# Multimorphic Launches Dungeon Crawler Carl & Ender's Game Pinball
by [Colin Alsheimer](/author/colin) · July 27, 2026 · [News](/news/category/news)

> For the first time in its history, Multimorphic launched two new P³ games on the same day: Dungeon Crawler Carl, the LitRPG adaptation we've been tracking since February, and Ender's Game, which nobody saw coming. Full pricing, credits, and features for both.

For the first time in the company's history, Multimorphic has launched two new P³ games at once. Pre-orders for both opened Monday, July 27 at noon ET. One is *Dungeon Crawler Carl*, the pinball adaptation of Matt Dinniman's LitRPG series, which we've been tracking since February. The other is *Ender's Game*, based on Orson Scott Card's 1985 novel, which Multimorphic kept mostly under wraps until much closer to launch day.

![HD Translite Logo](https://admin.kineticist.com/assets/5229d8e3-c608-4761-bcf4-fc67d01c639a.jpg?width=1024&height=576)

As a complete P³ machine, *Dungeon Crawler Carl* is **$12,350** and *Ender's Game* is **$11,750**. Existing P³ owners can buy either as a swappable game kit instead — **$5,250** for *Dungeon Crawler Carl*, **$4,400** for *Ender's Game*. Deposits are non-refundable: $2,500 on a machine and $1,500 on a kit, with the balance due when the machine enters production. Both titles begin production in **late 2026**, and Multimorphic warns the queue "might extend past 12 months." Both are three-flipper games, which matters for anyone with a P³ built before 2022 (more on that below).

![Backglass Web](https://admin.kineticist.com/assets/0a030cd3-35dd-4295-ad6e-2d48e34ccc37.jpg?width=1024&height=576)

The DCC half was no longer a secret by launch morning. Multimorphic didn't announce it; Dinniman did, at San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday, July 25, on stage at an Audible panel about the audiobooks and in front of a room of readers rather than pinball people. The pictures were everywhere online by Sunday, a full day before Multimorphic's own launch window opened.

## Design Team

Both games list [Stephen Silver](https://www.kineticist.com/people/stephen-silver) as a creative director and share the same mechanical engineering pair, [TJ Weaver](https://www.kineticist.com/people/tj-weaver) and [Trey Jones](https://www.kineticist.com/people/trey-jones). Beyond that they're separately staffed, with the two software leads guesting on each other's game.

**Dungeon Crawler Carl**

![Dcc Cab and Playfield](https://admin.kineticist.com/assets/8bc7818e-cef6-4245-a324-36977c506517.png?width=1200&height=628)

-   **Creative direction**: Stephen Silver and [Ian Harrower](https://www.kineticist.com/people/ian-harrower)
-   **Rules**: Wesley Johnson
-   **Software**: Ian Harrower, [Josh Kugler](https://www.kineticist.com/people/josh-kugler), [Michael Ocean](https://www.kineticist.com/people/michael-ocean)
-   **Mechanicals**: TJ Weaver, Trey Jones
-   **Cabinet art**: Luciano Fleitas
-   **Playfield art**: [Brad Albright](https://www.kineticist.com/people/brad-albright)
-   **Art direction**: Stephen Silver, Brad Albright
-   **Sculpts**: Stumblor Pinball
-   **Digital assets**: Renegade Game Studios
-   **Voices**: Jeff Hays
-   **Music and sound design**: [Matt Kern](https://www.kineticist.com/people/matt-kern)
-   **Animations**: Stephen Silver, Ian Harrower
-   **Special thanks**: Playmates Toys

**Ender's Game**

![Enders Game Cab and Playfield](https://admin.kineticist.com/assets/a84286b6-ba09-4d24-b76c-523010602e97.png?width=1200&height=628)

-   **Creative direction**: Stephen Silver and Josh Kugler
-   **Rules**: [Colin MacAlpine](https://www.kineticist.com/people/colin-macalpine)
-   **Software**: Josh Kugler, [Steve Shoyer](https://www.kineticist.com/people/steve-shoyer), Ian Harrower
-   **Mechanicals**: TJ Weaver, Trey Jones
-   **Art**: Brad Albright
-   **Technical art**: [Rory Cernuda](https://www.kineticist.com/people/rory-cernuda)
-   **Music**: Aaron Williams, Paul Farrer
-   **Sound design**: [Glenn Waechter](https://www.kineticist.com/people/glenn-waechter)
-   **Voices**: Glenn Waechter, Lucas Pepke, Sam Tucker, Aline Allen, Alana Johnson, Cash Bailey, Tyson and Eli Silver
-   **Animations**: Stephen Silver, Rory Cernuda

