I agree that it’s a wasted opportunity. I think I would enjoy Whoa Nellie if it didn’t gross me out so much to play it. Breakshot is also a potentially fun game in the pseudo-EM style that suffers from similar grossness (albeit to a lesser degree). I would love to see more games like this, minus the questionable theming.
Can Crusher offers a somewhat less offensive opportunity to play the game. I just wish the machine weren’t so damn light.
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So, kinda like the PS2 games Frequency and Amplitude? I’m not sure I’d like that as the primary gimmick, but it would be a great mode in an electronic music themed game.
Too bad I’m more offended by PBR.
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Rocky Horror
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As for me, the themes I want to see the most are One Piece and Attack on Titan. With One Piece, it could potentially be about anything, but the series as it currently stands is far too complex to adapt into any one thing, and it’d have to be an original story, which is what some of the video games have been doing. With Attack on Titan, you’d play as Eren Jaeger. Perhaps multiballs can be Titan attacks, and each jackpots is your slaying a Titan. Not sure how to adapt the politics and gambit pileups that happen later into the series though. (Season 2 begins next month!)
I take it you don’t mean the video game adaptation, but the book itself. Me, I’d be up for an Ars Goetia machine.
Well, there have already been two digital games for Pokémon: Pokémon Pinball (themed on Red and Blue) and Pokémon Pinball RS (themed on Ruby and Sapphire). I’m guessing there haven’t been more made, as the overarching goal is to complete the Pokédex. As it currently stands, there are 801 species, over twice as many as there was when Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire came out.
They haven’t made any since, though Jupiter continues to be Nintendo’s go-to company for pinball adaptations as, unlike KAZe, their adaptations make at least some amount of sense and aren’t incredibly punishing.
I have no doubt at least one company has tried. But Beatles rights must be astronomically expensive. The Rock Band series pulled it off eventually though.
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I’m bringing this thread back from the dead!
So, there’s a couple themes that I really wish I could make happen, but because of who owns the rights I doubt I’ll ever see, and just wanted to gush about the possibilities.
First off: Banjo Kazooie
This is a theme where there is really so much to work with. Different areas of the playfield can have different terrain, and what I envision most is that depending on where the ball is, perhaps the music changes slightly. For instance, switching from banjo bgm to something with xylophone as it pops around in the ice-area pop bumpers. It could stay the same theme music but with different instruments, and that would stay pretty true to the Banjo series. Grunty’s mountain (ok I haven’t spent a lot of time playing this series, I’ll admit) would work as a part of the PF, probably similar to Congo where you shoot there to lock balls for a MB.
Mostly, I just want a game to strum a banjo into tune at the start of a game.
Hanna-Barbera Games
So, at Superelectric right now, we’ve got the Flintstones next to the Jetsons, and it makes me crave for more of that animation studio’s games. A couple instantly spring to mind, though I’m sure there’s a gold mine you could dig from and come up with a good game.
Scooby-Doo, Where are You? OR Scooby Doo and the 13 Ghosts
There’s so much that could be done with this theme. Searching for clues, the chase scene where everybody runs through doors, setting up a trap and catching a villian… The music is iconic and plays so well on loops, and I really wish more games in general had creepy violins, jazzy flutes, and wacky synths. I can imagine Scooby Snacks either being some sort of booster/powerup or an extra ball. “Would you try again for like, a Scooby Snack?” “R’okay…”
Wacky Racers
This theme makes me think of how POTC from JJP has the legion of characters to pick from, and I think a similar choice at the beginning of a game would be just so much fun. I’ll admit, that I saw most of those cartoons as a kid on Boomerang so I can’t really give names but the concept is just too good! Each racer would have some certain ability that makes something easier to obtain, hopefully balanced out so no particular racer is preferred more over the other outside of personal character preference. I could see a car whose wheels raise up as being a toy on the playfield, with the ball rolling underneath and past it, either some of the time or all the time. (I would lean towards some times since this would make a shot’s trajectory change and just be a fun mechanic) The goal would be to win the race, and doing modes that allow you to pass one or multiple racers to gain the lead could make that very interesting, especially if certain strategies could change the outcome of placement.
These are just some ideas that have been rattling around in my head for awhile now, and they’re too cool for me to not want to share them with other folks obsessed over pinball, haha!
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Holy crap! I was just going to post Banjo Kazooie as my Dream theme too! Have you played the visual pinball version of it I created ages ago? It’s actually pretty fun 
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Scooby-Doo, hell yeah!
Whaaat no I haven’t! Where can I find it?!
http://www.vpforums.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=2578
Requires Visual Pinball 8 program: http://www.vpforums.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=4564
and of course the awesome music pack:
http://www.vpforums.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=2579
(Create a directory called Music in the same place the exe is and put songs in there)
YouTube video of an old version of it:
that’s how one start a pinball designer career?
Star Blazers/Yamato with a wave motion gun multiball. Balls could come out of a wireform or translucent blue plastic on a Yamato/Argo toy and there’d be LEDs to simulate the cannon charging energy and releasing it. Also said toy would have moving shock cannons whenever you’d shoot ramps/orbits to destroy enemies.
Hey Arnold! would also be a good pin, the modes could all be urban legends from the show like the haunted train, Pigeon Man, the headless cabbie etc. A general catch all Nicktoons pin would be great too, of course there’d be slime involved.
Bowen’s Price is Right idea also makes me want to see a Press Your Luck machine.
Edit: Evangelion pinball would be fantastic if it incorporated the user interface design from the series with all the warning signs, hexagons, BLOOD TYPE: BLUE whatever and there could be a Third Impact wizard mode that’s like the shutdown mode from JM.
I used to always say Mythbusters but that ship has sailed so now I’m going with Westworld. It has rich theme that mixes sci-fi and Wild West stuff. Season 2 is premiering soon, I hope they don’t ruin it because S1 was super duper good with quite the twist at the end.
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I just remembered another one: Stargate SG-1. Gottlieb’s is based on the movie and while it is relatively fun it doesn’t incorporate the gate in any way, and I feel like an SG-1 table could pull it off…I just don’t know how they’d make it look like the ball goes through the gate “puddle.”
Plus I just want to hear funny Jack O’Neill quips.
I’d love a Futurama game too, but it would have to be done along the lines of TSPP with Groening involved, and at least DiMaggio and Billy West doing custom speech. But nobody goes that in depth anymore. They mostly pay for the name and glue on the media assets.
The Time Machine, and War of the Worlds. (both conveniently in the public domain as of last year)
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I always felt a Lego pinball would be a great theme for family entertainment - tons of assets and directions to pull from. Way better than toy story or Willy wonka at least.
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Just had an almost no-brainer theme idea come to me: Knight Rider. Get Steve Ritchie on design and it’ll rock. It could be like a newer version of Getaway with the ball accelerator being “turbo boost” instead of the supercharger.
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If it has KNERD in it, I’d buy it! They are probably due for another failed Knight Rider remake. They seem to happen every 10 years 
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