The Plunge - 2021 Pinball Year in Review

2021 was a pretty exciting year in pinball for me and I think for the industry in general. Here's a brief recap of my year as it relates to pinball, as well as my thoughts about certain pinball topics that rang a chord with me in 2021.

Game releases

New manufacturer Haggis started production on Celts and announced a new, updated version of Fathom! Fathom is not one of my favorite solid states to play, but boy is it a beauty to look at! And the costlier Mermaid addition is adding new rules!

Chicago Gaming Co. officially announced Cactus Canyon Remake. I've had both good and bad experiences with CC, and though I enjoyed it the more I played it, I can't see this as something I'd own. Like Fathom, this game is getting enhanced rules.

Multimorphic released the Sorcerer's Apprentice add-on kit for their P3 platform. I found their previous title, Heist, to be very intriguing. If I win the lottery, I'm definitely getting it. But Sorcerer's Apprentice doesn't speak to me.

American Pinball released Legends of Valhalla. I actually had a chance to play this recently, which will be part of a future post.

Spooky released not one, but 2 games with the same layout but different themes: Halloween and Ultraman. I had the chance to play Halloween recently as well, and again I'll post thoughts about it in a future post. Of the 2 themes, I find Ultraman more appealing.

Pinball Brothers announced a Limited Version (LV) of Alien, the Heighway Pinball reclamation project. They had already produced some standard versions (SV). More on this in a moment.

And then there is Stern. The Big Kahuna. The 40th Anniversary Elvira's House of Horrors was released at an astronomical price. I finally had a chance to play the LE recently, and while I will reserve my thoughts for it in a follow-up post, it's safe to say that I won't be trying to acquire this game after all. Which is a good thing, since the game is pretty much out of production and keeps climbing in price.

Stern also released the Jurassic Park Home Edition, and while not for me, I'll certainly give it a flip if I run across it.

But the biggest news out of Stern was the release of their 2 (not the usual 3) cornerstone titles of 2021: The Mandalorian and Godzilla. Both are themes I highly covet, and as time passed, I knew I had to have them both before I even played them. The problem? Good luck trying to get one of these. Everything from Stern is backordered, and they can't manufacture enough machines to meet demand. I recently played both of these games (I played a Pro Godzilla and need to flip a Premium), and the results, which will be detailed in a future post, affirmed I made the right decision to put them on the wish list.

Personal News

2021 was a year of tragedy for me personally as well as for the industry. While the celebrity world lost greats like Betty White, John Madden, and Meatloaf, the pinball community lost Lyman Sheats and Barry Oursler.

While I don't own a single game that Lymon coded, he did code Attack From Mars, my favorite game of all time that I never get tired of. A tip of the hat to Mr. Sheats. On the other hand, I own 2 games that Barry designed (or helped design), Bram Stoker's Dracula and Popeye Save the Earth, and I used to own (but sold) a third: Junk Yard. Barry also designed Space Shuttle, one of my top 5 solid state games and a game credited with reviving pinball during a dark period. He also designed Gorgar, the first talking pin and one of the games along with Xenon and Black Knight that initially drew me into pinball back in 1980.

And as for personal tragedy, my roommate and best friend of 30 years, Kelly, passed away in late 2021, which is why you haven't seen any posts from me in some time. Kelly was such an amazing and talented person...from singing like Elvis (he was better than any impersonator), to performing magic tricks, to painting and sculpting...he was a genius. Kelly is the one who found White Water on eBay many years ago and got me started on the road to having my own arcade. He designed and built our Barncade, engineered the winch system that allowed us to pull machines up to the second floor, and had several mod ideas in his head that he unfortunately never got to design and create. Many of the machines in the collection were choices of his based on theme: White Water, Scared Stiff, Creature From The Black Lagoon, Popeye Saves the Earth, Junk Yard, Fish Tales, Rocky and Bullwinkle, and The Munsters. Every time I walk into the Barncade, I think of him. I really miss him.

