itch.io

Do you remember the name of the band? Maybe we can find the tour stops

lol. Does anyone else find themselves just doodling spirals? Maybe we're all starting to go a little crazy trying to find this thing

Hmm, found this. Hard to tell if it's the same thing as the video or the incubase studio thing:
https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/2057897/manga-h...

wild, do you think it's the same place as this? https://www.incubasestudio.com/junji-ito-horror-house-2/

Hard to tell if it's even an official Ito project

I found a video from MAGfest, you can see the x-men machine at 2:00, not sure if that's helpful or not

Do you have any idea who brought the X-Men machine? Would be great to get in touch with them

I wonder if any japanese speakers could translate this magazine page featuring him (top row, middle):

I assume this is the person you're talking about? https://segaretro.org/Hideki_Watanabe

Looks like he stopped making anything for Sega around 2001 (publicly at least) so that lines up. But there are a huge amount of patents credited to a Hideki Watanabe (could be multiple people with the same name) including some odd arcade-game related ones: https://patents.google.com/?inventor=Hideki+Watanabe&oq=Hideki+Watanabe

I'd be surprised if that's what the stairs looked like. Did you choose the wrong image?

Is this the place? https://www.instagram.com/p/CQbeTv1F2PG/?hl=en

That staircase does look ominous 

I've been wondering about this. Seems plausible that Stern/Sega was working on some sort of unusual machine (potential vr? network connections? a spiral or horror theme?) and it had a profound effect on people who played it. Do we have any evidence of Ito frequenting arcades in the late 90s?

Also interesting that Joe Blackwell worked on a tournament system that seems to have been included in the Stern Playboy game (which is mentioned by gozooze99 in the original post)

This press release mentions the Sega connection as well: https://www.pinballnews.com/news/tops.html

In the main thread we were talking about Joe Blackwell who seems to be the main designer on the manual cover (he's in the center at least) and he has a 2002 patent for some sort of interconnected pinball tournament system:

At a minimum, this implies a few machines even for a prototype. And the "network/tournament server" is super vague. I wonder if there were a few machines made around 2001 when the original poster claims to have seen it and the VR component was wrapped up in the network? More info here: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7070506B1/en?inventor=Joe+Blackwell 

Good to know, maybe the machine (or at least the manual) ended up at Shark Club at some point? The guy who was selling the manual said it came from there, so the arcade you went to was probably close by

Do you think it might have been in the Shark Club? Some more info in this thread: https://itch.io/t/5885341/stern-manual

Good idea on the trademarks. I bet there are some serious collectors who'd love to get their hands on a machine that got pulled from the market. Maybe it was too intense and Stern felt like it was hurting their brand or something?

That youtube video of Shark Club went missing this morning too, something weird is definitely going on

So weird, it was up earlier when I posted. It pretty much just showed like a walking tour of the space, similar to the pictures in this blog post: https://motorcityblog.blogspot.com/2013/09/shark-club-howell-pinball-party-jerse...

I didn't sweep through the video looking for the Ito machine—I was going to do that later today when I got off work

Any pinball enthusiast could tell that's a doctored image of the Tales From The Crypt playfield. It's fine to tell each other ghost stories, but real collectors like me are trying to hunt this thing down and the misinformation is starting to get silly.

We'll never hunt down this rare machine if we don't stick to the facts

Looks like he might be talking about this place in MI: https://www.reddit.com/r/pinball/comments/1o5n6h/went_to_check_out_the_shark_clu...

Not a lot of info about it online, seems like it shut down around 2014

Four curved paddles is a very unusual design. Could explain why it never caught on / why so many people report feeling disoriented while playing

I got a hold of the ebay seller that had listed a Stern manual for an Junji Ito machine. I messaged looking for a better photo, here's what they sent back:

Can't find original photo. Sold a few years ago. Bought a whole lot of older manuals from the shark club in Howell when they closed. This one was in the pile, never played the game though

I'm gonna try to message the ebay seller and get some more information or at least a better photo. Joe Blackwell's credited with games back to 1993 though, including one with Sega. So maybe there was a connection to the Sega contest?

