Here we go!  Thursday evening, Dead Flip (Twitch, Facebook, Twitter) went up to Benton, Wisconsin to visit Spooky Pinball and stream both Total Nuclear Annihilation and The Jetsons.  Below are Five Things that were seen/heard/learned during the Total Nuclear Annihilation portion of the Twitch stream.

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General Info: Total Nuclear Annihilation was created by Scott Danesi (website here) and is being manufactured by Spooky Pinball.  The game was built like an early ’80s solid state game but with up to date displays and components to have a retro-futuristic feel.  The artwork was revealed a few weeks ago, and this stream was the first time we saw the game in action with the new artwork.

Five Things Seen/Heard/Learned

1. The Light Show

Over-analyzing pinball machines is what we do, and it is completely fine to have differing opinions on what you like vs. what other people like.  But if you don’t like the light show on this game you’re crazy!  🙂

Here is the evidence:

• Exhibit A: Attract Mode.  People in the chat were actually requesting the players to slow down between games so they could see more of the attract mode.
• Exhibit B: Check out the lights in this sequence.  First Scott Danesi hits the scoop for the reactor startup sequence (light show!), then he quickly destroys the first reactor (light show!), then he drains and his bonus is calculated (another light show!).
• Exhibit C: Slings changing colors.  Check out this clip and this clip.

Time to move on, we could spend all day on the light show.

2. The Rules

Jack Danger of Dead Flip explains some of the rules in a few different clips:

• Jack destroys a reactor, and explains some of the basic rules here (listen for about a minute)
• Jack explains how to destroy a reactor (note: the spinner and slings in the mini playfield advance the counter shown on the mini playfield display)
• Jack first explains how to get multiball jackpots, and then gets a quick super jackpot in this well played multiball.

3. The Danesi Lock

Check out the Danesi Lock in action in this clip.  Also, check out the chaos that can happen on this machine in this multiball clip.

4. Ball Save Countdown

Instead of a blinking ball save light, this machine has a countdown display so you can see exactly how much time is left until the ball save ends (example here).  It looks great and fits the theme really well.  That display also shows when you have an extra ball by displaying Eb (see it here).

5. The Beacon

The beacon on the top of the machine goes off when the reactor status is “crucial”, check it out here.

End of Post Bonus

Miscellaneous

• You can steal locked balls
• There is different music for each reactor
• Playfield scoring multiplier is determined by the number of balls in play
• Here are the audits on the game at the end of the night

Charlie Ignores High Five, Sells Game

Banger Jay was left hanging when Charlie didn’t see a high five attempt.  Banger Jay then immediately put a deposit down on a game.

Perfect Ending

To end the evening, Scott Danesi got to reactor number four after destroying the first three (one, two, three).  With that he put over 2 million points and a Grand Champion score, beating Jack Danger’s GC score from earlier in the evening.