There were 3 code drops for The Munsters, with rumors that there might be one more coming. The game is really incredible now. Too bad Stern didn't do that from the beginning! Munsters machines are now pretty hard to find. I'll have a future post on the updated code.

I bought several mods, some for games I don't even have yet! Those will also be covered in a future post.

For my Steampunk Virtual Pinball Machine, unfortunately I didn't make much progress with the steampunk elements, and got frustrated with the cab layout (including dull force feedback from some contactors), and I was also frustrated with the backbox monitor when I couldn't get it positioned to my liking. In the cabinet, I pulled out the floating shelves I had been using, and relocated things like the amps, LEDWiz and fuse blocks to the side of the cabinet. This also allowed me to mount all the contactors to the side or bottom of the cabinet which made a huge - and very satisfying - difference in force feedback. I did run into problems with PinballY, and many of my games that worked on my desktop had issues in the cabinet, such as lag or no sound. So I've been going through each game to make sure all the settings are correct, which is tedious. After that I may migrate to the PinUpPopper front end system.

The final bit of news this year is pretty exciting: I have deposits down on 2 new games. Which ones? The 2 games I chose were Alien SV by Pinball Bros and The Mandalorian Premium by Stern. I also want a Godzilla Premium, but I can't even order one. Stern can't keep up with demand, and probably for good reason - Godzilla has had a stranglehold on the #1 spot in the Pinside Top 100, bumping Medieval Madness to #2. Most new games do that for a few weeks after release, then slide down the list; Godzilla had been there for 6 months and shows no signs of falling. It may end up being the greatest game ever made.

Prices have sure gone through the roof! Thanks to supply chain issues, work stoppages and labor shortages, combined with more people at home during Covid, prices of both new and used machines have skyrocketed. This is both bad and good: bad if you want a new or used game in your collection, good if you have some games you're willing to get rid of. The prices of new machines, combined with sales tax and shipping, is approaching $10k. So with nearly $20,000 committed to Alien and The Mandalorian, and another $10,000 slated for Godzilla in the future, how am I going to fund this?

The easiest way is, of course, to sell off some of my machines. Rocky and Bullwinkle, Fish Tales, and Popeye are all candidates to go first. After that I may look at Dracula and - oh no - Scared Stiff! But I haven't made up my mind on those completely. In the "definitely staying" category are: Alice Cooper, The Munsters, The Hobbit, Stern Pirates, Ripley's, Frankenstein, Creature, and White Water.

Future State

I'm re-designing the layout of the Barncade, and in doing so, all the pinball machines will move down to the bottom floor. This will make it easier to get pins in and out, with the added bonus of immediately enticing people who step through the door to play.

It's been a couple of years since I added a new machine - Alice Cooper back in 2019 - so I'm really looking forward to getting in new blood. Alien attracted me because I love the movies, and it seems like Pinball Bros has made a more reliable version, in which they have worked out most of the major bugs and are providing amazing support. The Mandalorian is probably my favorite show on TV, and I couldn't ask for a better theme. Brian Eddy is a great designer, and I think his Stranger Things, now out of production, will be highly sought after in a few years.

I don't have a lot of time to work on the virtual machine right now, but hopefully I'll get some time here and there and have it in good shape by the end of the year.

Rumors of new machines coming out this year include Venom, Back to the Future, and Toy Story. None of those are instant buys for me, but who knows? If Harry Potter becomes available, I definitely want one. I also need to leave space (or make room) for other dream themes.

So to wrap up topics of future posts:

• My recent return trip to Next Level, including thoughts on many new and classic machines I was able to play and the status of my bucket list, as well as their performance at the Twippy's.
• Munsters new code
• New mods purchased
• Barncade re-design and photos
• Thoughts on Alien (IF I get it this year)
• Thoughts on The Mandalorian (IF I get it this year)
• Thoughts on Godzilla (IF I can find a Premium to play and IF I can get on an order list somewhere)
• A virtual pinball update
• Shopping out Rocky and Bullwinkle