The Muppets Haunted House Adventure?

[Hunty]

While looking for something else in my Mr. Pinball price guide, I
stumbled across "The Muppets Haunted House Adventure", a flipperless
redemption pin that Roger Sharpe designed for Bromley in 2002. Beyond
a mention in Pinball News ( http://www.pinballnews.com/news/sharpe2.html
) and a couple VERY brief mentions of it here on RGP from Roger and
Josh Sharpe, I can't find any more info on it; it's not even listed on
Bromley's website ( http://bromley-inc.com/games.html ). Did this
machine get made? Does anyone have any further info? I'm especially
intrigued because I was just wondering a couple weeks ago what a
modern version of a 1930s-style flipperless pin would be like...

[goatdan]

*bump*

I know nothing, but now I really want to know more. I love the
Muppets, and that looks like a decent redemption style game. I can
clearly see the goal from the picture, but would love to see it more
close up.

[Back Alley Creations]

Just saw the picture online and I would totally buy one new in box!
Muppets rock and a Halloween/Monsterbash meet Muppets theme would do
great for Stern and really generate some business. Here's hoping.

Matt


http://www.backalleycreations.com/

[Josh Sharpe]

Wow . . . how this thing would make the Mr. Pinball price guide I have
no idea! :)

From my memory there were 2 made, an engineering sample and one that
was put out on test. It was definitely a modern version of a 30's
style flipperless pin. There were I think 15 scoring holes, with each
hole having different scoring values.

Originally the game was a 3 ball game, and before each ball one of the
characters would blink. If you landed in the blinking character's hole
for that ball, you would add a letter in M-U-P-P-E-T-S towards the
Jackpot, which was a progressive ticket payout.

Throughout the testing process, we found alot of people didn't
understand that pinball was a 3-ball game. A TON of kids would start a
game, plunge a ball, see that no tickets came out, and walked away.

After seeing how often that happened, the game was changed quite a
bit. It became a 1-ball game, with the scoring of holes replaced as
pure ticket values. The jackpot was now moved to the hole on the
bottom. They also added in skill-posts via a button on the lockdown
bar. Press the button and 6 skill posts would pop up at various
positions around the playfield, stopping a ball from falling in a hole
closer to the top.

We all weren't thrilled with the design changes, because it sort of
took the 'pinball' feel out of the game. Eventually the test game was
pulled, and it slowly got cannibalized for parts for other projects.

Wish there were more pictures, but unfortunately I think it was pre-
digital camera days for me. I know there's some of the prototype
artwork files somewhere. I'll try to dig them up and post them online
at some point.

Josh Sharpe

Post by goatdan
*bump*
I know nothing, but now I really want to know more.  I love the
Muppets, and that looks like a decent redemption style game.  I can
clearly see the goal from the picture, but would love to see it more
close up.

[goatdan]

Post by Josh Sharpe
After seeing how often that happened, the game was changed quite a
bit. It became a 1-ball game, with the scoring of holes replaced as
pure ticket values. The jackpot was now moved to the hole on the
bottom. They also added in skill-posts via a button on the lockdown
bar. Press the button and 6 skill posts would pop up at various
positions around the playfield, stopping a ball from falling in a hole
closer to the top.

Did these changes not work well? I do totally understand why kids
would only expect one ball (most of the time, it's just the one token
flying somewhere on the playfield), but after it was changed like that
if the ticket payouts were pretty high, I see this as being a pretty
popular game for both locations and operators. The location has a
game that you simply can't repeat a shot over and over (unlike
something like Dino-Score, where once you dialed in a cup on the back
wall, you could get 25 tickets with each token guaranteed), and the
bouncing of the ball would actually make it a little more exciting
than just the token flying somewhere. I would have expected this with
one ball settings to earn something like a Smokin' Token style game,
which was quite good.

[Josh Sharpe]

Did these changes not work well?  I do totally understand why kids
would only expect one ball (most of the time, it's just the one token
flying somewhere on the playfield), but after it was changed like that
if the ticket payouts were pretty high, I see this as being a pretty
popular game for both locations and operators.  The location has a
game that you simply can't repeat a shot over and over (unlike
something like Dino-Score, where once you dialed in a cup on the back
wall, you could get 25 tickets with each token guaranteed), and the
bouncing of the ball would actually make it a little more exciting
than just the token flying somewhere.  I would have expected this with
one ball settings to earn something like a Smokin' Token style game,
which was quite good.

The game ended up being a mechanical nightmare. The ball lift to serve
the ball into the plunger lane malfunctioned all the time. The skill
posts required a certain amount of time to reset and be fired again,
so there was alot of button pounding that didn't correspond to when
the posts shot up. The game choreography (speech call outs, music
progression for each ball, etc) were all designed around this 3 ball
game that had a start/middle/end, based on the characters saying
certain things when they were lit for the MUPPET letter versus not.

It simply became a shell of what the original design was, and the
choreography no longer made sense for the 1 ball and done type of
game. Unfortunately time wasn't given to really 'redesign' the game
for the 1 ball experience (the presentation aspect), and it showed in
the final test product.

The game also lacked the attention grabbing aspects that you see in
today's games (lots of lights, large displays etc). I know we learned
alot from the project and can guarantee that the next project to go on
test will be an eye catcher ;-)

Josh

[Hunty]

Post by Josh Sharpe
Wow . . . how this thing would make the Mr. Pinball price guide I have
no idea! :)
From my memory there were 2 made, an engineering sample and one that
was put out on test. It was definitely a modern version of a 30's
style flipperless pin. There were I think 15 scoring holes, with each
hole having different scoring values.
Originally the game was a 3 ball game, and before each ball one of the
characters would blink. If you landed in the blinking character's hole
for that ball, you would add a letter in M-U-P-P-E-T-S towards the
Jackpot, which was a progressive ticket payout.
Throughout the testing process, we found alot of people didn't
understand that pinball was a 3-ball game. A TON of kids would start a
game, plunge a ball, see that no tickets came out, and walked away.
After seeing how often that happened, the game was changed quite a
bit. It became a 1-ball game, with the scoring of holes replaced as
pure ticket values. The jackpot was now moved to the hole on the
bottom. They also added in skill-posts via a button on the lockdown
bar. Press the button and 6 skill posts would pop up at various
positions around the playfield, stopping a ball from falling in a hole
closer to the top.
We all weren't thrilled with the design changes, because it sort of
took the 'pinball' feel out of the game. Eventually the test game was
pulled, and it slowly got cannibalized for parts for other projects.
Wish there were more pictures, but unfortunately I think it was pre-
digital camera days for me. I know there's some of the prototype
artwork files somewhere. I'll try to dig them up and post them online
at some point.
Josh Sharpe

Post by goatdan
*bump*
I know nothing, but now I really want to know more.  I love the
Muppets, and that looks like a decent redemption style game.  I can
clearly see the goal from the picture, but would love to see it more
close up.

cool! thanks for the info, Josh! Sad that the machine never made it to
production, but maybe there'd be enough interest here on RGP to
justify a small run of a similar flipperless pin!