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| THE WIZARD OF OZ: LATEST UPDATE |
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Date: 9th October, 2011 It's been a few weeks since our last update and with small snippets of information dripping out, it's time to round them all up into this latest update. First of all, Jack Guarnieri spoke at the recent Pacific Pinball Exposition in San Rafael, California and updated the audience on the progress to date.
He revealed that production on The Wizard of Oz is expected to being on 13th March 2012 - game designer Joe Balcer's birthday. Pre-production of assemblies and cabinets will start before that date, but 13th March is when the first game is expected to go down the assembly line. During his talk, he reiterated many of the details we have already brought you, explained that all 1,000 Emerald City Limited Edition games have been sold, either to individual buyers or to distributors, and showed full-colour versions of the cabinet and backbox artwork, although these had not yet been approved by Warner so Jack asked that it not be photographed.
However, since then he has given us the OK to show you the artwork, and we have it here for you.
In addition, a slightly extended version of the LCD monitor image has also been made available.
Our previous update included an image of the State Fair balloon pop bumper cap, but Jack said the ball action in that area - where the ball was supposed to be kicked at the six K-A-N-S-A-S standup targets arranged in an 'S' shape - wasn't as exciting as intended, so the layout has been revised somewhat to rectify that. The bumper remains, but whether some or all of the targets survived we will have to wait to see. Jack also explained the 'O.Z.P.I.N.H.E.A.D' lettering on his T-shirt, which is an acronym made up of the initial letters of The Wizard's full name - Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs - which is (understandably) usually shortened to plain old 'Oz'. Looking ahead, Jack said the second JJP game may not be the Dennis Nordman design originally planned to be game number two. Pinball Magic Designer, Bryan Hansen, who recently joined the JJP team, brought with him several completed designs for coin-op games. Amongst these was a pinball which has a whitewood already made, but currently lacks a theme. This may become the game after The Wizard of Oz, although nothing has been decided yet. Likewise, Jack hinted that the theme for Dennis's game hadn't been agreed. A third Elvira game had been suggested but Jack said he didn't know about that yet. You can catch Jack's whole seminar from the 2011 Pacific Pinball Exposition in our exclusive report available here in Pinball News. In other news, prototype cabinet cutting has begun with this single sheet of plywood yielding the front and back, some additional strengthening pieces and a couple of blocks, perhaps to mount the playfield support arm. Some additional pieces have been cut but it's not yet clear what they are for or whether they were just test cuts to align the CNC router.
The first cabinet sides have also been cut as we can see below.
Meanwhile, with all 1,000 Limited Edition games accounted for, attention is turning to the regular production version. These will be available to pre-order from 10th October - Jack's birthday - at a price of $6,500. - the same as the Emerald City limited edition pre-order price when the game was first announced. A $250 deposit will be required upon ordering. Machine numbers can be specified when ordering and will begin at #26, so the first 25 are presumably already accounted for. That's all the latest JJP news. Jack will be speaking at Pinball Expo in a ten days' time and, naturally, Pinball News will be there to report on what he has to say and to exclusively bring you the full recording of his - and everyone else's - seminars.
© Pinball News 2011 |
