JERSEY JACK PINBALL

[Vigo]

It's also a matter of looking at any business that takes money without having an actual product with a degree of skepticism.


As for the theme....Wizard of Oz seems a risky copyright to deal with. It is weird that they chose it. It has been a hot spot of copyright debate for a few years now. Partially because many assumed it was public domain, but Warner's litigations made it so it was not the case at all. I think when dealing with movie imagery and music, that is 3 maybe 4 rights holders to deal with. (Sony, Turner, Warner, Garland). I don't know what they did as far as securing rights to make this using music and movie artwork, but with Disney looking successful in their attempts to rake in rights for a possible remake film, it seems like the whole theme could be killed in one stroke of a pen from Disney lawyers. I noticed that on the Jersey Jack artwork, it lists Turner as copyright owner on the artwork, and does list Garland for use of the Dorothy imagery, but I think Warner is the one who gets credited for merchandising rights.

I hope Jersey Jack has their ducks in a row for rights to this theme. I am not assuming otherwise, but when there seems to be so many issues with a really dated copyright, why risk it when an original theme could do way cooler. What is wrong with pinning an almost nude chick on a pinball machine like they used to?

[TopJimmyCooks]

. . . . making tangible progress.  What the hell is that team he assembled doing all day??

 

They should retire the old guys and get those ladies from the Stern assembly line.  I think they showed stock footage of the Stern line in the Tilt documentary and they were wiring playfields at light speed with soldering irons the size of baseball bats, about 3 connections per second.  Awesome. 

[Vigo]

That's an interesting concern, Vigo, but there's already a lot of licensed Wizard of Oz coin op stuff. 

In fact, wasn't a big part of the reason we got this theme because they (Elaut) had already negotiated the rights for it on the coin pusher?

Ah well, here's to hoping we'll get something besides a bunch of faked mock up photos some day.

Yeah, that makes complete sense to me. Although the Elaut machine seems to be much more generic and use only one stock image that a cheapo license would seem to have. Being that this machine supposedly is using all sorts or movie imagery, music and horribly butchered movie clips, I have to wonder if Warner really gives away such lax licenses. I think Warner doesn't have control over music either, I think Sony owns that.

A lot of my concern is more that I read way too much copyright news. I see stuff like how the Hobbit pub in UK almost got shut down because of the new Hobbit movie, which has been around since the 70's. It's kinda sucks how previous agreements can get wiped away when a new hand gets dipped into the copyright jar. I personally wouldn't touch Wizard of Oz with a 40 foot pole.

[lilshawn]

They should retire the old guys and get those ladies from the Stern assembly line.  I think they showed stock footage of the Stern line in the Tilt documentary and they were wiring playfields at light speed with soldering irons the size of baseball bats, about 3 connections per second.  Awesome. 

yeah that and on "How it's made"

and that's why the damn things fall apart every 30 plays. i just went to fix a LOTR pinball 20 minutes ago that i dropped at the location 2 days ago and the damn thing broke already 

[yotsuya]

Thanks for the link, lilshawn.

Soldering question- were they dipping the ends of those wires into melted solder to connect them together?

[lilshawn]

flux first, then a tub of molten solder.

[DrArcade]

and that's why the damn things fall apart every 30 plays. i just went to fix a LOTR pinball 20 minutes ago that i dropped at the location 2 days ago and the damn thing broke already 

What went wrong with it?

DrArcade

[lilshawn]

there is a rivet that holds a ridiculous plastic nub on the flipper. it's supposed to touch the EOS switch telling the computer to switch the duty cycle of the flipper coil to just hold the plunger in. the rivet broke off and platic thing they riveted on was gone. the tiny metal arm left isn't long enough to reach the switch and activate it.

so someone playing the game holds the flipper button and the coil stays on full power until the fuse burns or the coil burns up.

luckily the fuse blew.

If stern was SMART about it they would have had the computer go... "oh!...I fired the solenoid and the EOS switch didn't close... maybe i'll just keep the high power on for X time then switch to hold power so we don't kill it."

[amendonz]

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/woz-playfield-pics-1

dayum, pretty awesome

[Le Chuck]

If you're implying that the playfield is one of the gaudiest things you've ever seen then

Late to the party I know but Wiz of OZ... WTF?  Ever since I started watching that one aussie build Coconut Island I've wanted to tackle a custom pin one day.  Thought about all kinds of crazy ass themes.  Last Star Fighter, Michael Jackson, Neverending Story.  Never contemplated Oz, figured it would be garish.  Looks as tho I was right. 

 

[ChadTower]

Last Star Fighter, Michael Jackson, Neverending Story.  

You just forfeited your right to complain about WoZ as a theme.

[MaineEvent]

The Wizard at E3

[nickbuol]

I'm going to jump in here.

