This morning the folks at Wonderland Amusements provided details on their upcoming Alice Goes to Wonderland pinball machine Kickstarter campaign, Scheduled to go Live this month, the campaign is being created to help fun the Company's efforts to fund the creation of an 80% scale, home use pinball machine for under $1,000.
People who sign up for the "White Rabbit" level of their campaign will be able to receive the game for $799, a 20% discount off of its eventual full MSRP. This tier is limited to the first 100 to sign up.
The "Mad Hatters Choice" tier is for people who sign up to Kickstart the game after the first 100. They receive a 15% discount off of MSRP for a price of $849 for the game.
Backers who miss the first 100 game discount, can still receive the 20% off MSRP price by buying two machines aka the "Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum Two-Pack."
The Kickstarter tiers will go up from there and include additional perks, such as a topper and in-game sculpts, an enhanced shooter rod and antiqued brass trim. Some of the upgrades will be for sale seperately, including $149 for the acrylic topper and $129 for the keyhole shooter rod and in-game 3D sculpts.
According to the campaign, the machines will be WiFi enabled for code updates and a high score leaderboard. The Kickstarter website shows an estimated delivery date for the game of November 2025. Kickstarter backers will receive a 1-year limited warranty and US-based customer support.
Typically, I'm pretty anti-Kickstarter. I've found over the years that many campaigns include a very real chance of losing your money. Having said that, for the purpose of this website I am reeeeally tempted by the $799 first batch of games. If I had this site set up as an LLC with income and the purchase was tax deductible I would do it. Alas, I do not.
Having said that, I do have big plans for an expansion to this site one of these days when I have the time. I don't want to make a big deal about it until I'm fully ready to commit, but know that it is something that I've given a lot of thought to lately. I think that I could do a lot of really cool stuff for the hobby, for charity (St. Jude's Children's Hospital would be the cause) and for people who are interested in pinball / arcades if I committed to expanding. Discussions on the subject are in the very early stages.
