The LoserKid Pinball Podcast recently released a fantastic interview with Play Mechanix's Josh Sharpe. During the hour-long session they talked in depth about the new expansion kit for Chicago Gaming Company's Cactus Canyon Remake. If you ever wanted to know anything about that awesome expansion for the game give that a listen. As usual though, I try to pick up on the unexpected bits of news from interviews like this.
First off, I had no idea that before the late Lyman Sheats and Josh Sharpe began work on the Cactus Canyon expansion for Chicago Gaming Company, their original project was an expansion to the code of another CGC Remake...Monster Bash. Oh how I love that game. Expanded code for it would be amazing. Mid-project for the Monster Bash expansion, after realizing how shallow the final regular pinball machine from Bally Williams actually was, CGC asked the two to shift gears and work on additional code for Cactus Canyon. The Monster Bash expansion was put on the back burner. Unfortunately, Lyman Sheats has since passed away but Josh Sharpe has all of the original notes for the project that he and Lyman were working on.
Not only were Josh and Lyman working on expanded code for Monster Bash and Cactus Canyon, they were outlining expanded code for a whole list of pinball machines, including Medieval Madness, Attack From Mars and even Stern Pinball's AC/DC. Could you imagine if any of those made it to market someday?! How cool would that be? During the interview, Josh Sharpe said "I will fight as long as it takes to see that stuff come to life." That's not entirely under his control, but I hope that he can make it happen.
The interview also briefly touched upon the next pinball machine that's coming from Plan Mechanix and CGC. While not mentioned, the game is strongly rumored to be based upon the X-Box science fiction video game series Halo. I previously mentioned in an article here that rumor is that CGC is working hard to have that game ready by the Chicago Pinball Expo this Fall. Will that happen? Well, Play Mechanix's first game Pulp Fiction took seven years from the initial concept to market, so the needless to say CGC is not exactly fast.
With Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino dictated that the machine look like a solid state game. Josh said that with the next game (again rumored to be Halo) the company is now "over compensating" in a way that is not great for the them financially aka the machine is packed. I can't wait to see what they've been working on!
Chicago Gaming's Monster Bash Remake is such a beautiful game...