Disclaimer, I've only been following this pin from the Jersey Jack emails.  I did not dig into the background, criminal records, birth certificates, work history, etc of the people working on this project.  

But just looking at the pin I actually like a LOT of things about it.  The playfield has some nice features, and is printed with bright colors, and it looks like all of the key elements of WoZ are included.  I like the idea of the screen for video display and extra "wow" factor too.

What I don't like:
RGB LEDs going NUTS with color changes.  I am a believer in subtle is better.  I think that people will get a headache looking at all of the cycling colors on th eplayfield.

The theme... While I think that they are doing well with the WoZ theme, I am not sure what "market research" said that people would pay a massive price for a WoZ pin.

Which brings me to the price.  Really?  Do I even need to explain?  Although Stern has 4 different versions of their latest AC/DC themed machine with the top one priced around $9000. Better be a LOT better than the base $4800 one for that price.

The LCD screen.  Yes, I listed this above as a neat thing, however the backbox looks STUPID.  The LCD seems so "dull" in the videos compared to the bright printed colors elsewhere.  Also, I would have made the whole "backglass" the screen, not a top static banner printed out and a (dull) LCD below it that sits back 1.5" from the glass itself.

I am sure that if I put more thought to it I could come up with at least another positive and another negative, but you get the point.  I think that some people are way to harsh about this pinball, and others just overly excited.   I guess it is their money....

[Vigo]

The theme... While I think that they are doing well with the WoZ theme, I am not sure what "market research" said that people would pay a massive price for a WoZ pin.

Not to mention he said the goal of the machine was to attract and introduce the young generation of kids into pinball. Last time I checked, WoZ was the antithesis of cool. You could do a generic zombie themed cabinet and already grab much more attention from teenagers.

[nickbuol]

Ha.  Right on...  A zombie theme *could* be cool.

[rooter]

The theme... While I think that they are doing well with the WoZ theme, I am not sure what "market research" said that people would pay a massive price for a WoZ pin.

Not to mention he said the goal of the machine was to attract and introduce the young generation of kids into pinball. Last time I checked, WoZ was the antithesis of cool. You could do a generic zombie themed cabinet and already grab much more attention from teenagers.

My friends kids age 3 and 6 list Wizard of Oz as their favorite movie.  Of course, their favorite movie will probably be something else tomorrow, but they love it.  If you want to make a timeless table, WoZ isn't that bad of a way to go. 

Personally, I will search for it out of curiosity, but I am WAY more excited about the upcoming Predator table.  The X-men table looks like it could be really fun too.

[Vigo]

When I was in high school, the only kids really into Wizard of Oz where the ones who wore homemade clothes and looked like they should be pushing a shopping cart around town collecting cans out of recycling bins.

Not saying I don't like Wizard of Oz, I actually love the movie as well, but it is not a cool theme for teens or college students. Not saying I personally like the idea of a zombie table, but I would be venturing down that path if I was going for was that age group. I know what you are saying about timeless. I kinda wish pinball machines didn't necessarily need to attach a name brand to it these days. Machines with scantily clad women on it has plummeted as well. 

[Le Chuck]

When I was in high school, the only kids really into Wizard of Oz where the ones who wore homemade clothes and looked like they should be pushing a shopping cart around town collecting cans out of recycling bins.

Not saying I don't like Wizard of Oz, I actually love the movie as well, but it is not a cool theme for teens or college students. Not saying I personally like the idea of a zombie table, but I would be venturing down that path if I was going for was that age group. I know what you are saying about timeless. I kinda wish pinball machines didn't necessarily need to attach a name brand to it these days. Machines with scantily clad women on it has plummeted as well. 

They were going to do a Twilight pin but they couldn't figure out how to play a game that didn't have any balls.

[ChadTower]

Twilight, as annoying as it would be, might actually reach beyond the "52 year old single male" demographic for once.

[Jeff AMN]

Well, I was able to play Wizard of Oz a couple of weeks ago. It didn't have the final code in there, but the playfield was complete (minus GI lighting). I have to say, it was a way, way more fun than I thought it would be. I thought that they were packing too much into the machine, but it actually had a nice flow. One of the best things I can say about it is that it really wasn't clunky at all. Too many games are just clunk fests where you're constantly hitting posts or the edges of ramps. They designed WoZ so every time you flip you're almost always hitting a target of some sort, making the ball rebounds much more forgiving.

The outlane pop bumper was cool too. I really like how they built that section.

[ChadTower]

Too many games are just clunk fests where you're constantly hitting posts or the edges of ramps.

You mean like all of the Williams Sys11 games?   

Don't get me wrong, those are among my favorites, but damn if they aren't clunkfests sometimes.  F-14 Tomcat especially.

