After years of uncertainty and doubt The Addams Family pinball is finally coming to pretty much every platform imaginable thanks to Kickstarter and FarSight Studios.
If you frequented arcades in the mid 90s, or indeed made a habit of hanging out in the hallways of public houses, you most likely put a few coins in The Addams Family pinball machine. If you didn't, just mention the table to those who play pinball and watch them quickly go starry-eyed.
Manufactured by Midway in the early 90s and inspired by the film of that era, it's the best selling pinball machine of all time. According to Wikipedia, a total of 20,270 units have been sold.
Love it or hate it, it's a game that people love to have an opinion on.
With the likes of the Pinball Arcade bringing classic machines to modern gaming devices and Zen Pinball inventing new tables, it's a genre experiencing a resurgence. However, because of the multiple licenses involved in The Addams Family machine, for years fans assumed it would never be recreated electronically.
Bobby King, head designer for the Pinball Arcade, made it something of a personal quest to prove the naysayers wrong. This month his work at FarSight Studios, combined with the help received from Kickstarter supporters, will finally see this fabled table return to the masses once again.
King described the difficulties involved. "For me it was a huge personal challenge. I was told by several people in licensing that it would be impossible to get the rights required to produce the table. Raul Julia's likeness and voice-over talent reverted to his estate. Then there is The Addams Family foundation, Paramount Pictures (which owns the movie content) and then you have the music license and of course not forgetting the seven different actors.
It's been three years in the making to even arrive at amount of money we'd need to pay."
The total cost of the licenses came to $101,000 (£65,800), so FarSight Studios turned to Kickstarter for support and was soon inundated with pledges. The project was quickly funded and what had been assumed impossible, through community collaboration and hard work was able to become a reality. "The support we get on Kickstarter for these pro tables is phenomenal. Our fans are great, I can't tell you enough."
We spoke to King to hear more about the process of bringing The Addams Family classic table to life digitally, and hadn't expected it to be such detailed work.
The process begins by purchasing a version of the physical table in good condition and painstakingly taking it to bits. These pieces are passed to computer modellers who digitise each element before it is photographed. From there the small team emulates the ROM (read-only memory) of the table to connect the switches to the Dot Matrix Display and track the score.
The table is then worked up in the development environment, with rigorous tests (both with Farsight Studio's in-house pinball experts and a bank of pro players) ensuring the finished table plays just like the original. They wanted to replicate the same pitfalls and frustrations of the original, as well as those cunning opportunities for top-end pinball techniques.
I've had a few days with the beta now, and as a fan of the original I have to say I'm impressed. It not only looks and sounds like the real table, but also draws on the same timing instincts and tactics to make perfect shots and maintain control of the tricky ball.
I asked King why he was so focused on recreating old machines when the studio could have a far freer hand if they just invented their own new designs. "We are taking something that people remember from their past with the sole purpose of preserving a collection of the greatest pinball machines for future generations," he said.
Playing The Addams Family pinball with my children, it was great to see their reaction to dad's old favourite pastime. Pulling the plunger and launching into my first game on the table for some 20 years was actually quite emotional. Being able to introduce my kids to this and other tables in the collection was also really special, most of all because they then wanted to go and play "some real pinball" as they put it.
Currently the Pinball Arcade is released on iOS, Steam (Windows/Mac), Android (Google Play), PS4, PS3/Vita, Kindle (Amazon App Store) and OUYA. On other platforms the game is in process, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Wii U and Linux.
On PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, Pinball Arcade renders the lighting in real time and offers a more realistic experience, something that should extend to PC soon as well.
One platform that King confirmed was now on the horizon was the 3DS. With the arrival of the more powerful New 3DS XL (and New 3DS) Pinball Arcade was now possible on the system. King suggested this was likely for 2015.
Whichever device you play The Addams Family on, spare a thought for all those years of waiting fans did for this to become a reality. Thanks to FarSight and their Kickstarter support, we won't have to wait much longer.
Andy Robertson is a freelance family gaming expert for the BBC and runs Family Gamer TV on YouTube.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
