THE WIZARD OF OZ:
LATEST NEWS

Date: 28th August, 2011

Following his visit to the UK in the middle of this month and subsequent holiday, Jack Guarnieri has returned to the Jersey Jack Pinball team and issues the latest update of progress on The Wizard of Oz.

Matt Riesterer has been working on a custom bumper cap for the State Fair pop bumper in the left outlane while Greg Freres has been developing playfield artwork and working with the Belgian artist creating the LCD monitor animations.

Matt with the (removed in this picture) State Fair pop bumper cap
Matt with the (removed in this picture) State Fair balloon pop bumper cap

Another three people have been added to the JJP team, although Jack has not yet revealed who they are.  Those details will appear here at Pinball News when they are announced.

The development work has been taking place at the "Midwest Campus" in Illinois which is in an office owned by Pat Lawlor, although Jack is at pains to stress Pat is not involved in the development of The Wizard of Oz in any way.

The other half of the operation in New Jersey is getting under way with the first cabinet prototypes being cut this coming week.  The design will be a regular Williams cabinet and the plan is to put test prototype games on location during December so any gameplay issues can be ironed out before full production begins.

Parts for the first assemblies are being released to distributors with more still being developed, while Jack is confident The Wizard of Oz team are building " the very best game ever built".

Here's the full text of JJP's latest update.

Greetings Pinball Fans;

A lot is happening at the JJP Midwest Campus as well as JJP World Headquarters in NJ. 

At the MC, our engineers continue to make great progress on the four major toys, the Witch's Castle, Dorothy's House, Melting Witch and the Flying Monkey. They are tweaking the upper flippers, bumpers, targets and every element of the game for optimum play action. As with any good whitewood, there are changes that are made to make the game features more responsive which add to the fun factor of the game. We are sparing no time and no expense to make this game the best possible game it can be. That's not to say we feel rushed to complete the game sooner than later. That's to say we believe we are building the very best game ever built. That's what every member of the Design Team is working passionately towards every day.

Greg Freres continues to work on playfield art as well as direct our Animator to create some really great effects to put on our LCD. Jerry Vanderstelt continues to complete his seven works in full vivid color and we expect them to be completed in about six weeks. Project Manager Jim Thornton is releasing parts to Vendors for sub assemblies and we have added another three people to the company which we will announce in the next coming week!

In NJ we will be cutting the wood for several prototype cabinets later this week and they will be assembled and targeted for completion as full prototype games to be placed on location for testing this December. We are also planning out the factory assembly lines and finished space which will begin to be built out in the next few weeks.

 

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