Well shit…

https://www.knapparcade.org/blog/american-pinball-has-decided-not-to-build-cuphead-company-creates-new-facebook-page-for-orbit-games

Reportedly … rumors continue that feel like this is more likely the case than not every passing month.

I'm bummed that I didn't play it when I saw it in Chicago. There was just too much other stuff going on, and it was hard to get to.

"Lowest prices of the season!" They just happen to have 365 "seasons" per year.

Sad if the case. I've never played Cuphead or watched the show. But I love the art style and think you could make a cool pin with the theme. Hoped it would get released.

Frankly, that article is poor journalism. The headline states as fact that AP has decided not to build it, but they have no evidence whatsoever. It's just their belief. I'm guessing AP won't build it, but unlike Knapp, I won't state it as fact.

No Cuphead after all this drama and all the folks emphatically stating it would be made.

Bummer as I hate to see any pinball business fail and I really don't like hearing a game is near complete only to be hidden forever from us.

AP is obviously going through some type of wind down or tranisiton. It would appear foolish to start investing in parts and assembling inventory while the company is on the skids and your existing games still not selling at reduced prices.

Kind of a sad story. I blame the original ugly backbox - they "fixed" it too late.

Cuphead 100% definitely is not happening. It has been officially decided at the company. It’s a fact. I only wrote that it’s a rumor because I don’t have official comment from AP yet.

Fair enough - good info to have. My journalism background just kicked in and said that headline isn't right.

I stand corrected by a DE owner - the "magic glass" is onthe DE too - my bad. Like I said I wished I could have got a deal on a DE GTF but that is not the one on sale as much as the Signature Edition which is cool in its own way....

Since they won’t be releasing any more games it makes no sense to buy any of their games now since I doubt I would get the support from a company that is not around

Understandable certainly but Bally Williams are not around either and the hobby seems to keep those games going. Is American like Bally Williams - no - but that is why the games are on sale now as well.

Shame really....so much promise...

I think it’s Levi who says that if “Pinside ran a pinball company they’d be out of business in 6 months” (or something like that).

I think that statement needs an asterisk… I am pretty sure that Pinside as a collective would have done better than AP’s decision makers.

Seriously it was easy to see their mistakes in realtime… no need for second guessing.

They made so many bad moves. Not getting any IPs, then releasing games they would think you want and telling you to buy them. Then that godawful marketing with the BBQ game. Literally no one wanted that then they tell the customer “hey go to your local bbq places and tell them to buy the game”

If they never released the BBQ and released Cuphead instead we would be having a different conversation today

LTG it looks like you might be paying up on our five dollar wager sooner than later, which is unfortunate.

Just bizarre ...

Houdini was a worthwhile initial offering.. I owned it for a time, and didn't really like, but it had an interesting theme and ok execution.

Octoberfest... I never played it... but again I liked the theme

Hot Wheels... I enjoyed it when I played it. It seemed like a fine game for a location. I had no interest in owning it

LOV.... IDK... I never played it, and I didn't have a ton of interest.

GTF... initially I was very interested in it. Then I saw how ham-handed the animations/videos were done. I like corny as much as the next person, but everything seemed cringey... Add the cost, and overall weirdness of the design. I don't know what they were thinking. Although... oddly... I could see the tank versions being worth some serious $$$ in like 20 years.

BBQ- no clue what they were doing. It had to be the strangest, most out of tune, theme since Dominos (And Spooky was commisioned to do that one!). Maybe it made sense as a limited release side theme... but man.. that was an incredibly poor choice to bet the company on.

I was under the impression they are under contract and have to build it.

If American Pinball announces that they won't build it, I'll pay up.

LTG : )

If you are the owners of Cuphead, I think you would let them out of the contract fairly easily because you’re getting a royalty off of units sold and they probably realize it’s not going to be many units.

They would probably rather take their chances with the possibility of another manufacturer, picking up the IP, but that’s going to be a challenge

I agree…MDMR should just shop the game around and see if Turner or someone else would be willing to build it.

Most of the game details were revealed to me today (guess NDAs don’t matter anymore), and yeah, this game would really shocked people. The dice mechanic alone has never been done in a pinball machine before…Such a shame…

does AP have anything left to sue for? and don't unpaid wages come 1st in bankruptcy?

so they are now Orbit Games??

