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Hot off the heels of Multimorphic's announcement of their new game, Portal, we have a new game annoucnment from fellow Texas-based company, Turner Pinball. This marks the second commercial release for the upstart pinball manufacturer, following the well recieved Ninja Eclipse. This time, the Turner team eschews Ninjas for Wizards in another mostly original IP based approach.
The Merlin's Arcade game concept was originally under development by deeproot pinball, with Jon Norris leading the project. That game was loosely based on Eight Ball Deluxe, and this game appears to borrow at least some of that work, as evidenced by the long bank of stand-up targets on the right side of the playfied.
The game looks set to be revealed at the upcoming Texas Pinball Festival, and the company is accepting deposit orders ($1,000) now on their website.
Merlin's Arcade looks to return much of the design and consulting team for Ninja Eclipse, such as Jon Norris, Chris Turner, Brade Duke and others. The full credits include:
Turner Pinball is offering Merlin's Arcade in two trim lines. A Legendary Edition for $8,995 and an Arcade Edition for $6,995.
Games are currently set to ship in the Summer of 2025.
This unique feature (which is the reason for two flipper buttons on the cabinet), was invented by Jon Norris around 2017. See the video where he demonstrated how the feature would work on his YouTube channel. It's like an easy button for advanced flipper skills!
Pinball Finesse Feature
The playfield layout and game ruleset were both designed by renowned pinball designer Jon Norris.
Welcome, brave squire, to Merlin's Arcade! The merry wizard Merlin dares you to challenge the mightiest knights of the realm in a variety of games of skill:
But beware! The femme fatale sorceress Morgan Le Fay and her brutish henchman, Mordred, have crashed the party! She will bewitch your noble friends, turning them into dark knights, and steal the Holy Grail!
Can you defeat every knight, win the duels against the forces of darkness, and rescue the Grail—and Merlin's Arcade—from evil's clutches?! Let's see if your legend lives up to the hype! Merlin himself might even take you on...
Colin is the chief pixel pusher at Kineticist. He's a lifetime gamer who became enamored with pinball after taking in a family copy of the 1979 classic Joker Poker (the EM version). Since then he's bought, sold and repaired many machines, competed in all kinds of tournaments, and contributes to This Week in Pinball, the New England Pinball League, and Pin-Masters of New England. Previously, Colin spent over a decade working in marketing for agencies and tech startups. He also started and ran a music blog, happy hour website, and wrote a regular craft beer review column for Central Track in Dallas. Once aspired to be an artsy film director.
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