here are a few comments from a pin side thread from the well known guys
Bran Kelly had to say:
"No deposits being taken by Charlie. He's building games all on his own dime. I don't want to speak for Charlie but by the sounds of things, his game will bring back some of what pinball has been lacking for years....t*ts and *ss and lots of locker room humor.
And trust me, he's got every aspect of pinball production lined up from operating system to cabinets to game design to artwork to parts fabrication, all the way to final production. Charlie's no fool and has many, many friends involved in pinball in one form or another.
Charlie has already sent me an employment application. The problem is, he lives 5 hours from me."
Ben Heck had to say:
Jpop wanted to do a zombie game and use me as the antagonist / villain. To which I said "Sure!" It was not, as some think, all my idea as an ego trip
So John and I have been working on that for the past year. John is going for a more retro 50s/60s sci-fi feel. The artwork is very colorful and cool.
Chuck's game is a more modern take on zombies, more "Return of the Living Dead".
Where I come in is I have been working on an open source pinball platform to help homebrewers make their own game. It comes with a "flipping framework" and can be programed like an Arduino. It is entirely microcontroller (MCU) based and does not require a PC to run (just to program it) It's an amalgamation of tech from "Bill Paxton Pinball" and our aborted "Lost" homebrew.
I sold my first few prototype boards to Chuck to develop his own game.
It is my intention to make these boards available in the future to other homebrewers, after Chuck finds the kinks for me.
Charlie said this:
"These games will be suitable for any use... home or commercial. Do I intend to push them towards operators? Not really. You guys are really the market we're focused on.
I can't do this without our buddy Ben Heck... or anyone else that's tied to all this. Not even remotely possible, and I owe them all big time. They can do things I can't... I can do things they can't. Together, we can do anything.
J Pop's zombie game is a whole other animal than ours... two totally different price points and approaches. He's in his shop, we're in ours. He's cool with our game, and I'm WAAAAY cool with his! And not just because our ego maniac buddy Ben is in it either. I Keeed I keeeed.
But to be clear... yeah... this will be a full sized commercial kick ass coin op piece of equipment that will look, play, and sound great in your home or a bar."
and
"25 games at a time. If orders are knocking our shop door down, we'll hire more assembly help and get done as many as we can.
Pinball always has ups & downs (duh right?). We're in a surge right now for sure... our goal is to be as big as we need to be, but not outgrow ourselves so we can get by in the lean times that are bound to come. Do I hope it stays this way for decades? Of course! But hey... history says the odds of that are slim. Either way... we're in this for the long haul.
People are privately asking me for the price point. I have a number in mind, but until Heather the Hot Accountant has tallied up every nut & bolt on the BOM I can't really give one. Having said that... I'm hoping to give a killer commercially ready game under the price of anything else you can buy. Period!
Thanks everyone! It's been quite a day to say the least. "