Watch someone on YouTube (or whatever) do a playthrough of the Cuphead video game sometime. Just skip around and look at some of the different scenes and boss battles. It’s beautiful artwork, very reminiscent of Max Fleischer cartoons from the 1920’s or even the very early Disney silly symphony type of stuff. Gorgeous artwork with clever character design. It would be a shame for the pin to never see production. It could be a really cool nod to the EM machines of yore.

I totally agree- I would absolutely buy this game. One of my favorite video games and the soundtrack is amazing.

Boy they really hate licenses at Aimtron.

The term is “tits up”. Tits up.

But now if AP isn’t making this and for all intents and purposes is dead (tits up), can someone finally leak some damn photos or explain everything? Police sketch? Anything??? Can Ryan or other former employee go on a tirade and explain WTF exactly happened here?

So many opinions on how good the game looked and played, and not even a single potato camera pic.

Lol what did I do to make Lloyd block me this time?

Just being yourself

blocked for being awesome? Sad!

Somehow I feel like its related to this news even though I haven't said anything about it

lol

This is so sad to hear. If GTF wasn’t such an insane price, we would have picked one up. Really a shame, AP had a lot of promise, and Hot Wheels is a GREAT game. They could never find their footing

I thought Aimtron had money out the wazoo?
All they need is to hire some leadership who knows what the actual F they’re doing, and a pop culture IP for a title. That’s it!
They build quality games. The coding (other than GTF’s disjointed-ness) seemed reliable and relatively intuitive for the player.
AP’s house has good bones. Someone please have the good sense to keep it from burning to the ground!

I’ve wanted a GTF for a hot minute, is there any chance the price drops closer to LOV? At that kind of close out price, I’d take the risk of future repairs without customer support.

Does Lloyd get to keep all of his A.P. games now?

LTG

I'd certainly imagine so if the remaining units don't sell

I am going to say it again and boo hoo to any who gets their panties in a bunch.

Aimtron and their business ethics were never meant for pinball.

Go ahead and say the whole thing with your chest.

Were there any cupheads built?

There was a prototype that had at least two boss battle modes on it….

Anyway, just a heads up….AP is completely sold out of shirts, all of their shirts, if anyone cares? I placed an order for some items and they messaged me saying all the shirts are gone.

The only ones left in stock are the Barry O BBQ shirt, but every other shirt style appears to be sold out. Their website is not showing this, so just letting everyone know.

Oh, and they might have a few hats left.

No need, this is all it should take....

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I don't see any reason why not.

LTG : )

That's a plus for you then

Except in my casino game, which was sitting in the AP lab for a couple of years,

After I was gone someone decided to use it, without talking to me. From what I heard, the one in cuphead, does not actually read the dice like mine did. Sounded like at some point they use a magnet to force the die to one particular roll/value. I've not seen it in action so can't say for certain how much of a copy it is.

Pretty cool. I always wondered what happened to that game. Hopefully it's still out there somewhere and not trashed like so many prototypes are.

Did you put a patent on this thing?!

The details revealed to me yesterday by someone who had actually played the game at AP (about a year ago) said the dice mech had a scanner that read the dice AND also had a magnet to force a specific roll. He was very specific in saying it had some sort of a scanner/reader built into it, which would change dice insert lane lights. The magnet roll value only only worked for one side of the dice, so they could lock snake eyes or another specific combination.

It sounded very similar to what you have right there in the video, but on the upper left side of the machine.

Well for comp mode you want it to be not random.

Don't the real casino e-craps games just use an camera?

It was great till rosh left.

Oktoberfest is one of the best coded games I've owned.

I can vouch for this.. He showed me his casino game LONG before he started working for AP.

I'd be interested in one of those proto cupheads if anyone has an IN

Joe, I can always count on you to make me laugh. Far more important that a casino game be true to random nature of the games then it be suitable for pinball competition. I’ll tell you what if my casino homebrew ever goes to production I’ll add code to disable the popper in competition mode, just for you!

Not worth the time or money and likely existing patents that cover reading dice. It’s a cool toy for a pinball machine as it is physical and it worked great for craps.

Regardless of patent, imho, it’s poor form for AP to use it. I’m sure others would disagree. Regardless, I would have liked to have seen cuphead released, I’m sure the team worked hard on it and it deserves to be seen and played. Which is also true for Dennis’ game as well.

Saddens me to see what has become of AP, we worked hard to get that company off the ground, to establish a foundation with great potential, only to see if fall apart and be wasted. Hopefully these rumors are false.