM »
This is what Bryan Kelly had to say:
"People are going to laugh the f'ing ass off when they hear Ben's sound bites. Not only can the man make a game, he can ****** it also!!"


GLIR is Ghost Locating Infra Red


There maybe a issue with the name of Ghost Squad as Sega has a game out with this name and with that the next statement makes a little more sense.
"I used 8 ply Baltic Birch. Woodcrafters near my shop carries it.

Yeah the title doesn't need my name. I think the concept "sells itself" pretty easily. If not "Squad", Team, Group, Posse... something that sounds good. By all means, lend me suggestions!

The tagline of the game, regardless, is "To Them, The Paranormal... Isn't"

We still have a few parts available, specifically Bartender of Haunted Bar, Ghostly Prison Warden and Hippie Psychic Chick.

I'll probably do the voice of the demon for Wizard mode."




Here is a test video of a mode and music:
Tw2aQ&index=3



Sounds like a fun pin, artwork looks good, relatively simple but effective. Look forward to some gameplay vids
« Last Edit: February 18, 2013, 02:07:09 PM by swinks »
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Offline swinks

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Re: Ghost Squad - by Ben Heck
« Reply #11 on: March 10, 2013, 06:54:22 PM »
here is light test of the playfield, the playfield looks great - nice and glossy and really like the ghost sun glasses, this is shaping up to be really nice.

utoplay=1&rel=0
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Offline Retropin

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Re: Ghost Squad - by Ben Heck
« Reply #12 on: March 10, 2013, 09:58:21 PM »
Very nice looking PF indeed.. liking the colouring and the artwork... yes - it actually looks like a real pinball playfield!
Lovely deep clear coat.. looks like ceramic.

WOW - real pinball - what will they think of next?

Offline GORGAR 1

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Re: Ghost Squad - by Ben Heck
« Reply #13 on: March 10, 2013, 10:27:13 PM »
Looks good how much are they? Great to see so many making pinball!! That will look good great next to Tron and acdc :-)

Peter

Offline Crashramp

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Re: Ghost Squad - by Ben Heck
« Reply #14 on: March 13, 2013, 09:40:01 AM »
Playfield colour and depth Looks great. I love the lit Sunnys on the ghosts.