Two credits close loops we'd been tracking since February. **Jeff Hays**, who narrates the *Dungeon Crawler Carl* audiobooks, voices every character in the game — the same detail Dinniman let slip on a book-tour stop five months ago. And **Luciano Fleitas**, whose Photoshop filenames ("Back box left," "Translite cover") were the earliest public tell that a machine existed at all, has the cabinet art credit.

## Hype & Rumors

The *Dungeon Crawler Carl* trail ran for five months, and it pointed at both the theme and the maker. Our [February report](https://www.kineticist.com/news/dungeon-crawler-carl-pinball) established that the license was real: Dinniman said at an Austin book-tour stop that a machine was "being made," that licensing was being negotiated through his agent, that a real manufacturer was involved rather than a homebrew team, and that audiobook narrator **Jeff Hays** was already recording voices for it. That piece named no manufacturer, but floated Barrels of Fun and Multimorphic as the candidates.

By early July the teasing had gone into overdrive, and almost all of it came from the book's creative team rather than the pinball company:

-   **Cover artist Luciano Fleitas** surfaced the earliest tells — a June 18 [work-in-progress](https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10235434661787736&set=a.3067829375227) whose only pinball giveaway was the Photoshop filename "Back box left," a May [image](https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10235088712819228&set=a.10202701512159453) saved as "Translite cover," and later an image captioned "This will look great on a pinball machine, won't it?"
-   **Dinniman** [shared the cabinet art](https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1609543544507195&set=a.528739465920947) on July 1 for the "about-to-be-announced Dungeon Crawler Carl pinball machine coming from redacted" — the word "redacted" his own.
-   **Soundbooth Theater**, the audiobook company behind the series, [posted a reel](https://www.facebook.com/reel/1047426177622280) on July 6 with the first title graphic, "Dungeon Crawler Carl Pinball," under the tagline "The apocalypse will be played 2026."
-   Multimorphic [announced a partnership](https://www.multimorphic.com/news/stumblor_partnership/) with modder Davey Price of Stumblor on July 5, adding custom resin sculpts to its P³ games — the kind of thing a theme like this would lean on.

Multimorphic's own teasing stayed theme-free: "get ready for our next chapter" and "Every great story has a twist…" Then it posted a launch-week schedule:

-   **Monday, July 27, noon ET** — pre-orders open and launch videos for both games
-   **Tuesday, July 28, noon ET** — gameplay video for Fluorine (*Ender's Game*)
-   **Wednesday, July 29, noon ET** — gameplay video for Sodium (*Dungeon Crawler Carl*)

The code names are now mapped. Multimorphic hasn't said which is which in its launch copy, but the image files on the *Ender's Game* page are all named `Fluorine-` — `Fluorine-FullPlayfield_web.jpg`, `Fluorine-DiskCannon_web.jpg`, and so on. That makes *Ender's Game* Project Fluorine and *Dungeon Crawler Carl* Project Sodium, which lines up with the staffing: Kugler led Fluorine's software and is a creative director on *Ender's Game*; Harrower led Sodium's and is a creative director on *Dungeon Crawler Carl*. It's a house habit, too: *Portal*'s art files still carry its own code name, `Oxygen`.

Pinball fans wanted this one badly. *Dungeon Crawler Carl* sits at **#9 on the [Kineticist Hype Index](https://www.kineticist.com/hype/dungeon-crawler-carl-pinball)** with a **91/100 community hype score**, one spot behind Van Halen and one ahead of Back to the Future. *Ender's Game* has no entry at all — nobody outside Multimorphic knew there was anything to want.  
  

## Notable Storylines

![757545801 1551597703103638 4818743648288119013 N](https://admin.kineticist.com/assets/53142226-e20c-4567-a100-e7a23fc37cd3.jpg?width=1640&height=720)

### Two releases at once, a first for Multimorphic

Multimorphic has never done this before. Fourteen years in, with a library of more than two dozen P³ games behind it, the company had never put two new titles up on the same day.

