NEWS : DUTCH PINBALL NOVEMBER 2019 UPDATE : PRODUCTION AND SOFTWARE UPDATES
It’s been a while since we’ve sent our a ‘real’ New Shit Newsletter. But after all we’ve been through and the progress we’ve made the past couple of months we think it’s time again for one! So put on your dripping sunglasses and have a Caucasian Dude…
Production update About two months ago we got the keys for our new facility. The first weeks we didn’t have much of equipment, racks, or work benches to work with. We did order them, but it took some time before everything came in.
Instead of waiting we decided to start building games even though the whole floor was covered with pallets with hundreds of boxes of parts in it. While it was a great challenge to build games like this we managed to get out around six new games in the first 4-5 weeks. The following weeks we got our working tables, tools, racks, etc. to organize the facility: set up racks for all the parts, count all parts (again) and put it in our ERP system and preparing everything for production of new games more efficiently than picking parts from a pallet on the ground : )
We’re happy with how things are going, but we still have a lot of stuff to organize before we can really speed up things. We are going to work together with some other local companies to speed up the production of ‘simple’ assemblies of the game which involve a lot of repetitive work. This will start in January. We are also going to collaborate with some other specialized companies to supply parts that were previously produced at our former manufacturer, like PCBA’s, wire harnesses and sheet metal parts. This way we can manufacture games more efficiently without hiring a lot of staff immediately. The first new full time employees will join us beginning of next year as well and by then we expect production of games to be smooth with a steady number of games going out each week. We expect the first (original) EA games to go out beginning of next year. As soon as we are building games in a steady flow we can give more details on ratio and timing for this.
We are very motivated to make this work and to keep building as many games as possible so everybody can enjoy The Big Lebowski™ Pinball in the future.
New code 0.51 Although not final yet, we are releasing a new version of the code with some nice new features. To download and install the new version, click here.
Right now the focus of Dutch Pinball is almost solely dedicated to the production of games. As soon as production is running smooth and steadily we will invest time to finish the code for a 1.0 release version with all features implemented into it.
The Big Lebowksi Achiever Edition Apron As promised all EA games that will be build from now on will have something unique only EA games will have. We are proud to show you the – limited to EA’s only – custom cut, backlit ‘The Big Lebowksi Achiever Edition’ Apron!
In the photo above you see the first prototype we made of the apron to see whether the laser cutting was perfect enough to take the apron in production. As you can see it looks beautiful even with a simple color printed paper and LED strip below it. The aprons are now in production and will even be cooler than this first prototype. And as said before: this TBLAE-apron will only be available for Early Achievers. All new EA games will have this apron installed on the game. EA’s that already have a game can order this apron as well to put on their game. Please contact us for details.
We’ll send out more updates as soon as we have more ‘new shit’ to show you guys!
Until then, stay tuned.
Best regards, Team Dutch Pinball
