Here’s the full announcement from the latest Multimorphic public update:
After showing off our early technology concept machine in 2012 and then iterating on prototype implementations over the last couple of years, I am incredibly proud to announce that the design of the most feature-rich and innovative physical pinball platform ever developed, the P3, is complete.
It’s no surprise that there have been no significant technological advancements or gameplay innovations in the pinball industry for decades. The traditional, single-piece, wooden playfield isn’t configured to accommodate modularity, comprehensive ball-tracking, or dynamic playfield artwork, and traditional control systems can’t support new, high-tech features. Developing a revolutionary machine, or just revolutionary gameplay features, would therefore be a time-consuming, expensive, and risky proposition for anybody.
As is true in most industries, significant advancements are typically introduced by startup companies, and in the pinball industry, we (Multimorphic) are that startup. We’ve spent the time and money, we’ve taken the risk, and we’ve succeeded in creating a platform that delivers on our vision for modularity and gameplay innovations.
It’s taken a team of incredibly passionate and talented individuals to get us to this point, and the machine is just one part of the picture. Along the way, we’ve developed (and continue to develop) the most advanced control system in the industry, the P-ROC/P3-ROC and associated switch and driver boards. Hundreds of custom machine developers and a number of new machine manufacturers are using our control system in their machines, and it’s what we use in the P3 as well. We’ve also been working towards a public release of our P3 pinball development kit, which will allow anybody to create games for the P3 Pinball Platform. This is the same set of development tools and libraries we use internally to create our games.
The P3 Pinball Platform, the P-ROC/P3-ROC control system, and our software development kit combine to enable an incredibly diverse library of games. We invite other companies to participate in building up the P3 game library, and we’re doing everything we can to ensure it’s easy for them to do so. At the same time, we’re building our own games. As pinball hobbyists ourselves, we love traditional games with interesting shot layouts and deep, fun rulesets, and our first game (Lexy Lightspeed - Escape From Earth) is exactly that type of game. With the development of LL-EE wrapping up (voice callouts are being added now), we’ll soon resume development of Cosmic Cart Racing, which is another mostly traditional-style game with an interesting shot layout and fairly deep ruleset. After (or in parallel with) that, we’ll continue developing traditional-style games, including both licensed and original themes.
In addition to developing a large library of traditional-style games, we intend to use the P3 to explore different shot layouts and gameplay styles in an effort to grow the pinball market beyond the traditional player and hobbyist. We’ve been talking about the capabilities of the P3 for a long time and asking you to imagine the possibilities, but those days are coming to an end. The P3 is so appealing to so many people that we’ve had a number of volunteers offer to help us develop our tools and games. Because of that, we’ve been able to develop some of our untraditional game ideas while the platform and LL-EE teams were busy with their own tasks.
At the 2016 Texas Pinball Festival (http://www.texaspinball.com), we’ll be hosting a seminar on Saturday at noon. We’ll be providing FREE LUNCH, giving away a bunch of great prizes (translites, t-shirts, etc), and revealing four new games for the P3.
I’ll repeat that. During our seminar at TPF 2016 (3/19 @ 12pm), we’ll be revealing FOUR new games for the P3.
To be clear, these game reveals won’t just be discussions of themes and future development plans. We’ll be showing you the games during our seminar and letting you play each of them at various times throughout the rest of the show. We’ll therefore have a total of 5 games available for play at TPF.
We developed these new games to show off more capabilities of the platform, and they each have a specific purpose.
One of the new games is a full package that includes an upper playfield module, new cabinet artwork, and progressive game rules. It’s much less intimidating to casual players than a traditional game. People will be able to walk up to it, instantly understand what to do, and enjoy a gameplay experience that progresses from simple to extremely difficult.
The other 3 games are what we call “mini-games” that work with one or more existing upper playfield modules. One game is built from the LL-EE code base, works only with the LL-EE playfield module, and delivers a short, fun game that integrates the most interesting mechanisms on the playfield. Another game is a children’s game that works with, and utilizes, any upper playfield module. The last game is one that works specifically with the dynamic and interactive lower playfield and wall/scoop assembly, regardless of which upper playfield module is installed.
I apologize for intentionally not including any pictures with this update. We’ll do much better than pictures at TPF!
Anybody who signs up by the end of the TPF weekend to buy a P3 will get all 5 games for free with their purchase of the platform. Whether you’re present at the show or not, you need only to fill out and submit one of our pre-order forms (available at http://www.multimorphic.com) before Sunday, March 20th 2016 at 11:59pm CST. As is our policy, we won’t ask for any payments until we start the manufacturing process on your machine, at which time you can decide to follow through with your order or cancel it with no penalty. Orders will be processed in the sequence they are received. Feel free to submit your forms now.
As with all of our promotions, all customers with an active pre-order on file participate in all new promotions offered prior to the manufacturing of their machine. This means that our earliest pre-order customers get these 5 games as well as everything they were offered previously, including Cosmic Cart Racing when it ships.
Please accept a sincere thank you on behalf of the entire Multimorphic team for supporting us throughout this endeavor. Your patience, support, and encouragement continues to motivate us all. With the platform design complete, much of our team is now focused on preparing for the manufacturing process and ensuring that our suppliers and contract manufacturing partners are successful in helping us build the most innovative pinball platform ever developed and deliver the best price-per-game value in the industry. Once all parts pass first article inspections and sample machines are built to our specifications and quality standards, we’ll begin producing and shipping customer machines.
Feel free contact me directly with any questions or comments.