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Archives for October 2022

Nintendo Switch Arcade and Pinball DIY Kit for your Arcade1Up Pinball Machine

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Take your Arcade1Up Pinball Machine to another level!

Almost a year ago we were gushing over IntecGaming’s Nintendo Switch Arcade Control Panel for the Arcade1Up pinball machines. It was promised to be released in 2022, and it now looks like IntecGaming has kept that promise!

If you have an Arcade1Up Pinball machine (even if you have modded with the additional Zen Pinball games), this new DIY Kit will take your A1Up Pinball machine to another level! We don’t have firm specs yet, but from the few bits and pieces we have found in our research, this kit will let you play your Switch games on the vertical screen, complete with an arcade joystick and buttons control panel for that authentic arcade feel. Of course you will still be able to use the flipper buttons on the side of the cabinet for your pinball gaming fix! For the Switch games that aren’t vertical (TATE), they can still be played, albeit in a letterboxed view on the vertical screen. The DIY kit will require tinkering to get setup, but we reckon it will be totally worth it.

We are just excited to play all of our vertical games using this kit, especially our library of shoot’em ups and pinball games (hello The Pinball Arcade, Pinball FX 3 and Stern Pinball Arcade!). This will breath a new life into our Arcade1Up Pinball machine.

The pre-order period begins on Halloween (Oct 31st U.S. time), with a special price of US$119.99! Who is in? We most certainly are.

PS: If you want to see this kit in action, check out ToyKade’s review video now!

image source: IntecGaming



The Sonic Pinball Machine That Never Was!

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With all the deep fakes these days, it is hard to tell what is real and what isn’t.

We will never ever know why Sega didn’t capitalise on it’s Sonic franchise back in the 90s by releasing a pinball machine. If Nintendo’s Mario got two pinball machines made, then surely Sonic deserved at least one! But all is not lost, thanks to talented folks like Ryan McQuaid, with his homebrew Sonic Spinball creation being the closest we will ever get to a physical Sonic based pinball machine – albeit a one of a kind.

Then there are folks like Greg Miller, who got us all excited when we stumbled upon his Sonic Pinball Panic machine! Before we dug deeper, the trade magazine-like ad for Sonic Pinball Panic looked like the real deal, even down to the 90s aesthetic and slogans that were bandied around those days. We did get excited for a moment, but then realised we had never ever hear of this machine, even the prototype – could this be fake? Of course it was fake, and Greg Miller didn’t hide this fact – he even explains how he did it!

The renders look so real!

All isn’t lost though, as Greg did create Sonic Pinball Panic in digital form. So, for all those Sonic fans wanting their pinball fix with their favourite speedy blue hedgehog, head on over to Greg’s site and grab the game for your Windows PC or Mac right now!

story and image source: Sonic Pinball Panic



The Commodordion: The C64 SID Piano Accordion

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It’s great to have friends that look out for you that bring stuff to your attention when you may have missed while being bombarded with stuff on social media.

Our very good friend Cam informed us of this rather cool C64 piano accordion creation, dubbed cleverly as The Commodordion, which turns two Commodore 64 computers into a single darn awesome instrument! But wait, there is more! The bellows are made out of floppy disks! Ok, our mind has well and truly been blown – wow!

image source: Linus Åkesson

Just listen to the gorgeous SID chiptune coming out of that acoustic aerophone! Forget about folksy music, this is our kind of piano accordion.

PS: Learn more about the project: https://linusakesson.net/commodordion/index.php


source: lftkryo



Pinball Expo 2022 – The Homebrew Pinball Machines

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If you are into pinball and were in Chicago this past weekend, you would’ve no doubt attended Pinball Expo!

Being one of the larger pinball events in the world, among the many things to see, do and play is the homebrew section. The homebrew machines are so good these days that it could lead to a pinball designer gig at one of the many pinball manufacturers in North America – just ask Ryan McQuaid (Sonic Spinball) and Mark Seiden (Metroid Pinball), both are now pinball designers at American Pinball and Jersey Jack Pinball respectively!

For Pinball Expo 2022 there were quite a few eye popping and amazing homebrew pinball machines designed and built by enthusiasts that we just had to share with you all. Licensing notwithstanding, do you see any you would like being mass produced? We love the look of Elf, Pokemon and League of Legends!

image source: Pinball Expo via Facebook



Flippin the Script on Autism – Fundraiser Auction!

