Yesterday Planetary Pinball, the rightsholder to Bally Williams IP for pinball, filed a trademark for the legendary pinball machine that almost was, Bally's unique 1994 Python Anghelo-designed "Pinball Circus." Only two prototypes of this game were ever produced, one of which currently sits broken at The Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas.
A number of years ago a group of pinball enthusiasts, which called themselves Circus Maximus, banded together in an unsuccessful attempt to build the game. Since that time, the IP has basically been sitting dormant.
If I had to guess, I suspect that it will continue to go unused, but it is interesting to see Planetary spend several hundred dollars plus lawyer fees to register a trademark for the game. Maybe they're at least planning on selling Pinball Circus merchandise? I'd probably buy a shirt. Anyhow, this is something to keep an eye on.
Below is a great article on the game's history by the Arcade Blogger for anyone who is not familiar with it.
Arcade Holy Grail: The Pinball Circus
I always enjoy getting a behind-the-scenes peek at the development process for games in Stern Pinball's regular "Making of" video series. Yesterday afternoon, Stern dropped the latest installment "The Making of The Uncanny X-Men."
I have embedded it below for anyone who wants to check it out.
Stern Pinball presents a behind the scenes look at the making of The Uncanny X-Men Pinball!
Stern’s new The Uncanny X-Men pinball games feature Wolverine, Professor X, Cyclops, Storm, Colossus, Beast, Rogue, Gambit, Nightcrawler, Jean Grey, Bishop, Kitty Pryde, and Magneto, along with a supporting cast of allies and foes. The adventure takes players to familiar X-Men locations including the Danger Room, Beast’s Lab, the X-Mansion, and Genosha. Along the way players will interact with fabled X-Men devices like Cerebro and the X-Jet.
Dutch Pinball Exclusive continues to refine its upcoming game "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." They recently shared pictures of a new feature on the machine's cabinet. The cab has cutouts that allow the inset of the machine's side art blades to prevent the inevitable scraping and tearing that happens when people lift the playfield. Pretty cool.
Speaking of Alice, this morning the fledgling company Wonderland Amusements shared an update video showing off a new version of the "other" Alice...its prototype for its planned first pinball machine, "Alice Goes to Wonderland." Prototype 2.0 has new backbox art and a new playfield layout.
In addition to showing off pictures of the new prototype from its Hong Kong office, they shared a brief gameplay video that included code. They plan to continue to refine the game's layout, but I have to say this machine already looks way better than I expected. I will be following along very curiously to see what the finished product is like and if they can really bring it to market for less than a thousand dollars.
While no specific date has been selected yet, Wonderland Amusements plans to go live on its Kickstarter for the machine sometime in Mid-March.
"Alice Goes to Wonderland" Pinball Development Update! We're just back from Hong Kong, where we got to play Prototype 2.0 of the "Alice Goes to Wonderland" pinball machine. This version includes three big updates: a new playfield layout, Carlos Mendoza III's artwork applied to the playfield and backglass, and the first version of our gameplay code. Check it out!
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