The tactic isn't new to pinball. Spooky Pinball did it in December 2023, launching *The Texas Chainsaw Massacre* and *Looney Tunes* together — two games built on a single four-flipper playfield design by Corwin Emery and Spooky Luke, with different themes, art, and code on top. Per [Pinball News](https://www.pinballnews.com/site/2023/12/12/the-texas-chainsaw-massacre-loony-tunes-launched/), that was Spooky's second run at the idea. It premiered the "one playfield, two games" concept with *Halloween* and *Ultraman*, which came out a year apart.

These two share far more than a launch date. Read the two press releases side by side and the same hardware shows up in both, described in identical language: a **360° double-level disk** bringing a target bank, kickback, moving shot paths and a player-loadable, controllable cannon right in front of the flippers; **sling-lock ball stops on each inlane**; a **jump ramp with magnetic catch-and-fling action**; and a bashable something with a magnetic ball lock — Mongo's cage in *Dungeon Crawler Carl*, the fight ring in *Ender's Game*. Both are three-flipper designs using the same right side-target flipper. Both were engineered by the same pair, TJ Weaver and Trey Jones.

Each game then adds its own marquee mech, and everything above it diverges: *Ender's Game* gets the two-sided captive ball balance mechanism, *Dungeon Crawler Carl* the six-ball Mana stack and the Stumblor sculpts.

On the P³ the sharing is native, which is where this parts company with Spooky. Every P³ game already runs on the same cabinet and the same lower playfield display, with only the upper module swapping out. Building two games around one new mechanism is the format working as designed.

![756139181 1317642597236283 6409900130779420921 N](https://admin.kineticist.com/assets/9efbd607-7cc2-4dbb-9841-de526221918c.jpg?width=2048&height=1542)

### Multimorphic didn't break its own news

*Dungeon Crawler Carl* was unveiled on **Saturday, July 25** at San Diego Comic-Con, during ["Goddamnit, Donut: A Totally Professional Panel with Matt Dinniman and Jeff Hays"](https://comiccon2026.sched.com/event/2QbtR/audible-goddamnit-donut-a-totally-professional-panel-with-matt-dinniman-and-jeff-hays), an Audible panel about the audiobooks, 10 a.m. in the Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. Dinniman put the machine on the screen himself, showing the first pictures of it to a room of readers.

That fits how the whole run went. Fleitas, Dinniman, and Soundbooth did the teasing for months while Multimorphic said nothing thematic, and the reveal itself landed at a book publisher's panel two days before the pinball company's own launch window.

Sitting beside Dinniman was **Jeff Hays**, the series narrator our February report said was already recording voices for the machine. Whether he said anything about it on stage, we don't know yet.

### Quiet playtesting under NDA

Multimorphic held a media and influencer day before the launch, and the people who got hands-on time have been under NDA since.

If the NDA lifts with the launch, creator impressions and footage should start landing alongside Multimorphic's own videos, from people who played these games two weeks before anyone else could order one.

### The pre-reveal trail's one bad signal

Not everything in the run-up held up. **Scott Danesi** [posted, then edited](https://www.instagram.com/p/DaarujrMJX8/) a coffee-mug photo carrying a famous DCC character line, widely read at the time as a wink at his own involvement. Danesi has designed for [Multimorphic](https://www.kineticist.com/people/scott-danesi) (creative director on *Final Resistance*) and contributed music to Barrels of Fun's [Jim Henson's Labyrinth](https://www.kineticist.com/games/pinball/jim-hensons-labyrinth-2023), which is why it landed. He later said flatly that he isn't involved, in the [Pinside DCC hype thread](https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/dungeon-crawler-carl-hype-thread/page/11#post-9220959):

> Just to clarify a few things. I am just a huge fan of the IP. I am not working on, or know anything about the supposed DCC pinball machine at this time. I only know as much as you guys.
> 
> But... I am beyond excited for the release and am anxiously anticipating something awesome here just like everyone else.

