Orange.
That’s the number one word aesthetically when you first look at Looney Tunes. It’s orange, orange, orange everywhere. It’s a color I’m not super fond of, but don’t actively dislike either. I think the copious amount of green used on Scooby Doo from Spooky worked very well, but question the same tactic with Looney Tunes employing excessive orange.
That said, if orange is your favorite color, you’re apt to love the art and design of Looney Tunes.
Took me some time to find a Looney Tunes to play somewhere. It wasn’t at the recent Northwest Pinball 2024 show and no operators or vendors in our immediate area have purchased and put one on location yet. My circle of pinball friends, nobody is buying Spooky pins. So, waited until Next Level pinball bought one and put out for play. They have a full section of Spooky pins with Alice Cooper’s Nightmare Castle and Total Nuclear Annihilation being my personal favs to date.
Let’s dig into some more detailed first thoughts flipping Looney Tunes. I’ve done this for a few other modern pins in the last year, including the following:
- Pulp Fiction SE (2023) Detailed Thoughts after Flipping On Location
- John Wick Pro + Premium (Stern 2024 v0.81 code) Detailed Thoughts after Flipping On Location + Show
- Labyrinth (Barrels of Fun 2023) Detailed Thoughts after Flipping On Location – PlayGamesMore
Why haven’t I done this for Jaws? Well, because Jaws got a massive write-up on HUO, featured here: Our Son Bought a New In Box Jaws Stern Premium – The First 40 Days of Ownership – What’s the Experience Really Like?
LOVE- Theme
Looney Tunes is a great theme, with lots of fond childhood characters to draw inspiration from with mechs, toys, callouts, LCD animations. The potential is there for a really fun pinball experience.
It’s interesting to note this theme opinion conflicts with my former article: REACTION: The Little Engine That Could? Spooky Pinball’s Looney Tunes Gameplay Reveal where I wrote, “I didn’t care for the theme.”
Initially, that was true. But you know how first reactions can be to something, sometimes. You think more about it, read, talk and hear what others think and you can evaluate with clearer thoughts.
After deeper and more considered thought, I was wrong, and love the theme and stand corrected on what was written previously. I’m not going to go back and edit those words, just correct them here. The rest of what I wrote I’m standing by. I don’t watch Looney Tunes cartoons much any more, but I loved watching them as a kid and see it as a great theme/IP for a pinball machine.
This is another good example of why you need to play a pin yourself to draw your own conclusions versus watching a video and trying to decide if you like playing something from that. You can’t. I’d like to think my first reaction to theme is correct but in this case, it wasn’t. My first reaction to the theme was wrong. I think it’s a theme with great potential, actually.
But is the theme being fully realized here? That’s the bigger question, of which we’ll try to answer in the rest of this article.
MIXED – Playfield Design, Mechs & Toys
Ramp entrances are too big and hit the posts more frequently than should. Also, the power of the flipper, need more flipper strength. This could have been setting by operator, but in general, I’ve been underwhelmed by flipper strength on Spooky pins. Some exceptions include the aforementioned Alice Cooper’s Nightmare Castle and TNA.
I was looking specifically for Wyle E. Coyote and Road Runner because when I think of Looney Tunes, I think of those characters and miss more of those iconic characters used herein.
MIXED – Translite, Side and Playfield Artwork
The excessive orange mentioned at the top of this article puts me off somewhat. The actual artwork is done very well, pleasing to the eye — other than the color scheme. I think the translite works as is, although I wish the color scheme was more Daffy Duck (mostly black with some orange, not mostly orange). When I brought this up during a recent livestream, several other PGM members noted they liked the orange design, so this might not be an opinion shared among most or even many others.
DISLIKE – Plunger / Skill Shots
Huge miss not having a plunger that actually plunges into shots instead of this feeble mechanical button press. Pinball is strengthened as a game by the plunger as part of the skill of the game. Games without a plunger can work in limited situations, but it comes off as lazy and uninspired with just a button most of the time. This button isn’t unique or even creatively used. Miss.
*MIXED – Gameplay Flow
Mixed, due to the flipper strength, smoothness of shots because some are bricky. I do like when the shots go through, so flow-wise there are times I enjoyed it, but also several frustrating moments. Some of this flow might be worked out through more plays. I don’t have enough plays yet to more fairly evaluate the layout, hence the asterisk in front of “MIXED” above.
MIXED – Medium to low level scoring
I don’t like modern machines with low scoring. Medium scoring, which is where Looney Tunes appears to sit, can be OK. John Wick from Stern has medium scoring. The best I did with Looney Tunes playing several games was just over 10 million. By comparison, a single plunger skill shot from Jaws by Stern (2024) can be 10 million points.
When I brought this up during a recent livestream, a couple folks questioned that this would or should ever be that important to evaluating a pinball. I’m not saying it should be a factor for everybody, but is for me.
