Dutch Pinball Exclusive (DPX), a joint venture of Dutch Pinball and Melvin Brouwer Williams, just revealed its long-awaited first pinball machine: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The game is based on the 1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll, also known as Alice in Wonderland.
The story of the novel centers on Alice, a girl who falls asleep in a meadow. She dreams that she follows the White Rabbit down a rabbit hole. She has many wondrous, often bizarre adventures with thoroughly illogical and extraordinary creatures. She encounters the hookah-smoking Caterpillar and the Cheshire Cat and attends a strange, endless tea party with the Mad Hatter and many others.
A little background story
The layout of the pinball machine is based on a foam-core mockup, initially designed by veteran pinball designer John Popadiuk, with artwork by ZombieYeti. This mockup was created about a decade ago and was one of the first projects in pinball for artist ZombieYeti, who since then got hired at Stern Pinball.
It wasn’t the first time Popadiuk worked on a pinball machine based on Alice in Wonderland, as he created the prototype below in the late ’80s for Bally.
Ultimately, Popadiuk was unable to develop the game further. Melvin Brouwer Williams bought the assets from Popadiuk’s studio, which included the mockup for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, harddisks with all artwork for the game, and much more. This is the first project picked to complete and bring to the market from all the projects included in these assets. Months ago, Melvin Brouwer Williams already expressed that the original game designer is not part of the current project.
While elements from the original foam-core can still be seen, DPX has taken Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland a few steps further, delivering a colorful and packed pinball machine, including several industry first features.
Just like the black and white book from Lewis Carrol, lead designer Melvin Williams took John
Popadiuk jr’s black and white concept game and created a new chapter in the pinball
history. The game went from a few pieces of paper to a true masterpiece in full color with 2024 state-of-the-art technology. Melvin not only wanted to create the best ’90s feel pinball machine but also
create something that is a work of art, just like a beautiful painting for your home. Every time you
look at something, you experience new thoughts and emotions.
The game features the following:
- Italian bottom with two flippers
- 2-ball, 3-ball, and 5-ball multiball modes
- User-controllable motorized ball savers above both outlanes
- Fully RGB lighting for both general illumination (GI) and inserts
- Special Features:
- Powder-coated side rails, legs, lockdown bar, coin door, and speaker panel frame
- Illuminated laser-cut apron
- Laser-cut protectors and metal ball guides
While these 3-D playfield platics look beautiful, they can cause ball hangups, although that hardly happened during extensive test playing of the game. A protector set comes with the game and can be installed to protect the playfield plastics and prevent ball hangups.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is limited to 500 units. The game is priced at 12,999 euros ($14,269.20 U.S.), which includes 21% VAT. Dutch Pinball customer who ordered an Early Achiever Edition of The Big Lebowski can order Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland through official Dutch Pinball distributors and will be first in line to receive their games. Prototypes of the game are currently being shipped to Chicago for the 40th edition of Pinball Expo, which will take place from October 15 to 20, 2024.
Dutch Pinball will also be hosting a seminar on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and a special party, at the 25th Dutch Pinball Open Expo, which will take place November 2-3, 2024, in Veldhoven, The Netherlands.