Spooky Pinball 1st Pin - Pinball Zombies From Beyond The Grave

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Here is a release by Pinball News, a little old but is still current.



Charlie announced his intention on the latest Spooky Pinball podcast, and said he would be working with Ben Heck, Dennis Nordman, and many others to make his games under the Spooky Pinball LLC brand.

The first of these games is to be an original zombie theme, but different to the Ben Heck's Zombie Adventureland currently being developed by John Popadiuk and Ben Heck. Charlie says his game will be a more modern look at zombies compared to BHZA's retro '50s/'60s style.

Charlie also said his game will not feature an LCD and will be much more focused on classic pinball design, with sexy women and plenty of earthy humour in a completely different style of artwork package.

Another difference is how Spooky Pinball will not be taking pre-orders or trying to raise start-up funding. Instead, Charlie will fund the initial development and manufacture himself. He will make the machines in small batches of 25 which will be sold with a 50% deposit taken at the time of order, and shipping taking place within 60 days.

Pinball News asked Charlie why he decided to enter the increasingly crowded world of pinball making. He told us, "First and foremost, we've got incredible friends and support from people in the right places. Ben Heck, Dennis, Terry at Pinball Life, Michael at Flipper Fidelity, and a cast of locals that could build a rocket to Mars if the world would let them (and we might). Art, metal fab, plastics, cabinets & playfields, programming... it's all there. We'll be doing all our own printing as well."

With the right people with the right skills, what, we wondered, will make Spooky Pinball's machines different from those produced by all the other companies now in the pinball manufacturing business? Charlie explained, "What we're going to offer are games at a great price that the average pinball guy can manage. They will look incredible, have plenty to do on the playfield, and have a fresh take on art and style that hasn't been seen in pinball before. Kind of a mix of early '80s originality with '90s game play... but we have no guides we have to follow. We won't reinvent pinball, we're just going to make games that are meant to be played by men that will act like teenagers every chance they get."

He continued, "We have no intentions of competing on a Stern or Jersey Jack level for sales numbers. We're going to build quality games and keep our small town roots firmly in place. There are no pre-sales, no kickstarter pages... we'll build them out of our own pocket, and when you order a game, you'll have it in a timely fashion. That's it... We're going to do our best to streamline the entire process, and show a small company can produce games as well as anyone ever has."

As always, Pinball News will keep you fully informed of all the latest developments with Spooky Pinball's exciting new move into pinball manufacturing.


http://www.pinballnews.com/news/spooky.html

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some photos of the cabinet and translite from spectators - the game inside was ghost squad. It was said that Charlie is making his own cabinets in house and that they look well made.

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A couple more photos, and remember it has Ben's Ghost Squad playfield and green dmd, and Dennis, Charlie, I think blue shirt and bug in the photos

- I like the way the translite is framed in effect with the continuation of the speaker and dmd panel

[ktm450]

Artwork looks pretty sweet 

[punter]

Looks very nice  .

[coon82]

It's kind of funny to see the components of the two games together, particularly as the are both in development.
Cabinet art looks nice. I think both titles will be quite popular, It will be interesting to see how many get made once production gets under way and how many come to Oz.

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Charlie said to me that he has a few requests to go on the list now from Aussies

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Charlie chimed in after the show to share some thoughts

"Morning pinball people. And holy s**t am I exhausted!

Sorry I don't post in here much. We've been crazy busy getting this thing together, and I was very happy with the response we had at MGC. Our whole point of taking Ben's game in our cabinet was to show that we are serious about this, and I think we more than accomplished that. We will be mfg Ben's "Ghost Squad" as well as our "Pinball Zombies From Beyond the Grave" at pretty much the same time. I always get asked about release dates... let's go with this, Ben feels his game will be complete by summer. It's my job to gather the parts, stress test unique toys (Hellevator... eeep!) and make it happen. We'll get there.

Oh, there is a reason the word "Pinball" is in our title... will make more sense later. There's also a reason our backbox is a little funky. Personally, I love a mystery. You won't see a ton of updates on "Pinball Zombies From Beyond the Grave". I'm going to work as hard as I possibly can on it, and hopefully it speaks for itself... if there aren't a couple of them being played at Expo, I'll be crushed.

Iceman... love ya dude! Glad you are talking about Alecia Crowley's nipples now anyway.   I have no ill will or animosity towards anyone, really and I mean that. Although I think Heck did eat the last of my beef jerky in the car on the way home that sonofa...

Thanks so much to everyone for the support on pinside, FB, and those who took the time to come talk to us in person at MGC. And a HUGE thanks to Steve Ritchie for the cool endorsement on FB... if you think that didn't make Heck and I giddy like four year olds who just took the whole cookie jar, you'd be wrong. 

Hey, if anyone happened to catch video of our son jamming out with the AC/DC tribute band in the lounge on Saturday night, I'd be thrilled if you sent it to me... holy crap was that a cool parent moment!

Ok, I'm going back to work. The shop is trashed from all the thrashing last week to make it to MGC... and we've got games to build. LOTS of games to build!"

first photo:
Steve Ritchie having a game - with this said - "The King playing Ben Heck's "Ghost Squad" in our "Pinball Zombies From Beyond The Grave" proto cabinet. Our favorite quote of the weekend.... Steve Ritchie saying "Hey guys, this game DOES NOT suck!". ;-)"

you gotta love the second photo:
DMD lists Dennis Nordman and Jpop and Ben Hecks playfield is in Spookies Cabinert - I think they all get along

third photo:
cabinet shot

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a little combined video with Ben and Ghost squad - but he does does say his goal to sell the machine at $4.5k 

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just for those that may be interested Charlie is selling t-shirts and translites

http://www.spookypinball.com/games-swag/

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anyone interested in a Pinball Zombies can email Charlie

charlie@spookypinball.com

to be put on the list (no deposits required)

He is expecting to have finished ones ready for expo in October but told me his goal is to have machines finished and hoped to start going out the door before this date.

You can also email Chralie about getting on the list with Ben Heck's Ghost Squad as Charlie will be building them.

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Development update

Charlie is onto the second version of whitewood and Dennis Nordman has inspected it and overall was impressed and advised a few small changes.

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comment from Charlie on his facebook

"Pinball Zombies From Beyond the Grave can now be played with the glass on. This sure feels like a monumental step! Lol!!!! ;-)"

good sign, hopefully some photos soon, can only wish.

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some updated info from their 38th podcast about the game:

- they played a game on the podcast to sort of prove that it works, scores and is a functioning game in midway of development but looses it on a podcast
- announcement that all games will have X-Pin Pinball dmd displays
- people that order a Pinball Zombies can choose between a Blood Red or Zombie Green DMD


on the podcast was a good informative interview between Charlie and Brett from X-Pin about led displays and dmd design - the guy has gone to alot of effort to ensure all systems run on the available power. He is also in the midst of developing a 7 digit display that will fit into the classic bally 6 digit games so you will have no issue with score roll over via a dedicated plug and play design. He brought up also a interesting fact that Stern had to change to a Green dmd product as Europe would not allow the plasma displays any longer which explains the change to the classic dmd that we all know.
display info - http://xpinpinball.com
podcast here - http://www.spookypinball.com/podcast-2/

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Another art release with the art not as green - looks good