Photo credit: Paradigm Tilt / Anthony van Winkle
Last year, we covered a custom mod to add an additional game mode to Eight Ball in Eight Ball Plus – A $99 Mod To Add New Game Modes to 30+ Year Old Pinball Machine. Recently, we came across an even more advanced conversion kit game called Swords of Vengeance. This ongoing project that turns Williams Swords of Rage (1988) into a new game called Swords of Vengeance using the same playfield. It will run either the original game or the new game, like the Eight Ball Plus mod.
The underlying technology uses Fast Pinball’s Fast Retro Board (https://fastpinball.com/)
Pinside thread from the developer, Anthony Van Winkle:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/swords-of-vengeance-a-conversion-kit-sequel-to-lionma
Wondering what the target price of this mod will be? Anthony shares in the Pinside his target estimate:
I’m aiming to keep it in line with other conversion kits, but no estimate yet. System11 is a more complicated conversion and the MPU replacement board alone is double the cost of a WPC89/95 board, plus a new lighting panel for the backbox, drives the price up. But the fact that I’m doing this solo as a hobby project and not as a company or business venture, will hopefully keep the price down ….
My goal is to make this kit accessible and affordable, and I’ll be releasing my full BOM so folks know exactly what they’re getting and how much it cost to produce. Hopefully that transparency helps assuage concerns
But I guess I should give some kind of answer, so I’ll say my target price is between $2500 and $3000.
Swords of Vengeance: a conversion kit sequel to LIONMAN! | Homebrew pinball | Pinside.com (Post #113)
The bolding on the last part puts this modification in the pricing territory of a commercial P3 Module (see: P3 Multimorphic Pinball = 2/3 Virtual, 1/3 Physical Pin – Swappable Games).
So, to summarize the costs involved for getting this game — when/if it’s available for purchase — one would first need a Swords of Rage pinball machine, of which the current market price as of this writing on Pinside is roughly $4,000. And then you’d need to spring, let’s say, another $3,000 for the Swords of Vengeance conversion kit. The actual conversion process does not seem that involved, and for approximately $7,000 USD you could play both games.
Saw the Swords of Vengeance machine out at this year’s Northwest Pinball & Arcade show, but didn’t play it. Sounds like it was there last year, too, but don’t remember seeing. There was a fairly active homebrew area that we didn’t spend much time checking out last year.
What’s your take on homebrew pinball, friendly readers? Interested, somewhat, a bunch or not at all? Let us know your take in the comments.