After announcing several weeks ago that it is working directly with Lior from the Art of Pinball to create beautiful sculpts for its upcoming pinball machine Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Dutch Pinball Exclusive (DPX) announced this morning that it also is also collaborating with the highly-regarded pinball Mod manufacturer Stumblor Pinball to add its “Lolly” mod boards in all production machines.
Stumblor Pinball is well known in the pinball industry for fantastic mods such as its Noodle Bar and Tokyo Neon Sign for Stern Pinball's Godzilla and its Area 51 building mod for Stern's Foo Fighters. DPX will use Stumblor's Lolly board to directly control various mechanical and lighting gameplay features in Alice. Owners will also be able to use the board to add their own mods to the game.
Davey from Stumblor Pinball had the following to say about the collaboration:
“We’re thrilled to be working on this project. Melvin has always been really supportive and enthusiastic about the mod scene, and always tended to contact me after a big release to show that support. A few days after the Jaws buoy was released, he mentioned how he would love to use some of our tech in one of his games. Of course we jumped at the chance.
Mod makers have long sought to have a closer relationship with the manufacturers, whether that means a direct involvement like this one, or simply to have better access to the game data, to create more interactive mods without being forced to hack cables. It’s inspiring to see Dutch taking that leap of faith. They have shown to be innovative, disruptive, and fresh - and I think this partnership solidifies that
reputation.
We’re excited to be bringing our mod technology to a wider audience and hope that everyone who buys an Alice has as much fun building out their crazy mod ideas as we have.”
Additional details about this collab will be discussed on the podcast, In Before the Lock, on Monday this afternoon at Evening 5:00 PM Eastern time on both Twitch and YouTube:
https://www.twitch.tv/in_before_thelock
https://www.youtube.com/@inbeforethelock
m.facebook.com/inbeforethelockpinball
Below is a link to the Stumblor Pinball for anyone interested in seeing more of its products:
Wowza, this could be the start of something really good. Reminds me of when 3D cards became a thing for PCs. Suddenly, the PC became the framework and the card became a cheaper and easily upgradable piece that could rapidly evolve. Easy mods = more people modding, and APIs and Bluetooth control opens up a range of options too beyond what Stern decides they want you to do (or not).
I could also see this opening up a new economics for pricing and customizing machines. A standard board like this would allow DP, JJ, CG, Spooky, or whoever to create their own official "customization packs" that could be sold as optional add-ons you could mix and match on top of…