‘Pinball Arcade: The Addams Family’ Scares Up Funding on Kickstarter, Set for Release in 2015

FarSight Studios — the team behind the critically acclaimed Pinball Arcade series — have been creating an endless array of videogame adaptations of some of the most beloved pinball machines ever, and yet one machine always eluded their reach. Widely regarded by many as the finest pinball machine ever brought to life, complete with a vast of array of gimmicks and fun mechanics, the Addams Family pinball game was often requested. Now while constructing a painstakingly accurate recreation of pinball’s Holy Grail would have been a simple — yet time consuming — matter for the battle hardened veterans over at FarSight Studios, the game itself sadly represented a most profoundly unique dilemma.

Not only would they need access to the game’s mechanics from Williams, they’d also need Paramount’s permission to reference their 1991 movie — rights to use images of Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston — and even a license for the Addams Family property itself. Altogether the estimated costs for these combined licenses — as well as many other factors — led to projections that FarSight Studios would need to spend a grand total of $101k, and that was just to earn the permission to even begin remaking the game at all! Although this wasn’t an impossible figure for the successful group to purchase, they were looking at the sad reality where they could then afterwards only sell the game at a very expensive price.

f344beee482186c3340033156166e819_largeWith so many copies of the Addams Family pinball machine already broken down, and with no other pinball machines containing similar parts that could be salvaged for repairs, a grim future was soon being faced where the game would become forever lost to time! Realizing that soon an entire generation would never experience the ultimate work of Pat Lawlor and Larry Demar — the legendary designers whom also made Twilight Zone, Banzai Run, and Fun House — FarSight Studios knew that something had to be done fast. Else wise their grandchildren would never experience the affects of Addams Family’s magnets — that had the ability to radically alter a ball’s course — or even the “Thing Flip”, where — at specific moments — the flippers would move in synch with the theme song!

It was to this end that they recently asked for the $100,000 needed in order to secure the numerous licenses involved in recreating the Addams Family pinball machine, so that — when finally completed — they could then sell it for a price that everyone could afford. Kickstarter’s community then responded back by providing them with far more than that, $115,276 to be specific, proving once and for all that the world’s love of pinball — even though the once majestic machines were no longer being made — had not yet died out! Pinball fans everywhere — as a result — should now commence getting excited for next February’s arrival, for that’s when Addams Family Pinball is set to be relaunched on nearly every gaming system conceivable (including numerous iOS based devices).