Stern Pinball‘s latest pinball machine is inspired by the iconic Spider-Man villain, Venom, and it’s wreaking havoc at International Comic-Con: San Diego (SDCC).
“What’s better than launching a Marvel product at comic-con, [especially] a big pinball machine like this?” says Seth Davis, CEO of Stern Pinball. “It’s a lot of fun.”
In the game, players face off against Carnage using one of multiple characters being controlled by the symbiote: Eddie Brock, Flash Thompson, Peter Parker, and Gwen Stacy. As players switch between characters, gameplay and stories change to make each experience unique. More than 20 Marvel characters are featured throughout the game.
“We get to have a lot of fun and do a lot of different things in the Marvel universe,” Davis says. “That’s part of what’s fun about Marvel, fun about comic books and all of that. There’s a lot of flexibility in what you can do and how you can tell that story while still staying authentic to the stories. They’ve got lots of timelines and lots of other things and lots of ways they’ve done things and for our game designers that gives them the flexibility to design a great game around that.”
At first glance, the game looks like your standard pinball cabinet. It is full of intricate details, including a bell tower, moving parts, and artwork throughout. However, it also incorporates newer technology, including an LCD screen with audio and video to fully immerse players in the game.
“We are fundamentally a game that’s based on a wood-based playing field and mechanical action with that tactile feel [and] that’s part of what makes the product unique, but technology has moved on,” Davis explains. “We always try to balance how we create new things that we know will work and expand our community and help them have more fun with our games without losing the core, which is the sort of tactile game experience. So it’s a bit of a challenge on every project.”
The new game is also a part of Stern Pinball’s free Insider Connected program. With Insider Connected, players are each assigned a QR code that is unique to them. When they start playing on a Stern Pinball cabinet, they can load their stats, earn new achievements, and engage with other pinballers.
“I think we’re striking a pretty good balance at figuring out how to deliver something new,” Davis says. “We don’t want all games to feel the same and they definitely don’t for our games, but you can’t make it so different that people don’t know what they’re looking at or what they’re playing. We spent a lot of time focusing on trying to hit the sweet spot there.”
Stern Pinball’s Venom is available in Pro, Premium, and Lmimited Edition.
