As Editor of Pinball Magazine, I have attended several editions of the Texas Pinball Festival (TPF). Usually, Martin Ayub and I host our So You Think You Know Pinball?-quiz at the event, and we travel together as well. As last year, we’re joined by Marcel van Kessel, the main organizer of the Dutch Pinball Open Expo. This year, we decided to fly into Houston and visit some Texas-based pinball manufacturers on our way to Frisco, TX, where TPF is held. As Martin is writing his own, extremely in-depth report on TPF, Pinball Magazine’s angle below is writing more of a personal diary of the entire trip.

Monday, March 16: Travel day of more than 24 hours due to delays and rebooked flights. We arrived in Houston too late to do anything.

Tuesday, March 17: On the way to Barrels Of Fun, we visited the Delorean Motor Company in Humble, TX.

We arrived at Barrels of Fun around noon and got a short tour from CEO David van Es. Since our last visit last year, the factory has expanded, and several areas have moved to different rooms in the buildings, gaining more space.

David explained some of the challenges he faces daily regarding dealing with vendors, finding the right personnel, expanding, and building games. Most of that was off the record, so I can’t get into any specifics, but it’s clear that running a pinball company involves many challenges. He also talked about how, after the mild reception of Dune, they didn’t see it coming that Winchester Mystery House would be such a hit game for them. The game was intended as a filler to keep the factory line moving. So they’re now building both Dune and Winchester Mystery House simultaneously on two different lines. David was kind enough to sponsor our So You Think You Know Pinball?-quiz with a Dune playfield. Much appreciated!

Following the tour, we played Winchester Mystery House for over an hour in the entrance area of the factory. What a great game! The entire sound package is just a perfect fit for the theme.

Wednesday, March 18: Last night, Martin received a heads-up from Turner Pinball about a new game they would be revealing today. So Martin had been up most of the night to work on his article about this game.

The game is called Yukon Yeti, is designed by veteran pinball designer Dennis Nordman and can be considered an unofficial follow-up to his White Water game. Please note that Dennis Nordman’s career in pinball has been covered in-depth in Pinball Magazine No. 2. Dennis will also be a special guest at the Texas Pinball Festival.

So, while Martin hadn’t slept much, it was still a travel day and he was driving the car. We planned a detour via Round Rock, TX, to visit Multimorphic. We arrived around noon and got a tour of the factory by founder Gerry Stellenberg. Obviously, Multimorphic’s latest title, Portal, was in production.

We sat down to record “What’s Cooking With Gerry Stellenberg” for the upcoming episode of the Pinball Magazine & Pinball News PINcast, which will be published around April 1 and cover the most significant pinball industry news, as well as the Texas Pinball Festival.

We arrived in Frisco around 7:00 PM. After checking into our room and unloading the car, I went to see what was happening in the TPF hall. As it was a tech day, about 20 games were already set up in the back of the hall. I was able to play two homebrew games: Monsters Inc and Tiki Tapu. Both games were fun to play, had great artwork, and surprising sound packages.

Thursday, March 19: Following breakfast, Martin, Marcel, and I headed to The Vista Mall in Lewisville, TX, to visit Pinball In The Mall. This is an arcade with mostly pinball machines, but there are also video games. Jim Bu and his wife, Cindy, run the arcade—very nice people. The photos below speak for themselves. Note that about a dozen games have been removed from the location to appear at the upcoming Texas Pinball Festival. So, usually there are more games to play.

As we had to return our rental car, we could only stay about 45 minutes, but we managed to play a few games. Jim kindly offered to pick us up at the rental car facility and drive us back to Frisco, which we gladly accepted.

In the meantime, the show floor was taking shape, with many vendors and exhibitors arriving and setting up games in their booths. I had a meeting with a local flyer collector, for whom I brought some European flyers.

When I got back to the show, things really started taking shape.

Spooky Pinball brought at least 19 BeetleJuice pinball machines.

American Pinball has a large stand with many of its previous games, including a Houdini with new cabinet artwork by Christopher Franchi. Only 100 Houdini games with this artwork will be produced.

Stern Pinball has a large booth featuring Pokémon and Star Wars pinball games, among others. I also had a nice talk with Mike Vinikour, who collects vinyl records, just like I do.

Marco Specialties is continuing to support the homebrew community by exhibiting 15 homebrew pinball machines at the show.

I also received a press kit from Hexa Pinball under embargo, about The 3 Musketeers, their new game, which they plan to reveal tomorrow. I ended up having dinner with the Hexa Pinball team as well.

Friday, March 19:

Turner Pinball started building their booth with two new Yukon Yeti games and two Merlin’s Arcade games as well. I was one of the first to play Yukon Yeti and this sure looks like a fun game to me. Chris Turner explained the background of the game to me: Dennis had started on this design when he was working for Deeproot Pinball. After Chris had bought the assets from Deeproot, Dennis reached out to him as he wanted to finish the game.

Hexa Pinball will be revealing The 3 Musketeers this afternoon, but it may have to be an improvised reveal as the three games shipped to the show have been held up by customs for over a week now…

This article will be updated during the Texas Pinball Festival.