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This is something close to our heart, so we thought we’d share the below press release with you all 🙂

PinShades is a proud sponsor of Flippin the Script on Autism

We are excited to announce LoserKids and TPN teaming up to help children with Autism! Flippin the Script will be a 12 hour charity stream. So mark your calendars for October 20th (Thursday – US time) at Pinball Expo in Chicago. The stream is directly going towards Learning Solutions. An Utah based organization that helps with early intervention Autism therapy for kids that are as young as 2 all the way to late teenage years. The organization helps kids with Autism by giving them a one on one teachers to help develop skills like: Speech, social, and positive reinforcement to name a few.

Stern, JJP, American, Multimorphic, CGC, Haggis, Lit Frames, Flip N Out, The Pinball Company, PinShades, and others are donating products that will be auctioned off during the stream. LoserKids, TPN, Poormen, and others with be hosting the stream and interviewing some of your favourite people from the pinball industry including Keith Elwin and Eric Meunier to name a few.

We hope you join or stream us on October 20th at Pinball Expo!



MOTU Origins Eternia Playset: The Call To Battle Continues

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Masters of the Universe Origins Eternia Playset: The Call To Battle Continues

Bah, who needs Kickstarter or IndieGoGo when you can setup and run your own successful crowdunding campaigns!

That is exactly what Mattel Creations have done (and are doing)! Their Masters of the Universe Origins Eternia Playset campaign has reached its funding target in record time, and it still has quite a few weeks yet to run (campaign ends on November 10th). The campaign is fast approaching 7,000 backers, meaning all the bonus tiers are in play to get unlocked!

Early Backers get a bonus King Grayskull figure

We bet these will be unlocked before this campaign ends!

If you are a MOTU collector and need this playset in your life, then be prepared to fork out USD$550.00 (plus shipping)! Considering the original Eternia Playset goes for thousands of dollars, perhaps this isn’t a bad deal after all 😉

If you become an Early Backer (by 11.59PM PT, October 19), you get the bonus King Grayskull figure (see above)! We really really want this playset and are betting that once it is sold out, the scalpers will hit the regular selling sites with ridiculous prices – so the moral of the story is, if you are 100% keen, back it now to save yourself some tears and regret aftewards.

This thing is HUGE!

image source: Mattel Creations



Make Your SSD Sound Like An Old Hard Drive

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Do you miss the old sounds that your hard drives used to make when reading or writing data to disk? Ah, the platers making such a great sound – actually, we do miss that aural extravaganza.

With the advent of solid state drives (SSD), there are no moving parts, so sadly, that means no clickety clackety sounds being emitted. Alas, now you can, thanks to the HDD Clicker! This circuit board makes your SSD (or CF and/or SD cards) sound exactly like your old hard drives!


source: root42



By The Power Of Grayskull: Passing the Sword!

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Celebrating its 40th year of existence, the Masters of the Universe has brought a lot of happiness to generations of peeps, including us Gen X’ers.

For those of us with young kids, we need to pass the baton (Power Sword) to the next generation to ensure MOTU lives on for years to come!


source: Masters Of The Universe via Facebook



Dead Flip: How To Stream Pinball

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Pinball streamer, ambassador and now Stern Pinball Designer, Jack Danger, host of Dead Flip has put pen to paper (or should that be fingers to keyboard?), and published an updated feature on “How To Stream Pinball“.

Jack has been a pioneer in the field of live pinball streaming since 2014. When Jack opens his box of pinball streaming tools, rigs and general setup, we take note. Jack has been a great (virtual) friend since we first conversed on Twitter almost 8 years ago. We don’t get much time to watch live streams on Twitch, but we always try and make an exception when we get the notification that Dead Flip is streaming live!

Jack’s video tutorials are a great reference for those wanting to stream pinball!

Dead Flip’s streams are always run like clockwork and are lots of fun to watch – with Jack’s engaging personality shining through our screens. Of course the rig setup also helps in showing off the pinball machine. For those live streams when the time zones don’t work, there is always Dead Flip’s YouTube channel to catch the action via video on demand (VOD).

With the plethora of current pinball streamers hitting Twitch (and other live streaming services), each of them owe a debt of gratitude to Dead Flip for paving the way. If you are interested in streaming pinball, then read Dead Flip’s How to Stream Pinball post right away!

From all of us, thank you Jack!

Dead Flip (aka: Herman Munster) and Gary Stern (aka: Grandpa) streaming The Munsters pinball machine

images source: Dead Flip



Star Wars Halloween Pumpkins

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Now this is our kind of Halloween pumpkins! If you are a Star Wars fan, feast your peepers on these!!!

The FORCE is strong in these pumpkins (and turnips). Jack-o’-lantern would be proud 😉

image source: Star Wars always via Facebook