The issue with modern scoring is a factor some percentage of players evaluate as part of their initial experience. Not saying scoring should be the only way you evaluate or even care about modern pinball, but it is certainly a factor that some consider. If this doesn’t matter to you, easy, just disregard this criteria. I look at just about every modern pinball using this criteria. Exceptions would include remakes of older pins that didn’t have the number of reels for larger scoring. Lower scoring back then wasn’t as big a deal as it is with more modern machines.
MIXED – LCD movie assets and callouts
With so many options for Looney Tunes, it feels a bit barren with the callouts, the animation assets. Like more could have been done. I’m comparing this to how Jaws uses assets. Way better on Jaws. Even John Wick does more with movie clips than Looney Tunes. Callouts? More needed. There are some animated, licensed clips that play and what I saw, I liked. More, though. We need more!
*MIXED – Music/sounds
Just needed more, I did like what was in it so far as a starting point, but it feels like the code in this department is not matured. And for the price of a Stern Premium ($9,699) it should not be released in this code state. I said the same about John Wick. The sounds seemed basic and not fully defined. If I hear that zany, cliched boinking sound again, I might just scream into my hand or squeeze a stress ball. Come on, Spooky, you can do better. You’re charging like this is the big time, the big stage. Bring it!
LIKE – Lighting
Thought the lighting was decent to good. It is about on par with Jaws, nothing special, but not bad. Could it be better? Yes.
DISLIKE – Additional Game/Video Modes
Look, this is a barren swamp of pinball for video modes. There aren’t any. I’m imagining a Dragon’s Lair like video mode game where you can control Wyle E. Coyote setting traps for Road Runner alas, this is only in my mind, nothing like this exists in this pin. Maybe in a future code release? Doubtful. Another miss.
DISLIKE – Released with Incomplete Connected / Social Features
In 2024, I don’t think any modern pinball priced around $10,000 should be sold without some sort of connected system (related, see: OPINION: Stern Pinball has Feature Every Modern Pinball Needs): Scorbitron, design their own (have your own open source server situation), whatever you do, but including nothing and charging $10,000? Shameful. Not going to apologize for calling out pricing on overpriced toys
Which brings us to the biggest offense of Looney Tunes:
DISLIKE – Pricing
This machine is not worth, in this author’s opinion, the same price as a Stern Premium. In fact, I’ll go further and say it’s at least $2,000 overpriced. Since Spooky is choosing to market this at the same price of a Stern Premium, then it’s only fair to compare the two products. This game appears to have more going on with it than some Stern Premium machines, but it’s lacking in execution in far more areas. Only when comparing to earlier Spooky machines does it look and feel like an improvement. I wish Spooky would price these machines in the $5,000-$7,500 range. If they could produce at current or better quality at those prices, they’d really have something worth stronger consideration.
Going back to my John Wick first thoughts flipping, I thought that one was overpriced, too, so saying the price of Looney Tunes is good considering John Wick, would be laughable.
Overall early feelings – Would not buy, am slightly interested in playing with current code
Grade: C-
This game is one of the better pins that Spooky has produced to date, but that’s comparing to such terrible games as The Jetsons, Dominos Pizza and Ultraman, and I’ve played all of them except for Texas Chainsaw Massacre that uses the same playfield layout as Looney Tunes. My guess is TCM will be about the same as this, maybe a little better, since it’s an adult theme.
I’d like to play TCM, just as I’d like to play more Looney Tunes, but have zero desire to buy. I’m rooting for Spooky to continue doing what they do, improving their code at launch, improving their code and designs, and not copying what Stern too often does in releasing games with early and (often) inferior, beta code. Anybody thinking this is a good business idea, well, we’ll have to agree to disagree (strongly) on this one.
Am not saying Looney Tunes is a bad game, it’s just underwhelming and a below average effort IMO for the price they’re charging. Is it worth paying 75 cents or a buck to play on location here and there? Maybe. LT can get better with code updates, absolutely, the playfield design is OK, but then all of these modern pins get better with code updates. I don’t know if that’s something to be proud of or look forward to in pinball in 2024.
HI Todd!
Does it feel like to you that Spooky is just phoning it in in terms game features, mechanics and efforts. Yet, they have the gall to price their machines at the same level as Stern when they are nowhere near the same quality. If things aren’t improved will they become the Walking Dead of pinball manufacturing?
Yeah, not sure why they price their machines like Stern. At least knock $1,000 off the price. It would be like indie devs charging AAA game prices. Once Spooky becomes more established, they might be able to justify. Then again, they are probably thinking: we’ve been doing this for years now, we deserve to charge these prices. The problem is even Stern’s prices are too high … so it’s a problem I’m not sure of the solution until Stern lowers their prices and competitors follow. Then again, Jersey Jack is charging more than Stern. It’s crazy, these prices. We love the hobby, love playing real pinball, but these machines across the board need to come down price-wise.