I try to blog about my experience at expo every year, and since there wasn't an in-person one last year it was quite overwhelming playing so much this year.
Led-zeppelin - met my expectations, which is to say it still felt like a
very empty layout with very little to shoot at.
I almost can't believe they signed off on this game. Not saying the rising spinner with a magnet isn't a cool toy, the engineer that made that happen clearly worked hard on it. But the rest of it felt so phoned in.
Avengers - Played great, so many great ramps and loops shots, very tempted
to buy one of these someday.
Godzilla - not crazy about the theme, but holy crap just when I thought
Keith can't outdo himself on avengers, his next game is even better. The loops shots, the magnet post, so many
lanes that flow perfectly really reminded me of Bally skateball.
TMNT - Played decently, felt like it gave out multiball too easily. Wasn't huge into TMNT as a kid, and as an adult it feels a little childish.
Stranger things - Didn't get to play this.
I'm surprised Stern didn't at least bring one of these considering it
was released right before the pandemic hit (not hitting enough locations, and
certainly not pinball shows) before most people got to play it. Could I drive my lazy butt 50 miles to
chicago to play one? Sure, but I assumed
I would get to play it eventually at expo.
Hot wheels - Played good, felt a little more street level (even though it
had ramps). Theme doesn't do much for me
(even though I like cars, and played with them as a kid).
Homebrew
Ghost in the shell - Ed did some code cleanup, most notably updated
graphics thanks to Jack Danger. I'm a
mild anime enthusiast (I had friends in high school that were huge into it),
but I do really like Ed's layout.
Boys night out - This was an oddity.
Layout felt a little borrowed firepower II, but the thing to note the
most was that as you played, you were literally editing a movie (clips of a
boys night out). This almost felt like a
"choose your own adventure" mixed with laserdisc, but in pinball
form. I watched a little clip from
twitch interviewing the designer, and he said his background is video producer
so making a pinball is completely new to him
Sonic the hedgehog - This has been a long time coming. I have watched so many of McSquid's streams
wanting to play his game, and after finally flipping it I can say it met my
expectation. Flowed great, hearing all
those sound effects hit all my nostalgic buttons. The ramps felt so good, the 360 loop shooting
the ball back around the orbit was neat to see.
So that leads back to where the hell is my project at? Well life has gotten in the way this past
year. I've been very busy building mods
which has turned into a great side business.
My wife's grandmother passed away early this year, my wife's parents made
the decision then to sell their main house in illinois (they have a home down
in florida), which meant every weekend driving down to help them pack, and now
after a short break we're starting to spend money to fix our house up, and also
pack things up so we can sell our house next spring. We plan to move to the upper northwest which
has been our dream for probably the past decade. The timing just hasn't worked out, but now
everything seems to be aligning and couldn't be a better time to do it. None-the-less, I am selling off most of my
pinball collection and only keeping 4 games (including van halen donated by
Hugh). I've even donated my 3d printed
cabinet to someone local because it just makes more sense to rebuild it after the move rather
than paying to move an empty cabinet.
Once I get settled (which may include some home improvements depending
on where we end up), I will certainly be jumping back into my homebrew
project. Every time I play other homebrew
games it always inspires me to want to jump back in.
