Loch Ness Monster, a very rare "one of a kind" prototype pinball machine has appeared on Ebay with a reserve price of US$15000. According to the seller the table was "Designed by Joe Kaminkow and Ed Cebula for Gameplan just before they went out of business. It has arguably the coolest backglass of all time and the rotating monster under the playfield was way ahead of its time."

The sale also includes the designers original sketch book and is sure to attract attention from collectors. Auction ends January 25th 2010.

Got a dollar??

Its been a while since we have seen an update to VPinmame but it seems the crew have been busy with release V2.2

Changes include:

*** CORE/CPU ***
Support for Capcom shaded lamps (using ChangedDMD array)
Reduced DE DMD clock to 2 MHz, making games & sounds sync better
Reversed EOS switches for F14 Tomcat
Corrections for shallow Gottlieb driver prototypes
Kiss prototype moved to own source file kissp.c
Re-added comments to byvidpin.c
Gottlieb 9-segment digits replaced with legible alphanumerics (in DEBUG mode only)
Added four more key columns (triggered by Q-Z through R-V combinations, DEBUG only)
Added support to compile PinMAME with GCC 4.0, hopefully this will create interest for someone to build a Linux version
Replaced void* by genf* for GCC 4.0

*** ROM SUPPORT ***
Gottlieb Strikes n' Spares (rev. 1)
Gottlieb World Challenge Soccer (disp. rev. 2)
Gottlieb Mario Andretti (prototype rev. 4)
Sega Wack-a-Doodle-Doo
Williams F-14 Tomcat (P-3, P-4)
Toptronic unknown game on Gottlieb System 3 hardware (not working?)
Sonic Solar Wars [tecnopinball.org]
Playmatic Chance [pinball-dreams.com]
Williams The Machine: Bride of PinBot (L-3), thanks to Inkochnito
Sega X-Files (rev. 2.04), thanks to Inkochnito
WMS No Good Gofers (rev. 1.0), thanks to Steve Ellenoffnoff

Go Go get it.

This news is a few weeks old now, however my wife and I were in the process of having our first child around the time it was released so Im only just getting my feet back on the ground.

Visual Pinball v9.0.5 includes the following changes:

December 27, 2009 - updated VP9 for your playing amusement. Approved by Nanotech Entertainment.
changelog

1) Finalized PinballWizard and ushock motion controls - should be accurate for X/Y/Z axis and no more changes should need to be made to it again

2) added Plunger.MotionDevice scriptable property - 0=nothing connected, 1=PinballWizard, 2=uShock Board

3) Plunger.Position now returns a value from 0-25.  No scripted math calculations are required.

4) Export Sound now works for all supported sound formats

5) EMReels now have overlapping transparency compatible with Randy's vp8.1 implementation

6) added Plunger.Visible property - this is not scriptable, but allows the plunger to not be rendered

7) Corrected key mapping for Add Credit 2 - you can now remap that key

8) Key Preferences screen is now properly fixed for accepting new keycodes - before if you clicked a bunch of buttons without pressing a key it looked messy with ???? in each clicked button field, now it is neater.

9) corrected crash to desktop error when table name was deleted from properties window - this error had existed since the inception of visual pinball

10) Reordering of table elements added - this will increase compatibility with ATI cards.  This changes the rendering order of all table objects.
DROPWALLS
BUMPERS
GATES
SPINNERS
FLIPPERS
LIGHTS
/RAMPS - needs more work

Textboxes are drawn first, EMReels are drawn second, Decals, Kickers, Acryllic Ramps are drawn last

11) Corrected issue with control points - left mouse button held down followed by right mouse button was not firing the left button release code routine, causing the undo buffer to skip all subsequent events.

12) Restored 16-bit display modes.  Windowed mode uses your desktop color depth.

13) Translate now works for Textboxes and EmReels - select more than 1 item to get the option.

14) Updated compiler to VS Net 2008

Go get it here.

If you always wanted to grab a copy of fantastic Crayon Physics Deluxe but never had the $20 to spare now's your chance to get this fantastic casual physics game for whatever you want to pay.

Remember that if you pay too little then the author gets nothing as Paypal eats it all up in fees. I think the minimum you can pay to ensure that he at least gets something in his pocket is around US$0.32c so to be fair perhaps consider a few dollars at least. Offer ends 15th January so you better be quick.

Dirt cheap crayons.

Technetium Games, the developers of SlamIt pinball have released patch V1.2 independent of Steam (V1.2 is not available on Steam for various reasons and must be downloaded from the developers site and applied to your Steam game manually).

Previous versions of the update contained a file ironically named trap.exe that was falsely being detected as a virus by several major Virus checkers, however the latest version has had this file removed from the update to prevent any confusion. If you have the program already then you already have the required trap.exe. From my discussions with the developer, this file was the cause of many headaches both for them and endusers but is pivotal to the game itself, it temporarily disables the windows keys on your keyboard so you can slam the keys in "SlamIt" mode. Unfortunately this action mimics the action of a known virus, hence the false positive.

The new patch fixes several graphical problems and bugs plus adds a new rotated screen mode.

Keep an eye on SlamIt over the coming months as the guys are promising some big news which could make for some exciting times ahead. Kokakiki , SlamIt's new publishers have also announced that the game will also be ported to game consoles. 

Slamit Update Here

Following on from a recent disagreement between Chris Leathley (FP developer AKA "Black") and some member/s of the FP community, the Future Pinball forums appear to have been removed. It is still unknown as to whether this is permanent or temporary but already several members have decided to set up camp at VPForums. Black had stated publicly on the FP forums shortly before they went offline that his interest in the project was now diminished. After spending 10 years of his life involved with both VP and FP perhaps he has decided to let it rest. No matter what the outcome Im sure table creators will continue to develop for Future Pinball.

If this does indeed prove to be the end of FP development, thankyou Chris for your contributions over the years, it sure was fun whilst it lasted. Perhaps a phoenix will rise from the ashes  ;)

Steve Paradis (AKA Simplyus) has returned to the Future Pinball limelight with a bang after a brief stint away from the scene. His latest table entitled "Jungle Boy" is based around a previous table he created in Flash some time ago and has now received a Future Pinball makeover. Complete with animated 3d Ape for your viewing pleasure, the table features Steve's trademark signature graphics and gameplay (minus the trademark  ;) ). Be sure to check out this fantastic release from one of our favourite table designers.

Who you callin' Monkeyboy?? 

2009 has been a great year for Visual Pinball releases. V9.0.4 features the following changes (courtesy of Destuk):

1) worked some more on the pinball wizard plunger "Z" axis

2) corrected attached joystick/gamepad interference with the player - For those game controllers please use software like Joy2Key

3) removed ball blurs, as well as frame updates from spinners, gates, and moving objects will be smoother with increased framerate.

4) restored functionality of RGB 0/0/0 for invisible gates, spinners, flippers, and bumpers

5) Corrected uninitialized/unvalidated info for loaded flipper and textbox settings.

6) Removed requirement for msvcr71.dll

Grab it here