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Holy Pinball BATMAN!!!

DRANO

Super Member
Nov 15, 2012
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Holy Pinball.jpg

Hey Everyone!
That’s right! We’re doing it.

After years of procrastinating, I’m finally getting off my backside and trying to pull together this dream project; a ’66 Batman pinball re-theme.

Just to get things started off on the right foot:

-I am not selling Batman pinball machines and have no plans to produce these (aside for a couple of examples for those involved in the creation of this project)

-I do not have an agreement with the license holders. This is a fan project only and should fall within the realm of “fair use” for purposes of this project.

-Only Williams Fan-Tas-Tics were harmed in the creation of this project


Some Background:

It was October 2014 and I was at the Ottawa pinball show where a local collector and EM guru had brought his Jetsons pinball machine; a re-themed Jet-Spin. It was complete with all new art, custom backglass, MP3 triggers for custom callouts but, most impressive of all, it had modified playfield mechs and features that had been wired and engineered to change the game and introduce new rules.

He’d done other similar re-themes in the past, including Loony Toons and Herbie the Love bug. Needless to say, I was inspired! I knew that I had to create a classic (Adam West era) Batman pin. Not sure why this never got done… but I was doing it.

I started hunting for a suitable and inexpensive donor machine and found a Williams Fan-Tas-Tic. Not a very popular or even well-known game. In fact, it seemed downright ugly. However, it had some great EM features. It was a 4 player, it had a cool roulette wheel in the playfield and it also offered player activated kickback, ball gate and extra ball! The game also has a very unusual pop bumper configuration between the flippers; only seen in games like Spanish Eyes or a prototype Freedom. I immediately started thinking about how to alter these to the theme. The roulette wheel wold become Penguin’s umbrella. The 3 stars the needed to be collected for extra ball would be Riddler’s clues. The kickback was a batarang and so on.

Fan-Tas-Tic playfield_02.jpg

BATMAN_playfield test02.jpg View attachment 6160

I enlisted the help of our EM guru and, after showing him this mock-up that I cobbled together in Photoshop, he agreed to help me modify the game. We altered some of the shots, added a vari-target, replaced stand-up targets with drops and even relocated some of the saucers. It was a pretty great feat that he was able to do all this and make it work.

20160419_225800.jpg View attachment 6159


The one thing that we could not figure out how to do was to create a bat-cave gobble hole behind the newly added drop targets. I wanted to create a subway that would direct the ball back to the shooter lane via a VUK of some sort or a flap (think Centaur/pitch and bat games). The mass of relays and steppers under the machine just made it nearly impossible. And, despite his efforts, the game just never seemed to quite come together and game play was suffering. I eventually just set it aside and, for nearly 2 years, it has sat there neglected while I played around with other projects.

There were rumors floating around for a year or so that Stern might use this theme to do a VE edition of their BDK title, so that also made me cool my heels a bit.

Fast forward to today….
 
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DRANO

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Nov 15, 2012
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Act 2:

We had met the guys from FAST pinball several years ago at expo (they were introduced to me by Kevin Kulek of Predator Pinball infamy). Several guys I knew were really hot on the idea of creating a custom game using the FAST hardware and the Mission Pinball framework that they have been partnering with.

We embarked on the idea of creating a custom modern design and had gotten to the point of a very rough flipping white-wood. However, this project was proving to be extremely complex and the time I could afford to devote to creating ramps and custom mechs was getting smaller and smaller. So, Monkeybug (who is also the programmer) asked about my dormant Batman project. He had been also playing around with some FAST hardware and working closely with MPF on some of his own ideas, but really wanted a nice easy project that we could both get up and running fairly quickly.

So, with that, we decided that my EM Batman project would now become a hybrid. While the vintage feel of an EM fits great with a Batman ’66 theme, the freedom of modern hardware will allow us to do everything we want and more!
So, we set about to find a duplicate William Fan-Tas-Tic, start laying down some basic rules and get working on the last few physical modifications.

I had recalled reading about a local collector with a project Fan-Tas-Tic so, after some negotiation and trade bait, yesterday we located the 2nd machine! Not an easy task... people aren't' exactly clamoring to put this title in their game rooms ;)

So, without further delay, to the batcave!!!

obligatory pin-hauling+ears selfie.jpg

We’ll keep updating the thread until we’re done. So don’t forget to tune in.
Same bat time… same bat thread.

Some eye-candy from the Batman '66 comics to tide you over :D

IMG-20160429-WA0050.jpeg
 
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DRANO

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Nov 15, 2012
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Please don't forget King Tut.

Sent from my SM-G920W8 using Tapatalk

While the gameplay will focus on the 4 key villains, monkeybug is hard at work ensuring that we get at least some voice queues from the rest of the cast. Can't leave out Tut or Vincent Price's Egghead!
 
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SuperPinball

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Feb 3, 2015
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Some eye-candy from the Batman '66 comics to tide you over :D
Speaking of eye candy, make sure that Catwoman and Batgirl are prominently displayed throughout the pin. Maybe one on each side of the cab like the AC/DC luci just for starters.:p Ooooooh looking forward to seeing this become reality.

BTW that Jetsons pin you spoke of is for sale but I think he wanted $2200 US
 
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DRANO

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Nov 15, 2012
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Speaking of eye candy, make sure that Catwoman and Batgirl are prominently displayed throughout the pin. Maybe one on each side of the cab like the AC/DC luci just for starters.:p Ooooooh looking forward to seeing this become reality.

BTW that Jetsons pin you spoke of is for sale but I think he wanted $2200 US

Sadly whoever is selling the Jetsons is not the guy who created it. I'm guessing he never charged that much for it originally.
as for the art, it's likely going to be stenciled to stay in keeping with the era of game we are working with. I can't guarantee how sexy that would be.... but I have a few ideas.
 
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Monkeybug

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Nov 14, 2012
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View attachment 6191

Woohooo!!!! I'll make sure the Batphone is charged up for tech support.

D
batphone2.png


I will give you call as soon as I can figure out how it works....
 
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DRANO

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Nov 15, 2012
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I thought some of you might get a kick out of this. These are the solenoid and switch locations that cover many of the physical mods being made to the machine.

Also, a preliminary rule-set!

Solenoids.jpg


Switches.jpg


Rules.jpg
 
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DRANO

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Nov 15, 2012
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We've seen what you've done in the past, Drano, so we all have very high expectations for this... no pressure, though!

Thanks. This is new ground so fingers crossed.
Besides Monkeybug on programming I've also enlisted some help on the artwork so this will be a group effort.
Hoping we can maybe have something ready to show by this Fall if there is an Ottawa show.
 
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DRANO

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I had some time to fool around today.

I took some cab measurements an did up some CAD drawings that we can also use to start the artwork process.
This is just me fooling around. I want to create a scalloped 'batwing' effect on the backbox frame.

You can also see how we will be modifying the score reel placement. The left reels will count up score while the right one will be used to show bonus accumulate and count down... as well as maybe being used during the "Bomb Hurry-Up" mode to count down the value. The single (or double) middle reel will be used for other stuff. Maybe to indicate which player is up or used as a countdown for timed shots like villains... maybe even used for the match display.

Chris suggested using labels all over the game; similar to what you would see on the Bat Computer and inside the Bat Mobile console.

I've added in things like the "Bat Plunger" and "Bat Start Button" etc...

Next we will play around with some stencil ideas for the cab. We want to keep it looking a bit vintage after all ;)


TheBatCab.jpg