### Who Multimorphic hired

![746384398 1019804587318188 955693550735304307 N 1](https://admin.kineticist.com/assets/cfbc7d48-5226-4356-8c7c-86fffa7e100e.jpg?width=1080&height=1350)  
*Glenn Waechter*

-   **Ian Harrower** comes off last year's *[Portal](https://www.kineticist.com/games/pinball/portal-2025)* and is also the creative force behind two indie P³ games, *Bird Watcher* and *Blood Bank Billiards*, under Ian Harrower Games.
-   **Brad Albright** did *Portal*'s art, bringing Aperture Science to a playfield after a long wait for a production-game debut.
-   **Josh Kugler** was software lead on 2024's *[The Princess Bride](https://www.kineticist.com/games/pinball/the-princess-bride-2024)*.
-   **Glenn Waechter**'s sound work runs through homebrew: *Battle of the Baron*, *Saw* (Best Sound in a Homebrew, 2024 Pinball Expo), and head-to-head *Monster League Hockey*.
-   **Wesley Johnson** is a Houston-area competitive player, a former Space City Open champion currently ranked 131st on the IFPA Pro circuit, who first met the P³ at TPF 2018 and is friends with founder [Gerry Stellenberg](https://www.kineticist.com/people/gerry-stellenberg).

Indie P³ developers, homebrew sound designers, and competitive players. Multimorphic staffed these two games largely out of its own platform's community.

### Ender's Game, the one nobody saw coming

![UI](https://admin.kineticist.com/assets/0941b191-6820-4dbd-96a8-bdfb7c62562a.jpg?width=4000&height=3000)

Multimorphic attached no theme to this one publicly before Monday, and it's a genuinely unusual pinball license: Orson Scott Card's 1985 military science-fiction novel, a Hugo and Nebula winner, with a 2013 film adaptation that came and went.

You play Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, a six-year-old prodigy arriving at Battle School with no idea the fate of humanity rests on him. The rules run on a **two-sided captive ball balance mechanism** holding up to six balls, which the player shifts from side to side to set their levels of compassion and aggression. Tip too far either way and consequences follow. Stellenberg frames it as the point of the whole design:

> Throughout the novel, the reader is deeply connected to Ender's struggle to accept that he defeats his deadliest opponents by understanding and even loving them. We wanted to connect the pinball player in similar ways, requiring them to constantly adjust that balance between compassion and aggression throughout gameplay.

Make allies, survive rivals, train, win battles, and you climb to Command School and the final simulation — where, as anyone who's read the book knows, not everything is what it appears to be.

## Pricing & Editions

There are no editions here. Each game comes one way, and the only real choice is whether you're buying a machine or a kit.

**As a complete P³ machine** — $12,350 for *Dungeon Crawler Carl*, $11,750 for *Ender's Game*, plus shipping. Deposit is $2,500 either way, non-refundable, with the balance due when your machine enters production. Cabinet artwork is your choice at that point; you can take the game's art package or a different one.

**As a game kit for a P³ you already own** — $5,250 for *Dungeon Crawler Carl*, $4,400 for *Ender's Game*, plus shipping. Deposit is $1,500 on either, non-refundable. The kit is the upper playfield module plus the lower playfield module extension. **Cabinet artwork is sold separately** for kit buyers, in whole or in part, decided when the kit is ready to ship.

The $600 gap between the two machines tracks the $850 gap between the kits, so *Ender's Game* is the cheaper game whichever way you buy it.

Three more things buyers should know:

-   **Both games are three-flipper designs**, requiring the right side-target flipper assembly. New P³s have it pre-installed, but **P³s built before 2022 do not**, so for some existing owners the kit isn't the whole cost. The assembly is **$150**, which is not much against a $4,400 kit, but it's a part you have to know to order. It's the same one *Heist* required; *Weird Al's Museum of Natural Hilarity* needed both left and right.
-   *Dungeon Crawler Carl* carries a **mature-audience warning** for adult language, with an optional setting to bleep most of the swearing.
-   An optional *Dungeon Crawler Carl* **topper** is in development and will be sold later. No topper is mentioned for *Ender's Game*.

## Production Timeline

Multimorphic told buyers what to expect from this launch seven weeks before it happened. From the company's [June 2026 public update](https://www.multimorphic.com/news/multimorphic-public-update-june-2026/):

> With our next launch coming soon, we're planning around the same goal, which includes increasing production capabilities to meet higher expected demand.
> 
> Now's a great time to order a new P3. When our next game launches, we expect the build queue to grow significantly and immediately.

