Good morning everyone. Happy New Year!
Let's start of 2025 with a bang...Rumors. The member "mnpinball" probably has the best track record of anyone on the Pinside website of predicting manufacturers' future titles.
He came out with two good ones over the holiday. First up, he seemed to hint that the theme of Barrels of Fun's, maker of the Labyrinth pinball machine, second game will be the movie "Dune."
He also stated that a pinball machine based on the movie "The Matrix" is no longer happening at Jersey Jack Pinball, as has been rumored for years.
I personally know nothing more about either of these rumors than was shared in the above posts, but given the poster's history of accurate predictions I thought that they were worth mentioning.
While we are on the subject of rumors, this morning Kaneda's Pinball Podcast posted on Facebook that he believes the next game from the European Pinball manufacturer, Pedretti Gaming will be the 1996 John Popadiuk Williams game Tales of the Arabian Nights aka TOTAN.
Earlier this week, I speculated that Pedretti's second Bally Williams remake might be Theatre of Magic, based upon the use of the word "Magic" in the company's social media holiday greeting.
Quite frankly, Theatre of Magic and TOTAN are two of my favorite classic Bally Williams games so either one seems like a great choice to me. As unlicensed titles without any IP hoops to jump through they both make sense financially for Pedretti as well. As an added bonus, TOTAN is my wife's favorite pinball machine :).
If I was going to get a TOTAN, I 100% would want one with the original art. The machine is absolutely beautiful as it is.
Next up, we have Spooky Pinball. Spooky recently sent out its 4th Quarter Production Update to people who are on its mailing list. For the first time ever, the Company has four different titles on its production line. It currently has availability of all four games if anyone is interested.
"We are still cranking away at Looney Tunes and TCMs on the line every single day, while still making some Scoobies that are available for purchase right now! We also have some of the first Evil Dead’s on the line right now as well! This is a huge milestone for us here at Spooky. For the first time in company history we have 4 titles being run simultaneously! Interested in any of these 4 games? Just reach out to one of our licensed distributors, or order directly through our website to get your hands on a NIB Scooby-Doo CE, or place your order for a Looney Tunes, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or Evil Dead!"
Last up we have Multimorphic, maker of the modular P3 pinball machine. The company's founder Gerry Stellenberg sent out an e-mail update on the company over the holidays.
He announced that a free new third party game for the P3's Heist module called "Young Martial Artist" is available for download now.
He also provided a production update on it's latest game "The Princess Bride." The Company recently received a "bad batch of material" that resulted in a production delay. While they try to iron out that issue, Multimorphic has been building up extra subassemblies so that they can hit the ground running when the replacement materials arrive and it can resume full playfield production.
Nick Baldridge of For Amusement Only Games also sent out a separate update on production of his company's "Drained" module for the Multimorphic P3 platform. Drained modules continue to ship while he works on an "ambitious" second game for the system:
"All music and sound effects have been completed for this ambitious new game. I have once again worked with Charles Wolf (composer for Drained) and am so excited with how the game is sounding! I am currently working on many underlying systems to ensure smooth experiences (audio, visual, light shows, and more).
The final set of digital and physical artwork are currently in process!
I anticipate that development will continue throughout most of the coming year for a late 2025 release. Expect to see more as the game continues to develop!"