[MaineEvent]

Wow'd some people at PPE

[ChadTower]

Getting better for sure.  Too bad I'll never see one in person.

[lilshawn]

I'm glad they fixed up that multiball animation...that one i linked a while back was 

[nickbuol]

I've been following this pinball for some time, but I couldn't even stand to watch 5 minutes and however many seconds because the game play was so bad.  I've heard of unlucky, but my gosh...  nothing happened....   OK, SOME things happened, but it seems hard to actually get it up that one ramp, and the person playing couldn't hardly get the ball to do anything but hit the target next to the ramp and hit the slingshots...

[bleargh]

My gawd... please... make those horrible sounds stop.  The music repeating again, and again, and again, and again, followed by the cackling of the witch?

Couldn't hold out to watch the full five minutes, that was unbelievably bad.

[lilshawn]

holy crap that was a long writeup PBJ...

I do appreciate it though... you capture the moment quite well.

[lilshawn]

holy crap that was a long writeup PBJ

sorry, I hadn't woken up yet, thought i was done, and obviously wasn't 

what i meant to say was

"that was a long write up.

PBJ, you reading the same thing I am?!?" 



I'm just going to avoid doing anything first thing in the morning.

[TopJimmyCooks]

Can't really tell about the good/bad from the video.  the best review of a vid Pin is a known trusted player(s) review of it.  i.e. if Bowen Kerins posts a video and says it's awesome gameplay I'm on board.  I def. agree the person playing wasn't expertly putting it through it's paces in a demo kind of way, just kind of banging around a bit. 

As far as the Ugly, I have to agree with X2- it's a 3 out of 10 theme no matter how well it's implemented in the end. 

[ChadTower]

Can't really tell about the good/bad from the video.  the best review of a vid is a known trusted player(s) review of it.  i.e. if Bowen Kerins posts a video and says it's awesome gameplay I'm on board.  I def. agree the person playing wasn't expertly putting it through it's paces in a demo kind of way, just kind of banging around a bit. 

I have played with Bowen a couple times.  He ran up and down ---my bottom--- like Tecmo Bowl Bo Jackson.  He is an amazing player.

[Nephasth]

What a box full of suck.

[nickbuol]

What a box full of suck.

You mean a $7500 box full of suck!

[ChadTower]

The worst part is that if anyone ever actually sees one on location it will be at least $1/play.

[MaineEvent]

The majority of the pins in Vancouver are already $1 or $2 for 3 credits. But we also have an amazing operator who has 3 MM's, TOM, CFTBL, SS's, Batman, Superman, TZ's, TAF's and Transformers LE to name the best. They are all on location and always kept in stellar playing condition. He is getting a WOZ EC for the route too. It gets pricey having drinks and playing, but I am always able to enjoy top quality A games.

[RayB]

Played it at NY Comicon...

[nickbuol]

Played it at NY Comicon...

And your thoughts on it?

[RayB]

Played it at NY Comicon...

And your thoughts on it?

I was gonna post photos but turns out they look like crap.
It was ok. I played 2 games. All I seemed to do was try to aim for ramps. I know this isn't much different than a lot of pinball games, but I dunno. Maybe since there's so much stuff all over this game, I felt cheated that I didn't get to activate any of it. On the other hand, maybe for home-use this is a good thing, unlike Sterns where sometimes you hit whatever and seem to trigger every available mode without trying.

They said the software was unfinished.

There's a side-flipper that's a dark color and isn't noticeable. IMO flippers should stand out.

There's a spot in the upper lower right where a flying monkey takes the ball up to the castle in the upper left. Thought that was neat.

Machine looks alright. Didn't notice the video screen much.

That's about all I can say. I'm not an expert on pin flow.

[spoot]

Where I live, I'm guessing I'll never be able to play this.  However, there are only two pinball manufacturers left....I hope they survive to make sumthing original that I want to play.

[Nephasth]

Played this at the RMPS last weekend. Even though I despised the theme when this was first announced and was a doubter of JJP, seeing this machine in person and playing it completely turned around my opinion of the game. The build quality is TOP NOTCH. Sterns look and feel like children's toys compared to this. WOZ is the only pin I've come across that is as much fun to watch as it is to play. I'm so impressed with JJP that I'm probably going to end up preordering The Hobbit. If you ever get a chance to play this machine, don't pass it up!

[ChadTower]

There is one on location at the arcade where my son and I compete in league.  I agree with Nephasth about the build quality.  It feels very well built.  The control of the lights, with everything being gradient control of RGB LEDs, is awesome.  There's still a ton of holes in it because the software is far from complete but the platform has serious potential.

The crystal ball really disappointed me.  The video image, at least as of now, is a big honking square inside the ball.  And only the player can see it.  There is zero viewing angle for onlookers.