As of June, lead times ran about **four weeks** for new machines going into the queue (less for most game kits), and the company's stated goal was to fill every order from day one through to the start of production within about a year of launch.

The launch listings tell a different story. **Production of both titles begins in late 2026.** Order now and you'll get an email within a week or two estimating your production time, with the balance due when your machine enters production. And Multimorphic's own caveat, printed on all four listings:

> Note – depending on the number of orders received, the production queue might extend past 12 months.

So the four-week figure is gone for these titles, and the fill-within-a-year goal now carries an explicit maybe-not. Multimorphic did tell buyers this was coming — it said in June that the queue would "grow significantly and immediately" — but read the two together before you assume a 2026 delivery. Production doesn't even start until late in the year.

## Notable Features

**Dungeon Crawler Carl**

![Disk Loop](https://admin.kineticist.com/assets/1079d5d4-ce3a-4d4d-9273-6a89cfc7f143.jpg?width=4000&height=3000)

-   **The Disk Loop** — a 360-degree, double-level disk that brings interactive features right in front of the flippers: a target bank, a kickback, moving shot paths, and a cannon the player loads and aims.
-   **A six-ball Mana stack** with multiple ball releases, feeding the spellcasting rules.
-   **A bashable Mongo cage** with a magnetic ball lock, and **sling-lock ball stops** on each inlane.
-   **A Princess Donut sculpt with LED eyes**, plus a jump ramp with magnetic catch-and-fling action.

![Donut](https://admin.kineticist.com/assets/9d0a2931-7ff9-4238-8d1b-b4d4a21e317d.jpg?width=4000&height=3000)

-   **The Safe Room and Desperado Club**, the Tunnel, HEAL targets, and the playfield display — the book's own geography laid onto the module.
-   **First P³ game with hand-sculpted 3D artwork and illuminated features by Davey Price of Stumblor Pinball.** Multimorphic announced that partnership on July 5; this is where it landed.

**Ender's Game**

![Upper Playfield](https://admin.kineticist.com/assets/5eb4a9d2-ca2e-4200-aa7c-41791f8cdd1e.jpg?width=4000&height=3000)

-   **The Captive Ball Balance Mech** — move balls to play aggressive, compassionate, or perfectly balanced. Multimorphic ties it straight to the novel: Ender caught between his brother Peter's aggression and his sister Valentine's compassion. Get too far out of balance and it "will present 'multiple' challenges."
-   **The Disk Cannon** — the shared spinning disk, here paired with a diverter, shot paths, and a target bank. Multimorphic says learning its range of capabilities is the key to the game.

![Fight Ring](https://admin.kineticist.com/assets/b61a3a3c-529a-4a9f-9724-12d1069f7c99.jpg?width=4000&height=3000)

-   **A bashable Fight Ring** with a magnetic ball lock, a **Friend Magnet**, a center scoop, and wireforms. Sling-lock ball stops on each inlane and a jump ramp with magnetic catch-and-fling round it out — the same fixtures *Dungeon Crawler Carl* carries.
-   **A projected HUD** rather than the standard playfield display treatment.
-   **Buggers and Astronauts**, the novel's zero-gravity game, turns up as a surprise mode: "don't be surprised if a game of Buggers and Astronauts pops up when you least expect it."

## Rules & Gameplay

Multimorphic has described the shape of both games without releasing full rules, and nobody outside the NDA group has seen either played. This week's gameplay videos (see Media) are the first real look.

***Dungeon Crawler Carl*** runs on the books. You start in book one, dungeon levels 1 and 2, or optionally pick a different entry point, then work through that book's primary narrative — each with its own rule set, so the gameplay varies the way the levels do. Explore, kill mobs, collect loot, run quests, and visit the safe room to rest, open loot boxes, and engage with viewers. Cast the right spell at the right moment, clear the level's objectives, move on. Multimorphic says the rules integrate all the major events and plotlines from **the first seven books**, plus many of the minor ones.

***Ender's Game*** runs on progression through Battle School. Make friends, defend against foes, and build skills through training and battles: friends help you train, training makes you effective in battles, winning battles gets you promoted, fighting teaches you survival. The balance mech gates all of it. Do well enough and you reach Command School, and the final simulation.

## Media

**Official trailers** (Multimorphic, July 27):

***Dungeon Crawler Carl***

***Ender’s Game***

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