I was convinced this was some sort of custom machine, but some ebay hunting dug up an old manual. The post expired so all I can get is the thumbnail image. Not sure if I buy all the crazy stories, but it does sound like a unique machine. Could be really valuable to a collector.

that's sad to hear. I'm mostly on the Tilt forums anyways. this whole reddit thing is still new to me.

I'll hunt around there. I feel like someone would post if this machine is really as unusual as people say it is

I checked the pinball subreddit incase it got reposed there (it wasn't), but the general consensus is that there aren't any production anime machine at all: https://www.reddit.com/r/pinball/comments/1i9enia/any_anime_pinball_machines/

Maybe it was made custom for some reason?

Did some googling and found this: https://www.greatamericanpinball.com/black-and-white-twilight-zone

Don't know who Junji Ito is, but I saw a one-off twilight zone machine a few years ago with black and white graphics + spirals

Thanks, you can shoot me an email at hounskull.games@gmail.com if you want to chat about commissions

Nice, looks great!

Nice, looks great!

Lol, this rules

Thanks, really appreciate it — would love to see what you make with the illustrations!

Hey, new rules are up! I shot you an email too

Hey, thanks for checking in — updated rules are in the works. I'll let you know when they come out!

Hey, just read through the feedback — super helpful, thank you!

Awesome, can't wait to hear how it goes! You can use this google form link: https://forms.gle/LiBhrxyFptYaADiR7

One note that's come up in recent playtests (but is not in the rules yet) is that three starting items might be a bit too generous. If you want a slightly more challenging game, you might want to ask players to choose two from their loadout.

Thanks! Yes, you always take the best result of multiple dice, don't add them.

If you do play it, I'd love to hear your thoughts

Hey, thanks for the notes, let me try to run through them in order:

- Vice: This is used when a PC takes the "I need a..." line. The next version will include a table for Vices so you can roll one randomly.

- Equipment: Currently, there's no starting equipment. I'm doing some work to re-tool how equipment works, but I'm thinking random loadouts (like Mothership) might be a nice solution. Equipment is mostly narrative, so maybe having the Really Cool Sunglasses could give you +1d when impressing someone, and having a shotgun would give you +1d when blasting open a door. It's pretty loose, so the Director is going to have to make some calls around items.

- Fighting: Anything violent or dangerous is a Rage Roll. If a single roll is too quick for the scenario (a boss fight, a big group brawl), you should use a Complex Task to see who wins the fight.

- Sounds like I should clarify some terms in the book. In some places, a single game (most likely one session) is referred to as an Episode. This is mostly for fun/flavor, but maybe that's unclear. Each Episode (or session) is divided into three structured Acts.

Odd Jobs can come up in any of the three acts — I'd recommend running an Odd Job as a Complex Task. So, make a few rolls in quick succession and see how it goes. Think of it as a montage scene in an action movie. This will be explicitly spelled out in the next version.

For running the game, the best advice I can give is to trust your players to drive the story. In this game, the Director has very little control of the plot—your main job is to control the pacing. Keep it moving, throw in complications whenever you can, and just let the chaos unfold. I'll be adding a more robust "Advice for Directors" section down the road, but I hope that helps.

Last things: Lines vs lines is a little weird—"lines" as a safety tool is very well established, but I'm having a hard time thinking of a better term for the "Lines" game mechanic, let me know if you have one. I'm debating going to an all d6 system, which would make +1d clearer since there's only one dice type.

If you are thinking of playing it, I'm putting together a new version hopefully by the end of the week

Thanks! Just a heads up if you do decide to play, the dice system is a little lopsided at the moment — still playable, but updates should be coming next week. Glad you like the art, that means a lot!